Tag: holidays
Donald Trump

On Juneteenth, 'Laziest Man In The World' Complains About Federal Holidays

Even though he refrained from mentioning Juneteenth by name, President Donald Trump spent part of his evening on June 19th complaining about people not working on federal holidays.

"Too many non-working holidays in America," Trump wrote on his Truth Social account on Thusday. "It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed. The workers don’t want it either! Soon we’ll end up having a holiday for every once working day of the year. It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

Bulwark contributor Sam Stein posted a screenshot of Trump's post and observed that during his 2020 bid for the presidency, he ran on making Juneteenth a federal holiday. One X user also made that observation and openly wondered what happened to Trump's so-called "Platinum Plan" for Black Americans, which included an official declaration of Juneteenth — which commemorates the official end of chattel slavery in the United States - as a federal holiday.

Podcaster and comedian Gabe Sanchez called Trump a "racist POS" for "complaining about federal holidays on Juneteenth." Progressive influencer Harry Sisson pointed out that Trump was criticizing federal holidays despite golfing on the taxpayers' dime.

"Not only is he trying to make you work MORE but also he’s taking an apparent dig at Juneteenth," Sisson wrote. "This is coming from the same guy who golfs every weekend. Pathetic."

"You can’t make this up: First he tries to take credit for it. Now he’s mad people have the day off," liberal commentator Brian Krassenstein tweeted. "Pick a lane, Donnie."

"Laziest man in the world wants you to work harder," author Shannon Watts posted on X.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Why We Should Still Be Giving Thanks

Why We Should Still Be Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is the most American of holidays. But there is something almost un-American about it. It is a day opposed to striving, to getting more. We stop adding up the numbers on the scorecard of life. We freeze in place and give thanks for whatever is there.

The Wall Street Journal once featured sob stories about failed dot-com entrepreneurs. People still in their twenties and thirties spoke painfully of their disappointments. They had planned to make many millions on internet startups, but the dot-com market crashed before they could pile up the first seven figures.

One 29-year-old had joined a new company that paid "only" $38,000 a year (about $64,000 in today's dollars). His business school classmates were averaging $120,000 at traditional firms. Others talked of working outrageously long hours. When their dot-com closed its doors, they had little personal life to fall back on.

Our culture does not encourage contentment with what we have. This is the land of the upgrade. One can always do better, be it with house or spouse. When money is the measurement, the competitive struggle can never end without acknowledging some kind of defeat. Everyone other than Elon Musk has someone who is ahead.

Messages in the media continually tweak Americans' innate sense of inadequacy. Our folk hero is the college dropout who sells his tech company for $2 billion by the age of 26. How is a middle-aged guy making $65,000 a year supposed to feel about that?

Some years back, an investment company ran an ad showing a young woman sitting pensively on a front porch. "Your grandfather did better than his father," it read. "Your father did better than his father. Are you prepared to carry on the tradition?"

Note the use of the respectable word "tradition" on what's really a call for intergenerational competition. It suggests that failure to amass more wealth than one's parents is a threat to the family's honor.

So what if the next generation isn't so rich as the previous one? The way most of our younger people live would be the envy of 95 percent of the earth's inhabitants.

Such thinking would have been wholly foreign to the Pilgrims celebrating the "first Thanksgiving." The Pilgrims traded all the comforts of England to worship as they chose. Their ship, the Mayflower, landed at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1620. They held the "first Thanksgiving" the following autumn.

Mid-December is an awful time to set up shop in the New England wilderness. Disease immediately carried off more than half of the 102 colonists. They are buried on Coles Hill, right across the street from Plymouth Rock. Without the help of the Wampanoag Indians, the colony would have vanished altogether.

Things got better by 1625, prompting the colony's governor, William Bradford, to write that the Pilgrims "never felt the sweetness of the country till this year." But that hadn't stopped them from giving thanks four years earlier. The purpose was not to celebrate the good life but to celebrate their staying alive. The natives shared in the feast.

By the 1830s, America was already a bustling land of fortune building and material lust. Intellectuals of the day looked back nostalgically at the Puritan concern with unworldly matters. Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke of the Pilgrims' religious orientation as "an antidote to the spirit of commerce and of economy."

