I'm old enough to remember when it was frowned upon-even considered very bad-for the White House to photoshop anything or digitally alter photos for the public record. On Thursday, the official White House social media accounts posted a digitally altered photo of an arrested protester to make it look like she was crying. About thirty minutes earlier, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted what seems to be the original image of the arrest-in which the woman appears completely composed.
Local activists Brad Newsham and Travis Van Brasch on January 10 organized a massive human banner at Ocean Beach in San Francisco that read, in all caps, "IT WAS MURDER - ICE OUT!" and included an American flag that rotated upside down, signifying distress and danger. The words were etched into the sand in 100-foot letters before many of the participants arrived by 11:30 am.
On the face of it, it was kind of funny, but the caption told an entirely more nuanced story: if you were to show up at the restaurant's downtown location that weekend during the No Kings protest wearing an inflatable costume, you could have a beer for $3, but if you wore a frog costume, you could have a beer for free. It was the most popular post in the history of Lardo's social media accounts.
