I Didn't Say It ...

Alan Cumming, actor and The Traitors’ host, receiving a Doctor of Laws (LLD) in recognition of his multi-decade service to the arts from the University of St Andrews in Scotland:

“Last week St Andrews University made me a Doctor of Laws (LLD). I sat on the stage of the Younger Hall and watched hundreds of students as they stepped up to receive their degrees and saw pride and achievement and fear flicker across their faces. It made me think of my graduation from drama school forty (!) years ago and so I decided to say something to those students that I wish I’d heard all those years ago. I told them to always keep learning, that their formal education may now be over but to try to always stay open to the possibilities and experiences that life is going to fling at them. I told them to always be curious. I see people in life stop being curious and they just stop in general; they atrophy before your eyes. And I told them to always protest! Protesting is a part of your education too! It’s taking what you have learned and analyzed and combining it with your passion and then sharing it with the world. Always be curious! Always keep learning! Always be open to new people and new things. And always protest!”

Never stop learning; otherwise it all just stops.

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Gavin Newsom, California Democrat governor, telling voters that they "have the power" to end his disastrous presidency during the mid-term elections:

“It’s not what happens to us, it’s how we respond to it. And our opportunity presents itself anew. In 18 months, you have the power to end [The Felon]’s presidency. We’ll have to deal with the tweets; we’ll have to deal with the attacks and the bullying. But the legislative agenda [will] effectively [be] over. You have that power in these midterms. [He] decided to send hundreds and hundreds of military troops into [MacArthur] Park, into the playground, in the middle of the day, where kids … were at summer camp. Not one arrest was made. But what he was doing—he wanted to make a point. Cruelty is the point. Cruelty is the point. I say this with love in my heart—with love in my heart—but love for my party and love for my country. Do you remember his response to the disaster in California? He blamed every single person [but]—not a peep of blame in Texas.”

Newsom got a rousing reception in … wait for it … it’s epic … Deeply Red rural South Carolina, by speaking truth, simple basic truths about The Felon.

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Pete Buttigieg, former Secretary of Transportation, on the GOP’s "big, beautiful" federal budget bill:

“We’re hearing that the House has passed the megabill after it got through the Republican Senate. Now it’s on its way to [The Felon]’s desk, and he’s going to sign it. When he does, he will create some of the biggest tax breaks for billionaires in history, even more wealth to the wealthiest Americans. And the way they’re paying for it is to cut health care for working-class Americans, to cut food that would go to veterans and children in this country. To shut down rural hospitals and make an entire generation worse off. And they’re managing to increase the national debt and deficit while they do it. This is the decisive, once and for all answer to what the president and his party are about. You know, it was fashionable for Washington commentators for a while to say that this was a new, different, populist, working-class Republican Party. Now it has been demonstrated decisively that that was all bullshit. That they’re still all about making the wealthy even wealthier at the expense of working Americans. If there’s any good news in all of this, it’s that this is still a democracy. Even now, even with all of the damage that [The Felon] has done to our republic, there is no king in this country, which means we the people will have the last word. And it is up to us, the American people, to respond politically and say that it is unacceptable to harm the majority of Americans to make the very wealthiest a little better off.”

The bill extends the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans yet slashes $1 trillion from Medicaid; it includes cuts to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program [SNAP] which helps low-income Americans buy food, as well as the Children’s Health Insurance Program and Planned Parenthood. It will take health care coverage or subsidies away from an estimated 17 million people over the next decade, while adding $4 trillion to the national debt during that period.

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Zohran Mamdani, Democrat candidate for mayor of New York City, taking on The Felon’s bigotry and stupidity:

“Yesterday [The Felon] said that I should be arrested, deported, denaturalized … he said those things less so because of who I am and more so because he wants to distract from what I fight for … if this is what [The Felon] feels comfortable saying about the Democratic nominee for New York City, imagine what [he] says about immigrants whose names they don’t even know.”

