angry american tour

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• John Garcia
• Dandy Brown
• David Angstrom

Angry American Tour

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Angry American Tour is a tour featuring the California desert rock band Hermano . Hosted in the Fall of 2005, Hermano would be touring in support of their second album Dare I Say... . Notably, Mike Callahan would be unavailable for the tour to which Olly Smit ( Celestial Season ) would fill in as a second guitarist.

The Angry American Tour would notably spawn both live releases by the band: Live at W2 in 2005 and The Sweet And Easy Of Brief Happiness in 2006. Only nine of the tour dates are known.

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NOTE: This is a list of known dates.

• 20 November 2004 - Lintfabriek , Kontich, Belgium
• 21 November 2004 - The Garage , London, England
• 22 November 2004 - Péniche Alternat , Paris, France
• 23 November 2004 - Son'Art , Bordeaux, France
• 24 November 2004 - Sala Aqualung , Madrid, Spain
• 27 November 2004 - Sala Apolo , Barcelona, Spain
• 1 December 2004 - Rote Fabrik , Zurich, Switzerland
• 3 December 2004 - AN Club , Athens, Greece
• 4 December 2004 - W2 , Den Bosch, Netherlands
• John Garcia - Vocals
• Dandy Brown - Bass
• David Angstrom - Guitar
• Olly Smit - Guitar
• Chris Leathers - Drums

External Links [ ]

• The tour on Setlist.fm
• Live in Athens, Greece
• Live in Den Bosch, Netherlands

References [ ]

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The Angry American Tour: Exploring How It’s Changing Country Music

By Happy Sharer

Introduction

The Angry American Tour is a revolutionary movement in country music that is changing the way we think about the genre. By taking traditional country music styles and infusing them with a punk-rock attitude, this tour has been able to reach a new generation of fans who have never experienced the genre before. This article will explore the Angry American Tour, its impact on country music, and how it’s redefining the genre for a new generation.

A Look at the Angry American Tour

The Angry American Tour was created by two Nashville-based musicians, Chris Shiflett and Steve Earle. They wanted to create an alternative to the traditional country music scene and bring a new energy to the genre. The tour features a variety of artists from different genres such as punk, rock, folk, and Americana. It’s an eclectic mix of sounds and styles that has resonated with a new generation of fans.

The tour has been wildly successful and has become a phenomenon in the country music scene. It’s attracted some of the biggest names in country music, including Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Garth Brooks. The tour has also featured some of today’s hottest up-and-coming artists, such as Kacey Musgraves and Sturgill Simpson.

One of the key aspects of the Angry American Tour is its ability to take traditional country music styles and infuse them with a punk-rock attitude. This has allowed the tour to reach a new generation of fans who may not have otherwise been exposed to the genre. The tour has also helped to open up the genre to a wider range of influences, making it more accessible to listeners of all backgrounds.

An Analysis of the Impact on Traditional Country Music Styles

The Angry American Tour has had a profound impact on traditional country music styles. For example, the tour has embraced elements of punk-rock and Americana, which are genres that were previously seen as being in opposition to traditional country music. This has allowed the tour to reach a new audience and introduce them to a different side of the genre.

The tour has also encouraged a more progressive approach to songwriting. Artists on the tour have been pushing the boundaries of what is considered acceptable within the genre, creating songs that explore topics such as social issues, mental health, and politics. This has opened up the genre to a more diverse range of topics, allowing listeners to engage with the music on a deeper level.

An Exploration of the Angry American Tour

As well as having an impact on traditional country music styles, the Angry American Tour has also had an effect on country music fans. The tour has been able to reach a new generation of fans who may not have been exposed to the genre before. It has also enabled people from different backgrounds to connect with the genre in a way that wasn’t possible before.

The tour has also provided a platform for the musicians involved to express their views and opinions. This has given them a voice and enabled them to communicate their messages to a larger audience. The tour has also brought attention to some of the issues facing the country music industry, such as diversity and representation.

Finally, the tour has also helped to redefine country music for a new generation. By embracing different styles and influences, the tour has been able to create a genre that is more inclusive and accessible. It has also allowed the genre to evolve and reach a wider audience.

The Angry American Tour has had a major impact on country music. By taking traditional country music styles and infusing them with a punk-rock attitude, the tour has been able to reach a new generation of fans who may not have been exposed to the genre before. It has also encouraged a more progressive approach to songwriting, which has opened up the genre to a wider range of topics. Finally, the tour has helped to redefine country music for a new generation, making it more accessible and inclusive.

If you’re a fan of country music, then the Angry American Tour is definitely worth checking out. It’s a great way to experience the genre in a new way and get to know the artists behind the music. Additionally, it’s a great opportunity to support the genre and help it to continue to grow and evolve.

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Hi, I'm Happy Sharer and I love sharing interesting and useful knowledge with others. I have a passion for learning and enjoy explaining complex concepts in a simple way.

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The Story Behind Toby Keith’s Controversial 9/11 Anthem “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue”

Country music singer Toby Keith died on Monday . He was 62.

While Keith signed his first record deal in 1993, he became better known outside the country music orbit after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when he released the hit song “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" in 2002. The rally-around-the-flag anthem captured the rage Americans were feeling after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with explicit lyrics like “you'll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A / 'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way.”

Keith came up with the idea for the song the week after 9/11. He was organizing his fantasy football team and started scribbling the lyrics on the back of a sheet of paper. According to a Mar. 1, 2004 profile of the singer (headlined "America's Ruffian") in TIME , the song "tumbled out of him in a 20-minute writing binge."

"‘I wrote it so that I had something to play for our fighting men and women,’ he says. In a trial run at the U.S. Naval Academy, it brought the house down. ‘But once people said I should release it, I knew there was going to be trouble. I'm comfortable being extreme, but saying 'boot in your ass' is so extreme. Of course, if you say, 'foot in your butt,' you got no song.’”

In a 2003 60 Minutes interview , Keith said he hoped to perform the song for troops deployed abroad in the Middle East, so he played it for Pentagon officials. He said a Marine Corps commandant urged him to release the song globally, arguing that it would be a public service.

The song was a hit, and peaked at #25 on the Billboard chart of the hottest songs in the U.S. At least one tank in Baghdad had “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” written across it. That 2004 TIME profile dubbed Keith “the poet laureate of righteous indignation” and the “country's resident rogue--the permanent outsider who speaks manly but unwelcome truths.” But the gung-ho tone of the lyrics didn’t mean that he agreed with everything about the war in Iraq, describing himself politically to the magazine as “an extremely conservative Democrat” with mixed feelings about the motivations for the war with Iraq. That said, he told the magazine, "Most people think I'm a redneck patriot. I'm O.K. with that."

But the angry lyrics in the song rubbed some the wrong way. Keith was set to perform the song for a 2002 July 4th special hosted by Peter Jennings, but Jennings reportedly nixed the idea because he thought the song wouldn’t set the right tone. In subsequent years Keith maintained that he had no regrets and said that the song had to be provocative to boost national morale. As he put it in a 2021 FOX Nation interview , “I knew it would be polarizing, I knew it would be a lightning rod. And I prayed about it. But at the end of the day, it was a battle cry for our guys to go win and get back home safely and go do what Americans really do.”

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The Unabashed Meaning Behind Toby Keith’s Patriotic Hit “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)”

by Tina Benitez-Eves February 7, 2024, 5:17 pm

For years, Toby Keith ‘s father “begged” him to go out on USO Tours. “I was so busy,” said Keith . “We were doing 130 shows a year that I just didn’t have in my schedule.” On March 24, 2001, Keith’s father, Hubert K. Covel Jr., an Army veteran who fought in the Korean War, died in a fatal car accident at the age of 67. “Finally, he passed away in March [of 2001],” said Keith, “and then 9/11 happened. I was like, ‘Now I have to go honor him.'”

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“the angry american”.

