****
Gazelle’s thoughts on the recent events
****
Gazelle
Children In Search Of Refuge
As a child, a refugee child,
My Mama taught me Caution.
Run from the marauders of the streets,
Especially those carrying guns
Beyond their natural height.
Run from machete wielding persona.
Run from The Toothless Angered,
They’re mastered by the powers du jour.
Run for dear life.
If speed is of essence,
Drop your school books upon the dusty path,
Run!
Make it home,
To your Mama’s anxious arms.
Pray you do,
And live another hour
****
****
As a child, an American child,
The ghosts of yonder history hovered.
Waiting their turn to fully manifest,
Yet again.
My Mama taught me,
Before I was double digits,
To be cautious out there.
The marauders, the ghosts, the egregious,
The Toothless Angered
Will menace my being.
Don’t run for dear life.
Learn to stay still
****
****
There is nowhere to run.
Nowhere to stay still,
Except in shocked death.
No school books dropped on a dusty road,
They lay stained in unrequited blood along the school hallway.
Bullet strewn sidewalks splatter my paths.
The Toothless Angered
Are again mastered,
The daily Puppets of Avarice
****
****
Sanctuary is a scarcity in my universe
While The Toothless Angered,
With ample, unjustified impunity,
Continue to menace my being.
Pray I make it home Today, and all Tomorrows,
To my Mama’s anxious arms,
So I can hug her.
And just once, of many more, say
I love you Always
****
The Obama Diary 
Beautiful piece, Gazelle. Thank you sharing it with us. Thanks for highlighting this Nerdy!
Work got in the way of my TOD fix, Dudette, and I’m only now seeing this post. Overwhelmed by NW’s uplifting images accompanying my little poem. Brings so much joy! xox
The beauty and power of your words brings us all joy. {{{ Gazelle }}}
Gazelle, thank you. Beautiful poem.
Maybe Trump should come with a parental advisory warning
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maybe-trump-should-come-parental-advisory-warning
This ad is notable in its ability to push a more elemental theme: Donald J. Trump is an embarrassment.
Part of this is probably an antiquated idea, but there’s something in the American tradition that says we should be able to admire and respect our president. There’s something noble about wanting your kids to one day grow up and be like the powerful person in the Oval Office, leading the free world.
An ad like this one effectively encourages voters to ask themselves a rather a straightforward question: would you be proud of a President Trump? Would you want your kids to be more like him? Or would you be tempted to cover your children’s ears whenever this guy opened his mouth?
Put another way, would Donald J. Trump’s election fill you with pride or shame?
❤️
Love his dimples… 🙂
Beautiful, Gazelle! In awe of all the talented writers contributing to TOD!
Thank you so much, Judith! NW just made it glorious!
Leaks saying it’s PENCE.
LOLz!!
Oh, I love this episode of “The Twilight Zone”
What do you mean this isn’t a Twilight Zone episode?????
Thanks for the laugh, GGail
PENCE CAN’T EVEN WIN HIS OWN STATE..THERE ARE ‘FIRE PENCE’ SIGNS EVERYWHERE. TRUMP WANTS SOMEONE QUIET WHICH IS PENCE’S DEMEANOR..SO THAT HE AND HIS FAMILY CAN RUN THE SHOW WITHOUT STATIC..HE ALSO DID THIS TO BRIING IN RIGHT WING CONSERVATVES!..AS FOR THE BIBLE…I WELCOME GOD’S WORD ANYWHERE AND IT SHOULD BE AN ELECTIVE COURSE IN SCHOOLS! GOD’S WORD IS SUPREME…WE ARE NOT!
I LEARNED KINDNESS AND LOVE FROM THE BIBLE..ALOT OF PEOPLE HAVE FAILED THAT COURSE!..OBVIOUSLY!..PBO QUOTES SCRIPTURE..IT NEEDS TO BE DONE MORE OFTEN..AND YES THIS CANNOT BE ONE NATION UNDER GOD IF WE DON’T LISTEN TO HIS COMMANDMENTS!
Awesome!! They can make bumper stickers that say “T-P 2016 – Help clean up the shit.”
Caption for this photo should read, “Do you believe this doofus is stupid enough to be my running mate?”
