At ZELENSY 2.0 last Friday, The loudest protest should have been, (SILENCE AND THE REFUSAL TO BE PART OF THE FRAUD,) perpetrated on the American people by Trump and his sycophants. Intead of Mr Green shouting what ever he shouted, THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE would have been, I think, deafening!! A parade of one Democrat at time, walking out on his speach whould have said far more, than Mr Green's vocal interruptions could ever say.
"For decades, new parents across the United States have been able to check a box on hospital forms in order to request Social Security numbers for their newborns. That’s no longer the case in Maine, where parents will have to visit a Social Security field office thanks to a shocking move by President Donald Trump’s administration. No justification has been given for the change, which was first reported by the Portland Press Herald. The Social Security Administration has not responded to multiple requests for comment.The White House declined to comment, referring questions to the Social Security Administration.
Trump has also feuded with Maine’s governor for refusing to play along with Trump’s directive to disallow transgender athletes in girls’ sports."
“I recently directed Social Security employees to end two contracts which affected the good people of the state of Maine,” Social Security Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek said in a press release. “In retrospect, I realize that ending these contracts created an undue burden on the people of Maine, which was not the intent. For that, I apologize and have directed that both contracts be immediately reinstated.”
Kennedy Center to Replace “Hamilton” with New Musical, “Burr”
Mar 07, 2025
.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Reacting to the decision by the producers of “Hamilton” to withdraw the show from the Kennedy Center, Donald J. Trump announced on Thursday that he would replace the production with a new musical, “Burr.”
The show, which will star Ted Nugent as Aaron Burr, will be produced by a new patron of the arts, The National Rifle Association.
“‘Hamilton,’ quite frankly, is no great loss,” Trump said. “It was an unsuccessful musical that no one wanted tickets for.”
“Burr is my kind of American hero,” he added. “He shot a guy.”
A federal agency of 50 people held off DOGE and the acting head of USAID for an hour yesterday. They then came back with US marshals when the building was unoccupied and got in.
The agency is now suing DOGE and the acting head because he has no authority not having been appointed/confirmed yet and this is an illegal takeover.
No, they aren’t the first agency to try and block them from their building or sue (USAID also did both of those things, and some have sued over DOGE getting access to private data).
But most agencies have not fought back like this because a Trumpian was head or acting head already by the time DOGE tried to access..It’s also notable that such a small agency is putting up a fight when a lot of the significantly larger agencies just rolled over immediately.
The standard mantra is "we are a nation of laws". That's the case only if laws are actually enforced. They are not self-enforcing; someone has to do the hard work of enforcing them. If that is not done, then there are no laws. And that is where we are now. The first thing F34 did was to fire a bunch of Inspectors General. That was done in violation of well-established law, but nobody stopped him. We are no longer a "nation of laws".
Also too, Ol' Ben's words come to mind (not Obi Wan, you dorks, the other one!)
For those who need context, coming out of the 1787 Constitutional Convention (I think that's what they called it), Elizabeth Willing Powel asked Franklin: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
For now, the leadup is detailed at the National Park Service.
Given what's been going on, I'm just gonna reproduce their whole article below, for preservation and posterity Just In Case:
-----
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
--Benjamin Franklin's response to Elizabeth Willing Powel's question: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
Monday, September 17, 1787: The Convention Today
The day began with a prepared speech from Franklin (PA) who, eighty-one years old and painfully afflicted with gout and kidney stone, was unable to read it himself and delegated that task to Wilson (PA).
While the speech was formally addressed to Washington (VA), the Convention’s president, its purpose was to convince the three delegates who had announced their refusal to sign the Constitution—Gerry (MA), Randolph (VA), and Mason (VA)—to abandon their opposition. Franklin began on a note of humility. “I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that, the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others.”
“In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government.”
He didn’t think another Convention (which Mason and Randolph had argued for) would do any better than the first had. He admitted that the men in the room were all well-reasoned and had a diversity of opinions, making it difficult to find common ground. “From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does.... Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.”
“On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention, who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion, doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.”
