Bill Clinton calls out 'people in charge' in July Fourth message

[snot]

12. I watched some of the "Freedom250" program yesterday

It veered between depressing and frightening. Only the most cursory references to our fundamental rights under the Constitution or any kind of history; no speakers (that I saw) other than Trump; and no mention of Americans' contributions in science, apart from bragging about the capabilities of our weaponry, in medicine, literature, or other arts or culture; or to our beautiful scenery and parks; or to any humanitarian aid we-ve provided.

Instead it was all mindless slogans and displays of coercive power and Trump's speech, and with no performances except by two performers unknown to me plus members of the military, who were either demonstrating weapons capabilities or singing.

The background music and songs performed were also a bit weirdly selected – during one military fly-over, I realized the background music was Mozart's Requiem; and the evening musical programming opened with a rendition of "Ave Maria" in Italian. Some of the other songs selected were at least slightly relevant to the US birthday, but many were not – made me wonder whether they'd had trouble getting permissions even to have someone other than the original artists sing songs.

It was all worse than I expected – very much like what one might expect from Kim Jong Un, except less entertaining (at least Kim would probably have offered some synchronised swimmers).