"Loitering is not permitted in this area," an audio recording sternly warns, as uniformed National Guard troops patrol Washington's iconic, algae-plagued reflecting pool. "Please proceed to a designated location."
Journalist Amanda Moore's dystopian video, shot last weekend just steps from the Lincoln Memorial, instantly went viral—a perfect 8-second encapsulation of American democracy under Donald Trump. Amanda has spent the past 18 months documenting the chaos and brutality of the administration's militarized takeovers and immigration raids in cities across the country. Her footage has been shocking, often horrifying. But it's never before been quite so absurd. (Well, maybe once.)
In her latest video report for Mother Jones, Amanda takes us on a tour of the Trumpified National Mall as the nation attempts to celebrate its 250th birthday. Not far from the reflecting pool's nanobubblers and security theater, there's a very different scene: Trump's Great America State Fair. When Amanda visited this marquee anniversary event, she found a dearth of visitors, a shortage of napkins, and a decaying model of the triumphal arch the president wants to build across the Potomac.
The symbolism here is about as subtle as a Jon McNaughton painting. If I hadn't seen Amanda's reporting, I never would have believed it was real.
BREAKING: In a shocking turn of events there appears to be two people at Trump's State Fair. Witnesses report a man in a blue jacket and a woman in an orange top. If you or someone you know is at the State Fair, please call the crisis hotline or go to your nearest emergency room.
exciting news!
T***p has promised to give a long July 4 speech in 107 degree heat to vie with the record of 9th president William Harrison who gave a 2-hour vainglorious speech in freezing-cold rain, fell ill immediately after the speech & died a month later; the challenge for our president will be to get through his vainglorious speech without collapsing in the heat & if he manages that, to stay alive for at least one month following the speech & in this way break Harrison's longtime record.
individuals who would ordinarily rather eat broken glass than observe a T***p speech even muted may be observing this speech with much attention.
good luck to us all.
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AI Appreciation Day is coming up on July 16th.
To celebrate, we’ll be hosting an AI *UN-Appreciation Day, with a one-night theatrical return for 'Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die.'
Followed by a live-streamed Q&A with Gore Verbinski, writer Matthew Robinson, and special guests.
@MudHens I once named my cat after him. I was just a little kid, and a woman asked me the cat's name. I told her Klinger. She said, Oh because of his claws? I said nope, after the guy on MASH. She looked alarmed 😂. Been an ally for a long time ❤️
Weird Al Yankovic pulled out of a commercial on which he was making a "nice pile of money" after discovering it was for AI.
“I’m not going to mention any names, but they told me it was for a business. It was business software that would increase productivity. I said, ‘Oh well, yeah, sure, I could do that.’ And then a week before we’re supposed to shoot it, I find out this is AI. And I thought, ‘Oh no, I can’t be the poster boy for AI, forget it.’ So I felt bad about kind of pulling out at the last minute. But yeah, I’m not down with that.”
https://t.co/lSfSBMYbb2