Franklin then moved for the form of the signing to be such: “Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States present, the seventeenth of September, &c. In witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names.”
This form had actually been thought up by Gouverneur Morris (PA), who had given it to Franklin so that Franklin’s esteem would lend it credence. The wording of the form doesn’t explicitly state that the signer is endorsing the Constitution. It only means that the signer is affirming that the states present in the Convention unanimously approved the Constitution. The idea was to get Gerry, Mason, and Randolph to sign by making their personal objections irrelevant to their signatures.
Gorham (MA) then motioned for Congress to be given the power to increase the size of the House of Representatives from one representative for every 40,000 people to one for every 30,000. (Mind that Congress would not have been required to increase the House to such a size, but just given the option to do so.) Proposals such as this one had repeatedly failed, but King (MA) and Carroll (MD) seconded him.
Now, on this last day of the Convention, Washington (VA) spoke for the only time. While he said it was typically inappropriate for him, as president of the Convention, to offer his opinion, he felt called to support Gorham’s motion. He thought increasing the size of the House of Representatives would increase the “security of the rights and the interests of the people.” After Washington’s speech, no one spoke in opposition to the motion, and it passed unanimously. Jacob Shallus, the scribe who had the day before handwritten the engrossed copy of the Constitution, corrected the text to reflect this final amendment.
Randolph gave a brief speech where (much like one from two days earlier) he was almost apologetic about refusing to sign the Constitution, but left open the possibility that he might support the Constitution when Virginia considered ratifying it. He stated, “Nine States [the minimum number for the Constitution to take effect] will fail to ratify the plan, and confusion must ensue.”
G. Morris and Williamson (NC) gave speeches encouraging the holdouts to sign. Hamilton (NY) spoke similarly, with Madison (VA) summarizing him thus: “No man’s ideas were more remote from the plan than his own were known to be; but is it possible to deliberate between anarchy and convulsion on one side, and the chance of good to be expected from the plan on the other?”
Blount (NC) stated that his signature should not be taken as a sign of his support for the Constitution but just as his affirmation that the Constitution had been unanimously approved by the states at the Convention.
Franklin gave a second speech where he personally begged Randolph to sign. Randolph said that Franklin’s proposed form for the signatures didn’t make a difference: signing the Constitution would imply that he supported it, and he didn’t. Madison writes that “He [Randolph] repeated, that, in refusing to sign the Constitution, he took a step which might be the most awful of his life; but it was dictated by his conscience, and it was not possible for him to hesitate, — much less, to change.” Randolph thought that presenting the Constitution to the American people to only accept or reject in total, without amendments, would cause all the “anarchy and civil convulsions” which the soon-to-be signers professed to want to avoid. Gerry gave a speech to the same effect.
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (SC) did not like the ambiguity in Franklin’s proposed form for the signatures. He supported the Constitution and intended his signature to be a sign of that support.
Ingersoll (PA) took a middle position: his signature would not indicate his support for the Constitution, but neither would it merely be his attestation to the Convention’s unanimity. His signature would be his “recommendation” that the Convention’s final product, “all things considered, was the most eligible.”
Franklin’s motion (related to the form of the signing) passed 10–1, with South Carolina’s vote divided on account of C.C. Pinckney and Butler wanting the form to be more emphatically supportive.
The Convention then voted to deposit their official journals (which ended up being much less detailed than Madison’s personal notes) with Washington.
The delegates then proceeded to sign the engrossed copy of the United States Constitution. Thirty-eight men signed thirty-nine names—Dickinson (DE) was ailing with a headache and had asked Read (DE) to sign for him two days earlier. Despite so many personal appeals, Gerry, Randolph, and Mason still refused to sign. Hamilton, as the only New Yorker present at this point, signed in a personal capacity, since New York could not be effectively represented in the Convention by only one delegate. The signatures were grouped by state, with Pennsylvania’s eight being the most. The listing of state names next to the signatures appears to be in the hand of Hamilton. Rhode Island, the only state not to send delegates to the Convention, is not listed.
After the signing, the Convention adjourned for a final time.
