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As airports reach peak chaos amidst a government shutdown and massive departures by unpaid TSA agents, the regime's evil idiots moved to resolve their new quagmire by sending in the same brutal, ill-trained, much-despised ICE goons who caused the shutdown - and whose past abuses and corruption now daily come to light. The Beckett-esque result: Images of cranky travelers standing up to six hours in hellish lines overseen by aimlessly loitering henchmen: "Nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful."
Late-Stage-Capitalism-Calamity #764: We probably shouldn't be surprised the dumbest president in history abetted by the dumbest people making the dumbest mistakes should have gotten around to wrecking America's air travel after his "Derp State" already decimated all our other public endeavors, institutions and systems of governance - the economy and environment along with science, education, immigration, arts, health care, civil rights, criminal justice, international aid and foreign policy, which he brags he conducts by "speaking with myself, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
That must be why shameless GOP suck-ups just gave him another made-up award, after FIFA and his second-hand Nobel: a first-ever America First Award, per quivering Mike Johnson a "beautiful golden statue for the new golden era in America." Jimmy Kimmel: "You can almost feel his spine exiting his body.” Other takes on the new participation trophy: "Unbelievably, gaga cringe levels of pathetic." "This is the most snowflakiest president," "He should get a 'Most Mentions in Epstein Files Award,'" he got a "very special boy award (for) insecure man baby presidents,” and, from facepalming MS Now, "Stop! They did not make up another award for him!” Yes, they did.
Out in the grim real world, the partial shutdown has left nearly 50,000 TSA agents, most living paycheck to paycheck on as little as $45,000 a year, working without pay for weeks. Nearly 500 have quit, thousands daily call in sick. Union officials say many are sleeping in cars at airports to save gas money, selling blood, taking 2nd or 3rd jobs, defaulting on loans, getting eviction notices, and struggling to afford food and gas: “They’re over their heads in debt.” Denver airport issued a “DONATIONS NEEDED!” plea for grocery or gas gift cards; Seattle opened a TSA food pantry; Chef Andrés' World Central Kitchen, which usually feeds natural disaster victims in Third World countries, is serving hot meals at multiple airports because now we are one.
Meanwhile, per MLK's famed moral arc of the universe, the past atrocities of ICE/DHS - that we watched, raged at and suspected - slowly see the damning light of day. Some are unsurprising, some "jaw-dropping," all horrific. Conditions in detention centers remain "unbelievably inhumane." Interviews and new data show ICE surges consistently hurt the cities they hit, disrupting lives and businesses, stretching thin police departments, leaving budgets and residents scrambling to absorb the fallout. The impact was less drastic in cities, counties, states that declared “ICE-free zones,” but they still left only damage in their baleful wake.
Many people and places are still fighting for due process. Minnesota A.G. Keith Ellison and other state officials just filed a federal suit in D.C. to force Trump and his goons to stop obstructing state investigators seeking to hold accountable the murderers of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, whose masked killers, inconceivably, remain unnamed. The suit demands stonewalling federal officials hand over records and evidence - including Good's shrink-wrapped car in a storage facility - in the name of justice and their long history of cooperation. The DOJ's Todd Blanche: “We investigate when it’s appropriate. That is not the case here."
In another long-overdue quest for justice, 18 Venezuelan men, among at least 288 abducted from the US and trapped in El Salvador’s brutal CECOT prison last year without charges, have filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) demanding Salvador authorities be held accountable for a vast array of atrocities. They detail harrowing allegations of torture, sexual assault, medical neglect and sometimes daily beatings for 4 months that constitute what advocates term "a human rights catastrophe" - in a place where, victims say guards often boasted, "human rights did not exist."
