Time to Talk About PRIDE
- rhapsodydmb
- Jun 7
- 3 min read
PROUD OF AN INCLUSIVE CITY: It's that wonderful June month of PRIDE activities and parades to celebrate the LGBTQT community and those of us standing for self-determination for all, inclusion, bodily autonomy, and a fair shot at living in a safe, decent community, nation, and national and political environment with adequate health coverage, public education, housing and food security.
Tragically at the moment and since January of 2025, the substantial majority of us living in the US has not much of the above to show. By now we must amount to about 99.95% of the population.
Since I'm a lawyer by training as well as a political science major, I'm most concerned about the disappearance of the Rule of Law. Without that foundation of a country, institutions of democracy and our Constitutional guarantees cannot exist. Yet that Rule of Law has been violated and threatened with total decimation from day one when No. 47 and his regime took over our government and began their reign of terror and destruction.
The substantial majority of courts have declared he has violated our Constitution and judges have granted TROs with ease. Yet no judge has imposed contempt for continual, flagrant violations of their orders and locked up the attorneys, if not the president. Continual violations without punishment gobsmacks me. Some people not legally trained are still confused about the immunity case last year, which only applies to criminal acts of a president; while civil contempt is still available as a remedy.
More to the point, why did one federal judge recently dismiss No. 47 yet retain jurisdiction and control over governmental attorneys subject to contempt, when violating the Constitution does not to me seem to be part of a president's "official duties" to which immunity from criminal prosecution now exists?
But contempt of any kind has yet to be imposed, just threatened. Where is the missing courage of the judicial branch? That is yet to show.
PROUD OF LAW FIRMS STANDING UP FOR THEIR PROFESSIONAL DUTY TO CLIENTS AND FOR THEIR OWN RIGHTS: What also causes me to celebrate today are stories like this one from Legal AF and attorney Michael Popok. While I was appalled to learn that 14 so far of the "big" law firms capitulated and bent the knee to No. 47, enriching him in one way or another, some other "big" law firms are holding the line and fighting back - and winning - in courts that find chump is trying only to retaliate for the exercise of their professional and Constitutional rights.
What has shown is truth-saying: Judge Beryl Howell made the stakes clear: “What client could ever look you in the eye again and believe you’ll fight for their interest with zealous advocacy, unyielding, if you rolled over for the federal government?”
Not only that, but "big" and big-paying corporate clients are leaving the caving law firms, many led by women Chief Counsels by the way. Proud of them!
Let's credit Oracle, McDonald’s, and Microsoft who are withdrawing their business from the caving law firms, as well as law firms Perkins Coie, Wilmer Hale, Susman Godfrey, and Jenner & Block who are standing up for their own rights and their clients' rights - heroes, as Popok calls them, and I concur!
PROUD TO GET A POEM PUBLISHED BY RESPECTED ONLINE POETRY HUMOR JOURNAL!
So entirely happy to have my second online literary journal select one of my poems to publish on June 7 (Amethyst Review will publish a poem on Oct. 18 so stand by for notice of that)! You can read "Why Not?" published by Little Old Lady journal, wherein I rail against ageism so prevalent in our society but not yet sufficiently defined, identified, spotlighted or called out.
I must call your attention to an essay in Little Old Lady. It's perhaps the most hilarious one I have read in my entire life, by an Irish writer, Kerry O'Shea. It's called "Why Terrible Customer Service is Wonderful." Reminds me of two unfortunate circumstances somewhat similar (sans blood!) experienced during my partner's and my travels.
Upon that read this morning (see the comment I posted just after the essay) I decided that reading Little Old Lady is a "must" to be added to my morning ritual over breakfast and two Nespressos. Please enjoy exploring this irreverent, edgy, and side-splitting, unassuming, non-pretentious journal and pass it on to your light-hearted friends in need of respite from these dire political times while we wait for the first contempt order imposed.
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