Several months later, following 9/11, the chain of events prompted Keith to write one of his biggest hits, “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue,” the opening track on his 2002 album Unleashed . Within 20 minutes Keith wrote the lyrics to the song on the back of a Fantasy Football sheet with the working title “The Angry American.” “When I turned it in, they said, ‘Well, it really doesn’t say ‘angry American’ in there. Why don’t you call it ‘Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue?”” recalled Keith. “So, I did.”

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A Polarizing Poll

An homage to Keith’s father, who lost an eye while serving in the Korean War and always flew the flag in their yard, “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)” was also unapologetically patriotic. Keith’s lyrics follow the American dream, freedom from the sacrifices of troops, and his idea of the prowess of America: And you’ll be sorry that you messed with The U.S. of A. / We’ll put a boot in your ass / It’s the American way.

American girls and American guys We’ll always stand up and salute We’ll always recognize When we see Old Glory flying There’s a lot of men dead So we can sleep in peace at night when we lay down our head My daddy served in the army Where he lost his right eye but he flew a flag out in our yard Until the day that he died He wanted my mother, my brother, my sister and me To grow up and live happy In the land of the free Now this nation that I love has fallen under attack A mighty sucker punch came flyin’ in from somewhere in the back Soon as we could see clearly Through our big black eye Man, we lit up your world Like the fourth of July

[RELATED: From His Debut Album to a Jimmy Buffett Cover: Toby Keith’s Final Concert in Las Vegas in 2023 (Setlist and Videos)]

Hey Uncle Sam, put your name at the top of his list And the Statue of Liberty started shakin’ her fist And the eagle will fly man, it’s gonna be hell When you hear mother freedom start ringin’ her bell And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you Brought to you courtesy of the red white and blue Justice will be served and the battle will rage This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage And you’ll be sorry that you messed with The U.S. of A. ‘Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass It’s the American way Hey uncle sam put your name at the top of his list And the Statue of Liberty started shakin’ her fist And the eagle will fly it’s gonna be hell When you hear mother freedom start ringin’ her bell And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you Brought to you courtesy of the red white and blue

Along with “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue,” which went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, Keith also earned two more chart-toppers from Unleashed with “Who’s Your Daddy” and “Beer for My Horses,” his duet with  Willie Nelson , along with “Rock You Baby,” which peaked at No. 13. Though “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” topped the charts it was not without some controversy when some found the lyrics too “angry.” Keith even refused to appear on an ABC special after reporter Peter Jennings asked him to tone down the lyrics of “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” or pick something else to perform. The song also led Keith into a brief feud with The Chicks ‘ singer Natalie Maines, who called the song “ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant.” He also shut down Maine’s criticisms of then-President George W. Bush and the Iraq War.

[RELATED: 3 Songs You Did n’t Know Toby Keith Wrote for Other Artists]

“I knew it would be polarizing,” said Keith of the lyrics. “I knew it would be a lightning rod, and I prayed about but [at the] end of the day, it was a battle cry for our guys to go win and get back home safely and go do what Americans really do and that’s kick butt.” Keith added, “This song was bigger than I could ever imagine and it was more polarizing than I could ever imagine, but I don’t care. It meant so much to so many people and it came from the heart. Godspeed.”

Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images for ACM

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‘Angry American’ Toby Keith, the Dixie Chicks and the battle for country’s soul

T oby Keith, who has died aged 62, was a country music superstar from Oklahoma whose album and song titles included White Trash with Money, Should’ve Been a Cowboy, I Like Girls That Drink Beer, and Beer for My Horses (a duet with Willie Nelson). But Keith sold over 40 million albums and had 22 number one hits on the US country chart, and they weren’t all about beer.

Keith was also responsible for one of country music’s biggest controversies of recent decades – a brouhaha that led to a very public spat with the Dixie Chicks and paved the way for the current crop of Right-leaning, fired-up, Trump-supporting “trad” country singers such as Jason Aldean .

In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks on the US in 2001, Keith wrote a song called Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American). It contained his thoughts about how America should react to the atrocities. He didn’t hold back; the phrase “scorched earth” springs to mind. The penultimate verse is worth relaying here in full. “Justice will be served and the battle will rage/ This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage/ And you’ll be sorry you messed with the U.S. of A./ ’Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass/ It’s the American way,” Keith sang. The song resonated with patriotic listeners, topping the country chart and reaching number 25 on the main Billboard Hot 100 chart. 

But there was immediate pushback from some quarters. TV network ABC invited Keith to sing on a patriotic special but asked him to tone down the song’s lyrics or sing a different track. He refused. There was also disdain from the more progressive wing of the country music scene. 

Natalie Maines, lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, told the Los Angeles Daily News in 2002 that she “hated” the song. “It’s ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant. It targets an entire culture, and not just the bad people who did bad things,” Maines said. “You’ve got to have some tact. Anybody can write, ‘We’ll put a boot in your ass.’ The kind of songs I prefer on the subject are like Bruce Springsteen’s new songs [which appeared on his more meditative post-9/11 album The Rising].”

Keith was unimpressed at any criticism of his song, particularly because he wrote it in tribute to his late-father who’d served in the Korean war, lost an eye but still – according to the track – “flew a flag out in our yard ‘til the day that he died”. While Keith didn’t respond to Maines’ comments specifically, he admitted that he was “defensive” when people attacked his composition. “You get on that and you just turn into a commie heathen with me,” he said.

But things soon got personal. On March 10 2003, on the eve of the US-led invasion of Iraq, the Dixie Chicks played a concert at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Possibly thinking she was far enough away from her Texan home to get away with it, Maines introduced the song Travelin’ Soldier by saying, “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States [George W. Bush] is from Texas.” The comments were reported by a British newspaper and there was an immediate backlash back home. 

The band were blacklisted from numerous country radio stations, with one Colorado station suspending two DJs for playing the Dixie Chicks. Protestors in Louisiana drove tractors over Dixie Chicks CDs. But it was Keith who undertook the highest-profile anti-Maines stunt. During a tour to support his 2003 album Shock’n Y’all – lead single I Love This Bar ­– Keith displayed a photoshopped backdrop behind the stage depicting Maines with then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. It was a brutal rejoinder.

The animosity went both ways. Around this time Maines appeared at the Academy of Country Music awards wearing a T-shirt bearing the letters F.U.T.K., which most people took to stand for F--- You Toby Keith. A band spokeswoman claimed that it actually stood for Friends United in Truth and Kindness, a game approach that should forever be filed under the Nice Try category of PR strategies. The whole situation was unedifying and polarising although a truce of sorts was called towards the end of 2003.

But the battle lines in country music had been drawn. While the Dixie Chicks (since renamed The Chicks) embodied the liberal side of the equation – the “commie heathen” corner, if you will – Keith represented, some would say spearheaded, a new staunchly patriotic wing of country music. The election of Donald Trump as president in 2016 only bolstered this constituency of popular, populist country singers. They’re less megastars, more MAGA-stars.

Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American) has become something of a blueprint. In the 22 years since the song’s release, numerous other country tracks in a similarly outspoken and provocative vein have been released. Perhaps the most pertinent recent example is by 46-year-old Jason Aldean.

Last summer Aldean released a video for a ballad called Try That in a Small Town. It was, he explained, about the declining sense of community and respect in modern America. Aldean told fans that he hoped the video helped them realise that they were “not alone in feeling that way”. The song was essentially a warning to agitators of any stripe. The video comprised footage of clashes between protestors and police, and shops being looted by people in balaclavas. “Stomp on the flag and light it up/ Yeah, you think you’re tough/ Well, try that in a small town,” sang Aldean. “See how far you make it down the road/ Around here, we take care of our own.” 

Aldean’s band were filmed performing the song in front of Maury County Courthouse in Tennessee, the site of a 1927 lynching of a black man called Henry Choate. The song immediately took on racial connotations (which Aldean strenuously denied). Right-wing politicians defended the singer. Trump himself waded in. He wrote on his Truth Social platform: “Jason Aldean is a fantastic guy who just came out with a great new song. Support Jason all the way. MAGA!!!” Meanwhile, left-leaning groups took Aldean to task.