The signatures did not have any legal significance. The Constitution was clear: it would only go into effect when nine of the thirteen states chose to ratify it. As hard as the past four months had been, the real challenge lay ahead, in convincing the American people to embrace the government that these men had authored.
As the last names were being signed, Franklin, in a personal aside to some other members, made an observation about the chair that Washington had been sitting in as he presided over the Convention. The chair had an emblem of half of a sun. Franklin noted that artists often have a hard time distinguishing between a rising and a setting sun in their artwork. “I have often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”
[continued from above; who knew Substack comments had a character limit?]
Synopsis
- Despite multiple speeches pleading for their signatures, Gerry (MA), Randolph (VA), and Mason (VA) refused to sign the United States Constitution.
- In his longest speech of the Convention, Franklin (PA) said the Constitution was “near to perfection.”
- The delegates harbored some disagreements about what their signatures would exactly mean, but ultimately thirty-nine names were appended to the final document.
- The signing of the Constitution did not legally enact it. The Constitution states that nine of the thirteen states would need to ratify it for it to go into effect.
Delegates Today
- The Convention delegates dined at City Tavern.
- McHenry (MD) wrote a diary entry describing the conversation between Franklin (PA) and Elizabeth Willing Powel quoted at top.
- Johnson (CT) spent the evening paying bills—Moyston’s bill for meals at City Tavern, 29 shillings; washing, 25 shillings; servants, five dollars. He also paid 1 shilling 6 pence for watch repair and bought $22.00 worth of buckles.
- Mason (VA) drew a bill of exchange on Lt. Governor Beverly Randolph in favor of Morris (PA) for fifty pounds current money of Virginia to pay money loaned Mason by R. Morris so the former could get home.
- After dining with his colleagues Washington (VA) returned to his room, did some business, received the Convention’s papers from Secretary Jackson, and “retired to meditate on the momentous work which had been executed, after not less than five, for a large part of the time six, and sometimes 7 hours sitting every day, [except] Sundays & the ten days adjournment ... for more than four months.” The business he did included recommending coach maker Clark to William Washington and his friends, signing forty diplomas for Rhode Island members of the Society of the Cincinnati, and accepting a John Pine engraving from Robert Edge Pine.
Philadelphia Today
- The fall session of the Court of Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol Delivery opened in the court room of the State House (directly across the hall from the Convention). Chief Justice Thomas McKean and Justices William Augustus Atlee and George Bryan attended. This court focused on punishment of severe crimes, such as robbery, arson, rape, and murder.
Printers Dunlap and Claypoole made 500 official copies of the United States Constitution, thirteen of which survive to this day. These copies were to be distributed to the delegates, to newspaper printing offices, to the state legislatures, and to the Confederation Congress in New York. The copies contain a typographical error. The Constitution forbids any amendment that bans the slave trade prior to 1808, but Dunlap and Claypoole miswrote the date as “one thousand seven hundred and eight.” Washington’s (VA) copy has a handwritten correction where “seven” is crossed out and replaced with “eight.”
Part of a series of articles titled The Constitutional Convention: A Day by Day Account for September 1787.
Ok, I’ve done it! I deleted my Facebook account and all the other meta apps. It was kind of difficult for me. I’m 65, retired, live alone with my dog. It was a way to stay connected to friends and family who are far away. But it was also very fucking toxic. I was getting pulled into dark corners full of MAGAt trash and their spewing lies and laughing at measles deaths and bird flu incidents. I say this unapologetically- I want them all to suffer. I want them to die slow, painful deaths. I want their families and friends to shun them like the filth they are. And I want them to know that history will view them just as it views the complicit Germans during Hitler’s reign of terror.
I haven't deleted my account - there are few functional reasons why (it's the only community bulletin board and virtual real-time news for our small town area, plus a couple of older relatives use it for text messaging, and do not have cell phones). But I sure don't cruise it like I once did. I long avoided much of the toxic mess by restricting my feed to people I followed and not much else (also "chronological" instead of curated timeline) but FB made it increasingly difficult to restrict the feeds, and dumped ads in there constantly. About 2 years ago, I stopped visiting there for all but the above two reasons. It's been fine. THere are things I miss, but most of the worthy stuff I've found elsewhere.