Ok, don’t know where my comment went, so I’ll try this again.
The caption for this photo should read, “Can you believe this doofus wants to be my running mate?”
Now they all appear! Oh well, It certainly is something that deserves saying more than once. So there you have it.
And the bumper sticker needs to be improved, cuz what I wrote is not what I wanted to convey. So, something more along these lines.
T-P 2016
GOP a** wipes
Brilliant, touching poetry, Gazelle!!
Thank you NW for featuring it!!
Thank you, Sir Bob! NW added glorious! Made me not curl up with the covers! 🙂
INCREDIBLE post, NW, and thanks to Gazelle for a very moving poem. I so appreciate the gifts I find every day right here. Amazing.
Thank you, Meta. Grand hugs! NW is magical. She’s always taking us on a First Class ride. xoxo
Gazelle, this poem is beautiful, heart-breaking, eloquent, and powerful. Thank you for writing it and sharing it with us on TOD. NerdyWonka, thank you for this brilliant presentation of Gazelle’s poem, embraced by glorious, gorgeous images of the best of people embracing enjoying celebrating, delighting, lifting up the children, time and time again, all over the place, the way they do. Always choosing the paths that enhance and bless our nation and individuals in it. What a gift this post is, thank you G and thank you NW.
Thank you so much, Nancie! NW is just magic! 🙂
Beautiful, Gazelle! …….also JB per usual thank you for your poem the other day too 🙂
….like when Auburn came to the White House (Gibbs folks both professors there)
Robert’s son 🙂
Joice “The Voice” Earnest gets to probably have the fanboy day of his life 😎
https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13615200_823190997781070_9161612648320381162_n.jpg?oh=7c59aec4b69c4494cebecc4044c4d55e&oe=582605E8
cutie
Aw!
Is that the first grandchild? My how time flies
Yes, Charlotte
Thanks Betsy 🙂
Beautiful poem…and the pics highlighting the poem….are just awesome….thank you so much for this post….Our Children are our Future…we must remember that…
Thank you, PF58! Lots of HUGS! NW is simply magical! xox
I LOVE ALL THE PICTURES AND THE POEMS ARE BEAUTIFUL..I LOVE MY PRESDENT..BUT I LOVE GOD MORE AND WILL STAY BENEATH THE SHELTER OF HIS WINGS…THAT’S MY REFUGE!
Love our FLOTUS
Oh Snap! Does the Donald know he wrote this???? LOL
I just read where Pence is DT’s pick for VP. Is the new strategy for the VP to counter every crazy thing Trump says to water it down?
Tour de France, the greatest sporting event in the……..
I can’t LMAO 😀 😀 😀
Here’s what I don’t understand. How can anyone who supports the very courageous things PBO has done and is doing around race and policing not be very thoughtful about going to a protest environment that could make matters so much worse including deadly. This will all fall on PBO’s shoulders and may get transferred to HRC. This could makes things a lot tougher to get down ballot folks elected.
My recommendation is DON’T GO TO CLEVELAND. It just feeds the media fear, anger, hate and violence narrative. It also provides an economic benefit to a red state, which makes it seem like hate sells.
i do not understand…given what has happened in Dallas…and just yesterday in France…this notion of open carry…being allowed outside the GOP Convention by the protesters…Like the Dallas Police Chief said…with open carry how can you tell the good guys from the bad guys…
We are shooting ourselves in the foot…by not getting a handle on guns
Yes, Clinton is sinking in the polls. No, you should not panic. Here’s why.
……………………………….
This core dynamic is central to how Democrats view this race. They have undertaken a concerted effort to drive up Trump’s negatives with the explicit goal of preventing him from expanding his appeal. That’s why the pro-Clinton Super PAC, Priorities USA, has been pumping many millions of dollars of ads into the battleground states, ads that use Trump’s own words and antics to sow deep doubts about his temperament and fitness to be president.
The goal is to prevent Trump, whose campaign is all about winning blue collar whites in the industrial Midwest, from making inroads among college educated whites, which would limit the potential of Trump’s strategy of courting white backlash. (This may also drive up turnout and Clinton’s vote share among nonwhite voters, which would make the white-backlash strategy even tougher to pull off.) Polls suggest Trump may end up being the first GOP nominee in decades to lose among college educated whites — see Ron Brownstein’s terrific analysis on this point — and Democrats are targeting suburban and Republican women in particular to try to make this happen.
