I’m breaking all my own rules by posting this but it is too funny not to post.
Randy Rainbow is one of the great satirists of our day.
We have to laugh. That’s the best defense against autocracy, as Mel Brooks reminded us in his show “The Producers,” both a great movie and an even greater Broadway show, which mocked Hitler. Brooks said that “laughter takes away their power.” Let us hope.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Perfect
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To quote the classic Mennen Skin Bracer commercial, “Thanks, I needed that!”
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Anther great one.
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Thank you! I needed that after this weekend and Monday.
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This is from The Onion. [NOT real news.]
NEWS IN BRIEF
Distraught Mueller Burns Every Piece Of Evidence In Case After Hearing Trump’s Critique Of U.S. Intelligence Community
WASHINGTON—Tossing a lit match on the assemblage of kerosene-doused case files, transcripts, and seized hard drives, Special Counsel Robert Mueller burned every piece of evidence in his investigation into 2016 election interference Tuesday after hearing President Trump’s pointed critique of the U.S. intelligence community. “God, I can’t believe I’ve wasted more than a year of my life working on something the president thinks is foolish, dumb, and—worst of all—a distraction,” said a visibly upset Mueller, shaking his head as he reminded himself to drop all charges against Paul Manafort and anyone who was arrested or pleaded guilty during the investigation before feeding hundreds of pages of warrants, subpoenas, and indictments into the raging flames. “It’s a real shame because I thought I was getting close to something with those Trump Organization wiretaps, but when the president says you’re being reckless, you listen. Frankly, I just hope he takes Putin up on his incredible offer to work with the Kremlin on a more honest investigation.” At press time, Mueller’s actions had been applauded by the heads of the FBI, CIA, and NSA, who also announced plans to immediately suspend their operations pending review by the White House.
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Thanks! I needed a laugh after yesterday.
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hysterical !!
>
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“His Daddy Putin…”
“Putin’s b*tch…”
Hey, homophobia is A-okay as long as it’s in the cause of #Resistance!!!
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I don’t think you can credibly call Randy Rainbow homophobic since he is gay and out. Watch some of his other videos, especially his “interview” with Kellyanne Conway. Hilarious!
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Being gay is no absolution from being homophobic, just as being black is no absolution from being racist.
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Randy Rainbow is not homophobic. Your statement is ridiculous.
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c’mon dienne77….you had to have a chuckle watching/listening to it!! I agree with most of what you post but this is not in any way a form of #Resistance. Times are so bleak and dreary right now and this is just a way to try to make people laugh. Tomorrow we will be back to more awful news and this video will be long forgotten.
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“I agree with most of what you post but this is not in any way a form of #Resistance.”
So you consider resistance to evil to be a bad thing?
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You know what Jim, I don’t consider resistance to evil to be a bad thing, but I think Randy Rainbow is trying to make light of a very bad situation. He is just trying to make people laugh in a very sad and scary time. Sometimes all we need to get through the day is little bit of laughter. As for dienne77….I guess the video just rubbed her the wrong way, but she definitely is NOT a Trump supporter and she’s NOT a troll.
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Laughter and art will get us through. Maybe.
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Lisa M: “I think Randy Rainbow is trying to make light of a very bad situation.”
Randy Rainbow is a satirist who is pointing out serious problems in a way to make us laugh. I enjoy watching our own comedians because they also make us laugh and teach us a lot about what is happening in politics. Often they do a better job of analyzing news than our corporate media.
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No one has asserted that homophobia is ok, in the service of resistance or anything else. You attack this strawman of your creation because you have no scruples, and no argument. It isn’t even clear who your target is … Diane Ravitch? Randy Rainbow? The resistance? Everyone on the planet who isn’t a Trump toady? You’re pretending there’s some hypocrisy here, but you can’t even articulate who is being hypocritical or how it’s relevant. You’re a troll and a weasel.
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This, BTW, is how real resistance is done: https://theintercept.com/2018/07/17/trans-mountain-pipeline-tar-sands-canada-us-kinder-morgan/ (hint: things that require actual bravery and sacrifice rather than just posting silly, if clever, videos on YouTube).