Thank you, Rebecca for the tab about Montana. That lifted my heart a little. Last night I had a nightmare where I was trying to convince people that when you take away rights from a group that is just one step away from saying the group has no right to exist. And then shit gets bad. In the dream people kept laughing at me as if I was crazy. Too many people in this country have never paid attention to history and are missing all the red flags. The GIANT red flags. I'm glad all those republicans in Montana saw the flags and did the right thing.
From an NPR interview yesterday with the Iowa dad of a trans teen: when rights can be taken away, they aren’t really rights; they are privileges granted to an in-group.
Staff on hundreds of foreign aid projects left in limbo by the Trump administration’s funding freeze have received a survey that asks them to justify their work under an eccentric list of criteria that meet the White House’s new national security priorities.
The survey, copies of which have been seen by the Guardian, asks foreign aid programme staff to detail whether they contribute to limiting illegal immigration or securing US borders, “combating Christian prosecution”, and whether they help the US secure access to rare earth minerals.
It also includes a litmus test on several controversial issues banned under the Trump administration. “Can you confirm this is not a climate or ‘environmental justice’ project or include such elements? [yes/no],” the survey asks. It also asks: “Can you confirm that this is no DEI [diversity, equality and inclusion] project or DEI elements of the project? [yes /no].”
The questionnaire, which was distributed eight weeks after the US president issued a foreign aid funding freeze, comes as thousands of projects have already laid off staff and cut ties with local partners, meaning that even if stop-work orders are lifted the programmes may remain closed.
...........
The questionnaire is an unvarnished look at the administration’s priorities for foreign aid under Trump’s mantra of “America First”.
One question asks whether organisations work with “communist, socialist, or totalitarian parties, or any party that espouses anti-American beliefs?”
WASHINGTON (AP) — References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press. The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/us-pentagon-dei-purge_n_67ca5780e4b0f0ee26f56a5c
Sea turtle hed gif info: https://open.substack.com/pub/martiniambassador/p/sea-turtle-nopes-out-on-the-noms
And meme chat: https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/da62eac1-0d84-4dc2-907b-cf767564605a?utm_source=share
BONK! "And stay down!" Go take a look at what the sea cucumber(?) escaped. A genuine death trap. https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F9p02kr2g44481.jpg
Reminds me of the whale spitting out the kayaker in Puget Sound. Whoops!
Slam, bam, thank you mam.
The smack down makes it Art.
It's the Turtle, Sea, Giant!
(anyone get the reference?)
Wrong answer, but still...
https://youtu.be/pyl9ppk_uh0?si=G2pl1zL700ksJ1Pn
Smack the snack that bites back!
The worm in RFK's brain should have been so lucky.
Some luck, it died of starvation.
Gamera!
Be careful googling "turtle's head gif".
http://www.wavestar.plus.com/viz/viz.html
(to the old 'Beefaroni' song)
https://youtu.be/euo086SUjls
♫ ♪ ♬ Get out your movie cam-raaa
We're chowing down on Gam-raaa
.
Gamera is fulla meat
Gamera is really neat
Turtle meat is mighty sweet
Let's AAAAALLLLLL... eat Gameraaaaah! ♫ ♪ ♬
"Cram it Cornjob!"
It's Gamera!
Get the camera!
There goes Gamera again, burning oil!
Yep, it's back to the pits for Gamera!
Got that hydroflow streamlining!
At ZELENSY 2.0 last Friday, The loudest protest should have been, (SILENCE AND THE REFUSAL TO BE PART OF THE FRAUD,) perpetrated on the American people by Trump and his sycophants. Intead of Mr Green shouting what ever he shouted, THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE would have been, I think, deafening!! A parade of one Democrat at time, walking out on his speach whould have said far more, than Mr Green's vocal interruptions could ever say.
I donated to Rep. Green to thank and support him for his stand during the SOTU.