As Paul Begala, a senior adviser to Priorities USA, put it to me in an interview: “Trump wants to build a wall. I want to build a ceiling.”
Now, it is of course very possible that Trump will begin to rise, or that Clinton will continue falling. Things could change once Team Trump starts spending big on ads and Team Clinton’s ad barrage no longer goes unanswered. But the point is that, even if it is true that Clinton is sliding, there is still no evidence that Trump can expand his appeal in the manner he needs to. And that’s why senior Democratic pollsters are not terribly alarmed and believe we can’t really have a clear sense of where this race is going until the conventions have passed. We will learn whether Trump really can consolidate moderate Republicans who may be struggling to come to terms with him, and grow.
Meanwhile, the efforts to keep that ceiling firmly affixed in place are continuing today, with a new Clinton ad campaign.
And remember each candidate gets a convention bump in the polls. So we just have to wait until Aug 1st to see how that shakes out for her.
And in the previous post there was something about people claiming they saw a bunch of Trump ads when in fact he hadn’t put out any. I’m wondering if some of those people polled mistook Hillary’s ads for Trump ads since many of them are full of statement after statement from Trump himself.
The writing talent at TOD is breathtaking. Between our gifted essayists and brilliant poets, we could compile a stunning collection of ‘Works Inspired by the Presidency of Barack Obama.’ Gems created by JO’B and Gizelle deserve a longer life and greater attention span than we can give them here. We need a way to preserve them as one of the little known legacies of the Obama years.
Here here! With all the insightful posts, tweets, picture diaries along with many great essays and posts, I believe, that a TOD book would be a bestseller!
And what is the man who accepted the bribe paying? Media just won’t talk about any negatives for the GOP
New cabinet may signal Britain’s retreat as a Western power
By Anne Applebaum July 14 at 8:43 AM
In fact, I get the logic. Theresa May’s first set of appointments — Liam Fox will become minister for international trade, David Davis will run the exit negotiations, and Boris Johnson will be foreign secretary — make a lot of sense. She has put hard-line Brexit proponents in charge of negotiating Britain’s retreat from European politics. It will be impossible, from now on, for anyone to argue that voters were cheated. If these three men can’t manage the United Kingdom’s divorce proceedings, then nobody can.
At the same time, May has deftly eliminated an obvious source of internal disharmony. Like Barack Obama appointing Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, she has given her potentially most damaging critic a huge task that will prevent him from writing nasty articles in the Daily Telegraph. Johnson, bored and sidelined, would have had plenty of time to think up jokes about her and her government; now he’ll be on a plane to Timbuktu instead.
But May’s choices also suggest a more profound change, visible for some time but only just now swimming into focus: Britain, or at least Tory Britain, no longer aspires to be a leading Western power. Surely May knows that Johnson is a hated figure in Brussels. Surely she guessed that the reaction to his appointment would be laughter in Washington. But she doesn’t care because — like the leaders of all small countries without aspirations to international leadership — her concerns are more parochial. She doesn’t need a foreign secretary who is taken seriously in foreign capitals.
PBO appointed someone he knew could do the job well, May has appointed a buffoon. Appointing someone who can’t do the job to stop them speaking against you will have disastrous consequences.
COMING UP: Hillary Clinton Campaigns with Sen. Kaine in Annandale, Va. – http://abcnews.go.com/Live
Putz. He and that other one are perfect for each other. No redeeming value.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/07/14/3797260/mike-pence-vp/
The Myth of Mike Pence
https://www.statnews.com/2016/07/14/trump-mike-pence-womens-health/
NW, thank you for picking the best pictures to accompany Gazelle’s heartfelt poem. {{{thank you both}}} ❤
Presumptive Republican nominee can’t shake ‘Trump U’ controversy
07/14/16 09:24 AM
By Steve Benen
There were quite a few surprises in the new lineup for Republican speakers at the party’s national convention, but the Tampa Bay Times flagged one of the names that stood out.