Also last summer, a former farmer from small town Virginia called Oliver Anthony released a song called Rich Men North of Richmond which became a viral smash hit. The song criticised greedy politicians (Washington DC is north of Richmond) and attacked overweight people for “milkin’ welfare”. Specifically, Anthony said that people’s taxes should not be used by people who are “5-foot-3 and… 300 pounds” to “pay for bags of fudge rounds”. Anthony became a somewhat unwilling poster boy for Right in the US and topped the Apple Music and iTunes Country charts to boot.

Keith proved that being an angry, patriotic American could send a song up the charts. Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American) was his highest certified single in the US. It had sold over 1,600,000 digital copies as of 2019, creating a template that is still being followed today: rally the base and the hits will follow. 

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Ode to the Angry American

February 27, 2024 by Nick Perna

I’m personally a fan of classic country. I’ll take Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, or Merle Haggard over most contemporary artists. I don’t have anything against the current performers but, they are first and foremost musicians. To me, they seem like the product of talent show tryouts, the kind you might see in your local mall, where producers cast them either as boy band members, singing heart throbs or “country music” singers. Throw a Stetson on their head, a pair of ripped jeans and boots and off to Nashville you go.

The old singers were men who lived life. Like many of us, they were military veterans. Johnny Cash served overseas during the Korean conflict, Kris Kristofferson was an Army Ranger and helicopter pilot. Others, like Merle Haggard, chose a much different path. Ending up in prison. Regardless, these men lived hard, interesting lives and, they wrote songs about it. The rips in their jeans came from falling down and getting back up again, not from a sweat shop in Indonesia.

Every once in a while, a contemporary artist enters the scene who is a throwback to the classic country era. Enter Toby Keith. A native of Oklahoma, Toby worked the in the oil fields, working his way up to supervisor. When the oil business lagged and he needed work, he became a semi-professional football player for the USFL’s Oklahoma Outlaws. All the while he played local joints, gaining a following with local crowds. He then moved to Nashville, playing the smaller venues until he was picked up by a record label and the rest, as they say, is history.

As the son of an army veteran, Keith became one of the first performers to go overseas and entertain troops during the Global War On Terror. He wrote his iconic, “Angry American” (AKA Courtesy of The Red White and Blue) especially for those serving overseas. He initially had no intention of recording but, after playing in front of a group of Marines, the Commandant of the Marine Corps recommended he put on wax, he did. Shortly thereafter, it topped the charts.

To those of us who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places during GWOT, the Angry American, was a rallying cry. It was a good reminder throughout the conflict that, regardless of the politics, we were a nation at war, avenging those defenseless Americans who died on 9-11. Like the National Anthem, it is a song the evokes strong emotions and puts a knot in your throat.

In all, Toby Keith performed in front of 250,000 US troops. When he wasn’t doing that he was churning classics like” Red Solo Cup” and “I love this bar” (two of my personal favorites).

We lost Toby Keith on February 5 th of this year from stomach cancer. He was married for 40 years.  Another artist taken from us too early.

So, here’s to the man and provided the theme song to my war. God Speed Toby Keith, you have our gratitude for moving a nation into action.

_________________________

Nick Perna is a Police Officer with the Redwood City Police Department in Northern California. He has spent much of his career as a gang and narcotics investigator. He is a member of a Multi-Jurisdictional SWAT Team since 2001 and is currently a Team Leader. He previously served as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army and is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has a Master’s Degree from the University Of San Francisco.

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10 things you may not know about Toby Keith

Oklahoma's very own Toby Keith isn't exactly an enigma wrapped in a shadow, but there are some things about him you should know. Here are 10 things you may not have known about Toby Keith.

'The Angry American'

One of Toby Keith's biggest hits, "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)," didn't come without its controversy.

It only took the guy 20 minutes to write, which is pretty awesome especially when you consider all the accolades — and criticism — it received.

It is a certified platinum single, having sold more than 1.5 million digital copies alone. But that didn't stop The Chicks from slamming the song, claiming it is "ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant."

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Loss and Pain

Speaking of "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)," the inspiration behind the song is, undoubtedly, the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But it's also inspired by Keith's loss of his father, who died in an auto accident in March 2001.

One of Keith's first gigs as a musician was at a wedding. He made $1,000 that evening, something he referred to as "easy money." And that's when he named his first band the Easy Money Band.

From Easy Money to Lots of Money

In 2017, Keith was No. 83 on Forbes' Celebrity 100 earnings list. In 2013, the magazine also reported Keith had made more than $500 million over his lifetime as an entertainer.

Keith has released 18 studio albums, two Christmas albums and four greatest hits albums. So, it's no surprised he has many songs grace the music charts over the years. Sixty-four singles, in fact, have made it on the Billboard country charts, 20 of which reached the No. 1 spot.

Acting, Too

Keith has had some acting gigs, too, which include 2006's "Broken Bridges" and 2008's "Beer for My Horses."

Keith doesn't just sit on all his money like some sort of Scrooge McDuck — he's always finding ways to give back to others, especially here in Oklahoma.

The Toby Keith Foundation founded the OK Kids Korral in Oklahoma City, which is described as "a haven for the entire family as a child with cancer receives treatment."

Football Player, Football Fan

Keith is a football junky and a huge University of Oklahoma fan. But did you know he actually played the sport, too?

He was on the Moore High School team where he played defensive end. And, in the early 1980s, he played semiprofessional ball for the Oklahoma City Drillers.

On a pay-per-view event for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in 2002, Keith was performing "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" when he was rudely interrupted by professional wrestler Jeff Jarrett. 

But Keith got his revenge when he entered a match Jarrett was in, suplexed the man and eliminated him from the competition.

Bush, Obama and Trump

Keith doesn't shy away from discussing politics, but he's always said, when he's invited by a president to perform, he accepts and does so for the country and military. 

He's played events for presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. He's also played more than 200 shows in Iraq and Afghanistan for the USO.

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Americans Were Never Supposed to Hear Toby Keith's Ass-Kicking Post-9/11 Battle Song on the Radio

Toby Keith, country music superstar and avid USO supporter who performed for more than 250,000 troops in 17 countries over two decades, died of stomach cancer on Feb. 5, 2024, at his home in Oklahoma.

Among the most popular songs Keith, who was 62, performed for American troops was "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)," which also turned out to be his most controversial -- even though Keith had never intended to release the song to the public in the first place

Looking back at 2002, one might think of the overly patriotic song's release as one of the most significant cultural flashpoints of the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. That year, Keith was kicked off the list of performers for an ABC Independence Day special when he refused to change the song's lyrics, and the anthem led to a yearslong feud with Natalie Maines, lead singer of the country band then known as the Dixie Chicks.

But Keith had only ever intended to play "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" at USO shows and military performances; he was never going to record the song and release it to the public more broadly, according to The Washington Post -- that is, until a few choice words from the Marine Corps' top officer changed his mind.

According to the Post, then-Commandant of the Marine Corps and future Supreme Allied Commander Gen. James L. Jones had told Keith outright that "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" was "the most amazing battle song I've ever heard in my life" and encouraged him to release the song as a single.

"Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and No. 25 on the overall list of top songs in the U.S. following its release. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, it's not hard to figure out why: Keith describes the attack as a "sucker punch" and the U.S. response as "a boot in your ass, it's the American Way."

Keith was at the height of his fame at the time of the attacks, and like other artists, he wanted to write a song about what he was feeling in the aftermath. But where other country artists wrote about grief and loss, Keith wondered why no one had written a song about how angry people were about the attacks. So he invoked the memory of his father, Hubert Keith Covel, and began writing angry lyrics on the back of a fantasy football sheet , dashing out the music and lyrics in about 20 minutes.

Covel was an Army veteran who fought in the Korean War, who really did lose his right eye and really did fly the American flag from his home every day until he died. The day he died also happened to be in 2001, when a charter bus collided with his car on a stretch of Oklahoma's Interstate 35. His father's death is also what compelled Keith to start touring with the USO as a way to honor his father, who had begged the singer to do USO tours for years.

