May Day! May Day! May 3, 2025 There are so many horrible things happening . . . National Science Foundation stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones They’re Coming for the Truth-Tellers: Bondi’s Plan to Jail Journalists Trump is Revoking Harvard’s Tax-Exempt Status Trump has swung a giant wrecking ball through the existing world order . . . that my favorite sign at Thursday’s protest read, simply: No, Donny Just NO There were many issue-specific signs, too, of course and — May 1 being International Workers’ Day — more than a few communists in the crowd. (“Marx was right,” read one sign.) One of the great things about this country — at least between the time the Joe McCarthy / Roy Cohn era ended and the time the Donald Trump / Roy Cohn era went into overdrive* — is that communists and socialists and anybody else can believe and say or write whatever they want . . . and hand out copies of “The Revolutionary Communist Newspaper of Progressive Labor Party” in Foley Square. But having just seen George Clooney in Good Night, And Good Luck on Broadway the night before, I’ll admit I was a little nervous accepting it.** I would note, though, that May 1 is also Law Day here in the United States, “meant to reflect on the role of law in the foundation of the country and to recognize its importance for society.” That’s what so many of us, as politically disparate as Liz Cheney and Bernie Sanders, have been taking to the streets to protect. DONNY 2 DOLLS How ironic that the guy who invented the (non-existent) war on Christmas should now take on the role of Scrooge, dashing the hopes of little girls everywhere — and busting the budgets of their parents: “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of thirty dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally,” Trump said. Hardship, smardship — toss ’em some paper towels. Hats off to Lawrence O’Donnell for coming up with Trump’s mafia handle — “Donny 2 Dolls.” Here’s one man’s Tik Tok on the theme. Have a great weekend. Join Indivisible. Support the opposition. *Cohn is long dead but clearly lives on in his mentee. **For the record: American communists are, in my view, just as idealistic as Ayn Rand libertarians — and just as wrong. In practice, communism has proven itself to be horrible. Unfettered libertarian capitalism is cruel, immoral — and leads to revolution. The sweet spot that America so successfully inhabited over the past 80 years lies someplace in the middle.