As we’ve discussed before, the details surrounding Florida’s conservative A.G. paint an unflattering picture. Bondi briefly considered joining a multi-state suit against the controversial “school,” but the Florida Republican dropped the investigation after the Trump Foundation made a $25,000 contribution towards Bondi’s re-election.
And while that raises serious ethics questions, the controversy became more serious when we learned Bondi “personally solicited” the money from Trump while her office was considering a case against “Trump University.”
At GOP convention, toy guns are banned, but real guns are not
07/14/16 10:00 AM
By Steve Benen
Four years ago, as Republicans were getting ready for their national convention in Tampa, Mayor Bob Buckhorn worked with law-enforcement officials to create as safe an environment as possible, including a ban on items that might be considered security threats. As we discussed at the time, that meant people outside the convention would face restrictions on things like water pistols and placards.
Under Florida law, however, officials couldn’t prohibit people from carrying real guns around the convention site, even if they wanted to. Tampa’s mayor asked Gov. Rick Scott (R) to use his discretion and make an exception to the state law in the interest of security and public safety. Scott refused.
Four years later, the Wall Street Journal reports on an eerily similar situation.
HA! Popcorn and cocktails!
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/14/judge-orders-team-trump-to-prove-why-lawsuit-against-ex-staffer-should-be-secret.html
Attorneys for the soon-to-be nominee must show cause on Aug. 10 why legal action against Sam Nunberg should be arbitrated outside of a courtroom. If they lose, all the sordid details will come out months before the election.
A New York judge ruled on Thursday that Donald Trump cannot keep his lawsuit against a former staffer behind closed doors for now.
Judge Eileen Bransten ruled that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee or his attorneys must show cause in New York Supreme Court on August 10 as to why the suit against former adviser Sam Nunberg must be kept in arbitration and out of a courtroom. In court filings Wednesday, Nunberg and his attorneys pushed the court to keep the suit out of arbitration, alleging that Trump was seeking to silence the former staffer.
Trump’s lawsuit against Nunberg accuses him of violating a confidentiality agreement for allegedly leaking a story to the New York Post about a public screaming match between former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and spokesperson Hope Hicks. Nunberg in his response to Trump’s lawsuit claims that the real estate mogul is trying to “use the sword of private arbitration proceeding against me to silence media coverage” of a “sordid and apparently illicit affair.”
Attorneys for Nunberg and Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Good Afternoon TOD Community.
Great Job, NW. Thank You for all you do.
Congrats to JER for your Au ⭐
Too busy again today. 😦 I missed posting WH Press earlier. I will post the Video when available later today.
Sadly Trumps advisors stopped him from selecting Christie or Newt. Spence is the under the radar RWNJ.
Fabulous
D.L didn’t take any of her bullshit. Thanks D.L. Proud of you man.
h/t 3Chics….
The hell. REALLY??? Can we just vote so that we have such a massive mandate and control that this ridiculous, wrong, hateful mess can never happen again.
14Jul16
WH Presser: Josh “The Voice” Earnest presided.
This is who at least 40% of Americans will vote for:
🙂
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/pro-lgbt-group-hilariously-trolls-gop-billboard-of-trump-and-cruz-kissing-erected-outside-rnc/
For real!!!
Interesting factoid:
We’ve had a smaller economy than California since forever meta – I think I was once told California had the 6th largest economy in the world. Our population is about 24 million California approaching 40 million so the proportions are about right.
Wow….
Geesh! 😦
Wow is right Meta! She got the attention she was seeking. I’m sorry she lost her father in the manner that she did. What happened to him should not happen to any being on earth. Yet, her need to act out because she didn’t get to speak seemed out of place to me. Maybe its just my penchant to overprotect my President but I remember she was a Bernie supporter to the chagrin of the rest of her family who were Hillary supporters. My gut tells me that she wanted an opportunity to try and upstage PBO on TV. Just sayin….
I happen to agree with you. I had to unfollow her on twitter because she began to get deep into the Bernie thing. She is no doubt suffering from the injustice her father faced and I don’t if/why ABC said she would have time to speak to POTUS on air. But he was gracious enough to spend time with her after so I hope she felt she was heard. Everyone is tugging on him.
I don’t know what happen, but regardless you still need to act like you have some dam sense.Everyone in the audience can’t ask POTUS a question.