Keith first played "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" while performing for Marines at the Pentagon prior to their deployment to Afghanistan. Keith told his captive audience he would have to play an acoustic version, because the band didn't know it yet. That's when Gen. Jones approached him and encouraged the singer to release his battle hymn as a single. Keith knew the song would be controversial, but he released it because " if it means so much to those guys, I don't care. I'll do it ."

"Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" was a single on Keith's 2002 album "Unleashed," which was certified platinum four times by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling more than four million copies. Despite the subsequent rows with ABC News' Peter Jennings and a feud with Dixie Chicks singer Maines that lasted years, Keith never expressed any regret about the song's sentiment.

"Most people think I'm a redneck patriot," he told Time magazine in 2004 . "I'm OK with that."

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Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American) by Toby Keith

• American girls and American guys We'll always stand up and salute We'll always recognize When we see Old Glory flying There's a lot of men dead So we can sleep in peace at night when we lay down our head My daddy served in the army Where he lost his right eye but he flew a flag out in our yard 'Til the day that he died He wanted my mother, my brother, my sister and me To grow up and live happy In the land of the free Now this nation that I love has fallen under attack A mighty sucker punch came flyin' in from somewhere in the back Soon as we could see clearly Through our big black eye Man, we lit up your world Like the fourth of July Hey Uncle Sam, put your name at the top of his list And the Statue of Liberty started shakin' her fist And the eagle will fly man, it's gonna be hell When you hear mother freedom start ringin' her bell And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you Oh, brought to you courtesy of the red white and blue Oh, and justice will be served and the battle will rage This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage And you'll be sorry that you messed with The U.S. of A. 'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass It's the American way Hey Uncle Sam, put your name at the top of his list And the Statue of Liberty started shakin' her fist And the eagle will fly it's gonna be hell When you hear mother freedom start ringin' her bell And it'll feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you Oh, brought to you courtesy of the red white and blue Oh-oh, of the red, white and blue Oh-oh, of my red, white and blue Writer/s: Toby Keith Publisher: Tokeco Tunes Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind
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Comments: 46

