SAY WHAT?

SAY WHAT? - Honoring the loss and the inestimable gifts left behind, we mark what would have been the 97th birthday of James Baldwin -  incandescent writer, masterful orator, out gay black man and fierce  advocate for justice who long and incisively spoke "the naked truth" about the racist history of a country "caught in the lie of their pretended humanism...cruelly trapped between what we would like to be and what we actually are." For Baldwin, despite efforts in his lifetime to heal the divide, the fault lines of always-inextricable race and power remained brutally clear, often outlined in the righteous, lyrical cadences of the pulpit he grew up in but left behind, deeply disillusioned. "What white people have to do is try and find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a nigger in the first place," he wrote. "Because I'm not a nigger, I'm a man. But if you think I'm a nigger, it means you need it." On his side, for black brothers and sisters "forced each day to snatch (our) identity out of the fire of human cruelty," "To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost all of the time." Having long been deemed less than fully human by white people who "never had to look at me" while "I had to look at you," he adds, "I know more about you than you know about me."

SAY WHAT? - Whew. On the scorching first day of the Congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 MAGA insurrection, four Capitol cops - for once in this nation's history the good guys, each more eloquent, honorable and traumatized than the last - offered consistently harrowing, often tearful testimony that outed once and for all the GOP's despicable gaslighting about that day's carnage. The ruthless rebuttals by Sgt. Aquilino Gonell and Pfc. Harry Dunn of the Capitol Police and Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges of the D.C. Police Department, all in their dress blues, repeatedly exposed what Fanone called "the worst that America has to offer," from MAGA goons screaming  "Fucking nigger!" at Dunn to the evil "hit-man " who sent them. Backing up their horrific accounts was video so devastating many lawmakers could barely watch; much of it came from the officers' own truth-telling body-cams that, in a twist of history, police departments had long opposed. Though the four cops each told different stories, they shared vital common threads. All four used the same terms: insurrectionists, terrorists, mob, MAGA. All four thought they and their colleagues were going to die. All four remain scarred, physically and mentally: Said Gonell, "That day continues to be a constant trauma for us." And all four knew who was to blame. "All of them - all of them were saying Trump sent us," said Gonell. "Nobody else - there was nobody else. It was not Antifa, it was not Black Lives Matter, it was not the FBI. It was his supporters that he sent over to the Capitol that day."

SAY WHAT?-Amid rising COVID cases, falling vaccination rates and a persistent flood of crackpot hogwash a timid media terms "misinformation" - WE WILL NOT COMPLY! - its bone-headed perpetrators just keep spewing even when, as experts predict, by fall the surging Delta variant could kill 850 of their own irredeemable peeps a day in what has become "a pandemic of the unvaccinated."

In Alabama, which has the country's lowest vaccination rate, a doctor describes seeing young people dying. “One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine," she says. "I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.” Still, the idiot masses  head out to protest hospitals requiring vaccines for employees with balmy signs like "Medical Dictatorship," "I Call My Own Shots," "No to Socialism," and "Remember the Nuremberg Code." Umm.

They probably eat up Marjorie Taylor-Greene's online rants - COVID is a bio weapon, STOP MASKING CHILDREN!, Indict Pelosi! - or they did until she got suspended for saying vaccines don't work and COVID poses no threat to anyone under 65 and not obese, even as cases in Georgia are up 193%.

She was so mad at "COMMUNIST TWITTER" she held a presser where she refused to say if she'd been vaccinated, claimed the question "is a violation of my HIPAA rights" - not - and laughed, loudly braying like a demented horse, when a reporter noted kids have died of COVID. Actually, one just had, three days before, in her own district. His obituary said Wyatt, Gibson, five years old, liked to strum a toy guitar and sing, "I love donkeys and I love dogs." Declared his grieving father, "I feel like I've lost my best friend."

SAY WHAT-California appellate court ruled that requiring elder care staff to use the correct pronouns for transgender and non-binary people is a violation of their free speech rights.

“The Court’s decision is disconnected from the reality facing transgender people,” said out state Sen. Scott Wiener (D), who sponsored a law passed in 2017 that required long-term care facilities to treat LGBTQ people equally.

“Deliberately misgendering a transgender person isn’t just a matter of opinion, and it’s not simply ‘disrespectful, discourteous, or insulting.’ Rather, it’s straight up harassment,” he continued. “And, it erases an individual’s fundamental humanity, particularly one as vulnerable as a trans senior in a nursing home. This misguided decision cannot be allowed to stand.”

SAY WHAT?-California Republicans introduced a measure to honor former First Lady Nancy Reagan’s centennial birthday for an entire year. The feel-good measure would lionize Reagan and wallpaper over her glaring flaws.

