This is one tough Fourth of July for the USA, considering who is occupying the Oval Office. It's still like a nightmare, or a hallucination. So many bad things already: the firing of James Comey ... the Gorsuch appointment ... the travel ban ... the destruction/undermining of the EPA and the State Department ... withdrawal from the Paris Accords ... the unfilled ambassadorships ... the everyday degradation of the office ... Jared and Ivanka ... Michael Flynn and Roger Stone ... Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller ... Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer.

And it's going to get so much worse. He's been in office for barely six months.

RESISTANCE is the most patriotic way I can think of celebrate this Fourth of July.

RESISTANCE AND MEMORY. Let's use this Fourth of July to remember the great things about the USA.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights ... baseball ... Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson ... rock and roll ... the Grand Canyon ... Hollywood movies ... the civil rights movement ... Broadway musicals ... the suffragette movement ... Central Park and all the works of Frederick Law Olmsted ... soul music ... the Yosemite Valley ... basketball ... jazz ... Ellis Island ... the blues ... the American Civil Liberties Union ... the interstate highway system ... the underground railroad ... Cape Cod ... putting a man on the moon ... state fairs ... the Wright Brothers and Thomas Edison ... the gay rights movement ... the Ivy League ... New Orleans food ... Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech ... Big Sur ... the Great American Songbook ... the Statue of Liberty (merci, France) ... the New York City skyline ... the Brooklyn Bridge ... the Everglades ... New England clam chowder ... Title IX ... the polio vaccine ... the public school system ... the Triple Crown ... NPR ... the EPA ...Niagara Falls ... Social Security ... the coast of Maine ... pecan pie ... the Pacific Coast Highway ... Key West ... family farms ... the labor movement ... the skies of New Mexico ... county fairs ... Times Square at night.

AND KEEP CALLING CONGRESS

A few of these Republican senators might be all that stand between the American people and the willful destruction of the medical safety net for millions.

If you're a resident of their states, please call them.

Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) -- (202) 224-6472

Susan M. Collins (R-ME) -- (202) 224-2523

Bob Corker (R-TN) -- (202) 224-3344

Cory Gardner (R-CO) -- (202) 224-5941

Dean Heller (R-NV) -- (202) 224-6244

Ron Johnson (R-WI) -- (202) 224-5323

Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) -- (202) 224-6665

Bob Portman (R-OH) -- (202) 224-3353

And keep the spirit of resistance alive in all your conversations. What we have now in the White House is not normal ... and it is not acceptable.

Generations from now, Americans will look back on this presidency and be deeply ashamed.

Here are some more good things from the country I love:

Marvin Gaye's rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game – one of the all-time greats
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNydcwDriuU 

Ray Charles – "America the Beautiful" – live, from "The Dick Cavett Show"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRUjr8EVgBg 

Woody Guthrie – This Land Is Your Land
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaI5IRuS2aE

80 year-old Irving Berlin singing "God Bless America" on THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmc-pEyUHTs 

"Irving Berlin has no place in American music—he is American music."—Jerome Kern

Bruce Springsteen – "Sandy" – live, from 1978 – one of Boss' greatest songs and a wonderful evocation of the Fourth at the beach
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkg8Mua_6Fw 

Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_rTMNnxwSE 

Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain – on Lies and Slavery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnF-7bqyKuo 

Louis Armstrong – "West End Blues"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPCBieSESI 

George Gershwin's RHAPSODY IN BLUE – played by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH2PH0auTUU 

Smithsonian Institution
https://www.si.edu 

Monterey Bay Aquarium
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org

National Air and Space Museum
https://airandspace.si.edu 

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
https://www.rockhall.com 

National Museum of Africa American History & Culture
https://nmaahc.si.edu 

+

World's Best Fireworks Displays -- 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCcRgV5o_Fs 

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