• Karen Rees from Lebanon Illinois The Angry American is a fantastic song & conveys Americans feelings when our nation is attacked physically and verbally. Even God would be proud of us for taking a stand about what is right and wrong. Correct I am a Hawk with good reason. We must stand up for God our families our communities and our nation. Vultures are on the sidelines waiting for us to show weakness. Many are wolves in sheeps clothing trying to trick us. Be Vigilant!!! America is the home of the brave and the land of the free. We need to keep it that way.
• Raven from Illinois Jeremy said: Okay, I'm trying to open minded here. Please explain something to me. Terrorists attacked New York City. Bush sent soldiers into Afghanistan and Iraq to find those responsible. Why is Bush a bad guy, he wants justice. From what I've heard from people, Bush was the one that allowed the terrorists to come into the country and take the planes. They also say that he is killing our servicemen and women out in Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm not sure whether that is true or not about him causing 9/11. But, many people think that Bush should've just left everything alone. I've noticed that many people don't like ANY of the presidents we've had over the years. They will bring up things that make the presidents look bad.
• Austin from Us Army David said: I like Toby Keith, but I don't particularly like this song for several reasons... 1. The Statue of Liberty doesn't shake her fist. 2. You don't brag about having to fight someone... and "put a boot in your ass" is clearly that. We are talking about committing our best and our brightest to a war inwhich many will be killed, maimed, or tortured. Many will never be the same when they return and will need out care and support for years if not a lifetime afterwards. We are in some cowboy movie where the guy with the white hat rides in on his horse, kills the bad guy, and gets the girl in the end. This is an angry, hateful song, and that's why... morally... I object to it. Its sad that so many people don't understand that. Wow, really dude? This is one of the most patriotic songs I've ever heard. Hateful and angry? Of course it is hateful and angry. You don't include thousands of civilians in any attack. These bastards fight cowardly. They use their women and children as shields and Trojan horse with suicide vests on. The only way to win a war is to kill enough of your enemy so that they will lose the morale to keep fighting. We need to nuke them. If we could separate their women and children, it would be easy. P.S. I didn't have an account on this site until I saw this ignorant comment.
• Bill Swerski from The South Will Raise Again! When I listen to this song and think of what Obama has done to our once proud country it almost makes me wanna cry.
• Andrea from Tn Love this song!!! I am so proud of Toby Keith for standing up and writing such a bold song!!! I wish people who bash this song would MOVE to another country! You should be proud of our troops, proud to be an American, and proud of all of our veterans! They fought for YOUR freedom! It's songs like this that show the world we are NOT afraid of terrorists. I am ready for a new President who will HUNT down these terrorists that kill our Americans!
• Guy from Benson, Nc David said "1. The Statue of Liberty doesn't shake her fist. 2. You don't brag about having to fight someone... and "put a boot in your ass" is clearly that. " The Statue of Liberty shaking her fist is a METAPHOR. Metaphors are used frequently in songs and books so that the singer can convey an idea without having to be too wordy. I'm sure you know that and were just grasping at straws to find fault in the song.
• David from Dundalk, Md I like Toby Keith, but I don't particularly like this song for several reasons... 1. The Statue of Liberty doesn't shake her fist. 2. You don't brag about having to fight someone... and "put a boot in your ass" is clearly that. We are talking about committing our best and our brightest to a war inwhich many will be killed, maimed, or tortured. Many will never be the same when they return and will need out care and support for years if not a lifetime afterwards. We are in some cowboy movie where the guy with the white hat rides in on his horse, kills the bad guy, and gets the girl in the end. This is an angry, hateful song, and that's why... morally... I object to it. Its sad that so many people don't understand that.
• Amanda from Lincoln, Ne You know my brother is in the Army and he has been to Iraq since 9/11. If it was not for people like Toby, my brother would feel hurt by all the anger and hatred about going to war after 9/11. You people who are speaking negatively towards this song need to understand that if it was not for our troops, we would not be the free country we are today. The way I look at it is if you do not like the song then do not listen to it. I love my brother and I am extremely proud of him. He puts his own life on the line for all of us. He came back and reenlisted because he felt that he needed to serve this country the best way he could. He has written about the death and destruction that happens every day there and not all of it is us. We are fighting for the thousands that died on 9/11. I hope that maybe you realize that without these Troops, the USA could still be under attack. They are all brave souls and my heart breaks for the deaths and I have so much compassion for the families of the troops. The military needs to be commended for all security and safety we have today. God Bless Our Military and God Bless the USA!! Please Toby keep making that beautiful music!!!! We love you!!!!
• Johnnie from Crystal River , Fl honestly how is Toby Keith lame at least he is showing support for our Armed Forces like we should this is the reason as to why i am proud to be in NJROTC (Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps) GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!
• Christian from Orland Park, Il You know all of you who are dissing this song really piss me off. How unpatriotic are you?! This is America, the GREATEST country in the world. We reserve the right to say what we want and Toby did that. This is for those troops and helps keep focus why theyre risking their lives for us. Shut the Hell up all of you who cant support the USA. If you think those "poor afghans" are so unfortunate, how bout this, you go over there and help them. Im sure it would be a pleasure for you to die alongside those afghans since you are no American in my eyes or any real American Patriots.
• Garrett from Phenix City, Al I agree with all the people on this site who agree with Mr. Keith's song. Toby wrote the song shortly after the attacks, and I think he was just saying what needed to be said. I sang this song for a couple of the troops at the Walter Reed hospital in Washington DC a couple of years ago, and they liked it. I would also like to say that all these rights and this piece of land we have, we don't get to keep them by just backing down. How do you think we even got to start this country when we wanted to break away from the British. We had to fight for it. I also have a step uncle whose son is serving in the military, and that makes songs like this mean even more to me. I'd like to say to all the men and women defending our country, if there is any of you who read this comment weather you are over seas or here at home, I am darn proud of you and what you are doing. Keep up the good work. God bless you all!!!!!!
• Dylon from Grant, Mi i also agree with, Mallory, from Vineland, NJ if you don't like the great U.S of A get the f*ck out.
• Mallory from Vineland, Nj Some of you people are ridiculous. My husband died for this country, protecting some of you ignorant people and you have the nerve to call them "helpless afghans"? Well those "helpless Afghans" killed my husband, and because of them my daughter has to grow up without a father. Terrorists attacked OUR country and killed our citizens!!! What are we suposed to do...Look the other way while these people kill the people that we love? If it was one of your family members that died on 9/11 then it wouldnt be so "overblown and "ridiculous". The Iraqis and Afghanis got what they deserved. Im damn proud of my marine and ALL the soldiers that lay their life down for this country every day...While we are here b**ching about the president' policies and the "poor afghans" there are men and women over there dieing for our freedom. If you have such a problem with the presidents policies and america then leave. No one is making you stay in this country. If Toby Keith wants to show his respect for this country then so be it.
• Kim from Birmingham, Al We still have the First Amendment which allows us to say (or sing) what we feel. Any red blooded American is proud of the response Toby applied to the tragidy of 9/11. True many more have died in other places at the hands of the weather and GOD, but the events sung about in this song was an act of man. God bless Toby Keith and other artists who will not let us forget.
• Marcus from Houston, Tx What gets me about people like Kelli and her ilk is that they complain about how the U.S. has committed "atrocities" against "innocent civilians" of other countries but can't muster an ounce of outrage when these terrorists butcher, main, and slaughter innocent civilians with impunity of ANY country. Doesn't matter how heinous the act is, they always find a way to blame it on American foreign policy and actually have the audacity to garner sympathy for the terrorists. They get mad when someone says a prayer in school but can't even condemn terrorists who kill in the name of GOD (unless it's an abortion clinic bomber). They can't even bring themselves to use the words "terrorists" and "The War Against Terror" because they're too afraid they might offend people of other countries and it's divisive. They care more about what everybody thinks of them than what is the best response for this scenario. They hate Toby Keith's song but will celebrate muscians who glamorize violence and vulgarity against women, murder, gang activity, and other criminal behavior. They love songs that preach protesting against the "establishment" and insulting the president. In their mind, America "got what it deserved" because somehow, it's OUR fault. Well, I got news for you, Kelli. IT"S NOT OUR FAULT! We didn't cause 9/11 nor deserve it. Our soldiers are fighting against Islamofacism and the people who perpetuate it. We try to minimize civilian casualities the best way we can but the terrorists want to create as many CIVILIAN casualites as they can get. These people don't care if you're pro-war,antiwar, left,right, pacifist, or otherwise, THEY WANT TO KILL YOU REGARDLESS because you don't subscribe to their brand of Islam. It's as simple as that. The sad part is that people like you can't see what you do actually helps the terrorists. AS long as it furthers your agenda, it's all good. They have no plan on how the U.S. should deal with another terrorist act. All I can say is "REMBER FLIGHT 93"! It is not the war protester or pacifist that keeps America safe, it is the people in the military and law enforcement. God Bless Our Military, Firefighters, and Law Enforcement! At least they have the guts to do what needs to be done.
• Austin from Smallsville,new England, -- The song has nothing to do with Iraq so stop talking about it. And this song reflects how most of us felt against the enemy and if you didnt feel anger then you weren't there. And I bet O.B.L is sorry he messed with the U.S.A
• Darrell from Thomasville, Ga These comments all have one thing in common. Something many servicemembers know by heart: "I may not agree with what you are saying, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
• Tom from Charleston, Sc I'll say this, as a soldier in the US Army, I support the fact that we came here. Considering how we contribute to the local national economy and over all we got Saddam. While I don't support the harshness of War, counting those costs, it wasn't a waste.
• Jeremy from Niverville, Mb Okay, I'm trying to open minded here. Please explain something to me. Terrorists attacked New York City. Bush sent soldiers into Afghanistan and Iraq to find those responible. Why is Bush a bad guy, he wants justice. To all the srvicemen, thank you
• Daniel from Arlington, Tx See "anatomy of your enemy" by anti-flag. It describes America much better than this song, that's for sure.
• Geroge Lash from Lake City , Mi This song is in my opion the best song he has ever sang. it had more feeling behind it. if people dont like the song they dont have to listen to it . the best song about 9/11 ever writen
• Austin from Smallsville, Ne This song is hated by liberals. Many mags like Rolling Stones and Spinner(both with liberal bias) gave him bad reviews where as others gave him good reviews. Also a lot of leftist mags named this the worst song ever for "not representing what America is". Yet they celebrate bands who want to shoot the president. Bias
• Robert from Wetumpka, Al ah! i love this song, i feel you Kim, i served in the army for over 10 yrs, served three tours in the middle east, one in Afghanistan and two in Iraq! Finally got out for my wife and two daughters, figured they need a husband and father! So this song means a lot to me and the men and women who fight or fought for freedom everyday. I also love that new song by Tim Mcgraw "If You're Reading This". We've lost 24 men all together out of the three times we went. Calvary leads the way! All the way! HOOAH!
• Kim from North East, Md I do not understand how some of the ignorent people in this country can call themselves AMERICANS. My husband is serving OUR country in Iraqu. He puts his life on the line everyday for his country even the dumba** people that honestly don't have a clue!!! My family sacrifices every day --- maybe if some of the other coment submitters had to sacrifice a little more they would understand the true meaning to the songs that Toby Keith sings. I know that my family feels each and every word of his songs in our everyday lives. Thank you Mr. Keith from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for showing your support for my husband and all of the other soldiers that put their lives on the line everyday.
• Dan from Phoenix, Az oh my how in the world did we get here... I just read Kelli's blurb about them HELPLESS AFGHANS living in them caves, bombing buildings, teaching their young to strap bombs to their bodies and blow up innocent people shopping in town, oh those innocent, poor Afghans... yet, US POMPOUS Americans, shouldnt have been in their way that September morn, and shame on us for BLOWING it out of context by striking back. WOW, too many Americans side with them, WHO DO WE TRUST????? Toby Keith wrote this song prior to IRAQ....it was released in 2002 and we invaded IRAQ in 2003! That song pumps pride and heart into the soldiers and that is needed for their well being and morale.
• Liquid Len from Ottawa, Canada Mike, you got issues. "I hate it when ignorant people give advice about stuff they have no idea what they are talking about" is ironic when followed by "9/11, most of you sound like you were for it".
• Glenn from Dallas, Tx For the folks that believe he did this for the money or to wave the flag for Bush. Toby Keith is a registered Democrat. He is on the record as not being behind the war in Iraq. He had no plans to publish the song and first played it exclusively for troops. From CBS 60 Minutes 2: "He wrote it to play for troops on USO tours ? something he often volunteers to do. He never intended to release the song on a CD, but then, he played it for Pentagon brass in Washington. ?He [the Marine Corp commandant] said, 'You have to release it. You can serve your country in other ways besides suiting up in combat.' We will go kick their butts. But we survive on morale,? says Keith. ?I mean, we live on the morale. That's what we travel on. And, he said I highly recommend you put that song out.?" It's pretty easy to change the dial if the song offends you. Speaking of which, if it offends so many of you why are you taking the time to come here and bash it? Do you just like being unhappy????
• Justin from Alexandria, Tn This song is alright but it is a little boring. I mean it has meaning but I would like to hear the other stuff like guitar.
• Mike from San Jose, Ca Seems to me that more than half of you dont know what the hell your talking about. He wanted to make money off of this song??? He is already rich, damn I hate it when ignorant people give advice about stuff they have no idea what they are talking about. Try serving the military and than make some judgements about 9/11, most of you sound like you were for it!!!!
• Brandon from Peoria, Il The song may genuinely have to do with Toby's views (and it probably does), but what is pissing of everyone on this page that doesn't like the song is the following: Toby took the ultimate entrepreneur outlook on 9-11...he thought "how can i make a crap-load of money off of this?" I know...strum a heart-string of an already vulnerable America. Death and destruction sells, and he knew it. Lots of bands knew it, but Toby Keith is the only one who took it too far. During a tragedy is when nations in general get uber-patriotic and very, very, vulnerable. Toby made a brilliant move and it got him millions of adoring fans...but he lost at least one in me...FUTK
• Phil from Sheboygan, Wi After reading all of these different comments, I am amazed by the fact that "in America" we can state our views of likes, dislikes, displeasures, etc.... Now how is that possible? Because someone, at sometime, somewhere, shed some blood to defend that act... This song is a very pungent ways of saying yes, we are a kind, and generous people (hell we support have the world in aid), but don't mistake our generosity by thinking that we will not defend our rights to speak, sing, wave a flag, or voice our opinion of diffence. I love the song Phil
• Amanda from Tampa, Fl To all of you that have a problem with Toby Keith and what he represents I feel that you need some serious mental help. I, myself am a memeber of our US Military and this song just shows the true spirit of what America really represents. Unless you are willing to put your life on the line for your country you have no room to pass judgement on anyone. IF I AND OTHER MILITARY MEMBERS DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH IT THEN NEITHER SHOULD YOU. I think Mr. Keith is great and hearing his songs such as "The Angry American" make me proud to defend my counry and even give my life for it if necessary.
• Jay from Atlanta, Ga Allen, you hit the nail on the head.....I truly believe it...
• Steve from Salt Lake City, Ut Interesting how one song can get y'all so riled up! I think it's corny but at the same time I wanna say, HELL YEAH!!!
• Danny from Waterville, Ny This is a great song and Mr. Keith has every right to sing it. He has strong ties to the military, and a majority of the troops, and Americans as a whole, love this song because it demonstrates American strength and resolve. The point is not war and death and destruction, it's about justice and perseverance. It's about loving this great nation. GREAT SONG!
• Ben from Nyc, Ms allan if you truly believe that...
• Allan from Glendale, Ca You have to understand that when you live in America, American's are top priority. The same in England, they look out for their own people first, and all other countries. Toby Keith was hurt by the terrorist attacks, and he should feel free to write about it. If people can write hateful lyrics to Americans then why can't Toby Keith vent himself? The problem with American society is that if you scream for the left wing you're not being loud enough and if you whisper for the right wing your being too loud.
• Kelli from Cedar Rapids, Ia The point is, death and war are not things to be celebrated. American lives are no more valuable than anyone elses. And, yes, I understand that terrorism and the tsunami are different types of disasters...however, the end result- death and destruction- is the same. And if innocent Americans die, is the proper response to kill thousands of innocent people, both in Iraq and Afghanistan?
• Nathan from Indialantic, Fl Kelli from NY, Helpless Afghans? 911 a "sad event" that was overblown? The Tsunmai was a act of nature not terrorist.If you don't understand that then you haven't got a clue. If Toby Keith is lame then you must be dead from the neck up. I like all types of music not just country and I have grown to admire Toby Keith not for his political opnions but for his ability to write songs, very good ones at that.
• William from Phoenix, Az Toby Keith should have beandip spread on his face with a cement trowel
• Tayo from Estacada, Or This song is a perfect example of the ignorance that plagues American society. It's this type of knee-jerk reactionary crap that gives us so much anger and hate. People really need to learn to sit back and learn as much as possible about something and not jump to conclusions. All sides of the political spectrum do this and it's really pathetic. People just need to calm down. This song is also proof that patritotism is one of the worst forms of political correctness.
• Kelli from Cedar Rapids, Ia No reason to hate him? Well, let's see, he writes songs about taking pleasure in bombing helpless Afghans, he talks smack about anyone who dislikes the president or his policies, and he refuses to consider why America would be a target of hatred in the first place. Besides, 9/11 was a sad event, but its been so overblown, its ridiculous. Other countries have lost way more people with a lot less fuss. (The Tsunmai??)
• Kyle from Hb, Ny i came to the conclusion that country singers write some good patrioct songs like good bless the usa but this song is even better
• Sarah from San Antonio, Tx why dont people like him hes awesome! hes a great singer and hes just showing his respect to 9/11 hes a great guy and theres not reason to hate him ~sarah, st cloud mn
• Sarah from San Antonio, Tx why dont you guys like toby keith hes awesome! he has a great voice and hes showing his respect for 9/11 hes a great guy most of the time lol
• Kelli from Cedar Rapids, Ia This song expresses completely why Toby Keith is so lame.

