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TIDBITS- AUG.21 -READERS COMMENTS: TRUMP-PUTIN SUMMIT; TRUMP
WHITE-WASHINGTON SLAVERY; TRUMP’S DC TAKEOVER; ZOHRAN MAMDANI –
THE “COMMIE CORRIDOR”; ZOOM THIS SUNDAY: GAZA & THE WEST BANK:
VIEWS FROM THE ISRAELI AND PALESTINIAN LEFT; CARTOONS; MORE…  
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August 21, 2025
xxxxxx

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_ Readers Comments: Trump-Putin Summit; Trump White-Washington
Slavery; Trump's DC Takeover; Zohran Mamdani - the “Commie
Corridor”; Zoom this Sunday: Gaza & the West Bank: Views from the
Israeli and Palestinian left; Cartoons and more... _

Tidbits - Reader Comments, Announcements AND cartoons - Aug 21, 2025,
xxxxxx

 

* THE SUMMIT - PUTIN PLAYIN' TRUMP  --  CARTOON BY SIEGFRIED
WOLDHEK
* THE SMITHSONIAN  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY NICK ANDERSON
* RE: TRUMP IS TAKING OVER D.C. POLICE BECAUSE HE’S A RACIST THUG
 (ROBERT LAITE; ELEANOR ROOSEVELT)
* CRIME WAVE IN D.C.  --  CARTON BY PETER KUPER
* DC DEPLOYMENT  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY KEVIN NECESSARY
* RE: IN THE HEART OF THE “COMMIE CORRIDOR” – MEET THE
CITY’S MOST PRO-ZOHRAN NEIGHBORHOOD.  (PAUL BUHLE; MARK NAISON;
NORA LAPIN)
* BABY, COME BACK!  --  CARTOON BY LALO ALCARAZ
* RE: DEAR LEFTIST: STOP ATTACKING AOC  (LAWRENCE DEBIVORT; HERB
DAVIS; LAWRENCE WINANS; MARGUERITE HORBERG; MIKE GLICK)
* THE WANNABE DICTATOR  --  CARTOON BY ANN TELNAES
* POLITICIZING THE MILITARY  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY NICK
ANDERSON
* RE: THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, AUG 20–26, 2025  (KAREN
LEE WALD)
* GOVERNMENT OR FOREIGN INVADER?  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY
JEN SORENSEN

.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:

* ZOOM FORUM - GAZA & THE WEST BANK: VIEWS FROM THE ISRAELI AND
PALESTINIAN LEFT  -- THIS SUNDAY, AUGUST 24  (PEACE COMMITTEE OF THE
WELLSTONE DEMOCRATIC RENEWAL CLUB)

.

.
 

THE SUMMIT - PUTIN PLAYIN' TRUMP  --  CARTOON BY SIEGFRIED WOLDHEK

 

 

Siegfried Woldhek
August 16, 2025
Piano Peace•Magical Piano Song
[[link removed]]

 

THE SMITHSONIAN  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY NICK ANDERSON

 

 

_President Trump says the Smithsonian is “OUT OF CONTROL.” Why?
Because its exhibits dare to show slavery for what it was
[[link removed]]—an
atrocity at the core of our nation’s founding and development.
He’s ordered his lawyers to comb through America’s museums,
hunting down the “woke” parts of history he finds uncomfortable.
The White House promises to “align” exhibits with the
president’s sunny vision of American “Brightness.”_
 

Nick Anderson
August 20, 2025
Pen Strokes [[link removed]]

 

RE: TRUMP IS TAKING OVER D.C. POLICE BECAUSE HE’S A RACIST THUG
 

When WWII ended, the Germans could destroy the evidence that they were
ever involved. Many destroyed any photos of themselves in uniform and
that generation knew how to keep their mouths shut. If America
survives passed MAGA, it won't be so easy. With digital pictures and
the internet, those pics will last forever. Your grandkids will know
who you were and which side you were on. Choose wisely.