Concurrently, the American players behind these obscenities continue to be revealed as...obscenities. In a vile exit interview with the Times, Nazi wannabe and Miller soul bro Greg Bovino, who faces multiple lawsuits from civil rights groups, said he only wishes "I'd caught even more illegal aliens." Bovino, who called immigrants "scum" and "trash" - pot/kettle - and argued "all illegal aliens are criminals," said he sought "total border domination." In his fever dreams, he wanted to deport 100 million people, far more than the number of undocumented immigrants; in surges, he'd declare, "This is our fucking city." Not any more, shitstain.
Sadly, (not) his bosses are likewise on the decline. Former ICE Barbie, in her new LOL fake job as "Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas," faces likely investigations for defying court orders, gross mismanagement of DHS and much perjury, including her claim in Senate testimony that her eww-boyfriend Corey Lewandowski didn't approve contracts, except for the multimillion ones he did, plus "success fees." Also, it seems she'll now report not to Rubio but a lowly lackey, and Lewandowski just got canned after photos posted by the US embassy in Guyana showed the pair in a "meeting" about "cartels," aka enjoying a tropical getaway on our dime.
Finally, in a "genuine bombshell, even by Trumpian standards," it turns out ICE lied for over a year to courts and prosecutors when they claimed a legal rationale for targeting and arresting thousands of asylum seekers at immigration courts. In court documents for a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of one of over 90 cases tracked, ICE lawyers admitted an ICE memo they long cited to justify the arrests in fact gave them no authorization for them and did not apply to immigration courts. As to the incalculable damage done by ICE to those thousands of innocents, Seth Magaziner offered a reminder of all the savage rest.
So sure, brilliant move all around to inflict ICE on America's airports, though they're getting paid but TSA agents all around them aren't, and a majority of the testy, trapped travelers already want to abolish them, and amidst the surreal packs of goons in "POLICE ICE” tactical vests, with handguns, radios, handcuffs, Tasers, extra magazines - but no masks - we haven't seen a single image of any of them doing anything but aimlessly loitering - standing, sitting, gabbing, milling, strolling, drinking coffee, scrolling through phones. Mostly, says one TSA dispatch from JFK Airport, "They're just standing - very uncomfortably, it seems like."
Huh. Is it possible the Stable Genius, who knows more about everything than anyone, who when he attacked Iran didn't view the Strait of Hormuz as a potential problem, who insists his imaginary talks with Iran are "going very well" - could it be this strategic mastermind didn't think the whole ICE thing through clearly? Naaah, said dumb and dumber porcine lout Tom Homan, who assured CNN's Dana Bash Sunday night of the wisdom of a plan in the works that would be ready Monday. If it's a plan coming together in 24 hours, she asked, how well thought out could it possibly be? Cue a perfect snapshot of a perfect shitshow.
"How much of a plan does it mean (sic) to guard an exit to make sure no one comes through that exit?" Homan retorted. "These officers are well trained in security and well trained in identification. We're just expanding the thing." "So," noted The Fucking News' Jonathan Larsen. "No plan." Also, "I'll tell you how much of a plan it means! It means at least some of a plan, that’s how much of it means!" Also, Homan magically turned 24 hours into 2-3 weeks in ICE-ese, never mind ICE officers aren't even well trained to do the job of ICE - terrorize brown people - let alone be well trained to pretend they're well trained TSA officers.
Despite these deeply satisfying assurances, people had questions about a Strait-of-Hormuz, what-could-possibly-go-wrong plan to have armed, racist, ill-trained, dumb-and-dangerous-as-a-bag-of-hammers men roaming chaotic airports possibly facing a greater risk of terrorist threats during a Middle Eastern war without any clearly defined tasks. Is the plan to lock down all airports and round up people of color and anyone who resists? Will going through the wrong exit get you shot? Will ICE dress like they're attacking Fallujah? Does ICE even know if we're supposed to take off our belt or our shoes, and which one to beat us with?.