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The Angry American

Social rage as a measure of the country's moral and political well-being

Is an angry society an unhealthy one? So we're often told. Feeling angry? Well, then, say those earnest experts who seek to soothe our roiled spirits, calm down. Take a pill. Try yoga. In The New York Times the op-ed columnist Nicholas D. Kristof begs us to "hold the vitriol," which, he worries, "discourages public service." And yet where would America be without its anger? Perhaps still under Colonial rule, if those rowdy upstarts had never tossed British tea into Boston Harbor. Perhaps still mired in a slave-based economy, if not for the prodding of yes, vitriolic abolitionists. Okay—I'm exaggerating to underscore a point. But the point is worth considering: the presence of anger can indicate a society's moral and political well-being, and its absence can be a worrisome sign of complacency. Indeed, the democratic idea rests on the proposition that the well-placed anger of the citizenry can be an appropriate and useful instrument of change. Aristotle certainly thought so. "The man who is angry at the right things and with the right people ...," he wrote in Book IV of the Nicomachean Ethics , "is praised."

Praise be, America's social-anger thermometer is on the rise. No, the mercury has not reached the level of the 1960s, America's previous Decade of Anger. But there is an appreciable warming of the economic, political, and cultural climate zones. Let's start with a brief definition of terms. By "social anger"—or, let's say, "public anger"—I don't mean incidents of road rage or obscene chants directed by Boston Red Sox bleacher bums at New York Yankees outfielders. My concern is with the anger that is directed at the institutions of political, legal, economic, and cultural power; at the practices and policies that such institutions pursue; and at the people in charge of them. This is, broadly speaking, anti-establishmentarian anger. Ripe targets include the Pentagon, the Republican Party, George Bush, multinational corporations, the California car-tax collector, and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court judges who in November revoked a state ban on same-sex marriages.

The prospect of gay marriage infuriates religiously motivated conservative traditionalists. Manufacturing workers are angry about jobs lost to a resurgent China. ("A SEETHING POLITICAL ANGER RISES IN AMERICA'S INDUSTRIAL HEARTLAND," the trade publication Manufacturing & Technology News recently declared.) Perhaps the most sensitive issue of all is the mounting casualty list in U.S.-occupied Iraq, which is generating antiwar wrath at the powers that be in Washington. Some of this anger is deeply personal, born of grief; it is acquiring a public, political cast as relatives of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq speak out in the newspapers and on radio and television. "The President don't care," Vecie Williams, the cousin of Sergeant Aubrey Bell, of Tuskegee, Alabama, who was shot and killed in front of an Iraqi police station, told The New York Times . "You see him on TV. He says this, he says that. But show me one tear, one tear."

Ahead of us promises to be an invigorating election season in which the prizes go to those candidates able to tap the anger while managing to avoid becoming its target. Howard Dean, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, who at any moment looks ready to sink his teeth into the nearest available thigh, is banking his campaign on the "I'm mad as hell" (about Iraq, the economy, Bush, you name it) vote. Other Democrats are certainly doing their best to imitate his snarl. "The angry voter is back," the veteran pollster John Zogby reports. "He and she have been on sabbatical." Zogby says the sabbatical began with the economic boom that started in the mid-1990s, but the boom petered out nearly three years ago, and the discord has been growing ever since. And the terrorism threat seems to have only exacerbated partisan rivalry. The Washington-based Pew Research Center found in a recent survey that "national unity was the initial response to the calamitous events of Sept. 11, 2001, but that spirit has dissolved amid rising political polarization and anger."

Although public anger tends toward cyclical peaks and troughs, its varieties fall into well-established taxonomical grooves. There really aren't any altogether new kinds of anti-establishmentarian anger in America—a country that since its birth has been a congenial breeding ground for this sort of animosity. But even if such anger is a fixed part of America's genetic code, mutations occur as the various strains adapt to a changing political, social, and cultural environment. A catalogue of the forms of social anger in America circa 2003 reflects the nation's evolution as the ultimate middle-class society. It turns out that public anger doesn't dissipate as the average house size (and waistband) expands; it simply fastens onto new targets. Perhaps, as some analysts argue, the anger of an affluent post-industrial society is inevitably rooted more in cultural identity than in economic discontent—but then again, never underestimate the rage of an American who senses a threat to material livelihood. At least three forms of anger in the catalogue, updated for the times, are classic breeds.

