June 17, 2025

Tuesday, June 17, 2025. Annette’s Roundup for Democracy.

Trump over the edge.

Trump’s failed parade - boring and badly received with low turnout - plus the success of the energetic, widespread and well attended No Kings protests seemed to have pushed the wounded and likely frightened sociopath over the edge.

Late Sunday night, he initiated a dangerous and reckless political plan disguised as policy.

The unbalanced man in the White House doesn’t seem to know that policy is supposed to, at minimum, claim to support the nation, not a Party.

Heather Cox Richardson called this a “war against Democrats.” It is an also a war against American cities, which he calls “the core of the Democrat Power Center.”

Our calls must persuade his party to stop him or our resistance itself will stop him.

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Let’s look back over the weekend.

So much happened at Trump’s birthday parade. Not.

Why have a parade? Listen to Trump. 👇

Empty bleachers. Soldiers marching loosely in a perfunctory way.

Steven Cheung became the new Sean Spicer lying for his delusional boss.

Scary. Include this in your remarks by phone or email/letter to your Elected Officials.👇

For a very small number, though bigger than a bread box, it was Sunday in the Park with Donald.

One more thing. Or two. Or three.

Was Trump Being Trolled With Creedence's 'Fortunate Son' at Parade?

Was the music for Saturday’s military parade in Washington, D.C. covertly programmed by the “No Kings” movement?

That’s the question some were asking on social media after the event, spearheaded by President Donald J. Trump, which featured the repeated playing of Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s classic “Fortunate Son” — a song that virtually the entire world knows by now was written during the Vietnam era as a slam against wealthy draft dodgers. The assumption being made by at least a few tweeters was that this had to be some kind of deliberate trolling of the president by someone on the music selection team who just has it in for him. Because if you were going to make a top 10 list of songs that Trump should not want to have played at any of his events — but most of all not at a military-themed ceremony — “Fortunate Son” would certainly be No. 1.

So it’s tantalizing to entertain the thought that someone from the left infiltrated the ranks of the president’s music department to include the Creedence song as part of a parade in which active-duty members of the armed forces marched past the figure who has sometimes been chided as “President Bone Spurs,” in honor of the medical deferment that got Trump out of the draft. (He said in 2016 that the condition made it difficult for him to walk at the time he submitted his doctor’s note, but “over a period of time, it healed up.”)

Programming this as a near-subliminal diss would not quite count as a covert operation on the level of Ukraine sneaking hundreds of drones into Russia for a coordinated attack… but close enough.

But “inside jobs” can also be accomplished through sheer cluelessness, and bumbling self-sabotage is probably the easiest explanation for the jaw-dropper of a music synch here. After all, there is a long history of Trump’s campaigns and administrations using “Fortunate Son” — mostly before Fogerty made headlines five years ago saying he wrote it as a slam against people like Trump, but also since. Either Trump’s music people stuck their fingers in their ears as people pointed out that use of the Creedence song just created fresh opportunities for the world to be reminded that he was able to avoid military service… or else they have just soldiered on with it — so to speak — in a “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” sort of way, imagining that they could bring everyone around to thinking that the song will just have positive connotations from here on out.

Fogerty made it clear enough when he made his statement about Trump’s use of “Fortunate Son” in 2020: “Recently, the president has been using my song ‘Fortunate Son’ for his political rallies, which I find confounding, to say the least. So I thought I’d explain a little bit about what ‘Fortunate Son’ is about.” He explained that he “wrote the song back in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War. By the time I wrote the song, I already had been drafted and had served in the military, and I’ve been a lifelong supporter of our guys and gals in the military, probably because of that experience, of course. Anyway, back in those days we still had a draft. And something I was very upset about was the fact that people of privilege — in other words, rich people, or people that had position — could use that to avoid the draft and not be taken into the military. I found it very upsetting that such a thing could occur, and that’s why I wrote ‘Fortunate Son.’ That’s really what the whole intent of the song (was).”

