1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

Happy Flag Day America. Today we celebrate our country’s enduring symbol. One we revere. Salute. Keep from desecration. Mostly. Friday night UFC fighters held a press conference at the Lincoln Memorial in advance of the UFC cage matches at the White House for the president’s BD party today. Flag Day. Trump sent the United States Army Herald Trumpets, the US Army ensemble chiefly responsible for playing the entrance and exit fanfares for the President of the United States, to open the event. The fighters walked from Lincoln’s statue down the steps of the memorial through the Armed Forces Full Honor Cordon, a pathway formed between two groups made up of sixteen service members in dress uniforms. This is the US military’s highest ceremonial formation, usually reserved for heads of state, foreign dignitaries, senior officials, and funerals for military heroes. Then the weigh-in for the UFC fighters also took place at the Lincoln Memorial. Heavyweight fighter Josh Hokit seemed to pretend to throw up, dribbling colored liquid from his mouth. “So what? Maybe I was drinking last night,” Hokit told the media there. Also on Saturday dirt bike stunt performers flew and back-flipped over the UFC octagon fight arena, across the facade of the White House. Like a Las Vegas back-drop. Continuing his patriotic uplifting of the country he leads, the president posted an image of the Obama Presidential Center as a garbage can surrounded by a homeless encampment. All of this cheap, but not inexpensive, marketing of America’s symbols by our president should turn our collective stomach. And it does. As polls have shown. But no matter. If there’s a buck to be made, it will be. America is just another grift. The most lucrative one yet. At least for a president willing to desecrate anything, or everything, if it serves his interests. How are we expected to maintain respect for anything our country symbolizes and stands for if our President doesn’t? Why should we be expected to when it’s being so deeply cheapened? And half of Congress just accepts it as Trump BAU? Let the games begin. While our flag fly high above it all. Happy Flag Day.