DougJohnson

For more than thirty years Doug Johnson has been a landscape painter. His paintings serve to document the artist's deeply felt experience of America's midwest.

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

Here is Robert De Niro’s full statement about how Donald Trump should NEVER be president again:

“I’ve spent a lot of time studying bad men.  I’ve examined their characteristics, their mannerisms, the utter banality of their cruelty.

Yet there’s something different about Donald Trump. When I look at him, I don’t see a bad man. Truly.

I see an evil one.

Over the years, I’ve met gangsters here and there. This guy tries to be one, but he can’t quite pull it off. There’s such a thing as “honor among thieves.” Yes, even criminals usually have a sense of right and wrong. 

Whether they do the right thing or not is a different story — but — they have a moral code, however warped.

Donald Trump does not. He’s a wannabe tough guy with no morals or ethics. No sense of right or wrong. No regard for anyone but himself — not the people he was supposed to lead and protect, not the people he does business with, not the people who follow him, blindly and loyally, not even the people who consider themselves his “friends.” He has contempt for all of them.

We New Yorkers got to know him over the years that he poisoned the atmosphere and littered our city with monuments to his ego.  We knew first hand that this was someone who should never be considered for leadership.  We tried to warn the world in 2016.

The repercussions of his turbulent presidency divided America and rattled New York City beyond imagination.  Remember how we were jolted by crisis in early 2020, as a virus swept the world.

We lived with Donald Trump’s bombastic behavior every day on the national stage, and we suffered as we saw our neighbors piling up in body bags.

The man who was supposed to protect this country put it in peril, because of his recklessness and impulsiveness. It was like an abusive father ruling the family by fear and violent behavior.  That was the consequence of New York’s warning getting ignored. Next time, we know it will be worse.

Make no mistake: the twice-impeached, 4-time indicted Donald Trump is still a fool. But we can’t let our fellow Americans write him off like one. Evil thrives in the shadow of dismissive mockery, which is why we must take the danger of Donald Trump very seriously.

So today we issue another warning. From this place where Abraham Lincoln spoke — right here in the beating heart of New York — to the rest of America:
This is our last chance.

Democracy won’t survive the return of a wannabe dictator.

And it won’t overcome evil if we are divided.

So what do we do about it?  I know I’m preaching to the choir here.  What we’re doing today is valuable, but we have to take today into tomorrow – take it outside these walls.   We have to reach out to the half of our country who have ignored the hazards of Trump and, for whatever reason, support elevating him back into the White House. 

They’re not stupid, and we must not condemn them for making a stupid choice.  Our future doesn’t just depend on us. It depends on them.

Let’s reach out to Trump’s followers with respect.  Let’s not talk about “democracy.”  “Democracy” may be our holy grail, but to others it is just a word, a concept, and in their embrace of Trump, they’ve already turned their backs on it. 

Let’s talk about right and wrong.  Let’s talk about humanity. 

Let’s talk about kindness.  Security for our world. 

Safety for our families. 

Decency. 

Let’s welcome them back. 

We won’t get them all, but we can get enough to end the nightmare of Trump, and fulfill the mission of this “Stop Trump Summit.”

[Decoding Fox News @DecodingFoxNews]

If there was ever a time I wanted people to retweet something - A vaccine specialist, Dr. Paul Offit, spells out how RFK Jr. played a role in discouraging vaccination rates in a small population. A measles outbreak followed which resulted in 83 deaths mostly of young children.

[George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway3d]

“Following CNN's exclusive airing of audio of former President Donald Trump boasting about his improper possession of highly classified military documents to staffers and patrons of his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, conservative attorney George Conway laid out the seriousness of his actions on ‘Anderson Cooper 360.’

“‘How damning is this for the former president, do you think?’ asked Cooper.

“‘Well, the special counsel already had Trump dead to rights because we knew this tape existed in some form. But to actually hear a former President of the United States committing a felony, probably multiple felonies, on audiotape while laughing about it is something I just — I think it's just stunning,’ said Conway, a longtime critic of the former president. ‘And I just don't see how, I mean, I can understand exactly why Trump's legal advisers think that this really changes the complexion of the case because ... I don't know how you can explain that in front of a jury.’

