"There is still nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what’s right with America. We see it in the people lining up to vote, no matter how hard some may try to prevent them," Clinton said.

A combination of scratching people from voter rolls en masse, intimidation at the pools by way of ICE and such, and outright vote count tampering.

I can only hope they'll fail even so.

He’s aged, like we all do, but I can at least say that the first president I paid attention to (HS years) was pretty great. Obama was an amazing president in different ways, but I think the Clinton years were peak America.

Last edited Sun Jul 5, 2026, 05:53 AM - Edit history (1)

even though he (the general) was thoroughly conservative he said you could not help but be impressed by Clinton and his detailed knowledge of all KINDS of subjects

Perhaps the smartest president (at least among them).

I remember that story about when the teleprompter stopped working and he basically either ad libbed the speech or had already memorized it. No one could tell.

PATRIOT

"Bush, a Republican, reminded Americans that if they don't like the direction the country is going in, they can vote, adding that democracy is "self-correcting."

even if you have a brother whose governor and cleans off the voter rolls, wipes them down, clears them out?
even when there was a problem with vote flipping on the es&s or diebold machines?
even when you cried so hard and loud that the scotus handed you an entire election?

fuck W

They need to be more present in the discourse.
I would like to see them working with the new blood emerging from The People and sharing what is helpful, and finding ways to unite us around a plan.
They have some wisdom and that’s an asset, but they may not be as adept in navigating the way “social” has upended the battlefield.
At the moment, it's fashionable to be contrarian and snipe back and forth across the generational no-man’s land.
It’s not helping. They’re driving us apart so we can’t work together. Pay attention.
Unless we can generate the unity to get every ballot in the box, we’re looking down the barrel of a very unpleasant future.
Maybe if we can find a way to cut each other just a little slack, try to be civil, listen, listen, listen, talk and rub our shoulders together moving the World for the next three years, we might turn this mess around and make some History of which we can take Pride.
All we have to do is become the People we always told everyone we were and try to be our better selves and maybe we can achieve a better existence.
It starts with some camaraderie. We need to realize we all have value, and agree over more than we dis-agree.
Job One is the ballot.

helluva private citizen.

It veered between depressing and frightening. Only the most cursory references to our fundamental rights under the Constitution or any kind of history; no speakers (that I saw) other than Trump; and no mention of Americans' contributions in science, apart from bragging about the capabilities of our weaponry, in medicine, literature, or other arts or culture; or to our beautiful scenery and parks; or to any humanitarian aid we-ve provided.

Instead it was all mindless slogans and displays of coercive power and Trump's speech, and with no performances except by two performers unknown to me plus members of the military, who were either demonstrating weapons capabilities or singing.

The background music and songs performed were also a bit weirdly selected – during one military fly-over, I realized the background music was Mozart's Requiem; and the evening musical programming opened with a rendition of "Ave Maria" in Italian. Some of the other songs selected were at least slightly relevant to the US birthday, but many were not – made me wonder whether they'd had trouble getting permissions even to have someone other than the original artists sing songs.

It was all worse than I expected – very much like what one might expect from Kim Jong Un, except less entertaining (at least Kim would probably have offered some synchronised swimmers).