Will there be one ICE person at the exit and 12 more armed with a skin-tone chart to more accurately target victims? If someone doesn't comply, which common ICE tactic will they use: a. Body slamming to the floor b. Tazing c. Non-lethal rounds into the eyes d. Shooting 9 times e. All of the above. Will ICE dress like a 16-year-old's video game avatar, and if the plan begins in 24 hours will they have time to buy grown-up clothes? Does ICE know the long list of what you can/can't bring on airplanes - tasers, brass knuckles, how much hand cream, which books will "require additional screening?" Orwell? Kafka? Epstein Files?
Will they argue that, "Fearing for his life and the lives of his fellow officers, our highly-trained agent fired defensive shots into the cockpit of the illegal alien pilot who was threateningly taxiing towards them, clearly attempting to ram the airport?" How will Bannon's "test run for the midterm elections" fare? Will newly, inexplicably confirmed DHS head Markwayne Mullin really "be fighting 365 days" beside workers not being paid "because of political politics," and why does he have two first names? Will ICE heed the jittery traveler who begged one, "Stop following us, please. Stop following us. Stop following us. Please."
A TSA union head said he's unsure how ICE is helping; so far, he’s seen some "give out bad directions" that ended in the parking area. Some workers say they're creating "a vibe of anxiety... Putting untrained personnel at security checkpoints does not fill a gap. It creates one." And crises have arisen. Long lines delayed investigators going to Sunday's fatal collision at LaGuardia Airport. A viral video showed ICE thugs at San Francisco, reportedly tipped off by TSA, detain a Guatemala-born woman and her crying daughter as other travelers protested. DHS claimed they had an order of removal that pre-dated the airport deployment, but city and state officials reiterated, "ICE is not welcome in San Francisco."
In Philadelphia, where about half the airport’s TSA checkpoints are open, city and labor leaders blasted the ICE presence as "political theater" that creates a hostile environment while TSA agents, over half people of color, work "day in, day out without pay." It also enrages other union workers who've seen relatives deported: “Trump has broken everything.” DA Larry Krasner threatened to jail ICE agents if they "make it look anything like what you did in the streets of Minneapolis." "This is how it works," he said. "You commit crimes within (our) jurisdiction, I prosecute you...I will put you in handcuffs...in a courtroom, and if necessary, in a jail cell...And no, I don’t take a phone call from the president saying ‘Let em go.’ The president cannot pardon you."
The president, as usual, has waffled, balked and veered through the airport crisis: Blaming Dems who "want our Country to fail," insisting "no deal" until they support his Save America (sic) voter suppression bill, mindlessly menacing, "NO MORE WAITING, NO MORE GAMES!”, pivoting to how he might "look at" a deal but whatever it is "I’m pretty much not happy with it." Maybe simply to trigger Dems, he's praised the unfairly maligned "beautiful patriots of ICE" who are "so proud to be there!" Though they're hated and are doing nothing, "The Public is loving ICE." Also, bewilderingly, "They just happen to have much larger and harder muscles than most." Umm.
Amidst America's carnage, ICE in airports is still surreal enough to inspire parody. From Colbert, an ICE meterology report. From The Daily Show, ICE PreCheck (with handcuffs) that speeds you through airport security: "Just pull up to the curb and a friendly masked agent will drag you by your hair directly to your gate...We choose your destination," like South Sudan. Back at the real, stressed, 6-hour-line airport, it's unclear what if any impact the roaming ICE gangs have except adding to the anxiety. Houston - Heaven, Hell, or Houston - has the highest numbers of TSA callouts. The smaller William Hobby Airport has 43%, George Bush International has almost 40%, and is, writes Hunter Lazzaro, "Hell."
"We found it," he declares. Hell is an hours-long line snaking through a dirty never-ending corridor, "carrying your luggage along, an inch at a time, staring at the backs of hundreds of other damned souls all carrying their own luggage." The hallway "extends to eternity." On bad speakers, Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA "plays forever. It never ends." On monitors, Kristi Noem "drones on about immigrants and the greatness of your nation." Sometimes, "packs of ICE agents wander by. Their job is guns." "The long hallway is the most patriotic place in the whole of the country." "There are no planes. There is no runway. There is no Terminal C. You will never reach the security checkpoint, because it is an illusion...an image painted on fog....Houston's Guernica...And the goddamn Lee Greenwood song is still playing. It should have ended by now. It should have ended yesterday...What day is it? Where were we going?... Eternal banality. God Bless the USA.