Fogerty continued, “The very first lines of ‘Fortunate Son’ are: ‘Some folks are born made to wave the flag, oooh, they’re red white and blue / But when the band plays “Hail to the Chief,” they point the cannon at you.’ Well, that’s exactly what happened recently in Lafayette Park when the president decided to take a walk across the park. He cleared out the area using federal troops so that he could stand in front of St. John’s Church with a Bible.” He concluded: “It’s a song I could have written now. So I find it confusing, I would say, that the president has chosen to use my song for his political rallies, when in fact it seems like he is probably the Fortunate Son.” (Variety)

Gavin Newsom had somethings to say.

Touch to watch the video of many No Kings Marches.👇

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Behaving like Putin’s Puppet at the G7, Trump embarrassed himself and our nation in Canada yesterday.

Trump to leave G7 summit early over escalating Israel-Iran conflict.

Abrupt change of plans comes after president on Truth Social warns residents of Tehran to evacuate immediately

Donald Trump will return early to Washington on Monday from the G7 summit because of events escalating in the Middle East, US officials said, as the conflict between Israel and Iran continued to intensify.

The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump would participate in the G7 family photo and would dine with leaders at the summit in Alberta, Canada, before travelling back a day ahead of schedule.

Israel-Iran conflict live: Trump tells Tehran to ‘evacuate’ as Macron says US president has made ceasefire ‘offer.’

Trump’s abrupt change in plans comes after a series of developments in the Israel-Iran conflict and a Truth Social post by the president warning residents in Iran’s capital of Tehran to immediately evacuate.

The ominous warning from Trump followed an evacuation order issued earlier in the day by Israeli forces telling residents in large parts of Tehran to evacuate ahead of imminent bombing of “military infrastructure”.

Trump’s early departure is a blow to G7 organizers who had sought to discuss the conflict in the Middle East and were hoping for the US to be a signatory to a statement calling on both sides to de-escalate.

A draft of the statement said Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon, Israel has a right to defend itself and Iran’s nuclear weapons program is subject to a negotiated deal, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“AMERICA FIRST means many GREAT things, including the fact that, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” Trump said in a post after his schedule change was announced.

The rapid succession of events raised concerns in Washington about the possibility of the US becoming dragged into the conflict or its potential to trigger a broader war in the region.

Israel’s bombing runs started with attacks on air defenses, nuclear sites and the military chain of command. But four days into the campaign, it appears to have drifted into war of attrition.

And in another ominous escalation on Monday, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also said that killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, would “end the conflict”.

After the surprise Israeli attack on Friday, Iran has carried out retaliatory missile strikes on Israeli cities, focusing on the most populated areas between Tel Aviv and the port of Haifa, and threatened to leave the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

The US has not been directly involved in the conflict but, also on Monday, the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group was rerouted from the South China Sea to the Middle East, a move that put two US carriers in the region.

The Nimitz is likely to reach the Middle East later this week and join the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group, a person familiar with the matter said.

Two destroyers in the Mediterranean have also been moved closer to Israel in recent days to help protect US assets in the region. Dozens of air force refuelling aircraft were also deployed from the US to Europe over the weekend to support operations in the Middle East. (The Guardian)

This happened too.

Trump Will Not Sign G7 Statement on Iran and Israel, Official

A White House official said President Trump had decided not to sign onto a statement drafted for Group of 7 allies that urges restraint from both Israel and Iran, which have been trading attacks for days.

President Trump has decided not to sign onto a statement calling for de-escalation between Iran and Israel that is being prepared by the Group of 7 industrialized nations, according to a White House official, the first evidence of an ongoing rift between Mr. Trump and his fellow leaders gathered for a summit in Alberta, Canada.

The official, who asked for anonymity to discuss the joint statement, which has not been released publicly, did not say why the president was opposed to signing. A copy of the draft statement, which was obtained by The New York Times, urges both Israel and Iran to halt attacks on one another that have killed dozens of people in both countries over the past several days. (New York Times)

One more thing.

This convention is fussier than the G7.👇

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An honest journalist spoke his mind.

What Was Terry Moran Thinking?

In his first interview since losing his job at ABC News, the longtime TV correspondent, newly popular on Substack, says he does not regret his social media post criticizing the Trump administration.

Terry Moran wasted no time ending the speculation.

“It wasn’t a drunk tweet,” he said, flashing a lopsided grin on Sunday as he chatted on Zoom.

