I searched for roseanne's post from last year, remembering how meaningful it was ~ sadly, if anything, it's even MORE meaningful today ~ as roseanne says: "... if you can celebrate, do so with abandon for what was and what can be. " ~ oh ... and please keep your fingers crossed that the WDC "celebration" gets washed out with massive thunder storms today ~ Sooz

A Facebook friend memed this ... and I agree 100% ~ ~ Sooz

Found an opinion piece that seems to fit here.

Opinions | Goodbye, America! Tanks for everything!

Well, America, it has been great.

On the Fourth of July, President Trump and his followers are taking over the Mall and the Lincoln Memorial, as tanks roll down the streets and jets fly overhead. The Park Service has diverted $2.5 million to pay for this extravagance. This, apparently, is a Salute to America, some sort of combination birthday-retirement-funeral? It is unclear where America is going, but you certainly seem to be on your way out.

Since you’ve invited us to this party, America, the girls and I wanted to get together and do something sort of special before you leave for good. We all signed a card. We put our John Hancocks on it and cried, thinking back to when we first saw you, to that big document with the enormous signature and a few dozen other, smaller signatures on it, which meant that a brand-new idea was in the world.

We’ve had some times, America. Who would have thought that some 18th-century men objecting to paying taxes without representation would have been responsible for so much liberty, so many milestones and such a weird cheese?

Truly what was up with that cheese? It managed to give the impression of still being wrapped in a thin layer of plastic even when removed from its thin layer of plastic. It was always partially melted. Its aftertaste clung to the roof of your mouth for hours, long after the thing itself was gone.

Sorry, I got distracted. This day is supposed to be about you. You were very protective of your flag, but you also were chill about it when people wanted to burn it as a protest. You sort of let people do their own thing, but you had values. It was a good balance, eventually.

Oh man, remember when you gave up drinking for a hot second, though? You were a mess. I’m glad that’s not happening still.

Remember that time you built the Hoover Dam? Remember the Gold Rush? Man, remember that speech from William Jennings Bryan, about being crucified on a cross of gold? I remember we looked at each other like, is this guy for real? We can agree now that that was a little dramatic, can’t we? Woof! Remember populism? Oh man, remember “The Wizard of Oz”? Did we ever figure out what that was a metaphor for?

Remember Daniel Webster? Didn’t he make a deal with Satan, or something?

I know I complained about how you would try to get everyone to sing a song about you, and the fact that it was an unsingable drinking song! Can we all agree, now, that it was not singable? Maybe it was a metaphor.

I don’t know why I’m crying. It’s fine. I am sure whoever comes to fill this position next will do a good job, even if they are not represented by a confusing goateed uncle in a loud outfit drawn by Thomas Nast, as you were. It was a weird choice, but one that I gradually became fond of. And I’m sure wherever you go next, you’re going to be very happy. Even if I don’t like it, personally.

You know what, no. I’m going to say it. You spend all this time hanging out with creepy autocrats, and I think something is starting to rub off. What is this whole event? Why are there tanks? This isn’t like you at all. You weren’t perfect as you were, but — I don’t like this new you.

I just — I wish we weren’t saluting you like this.

You’ve been a mess, sometimes. That is an enormous understatement. A mess, a disappointment, a mass of divisions and contradictions. But at your best, you were really something. I’m starting to wonder if you weren’t irreplaceable. Without you, who is going to welcome the poor, the hungry, the downtrodden, the masses yearning to breathe free? That was your whole thing, but if the photos I’ve seen from the border lately are any indication, with people crowded into unthinkable conditions for months and days, you seem to have given up on that.

It doesn’t seem like you, to just not care about what happens there. Maybe that was you once, but — I really thought —

And this Donald Trump guy — what do you see in him? Is this for the long haul? Because I wish you wouldn’t, America. I really wish you wouldn’t change yourself so much for him. No, that is not quite right. I guess, rather, he brings out the parts of you that I always hated the most. I wish you were with someone who did not do that.

But it’s not up to me. It’s up to you and your electoral college.

No, I’m sorry. This is supposed to be a salute.

We will try to remember you — not quite as you were; we have never been good at remembering exactly that. But certainly not as you are now.

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/opinion/o ... ailsignout

I heard that Trump's "speech" was a complete disaster.

FTR, I intentionally did not watch any of the DiC's preening ~ I'm culling thru the various reports now ~ while the majority seem to be VERY negative, a few are surprisingly mild ~ more soon ~

Sooz

It's hearsay, as I wasn't interested in hearing it at all.

From what I understand, except for his claims the revolutionary army of 1776, started the revolution by occupying the country's airports and that "American" Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone his speech wasn't as bad as it could have been. Certainly the manufactured crowd his minions were able to bribe to attend were thrilled.

Happy 4th everyone.... or as my UK friends call it, Happy Treason Day! lol
Hope everyone is well. Have a great summer!

Don't forget that the Continental Army was named after George Washington.

Huh? I heard it was named after Lincoln Continental. Does no one remember President Continental?

Great to know you're still alive and kicking, Del! ~ you and your music posts have been missed ~ hope all is good w/you ~

Sooz

Ditto!

Bankruptcy has been his signature business model for decades, so .....

Trump’s Fourth of July event and weekend protests bankrupted D.C. security fund, mayor says

President Trump’s overhauled Fourth of July celebration cost the D.C. government about $1.7 million, an amount that — combined with police expenses for demonstrations through the weekend — has bankrupted a special fund used to protect the nation’s capital from terrorist threats and provide security at events such as rallies and state funerals.