"You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on." - The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett

This weekend, former Marine, combat veteran, FBI Director and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who tragically failed to take down a treacherous sociopath, died of Parkinson’s disease at 81. In response, said sociopath took a moment out from his botched, illegal, calamitous war to giddily declare of a man widely deemed "a cut above" who for five decades served his country not himself, "Good, I’m glad he’s dead," thus proving for the 7,648th time what a twisted, vile, piece-of-shit human being he is.
In what one observer calls "an epic tale of diverging American elites," both men, born just two years apart, were raised in privilege in Northeastern cities. Before famously heading the sprawling, two-year investigation into collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign, Mueller lived a long life of patrician public service, much of it defending the rule of law as a registered Republican, which stood in sharp contrast to Private Bonespur's grimy, relentless pursuit of private profit. Mueller grew up in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb; he once said that within the "strict moral code" of his father, a DuPont executive, "A lie was the worst sin." He went to prep school, Princeton, NYU, and then, with the Vietnam War unfurling, Quantico and Army Ranger School.
A former athlete and newly forged Marine, he didn't just volunteer for Vietnam; he spent a year waiting for an injured knee to heal so he could serve. In 1968, he arrived in Vietnam a green Second Lieutenant, serving as a rifle platoon leader in Hotel Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Division. With his Ivy League background - his senior thesis was on African territorial disputes before the International Court of Justice - he was met with skepticism but quickly earned respect as a thorough, quiet, "no-bullshit guy" who maintained his composure even in the intense combat of some of the war's bloodiest battles. After being wounded, rescuing one of his men and being airlifted out, he earned a Bronze Star with Valor, a Purple Heart and multiple other medals.
Though he rarely talked about Vietnam, he credited the Marines with instilling in him a lifelong drive and discipline. In a speech years later, he said he felt "exceptionally lucky" to have survived the war and so felt "compelled to contribute.” He went to law school, served as a prosecutor in California, was a US attorney for Massachusetts and California, and oversaw several high-level DOJ investigations before Bush nominated him as director of the FBI; he was sworn in a week before 9/11. He served for 12 years, the longest tenure since J. Edgar Hoover, under both GOP and Democratic presidents. Even at the upper reaches of power, he was respected for remaining determinedly non-partisan in his unwavering belief that nobody was above the law.
Appointed Special Counsel in May 2017 amidst political turmoil, he kept a stoic silence; he said nothing publicly about the Russia investigation, and his careful team of prosecutors leaked nothing. The probe issued 34 indictments - Manafort, Flynn, Gates, Stone etc - and named ten instances of Trump's obstruction of justice, but failed to indict him. Ultimately, in the view of many desperate Americans breathlessly awaiting rescue, Mueller waffled. To a House Judiciary Committee's query about his decision not to prosecute, he clarified, "We made a decision not to decide whether to prosecute." It was way too nuanced for a wee MAGA brain. It was also fatally lame. He added if they "had confidence" Trump didn't commit obstruction of justice, "We would so state. We are unable to reach that judgment.” But by then nobody was listening.
Some argue Mueller was "set up to fail," if not by temperament then by an already broken system n the hands of corrupt players.. A too-narrow mandate focused on Russia, "one slice of a much larger conspiracy," ignored "a multiplex of enemies of democracy," from oligarchs to Saudis. And slimy Bill Barr, aka “Coverup-General Barr” for stonewalling scandals from Iran-Contra to Epstein, deliberately undermined the entire process by releasing a four-page summary of a complex, 448-page report so wildly distorted Mueller himself protested it "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of his work. Barr's conclusion - “No collusion, no obstruction" - was "a lie, but an effective one." No one was held accountable. Perfidious mission accomplished.