Thanksgiving is a throwback to that misty past. It requires a Zen-like acceptance of the present and what is. Gratitude is the order of the day.

This is a full-glass holiday. To be healthy, educated and living in America is to have one's cup running over. For that, let us give thanks.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Trump Declares Victory In Fabricated ‘War On Christmas’

Trump Declares Victory In Fabricated ‘War On Christmas’

Former President Donald Trump is insisting the so-called "War on Christmas" is over. However, there is just one problem: Many are still trying to determine whether or not there was ever an actual attack on Christmas, since Trump fabricated the entire thing.

On Thursday, the disgraced former president appeared on Newsmax for an interview with Mike Huckabee. During the bizarre sitdown, Huckabee claimed America has Trump to thank for bringing back "Merry Christmas" as opposed to "Happy Holidays."“America had gone through a long period where people quit saying ‘Merry Christmas.’ It was all ‘Happy Holidays.’ You deliberately changed that!” Huckabee told Trump.

In Trump fashion, the former president quickly agreed with Huckabee as he took credit for ending the "war."

“When I started campaigning, I said you’re going to say ‘Merry Christmas’ again, and now people are saying it,” Trump said, according to The Daily Beast, before pivoting to rant about how the “'George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson' are 'being obliterated because of craziness.'”

But they are saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again,” Trump added. “I would say it all the time during that period, that we want them to say ‘Merry Christmas.’ Don’t shop at stores that don’t say ‘Merry Christmas’ and I’ll tell you, we brought it back very quickly.”

“You really did,” Huckabee agreed as the Christmas scenery at Trump's Mar-a-Lago golf club appeared on the screen.

Trump went on to add more fuel to the fire. “Whether you’re Muslim, whether you’re Christian, whether you’re Jewish, everyone loves Christmas," he said, adding, "And they say ‘Merry Christmas’—until these crazy people came along and they wanted to stop it along with everything else.”

Although Huckabee praised Trump for his so-called efforts, the Beast highlights the irony in the network's interview of Trump reporting that "Newsmax decided to call its own company gathering this year—for which all attendees had to be vaccinated—a “Holiday Reception.” So it seems the war lives on."

Article reprinted with permission from Alternet

A Tale Of Two Presidents’ Holiday Messages

A Tale Of Two Presidents’ Holiday Messages

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

President Donald Trump posted his Thanksgiving message to Twitter Thursday morning. It was a photo of the President and First Lady earlier in the week, pardoning the turkeys in front of an audience in the Rose Garden of the White House.

“Melania and I wish all Americans a very Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving!” in a graphic. “HAPPY THANKSGIVING!” in all-caps was the text of the tweet.

The President also very intentionally injected a note of religious importance into his message: “a very Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving!”

Meanwhile, also on Thursday morning, former President Barack Obama sent the nation a Thanksgiving message, far different from the Oval Office’s current occupant.

It includes a photo of the Obama family helping to feed the needy and the homeless on the day before Thanksgiving, 2014.

The message: “Today, we give thanks for our blessings, give back to those around us, and enjoy some time — and turkey, and maybe a little football — with the ones we love. From the Obama family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.”

It’s a much more active message, inspiring participation and the giving of thanks. He is leading by example. The message is one of service to others, an embrace of diversity, and caring for all, especially those in need.

The caption from the White House’s page for that photo reads: “Ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, the First Family continued their annual tradition by participating in a service project. This year’s project was at Bread for the City — a Southeast Washington, D.C. charity dedicated to providing Washington’s most vulnerable residents with food, clothing, and other services.”

And while Obama used the word “blessings,” it is far more secular, as in something to be grateful for, as opposed to a “blessed Thanksgiving,” which is more religious and more passive.

Dressed in a sweater, President Obama is shaking the hand of a young girl.

Dressed in a suit and coat, President Trump is separated from the people, by the trappings of the presidency.

President Obama signs his message, “From the Obama family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.”

President Trump signs his message, “President Donald J. Trump.” The presidential seal is lightly watermarked on the tweet.

The response to their messages is also of note.

As of this writing President Trump’s tweet has nearly 75,000 likes and 13,900 retweets.

President Obama’s tweet has nearly 153,000 likes and 17,600 retweets.

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