“The Iran battle plans Trump was waving around, Conway continued, are ‘by definition one of the most confidential things you could probably have, which is, you know, an off-the-shelf plan to attack a potential enemy of the United States of America. It's very, very valuable top-secret information. It's something the Iranians would probably pay tens of millions of dollars for. It's something that if it ever got into the wrong hands, it could lead to the deaths of American servicemen, if the Iranians were able to prepare for an attack and they knew what the attack was going to be, if they knew what the options laid out in the Pentagon document were. And the fact that he is just so absolutely cavalier, I mean, it's just sociopathic. This man has no respect for rules, no respect for the lives of other human beings, no respect for the country, no respect for the Constitution, no respect for his duties. He is a sociopathic criminal, and this is just another nail in the coffin of — it's just another thing that's going to put him away.’”

[Barb McQuade @BarbMcQuade]

1 Durham Report is in. After four years, review of 1 million documents, 490 interviews, his conclusion is that FBI should have opened a preliminary investigation (PI) instead of a full investigation (FI) in 2016. THREAD

[VANITY FAIR @VanityFair]

For Rep. @brotherjones_, it's clear that this particular political moment is about the uprising of young people.

“If our voices were not powerful, they would not be strategizing and acting in such extreme ways to silence us.” https://t.co/3XGE9OpxLP

[T. S. Pumpkins @only_living_grl]

I think my most favorite thing Jesse Ventura did when he was governor was when Virginia made its periodic request for us to return this flag—as I heard it, he veered from the “polite decline letter” practice of past years and just said, “Why would we give it back? We won.”

[Liz Cheney @Liz_Cheney]

One lesson of Jan 6 is this: Trump’s lies, spread on TV & social media, provoked a violent attack on our Capitol. No responsible adult, and especially no American pledged to our Constitution, should deny what happened or repeat the same reckless lies.

[Rob Menendez @RobMenendez4NJ]

If the @HouseGOP manages to pick a Speaker tonight, their first action will be forcing through a rules package in the middle of the night filled with favors for the far-right.

So much for transparency!

We need a House that works for all Americans, not just the extreme GOP.

[Josh Marshall @joshtpm]

This is prolly the most dangerous concession. But big picture important too. To become Speaker McCarthy has handed control of the House to the hard right authoritarian caucus that brought us the insurrection and was repudiated at the ballot box. It will be a dangerous two years.

[Scott MacFarlane @MacFarlaneNews]

NEW: In court filing, Justice Dept responds to Jan 6 defendant Isaac Yoder's request to ban use of terms "riot" "insurrection" or "mob" at trial

Feds' response: "Because these terms fairly describe the riot, rioters & Yoder’s conduct that day, this court should deny the motion"

[Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney]

JUST IN: The Jan. 6 committee has dropped nearly 50 more transcripts. Here's the list:

[Arts Alliance Illinois @ArtsAllianceIL]

We accomplished a lot in 2022, and there is so much work on the horizon to keep resources and opportunities coming for the Illinois arts and culture sector next year. Support the Alliance to help us keep advocating for the arts in 2023! https://t.co/r0AebFSCFp

[Glenn Kirschner @glennkirschner2]

Happy Criminal Referral Day friends. Let’s hope that, when we look at this long national nightmare in the rear-view mirror, we’ll see today as one of the defining moments on the road to justice. Because #JusticeMatters

[WGLT @WGLTNews]

Bloomington-Normal's next big thing in playgrounds is all but complete — a $5 million, 16-acre natural playground at Colene Hoose Elementary School in Normal. @chazWGLT recently got a tour. https://t.co/LTDaijYpXu #BloNo #play #playground

[NPR @NPR]

Charles Schulz, the cartoonist who brought us Charlie Brown, would have turned 100 today. The first Peanuts strip debuted in 1950, breaking ground aesthetically and emotionally, and endures to this day.
https://t.co/oPLZQa7cJO

[DougJohnson @DougJohnson]

@SchoendienstFan @vohnhenk I’ve seen contemporary version of photos made this way, but never vintage

[Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 @cmclymer]

This mass shooting in Colorado Springs is horrifying and exactly what LGBTQ organizations and leaders have been warning would happen if the violent rhetoric toward our community continued. This is what happens when hateful propaganda goes unchecked.

https://t.co/SlCdgcGtzr

[Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en]

Anonymous British street artist @banksy published a video on Instagram of him making the seven graffitis in Kyiv, Irpin, Horenka, Hostomel and Borodianka.

If you ask me - I think he's very cool. And he did a lot for Ukraine. And the song goes really well here.

[Jack Cocchiarella 🌹 @JDCocchiarella]

Things aren’t looking great for Elon at Twitter HQ right now:

[NPR @NPR]

BREAKING: Donald Trump, who tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election and inspired a deadly riot at the Capitol in a desperate attempt to keep himself in power, has filed to run for president again in 2024. https://t.co/iqIcaN3SZA