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When we think about the traumas of the last few years, we will remember the people who kept us going, the people who made a difference, the “ordinary” people who reached for the extraordinary and lifted up their fellow citizens with knowledge and thereby somehow made us feel connected to something larger than ourselves. Thank you.

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The quiet is beautiful. Taking my run this morning, I had to smile thinking, "This is the last Sunday of the Trump Administration, and hopefully the last Sunday of the Confederacy." As Jean Luc Picard would say, "Make it so."

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I love it when you tell us you're going to rest. You've got to pace yourself, lady. And yes, it's been so traumatic and exhausting. I appreciate that you name that.

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Ah, thanks for confirming my feelings. For me, the trauma began in mid-2016 and never let up, coming to a violent head last week as real relief is so near. It has been exhausting. I am in awe of the consistent high-quality work you have been contributing to this long drawn-out crisis, making your knowledge, perspective, and general sanity so generously available, and I can’t thank you enough!

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During WWII, we never let the bombs or the chaos stop us from celebrating when celebrating was in order. At our house at noon ET Wednesday, we are going to pop the cork on the champagne and celebrate like crazy!

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Rest well...and thanks for all you do. And thanks to everyone in this community; it helps me stay (close to) sane. 🌺✨

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Today, we honor Rev. Martin Luther King. Here is the text of his 1963 speech on the Mall in Washington, DC. It is an appropriate time to read it again.

"I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?"

We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our chlidren are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for whites only."

We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exhalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that; let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

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There is a star in the gloomy past year of pandemic and psychopath president; I discovered Heather Cox Richardson. Her "Letter to America" is the bowl of multi-grain cereal with Maine blueberries I feed my brain first thing in the morning.

And all who comment here are my glass of fresh squeezed orange juice.

Thank you.

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Sleep well, knowing that you contribute profoundly to our understanding of these moments, that they are not comets appearing out of a void, but threads that connect us with our past and can guide us toward a more humane future. Thank you Heather, and sleep well.

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Rest well, Heather. Thanks for sharing Peter‘s photo of the boat waiting to be freed from the ice around it.

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Get some well deserved rest Dr Heather.

A really well written analysis of 45s coup attempt by Fiona Hill below. Fortunately our institutions held, and those in critical positions honored their oaths.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/11/capitol-riot-self-coup-trump-fiona-hill-457549

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Exhausted is an understatement. I didn't post anything to the letter from 1/16 (I started a post and deleted it) because I was mentally spent by the time I got to it this morning. I read through about a third of the comments, but I just had to step away from the computer and the news for my sanity. I've been a bit down today for various reasons and these are the kinds of days I find I can best just unplug. I seek out other things to read and occupy my mind (I zipped through the NYT Sunday Crossword in record time...), but even then concentrating is difficult. I find above all I like to listen to music as that helps calm me, ground me, and helps lift my spirits. It can be anything. It moves me even more on days like this because I feel my emotions have bubbled to the surface and been on a knife edge due to events, so it then doesn't take much to touch me deeply. We all have our release valve. Mine is music. Here's to a good night's sleep for everyone, with a hope and a prayer that the coming week can come off without any problems...I don't know if my constitution can take much more. G'night, y'all.

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On average, we only get about 25000 days. I’ll reach that number on April 11. I’m drawn to those who make everyday day count. To those who do not sleepwalk through life: poets, artists, philosophers, mystics ... historians. Those who give us reason to open our eyes on the darkness. You held the lamp up at the end of the tunnel Heather. I’m extremely grateful for that. Thank you for you guidance and for showing the uniqueness of everyday.

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Beginning on election night and continuing through his final days in office, Donald Trump unraveled and dragged America with him, to the point that his followers sacked the U.S. Capitol. This Axios series by Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu takes you inside the collapse of a president.

Episode 3: The conspiracy goes too far. Trump's outside lawyers plot to seize voting machines and spin theories about communists, spies and computer software.

President Trump was sitting in the Oval Office one day in late November when a call came in from lawyer Sidney Powell. "Ugh, Sidney," he told the staff in the room before he picked up. "She's getting a little crazy, isn't she? She's really gotta tone it down. No one believes this stuff. It's just too much."

He put the call on speakerphone for the benefit of his audience. Powell was raving about a national security crisis involving the Iranians flipping votes in battleground states. Trump pressed mute and laughed mockingly.

"So what are we gonna do about it, Sidney?" Trump would say every few seconds, whipping Powell more and more into a frenzy. He was having fun with it. "She really is crazy, huh?" he said, again with his finger on the mute button.

It was clear that Trump recognized how unhinged his outside legal advisers were. But he was becoming increasingly desperate about losing to Joe Biden, and Powell and her crew were willing to keep feeding the grand lie that the election could be overturned.

They were selling Trump a seductive but delusional vision: a clear and achievable path to victory.

The only catch: He'd have to stop listening to his government and campaign staffs, to cross the Rubicon and view them as liars, quitters and traitors.

Trump promoted Powell as part of his team, and even though he had privately admitted to aides that he thought she was "crazy," he still wanted to hear what she had to say.

"Sometimes you need a little crazy," Trump told one official.

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54 hours to the Biden/Harris administration, but who's counting?

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I just discovered your newsletter and I’m grateful

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