Mueller's death, nearly five years after his Parkinson's diagnosis, prompted a wide range of responses indicative of a ruptured nation. Some found him directly responsible for Trump being, not in prison where he belongs but free to practice "the cascading criminality that has defined his public life." "I will NOT lionize someone who (failed) at the earliest opportunity to STOP this madness," one critic wrote. "Two things can be true at one time. Mueller was a patriot. And Mueller's lasting legacy is allowing Barr to bully him into silence." Friends and colleagues praised "a person of the greatest integrity" who remained "committed to the rule of law" and whose "courage could never be questioned.” Wrote former Obama A.G. Eric Holder, "Bob made the nation better."
Then there's the irredeemable, "petty, shameful, despicable," "vile and disgusting" cretin who insulted John McCain, called America's war dead “losers” and “suckers,” was disgusted by wounded troops - "No one wants to see that" - savagely mocks the weak, poor or disabled and ceaselessly "shows his basic indecency and unfitness for office," or life. “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead," he crowed. "He can no longer hurt innocent people!” Then, malevolently driving home the tragic consequences of his moral and political Pyrrhic victory for all to lament, he signed his revolting post, “President DONALD J. TRUMP." Hamlet, what a falling off was there. Our vast, inexplicable catastrophe: "Sadly, this is the president we have."
And his "priorities." On Sunday, he put on the White House grounds a (fenced-off) statue of Christopher Columbus built from one tossed into Baltimore’s harbor in 2020 by "rioters," aka peaceful protesters for racial justice. America was overjoyed: No more war, health care for all, affordable food and gas, justice for Epstein survivors! Let them eat statues! And let the GOP's core values - spite and stupidity - reign. Around (a deranged) midnight, he wrote, “PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, TO PUT IT MILDLY!" After his post on Mueller's death, the folks at Zeteo wrote the White House asking - think Charlie Kirk - if it's ok others react like Trump at his passing. Shockingly, no response as yet. In their foul miasma, they likely don't know: It'll be the Second Coming, but with a despised shitstain going. Oh, how the herald angels will sing, and a ravaged, weary world, rejoice.

Living in not just the bleakest but dumbest timeline, we must now witness the "off the charts clownfuckery" that is the spectacle of quivering, grown-ass Trump lackeys faithfully, fearfully shuffling around the halls of power in his fave "old-man-from-Queens" shoes - most ill-sized - foisted on them in some weird submission ritual by a sociopath with daddy issues. What he evidently doesn't know: A. They're made in China, B. Their company is suing him for his illegal tariffs. Up next: Kim Jong Un haircuts for all.
The latest manifestation of Trump's petty megalomania came to light when astute observers noticed that first Lil Marco Rubio, then other White House buffoons were sporting the same often-too-large shoes, which all turned out to be the $145, black oxford Florsheims regularly worn and touted by Trump. In a cringe origin story recounted by cringe JD Vance, the Favorite Florsheims Saga began at a December meeting in the Oval Bordello when Trump, always laser-focused, began staring at people’s feet and abruptly declared, "You guys have shitty shoes." He asked their shoe sizes. He (likely) ignored/forgot them. The shoes started arriving. He mercilessly badgered them: "Did you get the shoes?" And the dutiful flunkies, having already "left their manhood pickled in a golden jar on Trump’s desk," took on the latest indignity of clomping around in their sadist dad's shoes.
Rubio, Vance, Hegseth, Duffy, Lutnick, Lindsey Graham, Sean Hannity. "All the boys have them,” said a female White House official. "It's hysterical, because everybody’s afraid not to wear them." Beware Trump bearing gifts: Armchair analysts took the shoe pageantry and ran with it. It's an ugly game of subjugation, an abuser's way of exhibiting dominance over minions like the belligerent handshake, belittling nicknames, savage put-downs if any inferior dares to question or stray. It's a piece of "exquisite and complex satire" about the juvenile male anxiety over penis size. It's a humiliation ritual by a small, hollow, clueless, malignant narcissist with "a black hole of insecurity for a dog shit soul" whose only vestige of sense of self is divulged in a vulgar, outlandish brand - fake hair, fake tan, golf cap, red tie, beloved archaic "mall shoes" - he flaunts before his cowering vassals.