Robert Laite
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

He's a Nazi. Use the word.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

CRIME WAVE IN D.C.  --  CARTON BY PETER KUPER

 

Peter Kuper
August 12, 2025
The New Yorker
[[link removed]]

 

DC DEPLOYMENT  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY KEVIN NECESSARY

 

 

_This cartoon was originally published on Pepperspectives. Click here
to subscribe to Pepperspectives [[link removed]],
where you’ll learn about the continuing threats to our democracy and
the actions you can take to help safeguard it._

_Donald Trump and his MAGA goons have yet again manufactured a crisis
where no crisis existed. Even though crime rates in Washington, DC,
have fallen in recent years, Trump has trumped up a fake crime
emergency as pretense to deploy National Guard troops to our
nation’s capital. This is just another part of TACO Don’s plan to
assert authoritarian control over the United States. We must stand
against fascism just as we did 80 years ago._

Kevin Necessary
August 20, 2025
Kevin Necessary [[link removed]]

 

RE: IN THE HEART OF THE “COMMIE CORRIDOR” – MEET THE CITY’S
MOST PRO-ZOHRAN NEIGHBORHOOD.
 

so hopeful to us old folks!

Paul Buhle
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

Woo Hoo! A lot of my former students live there!

Mark Naison
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

Interesting article.

Nora Lapin
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

BABY, COME BACK!  --  CARTOON BY LALO ALCARAZ

 

 

Lalo Alcaraz
August 20, 205
[link removed]
[[link removed]]

 

RE: DEAR LEFTIST: STOP ATTACKING AOC
 

I'm a leftist. Why in the world would make you think I'm attacking
AOC??? 

Lawrence deBivort

      =====

AOC judgement can be questioned and while I hope she gets the message,
we don't support Anything for Israel while they continue genocide.

Herb Davis

      =====

Dear xxxxxx,

I have never attacked AOC in my life. I wish she was my
Representative.   xxxxxx: STOP sending me email with defamatory
allegations.

Lawrence Winans, J.D.

      =====

How do you explain the vote for Israeli arms ?

Marguerite Horberg
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

Amen

Mike Glick
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

THE WANNABE DICTATOR  --  CARTOON BY ANN TELNAES

 

 

Ann Telnaes
August 19, 2025
Open Windows- Ann Telnaes
[[link removed]]

 

POLITICIZING THE MILITARY  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY NICK
ANDERSON

 

 

_The United States military has long drawn its strength from something
beyond weapons and warfighters: its reputation as a nonpartisan
institution. Our armed forces serve the Constitution, not any
political party or individual. That principle—once a bedrock of
American democracy—is now under siege.._

_President Donald Trump has repeatedly blurred the line between
military service and political loyalty. He has deployed the National
Guard to Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles over the objections of
local officials. He has staged military parades timed to his own
birthday. At Fort Bragg, he used a captive military audience to lead
boos against his political rivals
[[link removed]]._

_The administration started purging senior military leadership
[[link removed]] right
from the get-go in an unprecedented sweep—firing the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Navy chief, and the Air Force vice chief.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth openly mocked Admiral Lisa
Franchetti, the first woman on the Joint Chiefs, as a “DEI hire,”
and derided military lawyers as “jagoffs” who must be replaced
with more compliant officers._

_This is not just “shake-up” politics. It is a wholesale
politicization of the Pentagon._

_This purge, combined with the repeated deployment of the National
Guard for political spectacle in Los Angeles
[[link removed]] and
Washington, D.C.—with red state governors sending additional guard
troops
[[link removed]]—is
the clearest signal yet that America’s armed forces are being
transformed from a national institution into a partisan one. It is a
dangerous development—and history tells us exactly why._

_In 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered airstrikes against Iraq on
the same day the House was scheduled to vote on his
impeachment. Critics accused him of using the military as a
distraction from scandal
[[link removed]]. What
preserved the legitimacy of U.S. action wasn’t Clinton’s word—it
was Defense Secretary William Cohen, a Republican. Cohen’s
reputation for independence and honesty reassured Congress that the
strikes were based on national security needs, not politics._

_That credibility mattered. Cohen insulated the military from partisan
warfare, preserving its reputation as a professional, nonpartisan
force. It enabled the president to act abroad without ripping the
country apart at home._

_Contrast that with today’s climate. Trump has made no effort to
separate politics from the Pentagon. Quite the opposite: he is openly
reshaping military leadership around personal loyalty. Competence,
experience, and nonpartisanship are being discarded in favor of pliant
figures who echo the president’s rhetoric. When a defense secretary
calls the top officers of the U.S. military “DEI hires
[[link removed]]”
and the president dismisses them as “woke generals,” it is clear
the goal is not effectiveness—it is control._

_The deployment of the National Guard to Washington for political
theater, the spectacle of military parades doubling as campaign
rallies, and the purge of the Pentagon’s senior leadership—these
are not isolated moves. They are pieces of a strategy that treats the
military not as the nation’s shield but as one man’s stage prop._

