Joan Baez: Activist reads original poems targeting President Trump in exclusive video
I haven't sat down to deliberately write poems in many years. But when I unearthed my older poems to put together my recent collection ' When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance,' I found myself revising and rewriting for about a year. It felt like strengthening a muscle that I'd allowed to atrophy for too long.
Two of the pieces published here are prose poems: 'Pony Up' and 'Reasons to Stop Using the Word Unprecedented.' They both arrived in such a rush that I couldn't be bothered to think about something like line-breaks. But they're poetic to me — furious but poetic, nonetheless. In the third poem, 'Falling Rocks,' I wanted to try to give a voice to children who are being silenced.
The unhinged merrymakers who now oversee our government are delighted to be the first in this century to stun the population into a state of shock and awe. Delighted to make any disruptive move that worms into their unbalanced minds. Delighted to show off their unprecedented behavior as they move with chaotic speed to destroy everything that has thrived in this imperfect democracy.
Kidnap and detain children?
'YAHOO!'
Abduct citizens off the streets and ship them untried to prison camps?
'OOPSIE!'
Kill the elderly and anyone not white enough to count?
'WHOOPTY DOO!'
Of course it's all unprecedented. But they revel in such extraordinary cruelty. As we demand 'Stop!' they grow more cruel and hear 'Unprecedented!' as praise.
Don't give the lunatics the satisfaction of hearing that word one more time.
Pony Up
spineless democrats: Pony up!
When did starting a sentence with 'I don't see why' ever elicit a satisfactory
answer or bring an opponent to heel?
PONY UP!
Instead of 'I don't see why,' try 'I DEMAND TO KNOW WHY!' Then
override their double-talk and distractions and evasions, insist you need a
real answer until you get one — or as close to one as some of the
spokespeople can eke out. Don't settle for alphabet soup. Get an answer. If
you can't, push back on anything you can.
The Trumpists lie all day long. And they are winning the game.
Falling Rocks
Tengo miedo
Tengo frío
Tengo hambre
Estoy sola
I am afraid
I am cold
I am hungry
I am lonely
Where is my mother?
Where is my sister?
Where is my dog?
Where is my new dress?
I was on the school bus
in my new dress
with my lunch bag
on my lap
I had lemonade in a box
with a little straw attached
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
and an apple
Like the other kids
who are my friends
but they stayed on the bus
and I did not
All around me was like
a mountain falling and I was
just one of the rocks you are
supposed to watch for while driving
But no one is watching
out for this little rock
I'm still falling
falling
Tengo miedo
Tengo frio
Tengo hambre
Estoy sola
An American icon, Joan Baez, 84, has released more than 30 albums during her storied career. In 2024, she released ' When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance,' a book of poetry.
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San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Joan Baez: Activist reads original poems targeting President Trump in exclusive video
Lately, the more I read the daily news, the more I've felt compelled to write again. Lining up words into sentences that attempt to make sense of the chaos is my bulwark against a creeping feeling of despondency. I haven't sat down to deliberately write poems in many years. But when I unearthed my older poems to put together my recent collection ' When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance,' I found myself revising and rewriting for about a year. It felt like strengthening a muscle that I'd allowed to atrophy for too long. Two of the pieces published here are prose poems: 'Pony Up' and 'Reasons to Stop Using the Word Unprecedented.' They both arrived in such a rush that I couldn't be bothered to think about something like line-breaks. But they're poetic to me — furious but poetic, nonetheless. In the third poem, 'Falling Rocks,' I wanted to try to give a voice to children who are being silenced. The unhinged merrymakers who now oversee our government are delighted to be the first in this century to stun the population into a state of shock and awe. Delighted to make any disruptive move that worms into their unbalanced minds. Delighted to show off their unprecedented behavior as they move with chaotic speed to destroy everything that has thrived in this imperfect democracy. Kidnap and detain children? 'YAHOO!' Abduct citizens off the streets and ship them untried to prison camps? 'OOPSIE!' Kill the elderly and anyone not white enough to count? 'WHOOPTY DOO!' Of course it's all unprecedented. But they revel in such extraordinary cruelty. As we demand 'Stop!' they grow more cruel and hear 'Unprecedented!' as praise. Don't give the lunatics the satisfaction of hearing that word one more time. Pony Up spineless democrats: Pony up! When did starting a sentence with 'I don't see why' ever elicit a satisfactory answer or bring an opponent to heel? PONY UP! Instead of 'I don't see why,' try 'I DEMAND TO KNOW WHY!' Then override their double-talk and distractions and evasions, insist you need a real answer until you get one — or as close to one as some of the spokespeople can eke out. Don't settle for alphabet soup. Get an answer. If you can't, push back on anything you can. The Trumpists lie all day long. And they are winning the game. Falling Rocks Tengo miedo Tengo frío Tengo hambre Estoy sola I am afraid I am cold I am hungry I am lonely Where is my mother? Where is my sister? Where is my dog? Where is my new dress? I was on the school bus in my new dress with my lunch bag on my lap I had lemonade in a box with a little straw attached a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple Like the other kids who are my friends but they stayed on the bus and I did not All around me was like a mountain falling and I was just one of the rocks you are supposed to watch for while driving But no one is watching out for this little rock I'm still falling falling Tengo miedo Tengo frio Tengo hambre Estoy sola An American icon, Joan Baez, 84, has released more than 30 albums during her storied career. In 2024, she released ' When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance,' a book of poetry.