In a letter to the president Tuesday, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) warned that the fund has been depleted and is estimated to be running a $6 million deficit when the current fiscal year ends Sept. 30. The mayor also noted that the account was never reimbursed for $7.3 million in expenses from Trump’s 2017 inauguration.

Bowser requested that the White House fully reimburse the fund. Without that money, city officials say, Washingtonians will be put in the unprecedented position of funding federal security needs with local tax dollars.

“We ask for your help with ensuring the residents of the District of Columbia are not asked to cover millions of dollars of federal expenses and are able to maintain our high standards of protection for federal events,” Bowser wrote.

White House spokesman Judd Deere said in an email that Trump administration officials “have received the letter and will respond in a timely manner.”

He did not address the specific concerns Bowser raised.

“President Trump led our nation in a great Salute to America and recognized the brave sacrifice our service men and women have made throughout history,” Deere said.

Chris Rodriguez, director of the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, said in an interview that the estimated costs for the Fourth of July were six times as much as in years past and were likely to grow as the city continues to tally expenses.

The president’s Independence Day celebration, called the “Salute to America,” included a speech by Trump at the Lincoln Memorial, flyovers by military aircraft and a display of armored vehicles on the Mall.

The Pentagon estimated this week that it spent $1.2 million for the event. In a letter Wednesday to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Interior Secretary David Bernhardt confirmed that he had diverted $2.8 million from existing accounts to cover expenses associated with “Salute to America.” Bernhardt tapped $2.5 million in entrance and recreation fees, intended to improve parks across the country, to cover the president’s ceremony, along with $354,000 from a challenge-grant program to pay for fireworks-related expenses.

Interior is “clearly within the bounds of its authority in taking these actions,” Bernhardt wrote, noting that the funds “have long been used by the National Park Service for celebratory events to enhance the visitor experience and to provide critical safety when there is a temporary influx of people.”

The agency spent $500,000 on the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commemoration and the related 2009 rededication of the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall, Bernhardt noted.

All told, this year’s Independence Day celebration on the Mall cost taxpayers at least $9.15 million, according to government estimates. That included nearly $3.9 million for the Capitol Fourth Concert on the U.S. Capitol’s West Lawn, an expenditure specifically designated by Congress.

The changes to the nation’s premier Independence Day celebration stoked protests of the president at what is typically an apolitical event, with demonstrators flying a “Trump Baby” balloon near the World War II Memorial.

On Saturday, some of the president’s supporters gathered at a rally organized by right-wing activists on Freedom Plaza. That event also drew a large counterprotest, and hundreds of police officers were deployed to prevent violence between the two sides.

The District’s Emergency Planning and Security Fund is filled by federal money that reimburses the city for its unique public safety costs in its function as the nation’s capital. Those include providing security at presidential inaugurations, visits by foreign dignitaries and huge rallies, which have become more frequent during the Trump administration.

Kim Dine, a former assistant D.C. police chief and former chief of the U.S. Capitol Police, said no other police department in the country faces such constant pressure from large events and from political figures’ security needs.

The challenges are compounded, he said, by the lack of a state or county police force to provide support — although District officers frequently partner with other agencies, such as the U.S. Park Police, Capitol Police and the Secret Service.

“Managing those types of events is almost like choreographing a ballet or directing a play. There’s a lot of different moving parts,” Dine said.

“I don’t know that there’s any department that could pick that [expense] up by themselves,” he said. “Sharing the costs, at least in our view, is inherent in taking on all those duties.”

Although it once carried large balances from year to year, the city’s emergency security fund has dwindled since Trump’s election.

The Trump administration and Congress still owe the District more than $7 million in expenses from Trump’s $27.3 million inauguration, according to federal and city financial records.

By contrast, the Obama administration reimbursed $8.9 million in overruns for the 2013 inauguration, federal records show.

Trump administration officials say the District agreed to use unspent money in the emergency fund to pay for inaugural costs and have not asked for additional dollars, an assertion denied by Bowser’s office.

Congress and the White House have been placing less money in the account each year than the city is spending — in fiscal 2017, for example, $14.9 million was added to the fund, while $24.4 million was spent.

Bowser said in her letter to Trump that the December funeral of former president George H.W. Bush also contributed to the fund’s depletion.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District’s nonvoting representative in Congress, said she will request an emergency infusion of $6 million to keep the security fund from going into the red.

Norton and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) last month wrote a letter to leaders of the House and Senate appropriations committees with a similar request.

“This has become dangerous,” Norton said in an interview, noting that the city’s police force is simultaneously contending with gun violence that is contributing to a rise in homicides compared with this time last year.

“It is about the worst time for a deficit to continue to mount for the District’s role in what amounts to homeland security for the nation and the nation’s capital,” Norton said.

Rodriguez, the city’s homeland security director, said the District won’t cut back on its local law enforcement duties or federal security presence, even as the emergency fund runs out.

The difference, he said, will be who pays.

“We will continue to provide those services,” he said. “It’s just, in this case, D.C. taxpayers are the ones that are going to have to foot the bill for it.”

SOURCE

Multiple videos and links at source including link to Mayor's letter

Why? What's wrong with a denial of service until the feds pay their bills?

And why isn't D.C. suing the shyster and his campaign for outstanding bills?