Historically, it's also a classic move by totalitarian leaders intent on establishing political and psychological fealty. See Mao jackets, Heil Hitlers, Stalin humiliating the clumsy Khrushchev by making him dance at his parties, Trump's Cabinet meetings become groveling, ring-and-ass-kissing circle jerks. Shoes can be a potent symbol in a performance: Khrushchev, in power, banging his shoe at the UN to punctuate his threat, "We will bury you"; an Iraqi protester hurling one, then two, in Arab culture "ritually unclean" shoes at Bush - who deftly dodged - at a Baghdad presser to show ultimate contempt; clowns of any variety, circus to MAGA, rendered most foolish in flapping massive flotsam. Imagine preening Pete Hegseth, who just banned un-hot photos of himself, with his tight suits and he-man Nazi tattoos, squeezed into or swimming in sloppy clunkers.
Adding insult to injury for these lame heroes of the manosphere, Florsheims are deeply uncool, "a brand you last saw when you were cleaning out your dead grandpa’s room and they were under his bed." Like most things, they're also the brainchild of immigrants, launched in Chicago in 1892 by German immigrant Sigmund Florsheim and his eldest son Milton. At its peak through two World Wars, a $5 pair of "genuine Florsheims" reportedly sold every 4 seconds; a timely gag in the great Chinatown, set in 1937, has Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes wading through diverted muddy water and scowling, "Goddamn Florsheims!" Its website boasts of "a reputation for being at the forefront of the newest trends while staying true to a legacy (of) quality craftsmanship"; in truth, they're now mostly found in downscale shopping malls and discount stores, struggling to escape a rep as relics of the past.
Today, Florsheim's belongs to parent company Weyco Group Inc. Unsurprisingly - so much again for the Klan-redolent "America First" mantra - they're made overseas in India, China, Cambodia, Dominican Republic. They seem to have a reasonably modern (sorry, "woke") worldview, with Black models and a Sustainability In Action program. And they're suing Trump - atypically, not just multiple federal agencies, but Trump himself - seeking refunds plus interest for the "unprecedented power grab" of his unlawful, unilaterally levied tariffs "without notice, public comment or Congressional authorization." SCOTUS already struck them down last month, citing the possible "mess" of upcoming "refunds of billions of dollars"; on March 4, a U.S. Trade Court judge basically said have at it when he ordered the regime to start paying those ill-begotten billions.
For now, the case is stayed. But many other companies are demanding their money back, and so is a coalition of two dozen states. As the pitchforks come out, online wags stay busy devising shoe puns: toeing the line, holding your tongue, comments laced with wit, heels with no soles, an ad for Sieg Heels: "Nobody puts the step in goosestep like Sieg Heels!” Meanwhile, our Führer's debased lickspittles stumble across the world stage, tripping on their own moral cowardice en route to the apocalypse. They need to remember Solzhenitsyn’s elemental advice in Gulag Archipelago: “Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding." Or, God forbid, flapping their fucking, war-mongering, world-razing clown shoes.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Woefully belatedly but seeking hope and light, we honor the remarkable life of Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson, who over six decades "stepped forward again and again and again" to fight for racial, social, economic justice for millions of the disenfranchised. At a moving "Homegoing," his grown children offered soul-stirring tributes to the impassioned, "prophetic voice" of a man of faith who doggedly "opened doors, kicked them down when necessary, so that others were no longer locked out....You fought a good fight."