That's some real fucking Nicetimes about the anti-trans bill getting spiked in Montana, of all places!
"For decades, new parents across the United States have been able to check a box on hospital forms in order to request Social Security numbers for their newborns. That’s no longer the case in Maine, where parents will have to visit a Social Security field office thanks to a shocking move by President Donald Trump’s administration. No justification has been given for the change, which was first reported by the Portland Press Herald. The Social Security Administration has not responded to multiple requests for comment.The White House declined to comment, referring questions to the Social Security Administration.
Trump has also feuded with Maine’s governor for refusing to play along with Trump’s directive to disallow transgender athletes in girls’ sports."
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/maine-social-security-numbers_n_67ca4f3fe4b0f0ee26f56963?dka=&utm_source=buzzfeed&utm_medium=iframely
“I recently directed Social Security employees to end two contracts which affected the good people of the state of Maine,” Social Security Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek said in a press release. “In retrospect, I realize that ending these contracts created an undue burden on the people of Maine, which was not the intent. For that, I apologize and have directed that both contracts be immediately reinstated.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/maine-social-security-numbers_n_67ca4f3fe4b0f0ee26f56963
The Borowitz Report
Kennedy Center to Replace “Hamilton” with New Musical, “Burr”
Mar 07, 2025
.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Reacting to the decision by the producers of “Hamilton” to withdraw the show from the Kennedy Center, Donald J. Trump announced on Thursday that he would replace the production with a new musical, “Burr.”
The show, which will star Ted Nugent as Aaron Burr, will be produced by a new patron of the arts, The National Rifle Association.
“‘Hamilton,’ quite frankly, is no great loss,” Trump said. “It was an unsuccessful musical that no one wanted tickets for.”
“Burr is my kind of American hero,” he added. “He shot a guy.”
https://substack.com/home/post/p-158542524?source=queue
Sent money to Al while cranking up “Here I Am”
I had an erotic dream last night involving Lawrence O'Donnell and it's fine.
He does have gorgeous blue eyes
They twinkle. And I like his little smile and his confidence.
All and all--a very nice dream.
Lawrence rides a Harley
Don’t worry, Dems! Peggy Noonan’s got an idea! We should applaud Trump and adopt all his ideas! :/
https://apple.news/AwY55KUtdSZ-TLX-EHdsEjA
We haven't heard from Peggy in awhile here on Wonkette. I miss that old boozehound...
She must be drinking some pretty strong stuff if she thinks Trump is the second coming of Reagan.
I'm sure she's drinking strong stuff
But that doesn't mean Reagan didn't literally walk so Donald Chump could run (or waddle, as the case may be)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7dHvqA-WB4
A federal agency of 50 people held off DOGE and the acting head of USAID for an hour yesterday. They then came back with US marshals when the building was unoccupied and got in.
The agency is now suing DOGE and the acting head because he has no authority not having been appointed/confirmed yet and this is an illegal takeover.
https://newrepublic.com/post/192442/doge-marocco-sued-us-marshals-takeover-usadf-agency
It took people more than a month to figure this out?
No, they aren’t the first agency to try and block them from their building or sue (USAID also did both of those things, and some have sued over DOGE getting access to private data).
But most agencies have not fought back like this because a Trumpian was head or acting head already by the time DOGE tried to access..It’s also notable that such a small agency is putting up a fight when a lot of the significantly larger agencies just rolled over immediately.
The standard mantra is "we are a nation of laws". That's the case only if laws are actually enforced. They are not self-enforcing; someone has to do the hard work of enforcing them. If that is not done, then there are no laws. And that is where we are now. The first thing F34 did was to fire a bunch of Inspectors General. That was done in violation of well-established law, but nobody stopped him. We are no longer a "nation of laws".
Also too, Ol' Ben's words come to mind (not Obi Wan, you dorks, the other one!)