Out Assemblyman Alex Lee (D) wasn’t on board with the measure and in a short blistering speech given before his colleagues voted, Lee let them know exactly why.

Related: Nancy Reagan, gay men & the end of an ugly era

“Republicans want to honor an entire year after Nancy Reagan. Completely absurd to praise someone who escalated the war on drugs & let the AIDS crisis ravage the LGBTQ+ community. Reagans deserve no commemoration,” Lee tweeted with a video of his speech. “I told the Assembly ‘Just say NO’.”

SAY WHAT?-“If [Donald] Trump and [Bernie] Sanders take the same position on Big Tech censorship,” David Catron writes at The American Spectator, “the issue deserves serious attention.” 

He’s right, but in pretty much the opposite of the way he intends. When the mainstream “right” and “left” agree on anything, that’s almost always a blazing neon sign warning us that our freedoms are under threat. 

SAY WHAT?-The World Health Organization calls the Delta variant of COVID-19 the “fastest and fittest,” a term suggesting that this strain of the virus both spreads more rapidly and picks off vulnerable people more efficiently than do its predecessors. California is about to experience Delta’s full force – and the state’s lagging vaccination efforts in low income neighborhoods will once again put those populations at unequal risk. 

Late last month, Delta became the dominant variant in the state, according to the California Department of Public Health. Its growth is accelerating rapidly: In the CDPH’s monthly report, the virus accounted for 35.6% of all genetically sequenced cases in the state in June, whereas in May that figure stood at just 5.6%. 

Health officials are quick to note that while all viruses mutate, not all of the mutations become more transmissible and efficient than previous versions, as Delta has. WHO officials last month said that Delta is becoming the dominant strain worldwide. Yale researcher Dr. Perry Wilson added that the variant “will certainly accelerate the pandemic” because of its rapid rate of spread. 

SAY WHAT?-If you were eating tacos at MacArthur Park’s Guatemalan Night Market on the afternoon of June 11, you might never guess that street vending is supposed to be legal in Los Angeles. Officials from the Department of Public Health — with LAPD officers in tow — descended on the street food hub at 6th Street and Bonnie Brae, throwing food into trash bags without a word to the outraged entrepreneurs.  

As Los Angeles County reopens, enforcement of street vending regulations has spiked in recent weeks, with at least four raids of unpermitted vendors reported to L.A. Taco. The unannounced raids have startled vendors, who fear a return to a punishing old normal.  

Then, following organized efforts by advocacy groups, on June 29 the city council approved a motion to temporarily halt enforcement. 

SAY WHAT?-Human memory is prone to error — and new research provides evidence that anger can increase these errors.

The new findings have been published in the scientific journal Experimental Psychology. 

“My interest in the impact of anger on misinformation came from both real-world experience and research,” said study author Michael Greenstein, an assistant professor at Framingham State University. 

“From the real-world side, there’s this phrase that people say — ‘don’t get emotional.’ That phrase is somewhat often used to describe anger and the idea that when you’re angry you’ll make poor decisions, which would also imply poor memory use.” 

“From the research side, anger is an interesting emotion because it somewhat defies traditional classifications in that it’s a ‘negative’ emotion, but it impacts cognition in a lot of ways that are more similar to ‘positive’ emotions.” 

SAY WHAT?-This week, YouTube announced that Right Wing Watch, which monitors far-right disinformation, conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric, was inexplicably banned from the site for "violations of its community guidelines" because YouTube, or the robots who come up with their algorithms, evidently can't distinguish between exposing rabid extremism and championing it, which must be why they still allow all those white supremacists to spew their racist, hateful drivel on their righteous platform. Launched in 2007, RWW is run by the non-profit People For the American Way, founded in 1981 as a liberal counterpoint to the unholy bigots of the Moral Majority.

SAY WHAT?-Britney Spears spoke before a Los Angeles court on Wednesday, giving a fervent speech on the details of her 13-year conservatorship

Britney Spears spoke before a Los Angeles court on Wednesday, giving a fervent speech on the details of her 13-year conservatorship.

In her nearly 30-minute virtual address before a Los Angeles court and Judge Brenda Penny, the singer, 39, spoke out against her father Jamie Spears and her management team, saying that she is "traumatized."

"I've lied and told the whole world I'm OK and I'm happy," she said, adding: "I'm not happy. I can't sleep. I'm depressed. I cry every day."

Shortly thereafter, the "Toxic" songstress asked to end the 13-year conservatorship. "I just want my life back. It's been 13 years and it's been enough," she said.

Jamie's attorney Vivian Lee Thoreen also the court to share a statement from her client, saying, "[Jamie] is sorry to see his daughter in so much pain. [He] loves his daughter and misses her very much.” 