Mr. Moran, a longtime ABC News correspondent, was ousted from his network last week over a post on X that castigated the Trump administration in searing, personal terms. In his first interview since then, he offered no apologies. He sounded chipper — at least, as chipper as a journalist could be after losing a job in spectacularly public fashion.

Recounting how he came to write his fateful post, Mr. Moran, 65, said it was “a normal family night” that began with a meditative walk with his dog in the woods: “I was thinking about our country, and what’s happening, and just turning it over in my mind.” He returned home for family dinner and a movie, “Ocean’s Eleven.” He and his wife put their children to bed.

And then: “I wrote it, and I said, ‘That’s true.’”

“That” was a provocative post, published after midnight on June 8, tearing into Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, as “richly endowed with the capacity for hatred.” Mr. Moran wrote that Mr. Miller “eats his hate” as “spiritual nourishment” and assigned the term “world-class hater” to both Mr. Miller and President Trump, whom the correspondent had interviewed in the Oval Office weeks earlier.

The since-deleted post stunned Mr. Moran’s colleagues and prompted a furious riposte from Vice President JD Vance, who labeled it an “absolutely vile smear” and demanded an apology from ABC. Two days later, the network said it would not renew Mr. Moran’s contract, citing “a clear violation of ABC News policies.”

Some veteran journalists said that his comments crossed the line of impartiality, and provided a gift to right-wing politicians seeking to depict the mainstream media as biased against Mr. Trump. Supporters on the left cheered Mr. Moran for issuing what they considered a candid assessment.

Others didn’t understand what exactly had prompted Mr. Moran’s outburst. Was it the recent immigration raids in Los Angeles? Had Mr. Moran watched “Good Night, and Good Luck,” the play about CBS News heroics in the 1950s, live on CNN earlier that night?

And was it even possible to ascertain someone’s innermost “spiritual nourishment” as an outside journalist? (Mr. Moran says he has never met Mr. Miller.)

It “was to me; is to me,” he said. There had been no triggering event, he said, only his own ruminations, which he continues to stand behind: “I don’t think you should ever regret telling the truth. And I don’t.”

Mr. Miller responded to Mr. Moran’s attack by calling it a “full public meltdown” and writing that “Terry pulled off his mask,” exposing himself as among the “radicals adopting a journalist’s pose.”

Mr. Moran declined to address whether his post had made it more difficult for his former ABC News colleagues to carry out their journalistic work. “If they want to reach out, I’m happy to talk about that, but I’m not going to speak in the abstract,” he said.

For his part, Mr. Moran seemed surprised by the post’s reach. “I thought it would hit a nerve, maybe,” he said. He did not grasp the gravity of the incident until ABC News informed him last Sunday that he had been suspended.

He and his employer of 28 years now appear to be at loggerheads.

On Tuesday, ABC News said in a statement that Mr. Moran’s contract had been set to expire, and that, “based on his recent post,” it would not be renewed. Mr. Moran disputed this framing as “incorrect,” and said that the network was “bailing” on a pre-existing “oral agreement” to renew him for three more years.

“We had a deal,” Mr. Moran said, adding that lawyers were still negotiating the terms of his exit and severance.

ABC News declined to comment.

Shortly after leaving ABC, Mr. Moran began posting to Substack. Originally known for email newsletters, Substack has become a destination for journalists and anchors who have departed or been forced to depart traditional outlets, earning some of them millions in subscription revenue, particularly those with anti-Trump leanings.

Mr. Moran’s brief dispatches are, so far, free to read, and since Tuesday, his subscriber count has reached over 90,000. That includes thousands who have purchased subscriptions for $5 per month or $50 per year in support.

While he is still formulating an editorial plan — he is interested, for example, in revisiting Springfield, Ohio, where he previously reported on Mr. Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations about Haitian immigrants eating household pets — he is also “generally trying to have fun,” he said.

Mr. Moran, who peppered his responses with quotes from the Bible and “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” at one point compared Substack to a version of “18th-century pamphleteering.”

The upside: “I’m certainly free to speak my mind.” (New York Times)

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After the political assassination in Minnesota, Republicans showed such class.

First.

Currently.

As to Utah Senator - he and Elon Musk tried to blame the murders on the Left..or tried to make jokes.

He has been called out for his despicable remarks and there are calls for his removal.

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