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How about trolling blog comments as you are doing … does that require actual bravery and sacrifice?
No one said that Randy Rainbow’s satire is “how real resistance is done”. You attack these strawmen and make irrelevant, divisive comparisons because you have no scruples … you’re a fundamentally bad person.
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Jim,
I disagree with Dienne. She knows that. She’s still waiting for someone to prove that Russia hacked into the 2026 election. But don’t call names. I try to maintain a semblance of civility here. The only name calling allowed here is directed at the Orange Ignoramus.
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Personal criticism is not the same as name calling. But it’s your blog … which of these true statements do you disallow? “trolling blog comments as you are doing”, “You attack these strawmen …”, “you have no scruples”, or “you’re a fundamentally bad person”?
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“You are fundamentally a bad person” is harsh. Dienne and I disagree often. I think she was over the top claiming that either Randy Rainbow (or me) is homophobic. Dumb comment since we are both gay. But she came back and said you can be both gay and homophobic, which is dumber still. No sense of humor. If you can’t laugh, you are in deep trouble. As I said in the post, humor is needed right now. More than ever. I loved the big balloon in England showing Trump as a big baby in diapers, although surely someone would say that was an insult to the presidency…or to babies.
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Jim,
Happy to welcome you and hope you will join the community.
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P.S. She called Scott Ritter a “nutcase”. Scott Ritter is not Trump, but you didn’t ding her for that.
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P.P.S. The biggest threat to civil discourse is bad faith. Dienne’s assertions are not mere disagreement.
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Yes, that’s harsh, and after dealing with people like her over and over again online over the years I have come to believe it, but I understand why you would consider it out of bounds and I will tone my comments down. Thanks for your patience.
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Thanks. Don’t go away. We need you. The comments section on this blog gets very lively.
I googled you and you know a lot about things of which I am completely ignorant. What brought you here?
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“But she came back and said you can be both gay and homophobic, which is dumber still”
She’s certainly wrong in directing that at Randy or you, but I don’t think it’s generally dumb … we have too many examples of closeted gay Republicans who have been fiercely homophobic in public.
“Happy to welcome you and hope you will join the community.”
Thank you, that’s very kind, especially after I led off with harsh response to some of your other commenters. I jump around the web a lot and am not much for communities … I actually added your blog to my RSS feed because I was watching someone on YouTube demonstrating some RSS software and yours was one of his feeds that he mentioned. I have your “The American Reader” on my book shelf.
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Glad you have “The American Reader”
If you have time, I hope you will read “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.” Or “Reign of Error.” My two favorites.
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“The biggest threat to civil discourse is bad faith. Dienne’s assertions are not mere disagreement.”
Thank you for that brilliant comment. “The biggest threat to civil discourse is bad faith”. I will have to remember that. You have made me realize why I find it hard to ignore certain types of comments on here.
Bad faith it is.
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Excellent and genius, had me howling (in the funny sense of howling as opposed to my howling from yesterday which was from shock and disgust). The song in the video is one of my all time favorites, “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” a patter song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. Randy Rainbow gets an A+ on this video, maybe his best ever and it is a laugh riot.
I wish Mel Brooks were in his prime, he would have roasted Trump into oblivion.
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Anyone remember Scott Ritter? He was the nutcase who was trying to claim Iraq had no significant WMD capability. How silly does he look now?
Anyway, he’s at it again: “The assertions set forth in the indictment, while cloaked in the trappings of American justice, have nothing to do with actual justice or the rule of law; they cannot, and will never, be proved in a court of law. However, by releasing them in a manner that suggests that the government is willing to proceed to trial, a perception is created that implies that they can withstand the scrutiny necessary to prevail at trial. ……And as we know, perception is its own reality.”
Why the heck would we listen to someone who was so clearly wrong before?
Oh, wait….
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Dienne, so you agree with Trump and Putin?
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Scott Ritter was right then, and he looks right now. As fpr “nutcase”, look in the mirror.
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I suspect there is no outrageous Kompromat but lots of shady dealing, and Treasonous Trump is treating this relationship with Putin as he would a shady business deal, and in this case that is treason.