On March 6 and 7, two gatherings of prayers, pride, tears, laughs, eulogies and gospel music sought in their own singular ways to celebrate the long rich life life of Jesse Jackson - pastor, activist, organizer, two-time presidential candidate, and head of an ever-evolving "rainbow coalition” of the poor and dispossessed that sought to bridge all conceivable divides. When Jackson died in February at age 84, he was hailed as "a civil rights giant," and he was. On April 4, 1968 in Memphis, the then-26-year-old aide to Martin Luther King was standing in the courtyard below the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, talking to King moments before he was shot and killed. Jackson carried on King's work in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference until 1971, when he resigned amidst leadership changes to form what became the Rainbow PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) Coalition.
But his work grew ever broader, working for decades on multiple fronts for multiple social justice issues in America and around the world. He pushed for voting rights, Native rights, Palestinian rights, welfare rights, tenants' rights, prisoners' rights, women's and gay and trans rights; he led boycotts, fair wage battles, union organizing campaigns; he fought against apartheid in South Africa and helped facilitate the release of U.S. hostages in Iran. He spent years spreading the mantra, per his iconic 1972 appearance on Sesame Street with a ragtag, multi--hued bunch of kids, "I am somebody." A simple message with a big meaning, it hit its mark again and again. "When I hear the phrase 'I am somebody,'" said 13-year-old Daniel Russell-Vincent, attending the March 6 People’s Celebration with his parents, "that makes me think, 'You're going to have something to do with this world.'"
That official, five-hour gathering - video here - was held at the 10,000-seat sanctuary of the House of Hope Church on Chicago’s South Side. It drew three former US presidents, white and black pols from Maxine Waters (87) to Tennessee's Justin Pearson (31), local pastors and dignitaries, the presidents of Congo and South Africa, and thousands of regular Chicagoans who skipped work, drove for hours, and stood in long lines to "show up and say what (Jesse) meant to us, and more importantly what he stood for....Every single person here has a Jesse Jackson story." "The city of Chicago shared him with the whole world," said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. "He was ours, and we were his." "This man has been here my whole life, saying, 'I got you,'" said Detroit Pistons Hall of Famer Isaiah Thomas, who grew up on Chicago’s West Side. "That's what Rev. Jesse Jackson means to us in Chicago."
The speeches were eloquent. Bill Clinton: "He lived a big life. He lived with his head and with his heart." Kamala Harris: "He did not waste time waiting, even when the doors in front of him were barred and bolted." Joe Biden: "Jesse kept hope alive for us." Barack Obama, with the stately oratory he draws on in moments of loss, spoke of a child of a poor single mother whose father rejected him, whose first political act was to lead seven black students into a whites-only college library, where they sat down, refused to leave and "got arrested for reading. Think about that. That's how freedom opens its doors." In the Book of Isaiah, he said, "God is looking for a messenger to guide a hardened and resistant people, and the Lord asks, 'Who shall I send?' to which Isaiah replies, 'Here I am, Lord, send me.' Send me, Jesse said, even as a young man. And the world got a little bit better."
He recounted Jackson's life, from his sharecropper family to the Chicago Theological Seminary to Operation Breadbasket to, after MLK's murder, a "country weary of the idea of justice," where "a talker with his immense gifts...rose above despair, and kept that righteous flame alive." "When the poor and dispossessed needed a champion and the country needed healing, the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson stepped forward again and again and again, and said, 'Send me,'" Obama declared, "even while growing up in a world separate and unequal, a world designed to tell a child that he or she could only go so far...'I am somebody.' He was talking about everyone who was left out, everyone who was forgotten, everyone who was unseen (and) unheard. And in that sense he was expressing the very essence of what our democracy should be, the ideals at the very heart of the American experiment."