For those who need context, coming out of the 1787 Constitutional Convention (I think that's what they called it), Elizabeth Willing Powel asked Franklin: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
For now, the leadup is detailed at the National Park Service.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/constitutionalconvention-september17.htm#:~:text=%E2%80%9CA%20republic%2C%20if%20you%20can,a%20republic%20or%20a%20monarchy%3F%22
Given what's been going on, I'm just gonna reproduce their whole article below, for preservation and posterity Just In Case:
-----
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
--Benjamin Franklin's response to Elizabeth Willing Powel's question: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
Monday, September 17, 1787: The Convention Today
The day began with a prepared speech from Franklin (PA) who, eighty-one years old and painfully afflicted with gout and kidney stone, was unable to read it himself and delegated that task to Wilson (PA).
While the speech was formally addressed to Washington (VA), the Convention’s president, its purpose was to convince the three delegates who had announced their refusal to sign the Constitution—Gerry (MA), Randolph (VA), and Mason (VA)—to abandon their opposition. Franklin began on a note of humility. “I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that, the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others.”
“In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government.”
He didn’t think another Convention (which Mason and Randolph had argued for) would do any better than the first had. He admitted that the men in the room were all well-reasoned and had a diversity of opinions, making it difficult to find common ground. “From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does.... Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.”
“On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention, who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion, doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.”
Franklin then moved for the form of the signing to be such: “Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States present, the seventeenth of September, &c. In witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names.”
This form had actually been thought up by Gouverneur Morris (PA), who had given it to Franklin so that Franklin’s esteem would lend it credence. The wording of the form doesn’t explicitly state that the signer is endorsing the Constitution. It only means that the signer is affirming that the states present in the Convention unanimously approved the Constitution. The idea was to get Gerry, Mason, and Randolph to sign by making their personal objections irrelevant to their signatures.
Gorham (MA) then motioned for Congress to be given the power to increase the size of the House of Representatives from one representative for every 40,000 people to one for every 30,000. (Mind that Congress would not have been required to increase the House to such a size, but just given the option to do so.) Proposals such as this one had repeatedly failed, but King (MA) and Carroll (MD) seconded him.
Now, on this last day of the Convention, Washington (VA) spoke for the only time. While he said it was typically inappropriate for him, as president of the Convention, to offer his opinion, he felt called to support Gorham’s motion. He thought increasing the size of the House of Representatives would increase the “security of the rights and the interests of the people.” After Washington’s speech, no one spoke in opposition to the motion, and it passed unanimously. Jacob Shallus, the scribe who had the day before handwritten the engrossed copy of the Constitution, corrected the text to reflect this final amendment.
Randolph gave a brief speech where (much like one from two days earlier) he was almost apologetic about refusing to sign the Constitution, but left open the possibility that he might support the Constitution when Virginia considered ratifying it. He stated, “Nine States [the minimum number for the Constitution to take effect] will fail to ratify the plan, and confusion must ensue.”
G. Morris and Williamson (NC) gave speeches encouraging the holdouts to sign. Hamilton (NY) spoke similarly, with Madison (VA) summarizing him thus: “No man’s ideas were more remote from the plan than his own were known to be; but is it possible to deliberate between anarchy and convulsion on one side, and the chance of good to be expected from the plan on the other?”
Blount (NC) stated that his signature should not be taken as a sign of his support for the Constitution but just as his affirmation that the Constitution had been unanimously approved by the states at the Convention.
Franklin gave a second speech where he personally begged Randolph to sign. Randolph said that Franklin’s proposed form for the signatures didn’t make a difference: signing the Constitution would imply that he supported it, and he didn’t. Madison writes that “He [Randolph] repeated, that, in refusing to sign the Constitution, he took a step which might be the most awful of his life; but it was dictated by his conscience, and it was not possible for him to hesitate, — much less, to change.” Randolph thought that presenting the Constitution to the American people to only accept or reject in total, without amendments, would cause all the “anarchy and civil convulsions” which the soon-to-be signers professed to want to avoid. Gerry gave a speech to the same effect.
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (SC) did not like the ambiguity in Franklin’s proposed form for the signatures. He supported the Constitution and intended his signature to be a sign of that support.