Time Magazine
22-07-2025
- Time Magazine
From the Grave, Jeffrey Epstein Shuts Down the House
This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME's politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. There's no pretending otherwise: disgraced and deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein has hijacked Washington. Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday announced he was starting the August recess a few days early to avoid the chamber having to vote on whether Congress should force the Justice Department to publish everything it has on Epstein, who was accused of running a sex ring of minors for the rich and powerful. The move amounted to Johnson veering toward an emergency off-ramp to avoid a toxic topic that has crippled President Donald Trump, and by extension most Republicans in Congress. We are now in the second week of Trump trying and failing to get out from under Epstein's shadow. At the Capitol, disagreements about how to pursue justice for Epstein's alleged victims are erupting into screaming matches and quiet acrimony, and even some of Trump's ardent apologists are finding themselves in a circular text chain asking if the White House gets just how boxed-in the President has become. Ever since the Department of Justice and the FBI jointly released a memo on July 7 affirming that Epstein died by suicide in 2019 and that there is no 'incriminating client list' in the government's Epstein files, almost nothing else has been able to break through here. A revolt in the MAGAverse stalled votes in the House. The White House has been unable to reclaim control of the story, let alone take a victory lap on Trump's tax- and spending-cuts law. Donors are simultaneously titillated by the tabloid fodder and disgusted that the long-promised disclosures have not been produced. Trump and his allies have long fed the myth that Epstein's life and death alike were pieces of a coverup to protect powerful players. It became something of a cottage industry, up there with Hillary Clinton's emails and Joe Biden's mental acuity. Now, Trumpists are finding the shrapnel does not spare them when the expectations and the reality are not neatly aligned. Among more sober-minded Hill staffers, a variation of the same meme has become ubiquitous: you live by the sword, you die by the sword. House Rules came to a standstill on Monday as Republican troublemakers demanded Congress move to force the Justice Department to publish what it has on Epstein. Democrats were more than happy to join that push and it became clear that Leadership had lost its leash on a movement that Trump has tried for two weeks to shut down. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California have joined forces on a discharge petition to force transparency on Epstein's dossier, which would allow for a vote on the House floor over the objections of the GOP Leadership team. If that unlikely pair can cobble together 218 signatures on their petition, the measure could sidestep Johnson's veto. At the same time, a House Oversight subcommittee on Tuesday moved ahead with a motion from Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee to subpoena Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. Rather than keep playing with fire, Johnson sent everyone home. A hasty exit was seen as a better option than a slow-burning self-own. This is not the summer Trump and his sycophants had planned. Epstein has pulled focus from One Big Beautiful tax- and spending-cut package the President signed on July 4 replete with a military flyover. Yet increasingly, signs in the Capitol are of a party at war with its own members. Even Trump's Congressional allies have depleted their patience. 'I am tired of making history,' Johnson told reporters last week after holding open the vote on an ultimately successful cryptocurrency bill for a record nine hours as an Epstein sideshow invaded. 'I just want a normal Congress.' You're hardly alone, Mr. Speaker. But with Trump at the helm and increasingly backed into a corner by an Epstein saga that has split his typically lock-stepped Republican Party, it seems like the White House is turning to the oldies in an attempt to recapture the narrative. It is not working, and that means we once again are at the mercy of Trump's whims. Trump remains in open contempt of his base, which is peeved he promised a bombshell release of a celebrity client list of Epstein. He bemoaned that Jerome Powell was ever nominated to lead the nation's central bank, a position Trump himself put Powell in. He's even rewriting the recipe for Coke via social media posts, sending some suppliers racing to an unexpected sell-off. And, as this week began, he threatened Washington's football team and its new stadium if it didn't return to a former name that was ditched because it was demeaning to Native Americans. Oh, and for good measure Sunday evening, he posted a video showing Democrats saying no one is above the law before cutting to what appears to be an A.I.-created clip of federal agents arresting Barack Obama in the Oval Office, pushing the former President to the ground before hauling him to a prison. If Joe Biden were acting this way, there would be hearings. The House is on its way home, and Senators are all but done, too. That leaves Trump here in Washington without any prospects of legislative movement until September, a stretch that typically gives administrations time to regroup and plot a push ahead of the Oct. 1 start of the next federal fiscal year. But instead of setting up a spending plan and plotting how to finish out the year, the White House is facing unending questions about Trump and his friendship with Epstein, which has never been in dispute. As GOP lawmakers rush to their flights out of Reagan, many are harboring the same hope: that their districts are not as consumed by the Epstein scandal as Washington has been. For those working in Washington, little else has seemed to matter. Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter.