TikToker Meredith Steele appealed to her followers to Venmo her money to give the waiter the tip he deserved - and they came through with more than you could imagine.

A Maine-based TikTok star raised over $10,000 for the LGBTQ+ community in honor of a gay waiter who was discriminated against by people he was serving at a restaurant.

The waiter, who has chosen to remain anonymous, received a religious pamphlet in place of a tip from two different customers in the same day. When word of the incident reached TikToker Meredith Steele, whose friend works with the waiter, Steele appealed to her almost 500,000 followers to Venmo her money to give the waiter the tip he deserved.

“As a general life rule I try not to make videos when I’m angry,” she said in the June 7 video, “but if you can’t tell by my chest right now I’m fuming.”

SAY WHAT?- Sir David Attenborough, the 95-year-old legendary wildlife filmmaker told Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes: “A crime has been committed” and that urgent action is needed to save nature to save ourselves. The crime rests on oil for allowing the world to populate so proficiently the last few centuries and giving Sir David the opportunity to attain the ripe old age of 95 and to travel the world more than most. 

In the 1800’s most people never traveled 100-200 miles from where they were born. Life expectancy throughout Europe hovered between 20 and 30 years of age. Food shortages and insecurity were leading concerns in the 18th century, especially in Europe, and these were exacerbated by reduced harvests yields. Disease was another leading cause of death, with rats and fleas being the common carriers of disease, specifically plagues, during this era.

SAY WHAT? - Fast running out of boogeymen and deranged conspiracies - Dr. Seuss, Mr./Ms. Potato Head, trans girls playing sports, Karl Marx and his evil spawn antifa, Italy and/or dead Hugo Chavez flipping elections, cancel culture warriors of any flavor - and bereft of principles or policies, a flailing GOP has feverishly glommed onto Critical Race Theory as the latest Scary Threat to American democracy, in the process miraculously failing to realize it's actually them. A 40-year-old, once-obscure academic concept developed at Harvard, CRT acknowledges the fundamental role of racism, and its accompanying inequality, in every aspect of American society, from legal systems and social structures to economics and education; common examples are the ways racism led to housing redlining in the 1930s, and still informs today's college admissions, income inequity and incarceration rates. But confronting the systems behind white supremacy, the narratives white people tell themselves to justify it, the way power and privilege work to support it can create fear - economic, social, cultural, racial - in those threatened by any change in the status quo, especially when they're busy trying to suppress the votes of those who would benefit. It's a lot - complex, nuanced, potentially hazardous - for a party of morons like Marjorie Taylor Greene who conflates Democrats with Nazis 'cause, see, they both have "Socialist" in their names, sort of. Thus flattened by idiotic branding, some say the end game is "to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think 'critical race theory.'" In those wee little brains, little wonder CRT becomes "any conversation about race I don't like," "hostile to white people," and "teaching kids to hate each other and our country" - which is the greatest, even though for centuries it did buy, sell, own, rape, abuse, exterminate and otherwise oppress hundreds of thousands of people who, according to a social construct, had the "wrong" color skin.

SAY WHAT-While COVID cases are down and vaccinations are up, huge swaths of this ostensibly great country remain vulnerable to deadly new variants like the Delta strain thanks to the peculiarly American phenomenon of a "golden age" of perilous, obstinate, lunatic anti-vaxxers entertaining a mix of "conspiracy theory Mad Libs" that normal people who actually believe in science deem "dubious," "wholly unfounded," "grossly distorted," and insane. Facing a flood of wild claims that "The Vaccine Is A Microp-Chip Delivery Tool" and "COVID Vaccination=Death," social media executives are playing a frantic "cat and mouse" game with an "empire" of up to 58 million believers on hundreds of websites largely dominated by a "Disinformation Dozen" of anti-vaccine crackpots. "The United States hosts the world's largest and best-organized anti-vaccine groups," warns one, and "the bad guys are winning"—in part, he charges, due to the reluctance of public health officials to acknowledge the reach of anti-science mobs or confront them from fear of giving them "a platform and oxygen." Even though WHO recognized vaccine hesitancy as a key threat to global health even before the pandemic, the ever-growing proliferation of organized, extremist, anti-vaccine groups spreading lies—including the whopper to the black community that vaccines are "medical racism"—render even targeted counter-messaging "drops in a vast sea of misinformation."

SAY WHAT- "Amazon's surveillance-driven police state is fundamentally incompatible with racial justice, civil rights, and democracy," said Fight for the Future's Evan Greer. 