Ingersoll (PA) took a middle position: his signature would not indicate his support for the Constitution, but neither would it merely be his attestation to the Convention’s unanimity. His signature would be his “recommendation” that the Convention’s final product, “all things considered, was the most eligible.”
Franklin’s motion (related to the form of the signing) passed 10–1, with South Carolina’s vote divided on account of C.C. Pinckney and Butler wanting the form to be more emphatically supportive.
The Convention then voted to deposit their official journals (which ended up being much less detailed than Madison’s personal notes) with Washington.
The delegates then proceeded to sign the engrossed copy of the United States Constitution. Thirty-eight men signed thirty-nine names—Dickinson (DE) was ailing with a headache and had asked Read (DE) to sign for him two days earlier. Despite so many personal appeals, Gerry, Randolph, and Mason still refused to sign. Hamilton, as the only New Yorker present at this point, signed in a personal capacity, since New York could not be effectively represented in the Convention by only one delegate. The signatures were grouped by state, with Pennsylvania’s eight being the most. The listing of state names next to the signatures appears to be in the hand of Hamilton. Rhode Island, the only state not to send delegates to the Convention, is not listed.
After the signing, the Convention adjourned for a final time.
The signatures did not have any legal significance. The Constitution was clear: it would only go into effect when nine of the thirteen states chose to ratify it. As hard as the past four months had been, the real challenge lay ahead, in convincing the American people to embrace the government that these men had authored.
As the last names were being signed, Franklin, in a personal aside to some other members, made an observation about the chair that Washington had been sitting in as he presided over the Convention. The chair had an emblem of half of a sun. Franklin noted that artists often have a hard time distinguishing between a rising and a setting sun in their artwork. “I have often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”
[continued]
[continued from above; who knew Substack comments had a character limit?]
Synopsis
- Despite multiple speeches pleading for their signatures, Gerry (MA), Randolph (VA), and Mason (VA) refused to sign the United States Constitution.
- In his longest speech of the Convention, Franklin (PA) said the Constitution was “near to perfection.”
- The delegates harbored some disagreements about what their signatures would exactly mean, but ultimately thirty-nine names were appended to the final document.
- The signing of the Constitution did not legally enact it. The Constitution states that nine of the thirteen states would need to ratify it for it to go into effect.
Delegates Today
- The Convention delegates dined at City Tavern.
- McHenry (MD) wrote a diary entry describing the conversation between Franklin (PA) and Elizabeth Willing Powel quoted at top.
- Johnson (CT) spent the evening paying bills—Moyston’s bill for meals at City Tavern, 29 shillings; washing, 25 shillings; servants, five dollars. He also paid 1 shilling 6 pence for watch repair and bought $22.00 worth of buckles.
- Mason (VA) drew a bill of exchange on Lt. Governor Beverly Randolph in favor of Morris (PA) for fifty pounds current money of Virginia to pay money loaned Mason by R. Morris so the former could get home.
- After dining with his colleagues Washington (VA) returned to his room, did some business, received the Convention’s papers from Secretary Jackson, and “retired to meditate on the momentous work which had been executed, after not less than five, for a large part of the time six, and sometimes 7 hours sitting every day, [except] Sundays & the ten days adjournment ... for more than four months.” The business he did included recommending coach maker Clark to William Washington and his friends, signing forty diplomas for Rhode Island members of the Society of the Cincinnati, and accepting a John Pine engraving from Robert Edge Pine.
Philadelphia Today
- The fall session of the Court of Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol Delivery opened in the court room of the State House (directly across the hall from the Convention). Chief Justice Thomas McKean and Justices William Augustus Atlee and George Bryan attended. This court focused on punishment of severe crimes, such as robbery, arson, rape, and murder.
Printers Dunlap and Claypoole made 500 official copies of the United States Constitution, thirteen of which survive to this day. These copies were to be distributed to the delegates, to newspaper printing offices, to the state legislatures, and to the Confederation Congress in New York. The copies contain a typographical error. The Constitution forbids any amendment that bans the slave trade prior to 1808, but Dunlap and Claypoole miswrote the date as “one thousand seven hundred and eight.” Washington’s (VA) copy has a handwritten correction where “seven” is crossed out and replaced with “eight.”