Traditional American populism was born on the prairie, as struggling nineteenth-century farmers focused their ire on the large, alien, impersonal forces of a rapidly industrializing economy—namely, the extortionist freight-hauling railroads and Wall Street banks to which the farmers were hostage. Today's prototypical angry worker is the laid-off factory worker; since March of 1998 the U.S. manufacturing sector has shed 3.1 million jobs. The blue-collar manufacturing sector endured a similar downsizing in the early 1980s, but now there is a growing white-collar component to the trend, with Boeing, Microsoft, and IBM all "outsourcing" software-programming and engineering jobs to lower-wage havens like India and Russia. In an Internet society it is possible to contract abroad for almost any work that deals principally in digitized data, such as insurance claims. The future of populist anger may thus lie in Redmond, Washington, and Hartford, Connecticut. Born of economic fear and insecurity, this anger has an eternal future in a dynamic capitalist society in which "structural change" is inescapable.

In the here and now, though, the anger is concentrated in places like Rockford, Illinois, a once thriving center of machine-tool industry about an hour's drive from Chicago. The Rockford area has lost 10,000 jobs in the past three years—at Motorola, Textron, and other companies—and many of those laid-off workers who have found new employment are generally working for lower wages, without health and other benefits. "We're on our way to becoming a Third World nation," says Donald Manzullo, a Republican member of Congress who was born in Rockford in 1944 and has represented the district since 1993. Manzullo is a lawyer; his father was a machinist. Although he counts himself a free-trader, he blames China, as do many others in his district, for keeping its currency artificially undervalued, thus boosting exports. What's the state of mind of his constituents? "They are angry because they lost their jobs," he says, "angry because the jobs are going overseas, and angry because the Chinese work for such a low wage." The anger is starting to turn inward, into depression: "A lot of people have given up hope."

Although the pain from which populist anger springs is certainly real, the anger itself tends to be misplaced. Rapacious railroads damaged but did not destroy the yeoman farmer; he fell prey to mechanization, which raised the productivity of American agriculture so much that many fewer workers were needed to produce the same quantity of, say, corn. Similarly, the main reason today's manufacturing workers occupy a shrinking share of the work force is that automation has vastly improved productivity in factories—a trend also inexorably in motion in Japan and Europe.

Still, populist anger tends to serve a useful social purpose. Agrarian populism generated political momentum for the trust-busting and other good-government reforms of the Progressive era. Angry U.S. manufacturing workers are helping to stimulate an overdue debate on the sweatshop conditions in which many products are made in China and elsewhere—a debate that has already prompted Nike and other multinationals to upgrade their overseas labor standards, and that may yield a more balanced trade policy (if not one that restores the industrial vitality of Rockford). And if health-care benefits ever become "portable" (that is, migrate with workers wherever they go), the populist anger of permanently anxious workers forced to change jobs half a dozen times during their careers probably will have been responsible.

In the beginning, the Angry American Liberal was a Christian human-rights zealot embarked on a crusade ordained by a wrathful God against the original sin of the new republic: slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the daughter of an evangelical Protestant preacher, helped to support her family by writing for religious periodicals. She shook the country with her first novel, the anti-slavery tract Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), but her writing, suffused with a Christian sentimentality, has scant appeal for the modern liberal. Outside the African-American community, whose religious leaders continue to embrace a liberal politics of righteous indignation rooted in the Bible, the voices of modern liberalism are almost entirely secular. The creeping secularization of liberal anger, which brings the values of the white American liberal into rough alignment with those of Northern Europe's mainstream political culture, stands as political anger's most impressive adaptation in the past century. Indeed, religious fervor is a central animus for this liberal, who associates it with intolerance and inexplicable (to the modern liberal mind) conservative obsessions such as abortion and school prayer.

Perhaps not since the 1960s has liberal anger been so intense. Its grievances have blended into a potent brew: first the 2000 election, which liberals believe George Bush stole; then the inattention to environmental concerns, as symbolized by the Bush Administration's abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol; and now the Iraq War, which liberals widely view as manufactured by the Bush team to benefit nefarious crony interests, including the oil-services company Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer. The Republican Party itself is seen as a font of evil.

To take a sounding of this anger I spoke with one of modern American liberalism's most articulate—and imposing—representatives: the novelist Jane Smiley, who stands over six feet tall and regularly dispatches angry letters on politics to The New York Times and other news organizations. Smiley's novels have not so far tackled explicitly political themes, but the writer offered a modern commentary on patriarchal rage in A Thousand Acres , which loosely uses the plot of King Lear for a story about a midwestern father's tempestuous dealings with his three daughters. "I woke up early this morning, and I lay awake anxious and angry about political matters," Smiley told me in a telephone chat from her home in Carmel Valley, California, on a Thursday in early November, the day after she learned that the Republicans had won gubernatorial elections in Kentucky and Mississippi. "I see people who are Republicans as people who have aligned themselves with the worst features of the American character. I call them the gruesome threesome: toxic patriotism, toxic religion, and toxic racism." Smiley conceded that her anger is in some sense problematic; it's disturbing her sleep, for one thing, and it disagrees, she said, with the liberal's temperamental preference for placid tolerance. But on the whole, she said, "I don't actually mind being angry. I don't think liberals mind. I think it's a good thing."

This current wave of anger has been a long time coming, with liberals finally responding in kind to the generation of smash-mouth conservatives who have been assaulting them since the Reagan era. Before there was Howard Dean there was Al Franken, the former Saturday Night Live writer and performer who in 1996 published his mold-making Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations . That book, Franken told me recently, grew out of his anger at the Gingrich revolution of 1994, for which he saw Limbaugh as "the mouthpiece." Franken's current anti-Bush, anti-Republican best seller, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them , prepared with research assistance from students at Harvard (where Franken was a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy), is relatively low on humor and in the vein of a political-activist tract. It is a favorite among Dean's well-read supporters, who are disproportionately drawn from the wealthiest, best-educated wing of the Democratic Party.

The bane of modern liberal anger is its tendency to closet itself in elite, marginal causes, such as those espoused by the various societies opposed to anyone's wearing fur. But liberal anger at its best is drawn from the deepest and purest source of all: love. No one has ever expressed this anger better than Charles Dickens. With his scathing indictments of the numerous institutional injustices of Victorian Britain—from debtors' prisons to dreadful factories dependent on child labor—he moved a society toward its better self, and toward reform. In America a kind of Dickensian anger appeared in the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, which laid bare the injustices of institutionalized racism. The last sermon that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote (he was murdered before he could deliver it) was titled "Why America May Go to Hell." But King's central vision was of a new Promised Land, which could be reached only through a redemptive journey paid for in the coin of love. Today's wrathful liberals are unlikely to broaden their appeal unless they can transcend their penchant for satire and sarcasm—which are indirect ways, after all, of taking a poke at a target. Michael Moore's best seller Dude, Where's My Country? doesn't quite cut it.

Just how long can social conservatives stay angry? Conservative anger at such venerable targets as Harvard, Hollywood, and the TV networks began well before the ascent of Rush Limbaugh, in the mid-1980s—its roots are in the Goldwater and Nixon campaigns of the 1960s and even before that, in young-Republican activism on college campuses. In an earlier era, when Darwinism was a fresher concept, conservative Bible Belt anger welled up at the teaching of evolution in the public schools.