He’s exposing the fear-based campaigning of The Felon and the GOP; many of whom are suggesting he be deported because he’s Muslim. It makes me have to repeat something I have been saying since 9/11: Muslims are not terrorists, terrorists are terrorists, and the terrorists are in power and rounding up people of color, and denying aid to the poorest among us, and keeping women subjugated to the will of white politicians.

The GOP and The Felon and his entire regime are the terrorists.

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Robert Garcia, out Democrat Representative from California, and member of the powerful House Oversight Committee announces plans to investigate The Felon’s pet fascist Stephen Miller:

"Essentially dehumanizing immigrants so that they’re less than human is Stephen Miller doing what he loves to do, which is be, essentially, the biggest piece of shit in this country. Stephen Miller should be ashamed of the way he is acting. I can’t even believe he’s from our state. One thing I’ve told people is that you can rest assured that if you are right now causing the level of harm that the Stephen Millers of the world are, that these ICE agents are, you are going to be held accountable. We’re not going to forget the harm that you’re causing to people and our government, and these folks are going to be held accountable. What’s happening right now, it’s so inhumane and gross. As an immigrant myself, who came here as a young kid, it’s just not the America that so many immigrants come to, to actually be a part of, to fight for, to fight for citizenship. We’ve got to continue winning in the courts, and that’s going to continue. And the other piece of it, people’s reaction, the protesting, the anger, the rising up against these actions also is having an effect. And you’re seeing that, I mean, what’s happening in LA, which was widely, as you know, mostly peaceful. The protests are energizing the population and the public to stand up against us, and we are seeing the impact it’s having on the Republicans electorally."

If Democrats take back control of the House in the midterm elections, Garcia will have even more power to hold these monsters accountable. Keep up the pressure, protest, and vote!

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Harvey Fierstein, accepting his 2025 Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement at The Tony’s last month:

“Don't make Mommy cry. Oh, thank you so much. You gorgeous people, I have to tell you, since I got that call, something's been on my mind. This has all happened by accident. See, if it had gone to plan, I should now be a retired high school art teacher. But what happened was my freshman year of High School of Art and Design, this kid in my class said that his mother was starting a community theatre in Brooklyn and needed kids to come and make posters. I figured, ‘Why not?’ I don't know if it was the fumes from the magic markers, but I entered the basement of a Unitarian church in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and I found my community. Here were people, mostly adults, who saw this odd, chubby, recently bar mitzvahed boy (who'd put a towel on his head and lip sync Broadway show tunes into his bedroom mirror) and without hesitation or judgment just welcomed him in. I painted scenery, I ran lights, I pulled curtains. And by the age of 15, I was on the board of directors of The Gallery Players, a theatre that still exists in Brooklyn. From there, I moved to the world of experimental theatre in La MaMa, then Off Broadway. By then, I was writing and acting in my own shows, and I was always, always accepted just as I was. And then suddenly, well, not so suddenly, but you can get the rest of the story from my best-selling New York Times autobiography, I Was Better Last Night, at your favorite bookseller. So suddenly, I found myself on Broadway with Torch Song Trilogy. It was only then that I was cautioned, ‘If you want a career, keep your personal life to yourself.’ My answer was, ‘Have you seen Torch Song Trilogy?’ It was 1982 and not only did I arrive on Broadway, but so did AIDS. This was no time to hide. We needed to go to war, and it was a war that cost us much too dearly. I might never really understand how I survived those years, or the years that led me to be standing on this stage accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award. But what I find most humbling is the thought that somehow my journey means something to you. There's no way to really thank even a tiny percentage of the people responsible. No one does theatre alone, but I must call out my mother, who dragged us to opera and ballet and Broadway as often as she could afford. And my brother, who's sitting over there, used my shows as a personality test for his dates: If they freaked out seeing his drag queen brother, they were history. But I'd like to leave you with this thought, as many of you know, there is nothing quite like bathing in the applause of a curtain call, but when I bow, I bow to the audience with gratitude, knowing that without them, I might as well be lip syncing show tunes in my bedroom mirror. And so I dedicate this award to the people in the dark and offer my most profound thanks to all of you, my community.”

It’s all community, and we when stand with one another, and work with one another, and support one another, we win.

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