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Scott Ritter at truthdig, 7-7-18: In his effort to “Make America Great Again,” Trump is transforming what was once an indispensable nation on the international stage into something the world will learn to ignore. Ever the domestic political animal, living for the moment with no true sense of history or strategic vision, Trump may see his approach get him through one or even two terms in office. But America is far greater than one man, and when his time is up, the “King of Chaos” will have left a trail of destroyed relationships and bad feelings from which his successor, or successors, may never be able to fully recover. End quote
For pity’s sake, can’t we just enjoy a hilarious satirical video without going all nit picky and preachy. Referring to commenter d not Diane.
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Some people won’t take yes for an answer.
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Seems like something is seriously wrong here.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna89216
Like either there is significant kompromat or his faculties are diminishing rapidly.
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Truncated link. It’s this one.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna892166
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“President Donald Trump attempted on Tuesday to clarify his widely criticized comments in Helsinki, saying that he had misspoken when he said a day earlier that he did not see why Russia would have meddled in the election. Trump said Tuesday he meant to say he did not see any reason why it wouldn’t have been Russia that interfered.”
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added…”or someone else,” as usual.
Just heard equivocation on NPR from a tape of his original statement in Helsinki and a tape of his his attempt to walk back his condemnation of our military intelligence officers. The Commander in Chief doesn’t have the wits to know that the international stage is no place for improv or that he has been played for a fool by Putin.
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Did he misspeak or lie equivocate or bow or grovel? I say the last.
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“President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial …” said Trump.
That’s what Trump wants the American people to know. That Putin was EXTREMELY strong and powerful in his denial that he interfered in our election.
It doesn’t matter how many times Trump walks back his other comment. This is what he said. Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial. And apparently, the stronger and more powerfully you say something, the more believable it is to Trump. Our President makes policy and judgements on the strength and power of the comment. Not on whether it is true.
It’s embarrassing that anyone would still support this deluded self-proclaimed “genius.”
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NYC public school parent: “Our President makes policy and judgements on the strength and power of the comment.”
Our Orange Monster also makes policy and judgements based on how much flattery has been thrown in his direction. He is easily manipulated and our enemies know this.
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Exactly. Our allies should stroke his ego. Offer to build a Trump hotel. Import Ivanka products.
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“Trump also said on Tuesday that he had “full faith and support” for the American intelligence community and supported their assessment that Russian meddled in the election, although the president to claim that others could also be responsible.”
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Akademos: Thanks for the link. Trump, or his administration, too often have to cover for his mistakes. How often are we supposed to believe that he was misunderstood, was joking or that the media is ‘fake news’ for reporting any criticisms?
We have a president who lies repeatedly. He is not to be trusted and he has no moral compass.
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The prior corrections and claims of sarcasm taken one by one and as if made by someone other than Treasonous were plausible. The claim that he meant to say, “I don’t see why it wouldn’t be Russia,” makes no sense, and is especially implausible considering the context including it coming from Treasonous himself.
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Too, too much.
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/17/629796887/better-than-super-russia-reacts-to-trump-putin-summit-in-helsinki
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Joy IS an act of resistance.
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Brilliant observation! You should copyright it.
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And this is a huge act of resistance. I have to hand it to Obama.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-44858937
transcript: https://www.npr.org/2018/07/17/629862434/transcript-obamas-speech-at-the-2018-nelson-mandela-annual-lecture
Obama goes offscript and deals with that DUMP without ever naming him.
https://qz.com/1330248/barack-obama-on-donald-trump-russia-china-in-nelson-mandela-lecture/
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Yvonne: How refreshing to read something that makes sense and comes in complete sentences. Facts do matter and Dump makes up his own. Thanks for the link. [I sent on the one from BBC. I like to see what other news agencies are saying about the US. ]
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I’d not heard of Randy Rainbow before, and now I intend to makse sure that many other people discover him as well!
Diane, I understand your professional hesitation in posting this. However, it is so smart and so clever that, in my not-so-humble opinion, your humanitarian desire to share this wholly entertaining example of ‘speaking truth to power’ overwhelmingly trumps the risk of your being judged poorly after transmitting Randy’s use of a few NSFW words.
I greatly appreciate your sharing this with us!
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