To mark the one year anniversary of Amazon's extended temporary moratorium on sales of its controversial Rekognition facial identification software to law enforcement agencies, over 20 advocacy groups and more than 10,000 supporters on Thursday launched Protest Amazon, a digital demonstration that's part of the #EyesOnAmazon week of action.

"Amazon must make their moratorium on keeping Rekognition out of the hands of law enforcement permanent and extend that policy to all of their surveillance products." —Myaisha Hayes, MediaJustice

Led by the digital rights group Fight for the Future, Protest Amazon is joined by Color of Change, Demand Progress, Free Press, MPower Change, Public Citizen, Presente.org, RootsAction, and other organizations demanding Amazon permanently divest from what campaign organizers call "racist surveillance tech" and "police state" surveillance. The campaign is also calling on the company to end its complicity in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportations.

MEDIA WATCH--A year after the painstakingly prolonged public execution of George Floyd, America is caught between hope and despair at what comes next, with the much-touted racial reckoning of a country possibly finally ready to acknowledge "the blood at the root" of a vexing origin story slamming into recalcitrant racist reality on all sides.

Many Confederate statues have come down, and more Americans have been speaking, reading, thinking about racism. Still, says Donald Williams, who witnessed Floyd's murder and "called the police on the police" - his anguished charge, "Y'all are murderers, bro" played at Chauvin's trial - the trauma remains. (Photo above: Facing off against America's systemic racism. Photo by Joshua Lott.)

 "I don't think most of America understands," he says. "They kind of see it and hear it, but I don't think they fully understand." Little wonder, given our bloody history and a current, panicked, right-wing move to rewrite it. 

MEDIA WATCH--A ceasefire from the slaughter in Gaza is good news. It's also woefully inadequate, given it comes with "an inevitable expiration date" amidst the Occupation's "normal" reign of apartheid and horrific, bloodthirsty, ever-new sins visited upon besieged Palestinians. (Photo above: Jewish rioters lynching Said Musa, an Arab man, in Bat Yam. Photo by Reuven Castro)

Add to the 14 Gaza families killed in their  homes, the 17-year-old shot in the head and radio journalist targeted in an airstrike and wheelchair-bound man killed with his pregnant wife and three-year-old daughter as they were preparing lunch and hundreds of others; add to the 75,000 people now homeless and the barrage of murder, eviction, random arrest, illegal incarceration, litany of indignities daily endured by Palestinians - add to that the virtual lynching’s of Arabs in what turn out to be tenuously mixed cities by frenzied, emboldened, rampaging, knife-wielding mobs of Israeli extremists, abetted by media and politicians, spewing "Death To Arabs" and vowing, "Kill them one by one,"  which they sometimes do by dragging them from their cars.

MEDIA WATCH-In an "extraordinarily hackish" move (among many), newly unsealed court documents show that, near the ragged end of his reign of terror, the former guy and Bill Barr's Department of Justice (sic) sought to use a covert grand jury subpoena, the federal machinery behind it and your money to unmask, not violent cops or white supremacists or corporate crimes, but Twitter pranksters saying mean things about faithful lapdog, litigious snowflake, friend to insurrectionists and "proud graduate of smiling for beginners" Devin Nunes - all while in the gleeful guise of, variously, his cow, his mom and his Drag Queen self. Inexplicable head of the House Intelligence Committee representing California's 22nd District - whose constituents he hasn't met with for years - Nunes is known for his sordid history of defending/denying Russian tool and former guy's abuses so zealously some wonder, when Il Duce goes to prison, if Nunes will turn up during his first body cavity search. The author of a bill denouncing frivolous lawsuits, Nunes has spent much of his time in Congress filing frivolous  lawsuits - nine at last count - against people and organizations that hurt his feelings, expose his hypocrisy and call him mean things like "a treasonous cowpoke."

MEDIA WATCH--Like more than 120 million other Americans, Jan Massie is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and can pretty much give up wearing a mask under the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But she’s still covering her face, even as the temperature rises in her native Alabama, because of benefits she says are too great to give up.

The retired educator didn’t catch the illness caused by the new coronavirus, and she also didn’t get the flu or her twice-yearly colds while masked during the pandemic. Unlike some, she’s not gotten any hostile blowback in public for wearing a mask. So why quit now?

MEDIA WATCH-Have you gotten your vaccine yet? If it helps, let me tell you about mine.

I just got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The side effects weren’t pleasant, but they were manageable — I had about six hours of flu-like symptoms that started six hours after I got the shot, then a headache in the morning. Tylenol helped.

I wasn’t excited about getting the shot. I’m wasn’t worried about the less than one in a million chance of blood clots, but I expected the flu-like symptoms and the headache and I dreaded them.

But I am still happy with my choice.