Part of a series of articles titled The Constitutional Convention: A Day by Day Account for September 1787.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/series.htm?id=08B51EF5-A34F-4D2A-4406A816B6CEF699
Ok, I’ve done it! I deleted my Facebook account and all the other meta apps. It was kind of difficult for me. I’m 65, retired, live alone with my dog. It was a way to stay connected to friends and family who are far away. But it was also very fucking toxic. I was getting pulled into dark corners full of MAGAt trash and their spewing lies and laughing at measles deaths and bird flu incidents. I say this unapologetically- I want them all to suffer. I want them to die slow, painful deaths. I want their families and friends to shun them like the filth they are. And I want them to know that history will view them just as it views the complicit Germans during Hitler’s reign of terror.
Thank you for allowing me to vent.
I haven't deleted my account - there are few functional reasons why (it's the only community bulletin board and virtual real-time news for our small town area, plus a couple of older relatives use it for text messaging, and do not have cell phones). But I sure don't cruise it like I once did. I long avoided much of the toxic mess by restricting my feed to people I followed and not much else (also "chronological" instead of curated timeline) but FB made it increasingly difficult to restrict the feeds, and dumped ads in there constantly. About 2 years ago, I stopped visiting there for all but the above two reasons. It's been fine. THere are things I miss, but most of the worthy stuff I've found elsewhere.
Thank you, Rebecca for the tab about Montana. That lifted my heart a little. Last night I had a nightmare where I was trying to convince people that when you take away rights from a group that is just one step away from saying the group has no right to exist. And then shit gets bad. In the dream people kept laughing at me as if I was crazy. Too many people in this country have never paid attention to history and are missing all the red flags. The GIANT red flags. I'm glad all those republicans in Montana saw the flags and did the right thing.
From an NPR interview yesterday with the Iowa dad of a trans teen: when rights can be taken away, they aren’t really rights; they are privileges granted to an in-group.
The 2/28 Economic Blackout protest was a success!
https://substack.com/@cynmac/note/c-98709400
You tease.
Zoey Zephyr is the walking embodiment of why diversity matters.
WTF:
Staff on hundreds of foreign aid projects left in limbo by the Trump administration’s funding freeze have received a survey that asks them to justify their work under an eccentric list of criteria that meet the White House’s new national security priorities.
The survey, copies of which have been seen by the Guardian, asks foreign aid programme staff to detail whether they contribute to limiting illegal immigration or securing US borders, “combating Christian prosecution”, and whether they help the US secure access to rare earth minerals.
It also includes a litmus test on several controversial issues banned under the Trump administration. “Can you confirm this is not a climate or ‘environmental justice’ project or include such elements? [yes/no],” the survey asks. It also asks: “Can you confirm that this is no DEI [diversity, equality and inclusion] project or DEI elements of the project? [yes /no].”
The questionnaire, which was distributed eight weeks after the US president issued a foreign aid funding freeze, comes as thousands of projects have already laid off staff and cut ties with local partners, meaning that even if stop-work orders are lifted the programmes may remain closed.
...........
The questionnaire is an unvarnished look at the administration’s priorities for foreign aid under Trump’s mantra of “America First”.
One question asks whether organisations work with “communist, socialist, or totalitarian parties, or any party that espouses anti-American beliefs?”
Another asks whether “this project reinforce US sovereignty by limiting reliance on international organizations or global governance structures (eg UN, WHO)?” It also asks whether organisations have received any funding from Russia, China, Cuba or Iran. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/07/us-foreign-aid-projects-asked-to-justify-their-work-in-white-house-survey
WASHINGTON (AP) — References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press. The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/us-pentagon-dei-purge_n_67ca5780e4b0f0ee26f56a5c
Was just reading about the McCarthy-era purges. Reads exactly like what is going on now. Trump has found his Roy Cohn.
“communist, socialist, or totalitarian parties, or any party that espouses anti-American beliefs"
So, the GOP?