_History shows the peril
[[link removed]] in
this. Once the military loses its reputation for independence, it
loses the trust of the public—and the ability to act credibly at
home or abroad. The U.S. armed forces must be seen as serving all
Americans, not one political movement._

_The danger here is not abstract. Civil-military experts warn
[[link removed]] that
impartial militaries are the firewall that separates democracy from
authoritarianism. Once military promotions and deployments are seen as
partisan, trust evaporates. Soldiers become pawns in political
battles, and the public comes to view the armed forces as an extension
of one man’s campaign. History shows where that road leads—and it
is not toward freedom. In nations where leaders politicized the armed
forces, those forces quickly became tools of repression rather than
defense._

_Which brings us to the most chilling question of all: Is Trump
normalizing military occupation of American cities?_

_The answer appears to be yes. Presidential memoranda used to justify
the deployments are deliberately vague, written so broadly they could
be invoked almost anywhere, anytime. Already, Trump has floated the
idea of sending troops into New York, Chicago, Baltimore, and Oakland.
His advisor Stephen Miller has openly framed the interventions as
punishment for “big blue cities.” This is not about national
defense. It is about political dominance._

_Congress, the courts, and the public must push back now. If
presidents are allowed to invent emergencies to deploy troops
domestically, bypassing governors and local authorities, then we have
abandoned civilian control of the military in everything but name._

_If the military becomes another partisan weapon, America will have
surrendered not only its security, but also the constitutional order
that generations of soldiers swore an oath to defend._

Nick Anderson
August 19, 2025
Pen Strokes
[[link removed]]

 

RE: THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, AUG 20–26, 2025
 

August 21 is also the date George Jackson was shot and killed in San
Quentin.

xxxxxx should never forget to include that.  His actions — and
those of people who followed his teachings and example, such as at
Attica— marked a historic change both for the prison movement and
black and progressive activists around the globe.

Karen Lee Wald

 

GOVERNMENT OR FOREIGN INVADER?  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY JEN
SORENSEN

 

 

_I’m hardly the first person to make the point that another country
could not do more damage to the US than what is being done from
within, but it did occur to me a long time ago that this was the case.
If you were an evil dictator trying to destroy and take over the US,
you could hardly to a better job than eliminating scientists and
medical researchers, healthcare infrastructure, highly qualified
military officers, basic corporate and environmental regulations, and
economic data statisticians — to name a few. You’d hobble the
government financially by plundering it. And you’d eventually put
troops in the streets to intimidate the public and quash civil
unrest._
 

Jen Sorensen
August 19, 2025
[link removed]
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To support this work and receive my weekly newsletter with background
on each cartoon, please consider _joining the Sorensen Subscription
Service! [[link removed]]_ 

 

ZOOM FORUM - GAZA & THE WEST BANK: VIEWS FROM THE ISRAELI AND
PALESTINIAN LEFT  -- THIS SUNDAY, AUGUST 24  (PEACE COMMITTEE OF THE
WELLSTONE DEMOCRATIC RENEWAL CLUB)

 

Please join us on zoom on SUNDAY, AUGUST 24 AT 10 AM for a special
meeting on the dire crisis facing Palestinians in Gaza and the West
Bank. PLEASE REGISTER
[[link removed]] IN
ADVANCE FOR THIS MEETING.

THE CO-EDITORS OF THE _PALESTINE-ISRAEL JOURNAL_ WILL SPEAK WITH US
FROM TEL AVIV AND JERUSALEM.  

 
Ziad AbuZayyad and Hillel Schenker receive the Outstanding
Contribution to Peace Award at the 2012 International Media Awards
Ceremony for their work as co-editors of the Palestine-Israel Journal.

_ZIAD ABUZAYYAD __is a former member of the Palestinian Legislative
Council (1996-2006), former minister of state in the Palestinian
Authority (1998-2002), and deputy chairman of the Political Committee
of the Euro-Med Parliament (2004-2005). AbuZayyad resides in Eizariah
(Bethany), a Palestinian suburb of East Jerusalem._

_HILLEL SCHENKER __is a member of the Policy Working Group (PWG), and
served as Vice Chair and Chair of Democrats Abroad – Israel
(2008-2016). He was involved in founding the Peace Now movement and
served for many years as spokesperson for the Israeli branch of
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).
Schenker resides in Tel Aviv._

PLEASE REGISTER
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ADVANCE FOR THIS MEETING.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing
information about joining the meeting.

In solidarity,

the Peace Committee of the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club

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