JON ZAL

Your front-row seat to my nervous breakdown

We interrupt this dumpster fire to remind you that we are going to take our country back

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A year ago last November, America got a wake-up call. On March 24th, many of us proved we’re still awake by turning out in droves to show our support for the survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, and for the strides those brave teenagers are making in the push for commonsense gun-control laws.

A year ago last November, my family and I were not likely to spend a Saturday afternoon hoisting signs at a massive protest with other like-minded Americans who’ve realized that politics and government are not spectator sports.

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I will gladly reach across the aisle … to push out of office as many Republicans as possible

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“The most effective means we have for drowning out the hateful minority that currently holds sway over our government is to turn out in droves on election days and put into office people whom we know share our values and will represent our interests. … Only by doing so can we reclaim our democracy from the vile, greedy, spineless, self-serving cretins whom we’ve allowed to take over.”

The preceding is an excerpt from a piece I published in January titled “Here’s the Thing: A Trump presidency — or one like it — was inevitable.” The premise I set forth is that the many malignant factions of society that have become more noticeable and emboldened during Trump’s presidency exist not because Trump is president, but rather that Trump is president specifically because those factions of society exist and have been allowed to flourish relatively unchecked.

Upon reading said piece, an anonymous reader responded thusly:

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Trey Gowdy is the canary in the Trump-Russia coal mine

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Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, Devin Nunes and the rest of Team Treason on Friday (2/2) released their much-hyped memo … and, as a service to those of you who haven’t had time to read it (it is, after all, a whopping three-and-a-half pages), I’ve gone ahead and worked up this summary:

David Letterman’s interview with Barack Obama & John Lewis will remind you why we must fight on

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At one point during his hour-long interview with David Letterman, Barack Obama offers some reasoned and detailed remarks about the global economy, at the conclusion of which Letterman responds by saying, “To hear you describe this in a way that I can understand just makes me so happy you’re still president.”

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Here’s the thing: A Trump presidency—or one like it—was inevitable

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The most compelling stories often are those that feature a deeply unlikable villain against whom the forces of good must rally, and when the ink dries on this chapter in American history, the record will show that Donald Trump was that villain. His vulgarity knows no bounds, his incompetence and unfitness for the office he holds are unprecedented, and his utter lack of anything even vaguely resembling the empathy, gravitas, dignity or humility a man in his position should possess makes him an easy and highly deserving target of our collective rage and resistance. As awful as he is, however, Donald Trump is not the sum total of that against which we now must fight; he is merely the most glaring symptom of a larger malignancy. To wit:

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We’re better than this

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After spending the day in and around many of Washington, D.C.’s most historic buildings and seeing in action some of the Senators I most admire, I felt compelled to visit the National Mall—the Lincoln Memorial, in particular. I don’t know why; I just knew I needed to see it.

Lincoln Memorial

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Mr. Zal goes to Washington

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Jon Zal @ The Capitol

Last Thursday, I spent the day in Washington, D.C., shadowing a colleague (a.k.a. my sister) on the Hill while she met with aides at the offices of several Democratic and Republican Senators. It was my second-ever trip to our nation’s capital, and my first since becoming an overly obsessed political junkie … so, naturally, I was a bit awed by my surroundings.

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Guns aren’t dangerous, the NRA doesn’t own the Republican party, and other lies

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Last week, in the immediate aftermath of the deadliest mass shooting in modern history, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) went on television and defended civilian ownership of the AR-15, a military-style assault rifle that the Las Vegas shooter used to kill 59 people and injure more than 500. Cole—one of many Republican Congressmen who, not coincidentally, has received thousands of dollars from the National Rifle Association—argued that the weapon is not dangerous “when used appropriately.”

During U.S. Army basic training, I was taught the appropriate use of the M-16, the military’s fully automatic version of the semi-automatic AR-15. I distinctly recall the description that the other trainees and I received of what the bullets our weapons fired were capable of doing to the human body.

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Remembering 9/11

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I took that photo back in August of 1995 from the bow of the Staten Island Ferry during my first-ever visit to Manhattan. Despite having grown up just a couple hundred miles away, I somehow managed to not go there until I was 25. I guess I just assumed that it couldn’t be much different than Boston, so why bother?

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