WH Pool ALWAYS looking for the negative. I cannot believe the reality of the US Political media. They have undermined PBO from day one and now are doing all they can to elect Trump – who would probably remove them from the White House & refuse to have daily briefings.
Sorry but a trillion hate bombs went off after reading what Erica Garner did.
Let’s see how ABC or any other media reports this commotion.
You know, she may be suffering from some form of PTSD or heavy grief from the death of her father. Not everyone can hold it together and be gracious and forgiving like the familes from the shooting in South Carolina. I watched my sister lose it for almost 3 years after the death of our mother. And mom died a normal death from old age. I can’t imagine the trauma caused by such a needless and horrible death on the psyche of a child.
Beautiful, Gazelle! And NW picked some beautiful images to go with! ❤
Hugs!
France celebrating 14th July – an attack on crowd; several people killed….
http://www.france24.com/en/livefeed
France celebrating 14th July – an attack on crowd; several people killed…. There is no end to the crazy!
Live ’30 dead’ after truck crashes into crowd at Bastille Day celebrations in Nice ‘terror attack’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/14/truck-crashes-into-crowd-at-bastille-day-celebrations-in-nice2/
At least 30 people have been killed. The driver of the lorry has been shot
http://www.france24.com/en/livefeed
Francois Holland is on his way back to Paris …..
French tv states up to 30 people have been killed.
BFM TV reported “dozens of dead” in Nice. “It’s total panic,” a witness told the channel by telephone. “We saw a white lorry which drove directly into people on the Promenade des Anglais. A gunman fired into the crowd before being shot by police. Perhaps they are dead, I’m not sure.”
……………………………………..
I won’t add any more to this here; the details will undoubtedly hit the airwaves as they are discovered ……
How does any country/city/town/etc get a handle on these crazy attacks?
Pool report:
Subject: WH pool report #4: Pool spray
Pool was led into the theatre as the taping ended. Everyone was standing, and in one corner POTUS was greeting a receiving line of attendees, including Lesley McSpadden, the mother of Mike Brown.
As we were being led into the room, we saw a clearly and very agitated Erica Garner yelling about her lack of participation in the program. She said she’d been offered a chance by ABC News to ask the president a question but did not get to do so. “I was railroaded! I was railroaded by ABC on the two-year anniversary of my father’s death!” Eric Garner died on July 17, 2014.
“That’s what I have to do? A black person has to yell to be heard?”
In a chaotic moment, Garner could be heard asking to speak to the president, he looked up, seeming to want to notice where the commotion was coming from.
Your pooler also stood in front of an attendee who confronted Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick about his question to the president, saying it was inappropriate manner in which to address the president.
At one point, Garner was led by an aide inside the theatre to speak with the president. When an aide touched her arm, she recoiled, saying “Don’t touch me.” She was led back out again where multiple aides were overheard saying that POTUS wanted to speak with her, but we cannot confirm whether the meeting actually happened.
We left the theatre at 4:50 and did not catch sight of POTUS.
This is how a mind already filled with injustice can become severely impaired with rage. Grief counseling should be provided, not just offered, but provided to each person and especially each child in a family who has had a tragic death occur.
Most of us know about the various stages of Grief, but the average person doesn’t and people who are not connected surely don’t understand this sadness, rage, anger, blame nor how to process it. She is a prime example of a person who does not need to be anywhere near a gun.
New post.
https://theobamadiary.com/2016/07/14/chat-away-the-potus-wax-edition/
OMG, NW! I’m so overwhelmed with emotion by your gorgeous post. Work got in the way of my TOD fix, and I’m only now seeing your beautiful post of uplifting images to my little poem. I’m so honored by you! So many HUGS for you! As I said to JB, in previous post to her comment, tomorrow we’ll shed tears of joy, we will all ride life in First Class. I so believe! It has to come into being. xoxox!
❤ ❤ ❤
Gazelle and JOB, the words you two have written are so powerful, meaninful, and spiritual. We are blessed that you shared them with us. This wonderful place that our Ms Chips has created for us is so important for all of us.
Thank you so much, Marilyn – loved Gazelle’s words – love our Chips and NW!
Thank you, Nerdy, for highlighting Gazelle’s poem with your photos.