Oh no he didn't! Trump, Comey, et al

Except he did. The Evil Yam is mad and pouting and stamping his feet that we, the lowly citizens on whose behalf HE (is supposed to) WORKS, won't let things go.

We continue to push for investigations into Russia's interference with the 2016 presidential election.
We demand an understanding of Trump's relationship with Putin.
We insist on understanding why the FBI Director was suddenly ousted just days after requesting more funding to expand the Russia probe, and on the suggestion of Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, was previously recused himself from this entire investigation.
We refuse to stop until an independent counsel is appointed to continue this investigation. We will not wait until next year. We want and deserve the truth. Now.
We refuse to acknowledge Sarah Huckabee Sanders' pathetic claim that Comey committed atrocities and that America needs to "put this Russia stuff behind us."
We refuse to accept that while hundreds of us protest in front of the White House, the people's house, Trump meets privately with Russian foreign minister, Lavrov, and Ambassador Kislyak (yeah, the one who met with Flynn so often), and allows not the US media but the Russian media inside. Yeah, that happened today.

Mom, who is here for both boys' Grandparents' Days, and I were so pissed after last night's sudden firing of Comey (of whom neither of us are even fans, but come on!) that we decided to head downtown for today's "Comey Fired protest" quickly organized by MoveOn and many others. 

Y'all know that I have, since the Women's March, been to not a few protests, marches, and rallies. I have a library of signs -worn to various degrees by weather and crowd size- in my office, a growing selection of Resistance shirts in my drawer, and my Resistance backpack always at the ready. Most events I've attended have been determined and upbeat; despite the odds, we will persevere. That sort of thing.

The rally in Dupont Circle following Trump's first attempted Muslin Ban was a gathering of fury. We were there, and spirited, but an undercurrent of what-the-fuckness coursed through the crowd.

Today was an energetic gathering of several hundred, but it distinguished itself from the others I've attended with a decidedly depressed air. It did not lack in spirit. Anger. Resistance. Determination.

But the dark cloud of autocracy hung over us, the horrid juxtaposition of the gleaming White House dressed up with bright red flowers and a stunning blue sky with the craven inhabitants clobbering our national integrity and democracy behind curtained windows blocking all possible light. 

Mom was alternately furious and in tears.

"I fought so hard for so much of this decades ago. Why is he taking us back? Back, back, back?"

It was sad and enraging, and my primary reaction was to raise my fist, yell "SHAME!" and determine to keep fighting, keep resisting, do everything I can to preserve the democracy Americans are lucky to enjoy, even when they seem so terribly ignorant of all it offers and promises. It is not perfect, but the places Trump and his soulless, morally bankrupt cronies want to take us? That is an evil darkness like the stifling underdeck of a slave ship. Like a desperate, bleeding woman in a back alley. 

We cannot afford to go there. And so we fight.

"These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

-Thomas Paine