Jackson also "paved the way for so many to follow." In 1984, as another child of a single mom and new college grad "with good intentions but uncertain how to serve," living in a "janky apartment" with a rabbit-eared-TV, he saw Jackson "own" his first presidential debate. Drawn to Chicago as a young organizer, he went to PUSH headquarters on Saturday mornings "to listen and learn...and when Jesse called your name, you stood up a little straighter (to) make things right." Today, "it can be hard to hope," when each day "you wake up to things you didn’t think were possible" - greed, bigotry, ignorance, cruelty - and "it's tempting to just put your head down and wait for the storm to pass." "But this man," he said, voice breaking, pointing to the coffin, "inspires us to take a harder path. He calls on us (to) be messengers of hope, to step forward and say, 'Send me'...'Cause if we don't step up, no one else will."
The next day, a private, emotional "Homegoing" at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters drew local leaders, allies, friends and family to a celebration where several of Jackson's six grown kids - all at the podium, proof "he raised smart, God-fearing children" - gave searing speeches that often drew tears and amen's from the lively crowd. (Full, moving video here). Jackson had been in failing health for several years; his daughter Jacqueline, his main caregiver, thanked the thousands of doctors, nurses, cooks, Uber drivers and other caretakers who helped him through that time. His son Yusef, who now leads the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, vowed their work will continue "in his name." His eldest son Jesse Jackson Jr., seeking to tell the crowd "who my daddy was" and often weeping as he did, wove a forceful, complex tale that moved from light to darkness and back again.
"We are burying our father today," he declared with feeling, before praising his father's "consistent, prophetic voice." "Who was Jesse Jackson?" he asked. "To the political class that took up most of his time, he was a stranger awaiting a return phone call, reminding (them) of the urgency of the hour." At the same time, critiquing the former day's speeches portraying his father in strictly political terms, he insisted that as a Baptist minister and man of faith "he had a tense relationship with the political order," not based on race or party but "on his unyielding advocacy for the disinherited, the damned, the dispossessed, the disrespected." As such, he demanded solutions "deeply rooted in his own Christian faith," in "his own sense of urgency," and in "the daily lives of (those) he sought to raise up...He took the ministry from Sunday morning, and he delivered it to the people.”
He was also "a funny man, an enjoyable man," he noted. When he was born, his father was doing voter registration work in Selma, and was so overwhelmed by his son's birth "he almost named me Selma." But there were dark times as well: "Being Jesse has not been easy - such was the name of Jesse Jackson." A former Congressman, Jackson Jr. struggled with bipolar depression, and ended up doing time in prison after a 2013 campaign fraud conviction ended his 17-year political career. He tearfully described feeling despair "in the hole," pleading with his father to "get me outta here," and his father urging, "Hold your head up high, son." (Jackson Sr. sought a pardon from Biden, who refused it.) In his soaring, painful, heartfelt eulogy, Jackson Jr. described his father as a transformative figure who "we turned to in our lowest hours...We are better because he lived."
He was echoed by his brother and U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, who in a soaring speech called their father "a miracle, a special occurrence, a force of nature (who) would not be denied." He praised "the iterations of Jesse Jackson Sr. we have seen...Born to be a nobody, he was too tall to hide, too poor to be included, too black to be respected, too bold to be ignored...Look at what the Lord has done." Above all, he said his father was not a politician but "a public servant." The measure of his humanity: "Only somebody who's been claimed by something greater than themselves can stand up for people whose names they don't even know. My father tried to help somebody, to love somebody, to let every child know he is somebody. My father wanted to make sure the world he was leaving was better than the world he was born into. He tried to make the crooked way straight."
Jesse Louis Jackson was, of course, fully human. For decades, he tried mightily, and sometimes he failed. But, his son argued, "He honored the ideals of the Constitution more than any of the 25 slave-holders who signed it in their hypocrisy, and he believed in America more than America believed in itself." Calling out to his father's many mentors - Martin Luther KingJr., Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Nehru, Gandhi, Castro, all the freedom fighters - Jonathan said, "We have not forgotten, and we will keep fighting for the peacemakers, for civil rights, for equity, diversity, inclusion." Rise, Jesse, rise. Amidst the base, ghastly human dregs that now inhabit our national landscape and wield harrowing power over it, here lived a great man. May he rest in peace and power.
