Democracy Under Siege In Irvine

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I went out to get the paper this morning and noticed that my yard sign was gone. Some Trumpkin vandalizing Hillary signs? Nope. All the other signs in my neighborhood were gone too. City council signs, school board signs, Irvine mayor signs—all gone.

So I investigated. I went over to our sister neighborhood on the other side of the tennis courts. No signs. I don’t know what that neighborhood looked like yesterday, but I’ll bet there were some signs there.

I went farther afield and finally found some signs. But only about half as many as there used to be. How strange. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to which signs were left standing. When I went even farther out, signs reappeared in full force. Half a mile from my house everything was normal. Out on the main drag, signs were still piled high, just as they’ve always been.

What’s going on? Did some local busybodies decide that colorful yard signs were polluting our beautiful all-beige neighborhood? Did my local association suddenly decide they didn’t care about the First Amendment anymore? Did a yard sign neutron bomb go off? It’s very mysterious.

UPDATE: Our association manager says they had nothing to do with this. Mysteriouser and mysteriouser.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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