Miami Herald
20-07-2025
- Miami Herald
The Trump-Epstein circular firing squad is just like an episode of ‘Seinfeld'
The Jeffrey Epstein scandal that has engulfed the Trump administration and MAGA world is like an episode of 'Seinfeld.' Somebody does something stupid and the remainder of the show is about the reactions of a cast of soulless characters who are so without redeeming qualities, you can't root for any of them. Donald Trump's decision not to release whatever is in the Epstein files has paralyzed the most MAGA of conservative media outlets. When I checked earlier today, The Federalist, The Daily Caller and Breitbart were all doing their best to ignore the story dividing Trumpists like never before. It is like the digital outlets are waiting for orders from on high, but the leading voices are a confused cacophony, not the usual Trumpy chorus. Fox News and the Wall Street Journal opinion page are both promoting an op-ed by former Epstein lawyer Alan Dershowitz that is as confused as this Seinfeldian story about nothing. You see, Dershowitz says there's nothing to see here, Epstein committed suicide and was not murdered, but the jail staff may have helped him. Oh, also there's nothing incriminating about Trump. Suicide is a fraught subject that must be handled delicately in all instances, but I am not so clear on how there can be help from the people who are supposed to be guarding you. I didn't know it was OK for the guards to deliver 'assisted' suicide services normally provided by medical personnel. Wouldn't that be a scandal? Dershowitz blames the fact that you can't see the Justice Department files on court-ordered secrecy, as if suddenly the Trump administration has gotten all Emily Post about following judges' orders. Meanwhile the formerly conservative Drudge Report, enemy of all things Emily Post and still frequented by many on the right who want a dose of the day's tabloid fare, is promoting rumors that a big Trump-Epstein story is about to appear in the pages of either The Washington Post, The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. Just as I am writing this, The Wall Street Journal breathlessly published a story marked 'exclusive' that, along with dozens of other people, Trump wrote a bawdy letter to Epstein for his 50th birthday. In this letter, Trump allegedly drew a naughty picture with breasts and pubic hair. Oh, my. The only thing worth being on the front page is that Trump called the Journal's top editor to try to stop the story with a lawsuit threat. So it is no wonder the White House and Trump himself are livid at all this attention with the press secretary blasting people like me who keep covering this 'like it's the biggest story that the American people care about.' For once, Karoline Leavitt appears to be sticking to the facts. Conservative talk radio hosts who I listen to, such as Erick Erickson, report that while their 'very online' listeners are mad as hell, their ideological cousins who have touched grass more recently couldn't care less. If it is not clear already, I am watching the whole kerfuffle and enjoying every minute. If a political movement born of nothing but Trump's grudges, conspiracy theories and self-interest deserves anything, it is to suffer a circular firing squad about Trump holding a grudge against his supporters who still believe a conspiracy theory that is suddenly no longer in Trump's self-interest. This won't be the last time that Trump's imaginary hobgoblins will come back to haunt him. Wait until his handpicked Attorney General Pam Bondi fails to come up with anyone to indict for stealing the 2020 election, as all Trump's supporters have been promised. We'll think back on this week's Epstein blowup as a little family disagreement. If we were watching a 'Seinfeld' episode, this is where Jerry would be told, 'No soup for you,' and we'd all have a good laugh. It isn't so funny when the job prospects of our top law enforcement officers depend on the outcome of a scandal about nothing and the president seems more engaged with the fate of a dead sex trafficker than the real lives of the people he is supposed to govern.