Conservative anger persists because core elements of the conservative world view—which is grounded in an abiding religious belief—are in fact under steady assault (and have been ridiculed since at least H. L. Mencken, with his barbs at Bible Belters). The conservative bid (led by southern Democrats) to thwart racial integration was lost decades ago, so thoroughly lost that Mississippi Senator Trent Lott and other old-style conservatives are nowadays embarrassed to be reminded that so many in their ranks supported the struggle to maintain segregation. The effort to limit abortion achieves an occasional success (such as the recently enacted restriction on so-called partial-birth abortion), but the overall trend is altogether in favor of the liberal feminist vision enunciated by Betty Friedan & Co. in the 1960s. Conservative attempts to keep smut from invading the household faltered with the coming of the Internet, a pure-gold pipeline for the pornography industry.

And in a society as culturally fluid as America's there will always be new causes for anger on the right. These days gay rights seem to be taking the place once occupied by racial integration as a focus for conservative rage, with the anger meter rising especially rapidly on the volatile issue of gay marriage. One stalwart opponent of gay marriage, Sandy Rios, the president of Concerned Women for America, a Washington-based group whose motto calls for "prayer and action," says she possesses "a righteous anger" that "comes from serious followers of Jesus." A divorced fifty-four-year-old mother of two who grew up in southern Illinois, Rios says that she herself has seen how the permissive values of the 1960s have broken up families and damaged children. Why such strong sentiments on gay marriage in particular? Because traditional marriage, between a man and a woman, is like "the support beam in a big house," she says. "If you take the support beam out, the structure will fail."

At its worst conservative anger detracts from well-being not only by embracing stereotyped and in some cases hateful images of certain groups of people but also by drawing from the tainted well of nostalgia. The well is tainted because the nostalgia is usually for a society remembered or imagined as much better than it ever actually was. Nostalgia can make for poignant art, but it tends to produce a perverse and impractical politics. In 1930 a group of southern writers at Vanderbilt University, including John Crowe Ransom and other "fugitive poets," railed against a faster-paced modern life in their deservedly discarded political manifesto I'll Take My Stand , which offered the South "in its very backwardness" as a pathway to "the reconstruction of America."

But at its best conservative anger has forced a rigorous, Old Testament-like moral accounting on issues incautiously advanced by modern liberal secularists. America, which does sometimes seem close to motoring full throttle over a secular cliff, is richer for the debate that angry and uncompromising social conservatives have forced on abortion and euthanasia. As inflamed as the question of gay marriage is likely to become, committed conservatives will force lawmakers, courts, and the large number of citizens who are unsure of their stance to do some hard thinking about the legal and moral meanings of marriage and its larger significance for the social health of America. We're probably going to get where the liberal secularists want to take us, but at a more measured, more deliberate pace.

Is social anger really, on balance, a public good? Certain variants seem entirely devoid of merit. Cynicism—at least one part the anger of the disillusioned spirit—is generally corrosive, although a populace that errs on the side of suspiciousness toward its leaders is not altogether a bad thing. (Better a cynical than a credulous nation.) Then there's a loathing of our nation's leaders, which is often linked to a sense of betrayal. A violent, visceral hatred has at times exacted the steepest of prices: the assassination of Abraham Lincoln came during a campaign of unremitting vilification, in which haters portrayed the President as a traitor to his race and drew caricatures of him as a Negro and an ape. In the 1990s a wave of presidential loathing resulted in the character assassination of Bill Clinton, who was hated with a particular intensity by fellow southerners who viewed his liberalism and his embrace of selected aspects of 1960s counterculture (even if he never inhaled) as a threat to their region's native conservatism. Clinton of course provoked them with his behavioral lapses and subsequent lies—but the loathing was out of proportion to the offenses. And now George Bush, who strikes a fair number of people as a genial guy, is the target of loathing on the left, with the haters gleefully confessing to an obsessive animosity. ("I hate George W. Bush," Jonathan Chait wrote at the outset of his September 29 New Republic cover story, "Mad About You.") Loathing tends to focus on the minutely personal as emblematic of the political; in Bush's case, his strut seems to be a particularly infuriating trait, a signifier of the cockiness and arrogance the loathers see in his stance on Iraq and other matters. "He's a smug bastard—you can tell by the way he walks," said Peter Nelson, a thirty-five-year-old massage therapist who showed up at Faneuil Hall, in Boston, to cheer on Howard Dean at a debate there on November 4. (To demonstrate, Nelson puffed out his chest and swung his arms wide, mimicking a cowboy saunter.) It may be that loathing of the President is an unavoidable by-product of the pursuit of bold change. Few Presidents have faced more vitriol than Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whom fellow patricians considered a betrayer of his class for his embrace of the New Deal. It's hard to remember much loathing of the mild Calvin Coolidge.

True, social anger in America today too often betrays the impatience and ingratitude of a spoiled-brat society. In almost every corner of the planet live people who would sacrifice a good deal to trade their list of daily public angers for that of the average American. Has the good life ever been lived better than in California, which despite its laid-back image has for many years been a pacesetter for the anger agenda? California's per capita income—$32,702—puts it well ahead of the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. Yet Californians were so angered by a proposed tripling of the state's car tax that they recalled Governor Gray Davis and replaced him with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former bodybuilder best known for his movie role as the Terminator. As for the despised levy, it meant that the owner of a 2003 4x4 Chevrolet Suburban, retailing at $40,665, would have to pay a tax of $813.30 rather than $264.32. Small change, one might think, for the sort of consumer quite willing to add on such features as heated leather seats, an XM satellite radio system, and a DVD player for the kids. But flashpan anger in response to even slight threats to material well-being ultimately reflects the country's distinctive determination—sanctioned in its founding charter—to pursue happiness. (The Terminator's first official act as governor, needless to say, was to roll back the car tax.)

Of course, more might be accomplished if Americans could somehow manage to become as united in their anger as Californians seem to have been on the car tax. The clash between angry secular liberals and angry religiously motivated conservatives sometimes seems to generate little more than media din. But the rising partisanship of the American voter is probably a positive development. A country as big and diverse as the United States cannot avoid contentious fights over public-policy issues. A broad sorting of voters into a Red team and a Blue team—a trend harking back to the intense partisanship of the nineteenth century—is better than a European-style fragmentation of the electorate into numerous small parties, able to govern only after patching together fragile coalitions. The same Pew Research Center survey that found—tut-tut—a surge in the intensity of partisan feelings also turned up a decline in cynicism about government.

That makes sense. The Pragmatic American wouldn't be investing energies—and angers—in partisan causes if he or she didn't believe in the decent possibility of a payoff. America works as well as it does because of the practical use it makes of its anger. Now the country is getting angry again. Perhaps it is not angry enough.

Green Day to play full 'American Idiot' on tour: 'What was going on in 2004 still resonates'

Billie Joe Armstrong awakened to a slew of confusing texts on New Year’s Day.

The night before, the Green Day frontman played a benefit for Project Chimps , a sanctuary for former research chimpanzees he helped found, with The Coverups , his side project with Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt.

Armstrong wasn’t thinking about Green Day’s taped performance of “American Idiot” that aired on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” during which he changed the lyric “"I'm not a part of a redneck agenda" to "I'm not a part of the MAGA agenda,” a substitute he had been making in the song in concert for several years.

But the tweak apparently resounded on the larger platform, sparking ire or cheers depending on political leanings.

“I was so surprised,” Armstrong says. “When I woke up to texts from people like my brother saying, ‘That was so (expletive) cool what you said onstage,’ and I was like, what? Chimpanzees? Then all of a sudden it’s Fox News and Elon Musk and Tom Morello . I was like, ‘Ohhhhh, I said that.’ It just shows you how easily triggered people are and the power of music and how it can get people talking. It’s not like I put out a tweet. I changed one word and it was all over the place. Job well done, I guess.”

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Green Day will play 'Dookie' and 'American Idiot' albums in full every night on tour

While Green Day has never been as aggressively political as Rage Against the Machine or Black Flag, the trio of Armstrong, Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool has also never flinched in their lyrical depiction of an unsettled and divisive America.

On Friday, the band releases its 14 th studio album, “Saviors,” a collection of 15 brisk, pointed songs unfurled over 45 minutes. They’ll also hit the road May 30 in Europe before landing in the U.S. July 29 for a two-month stadium tour with the Smashing Pumpkins , Rancid and The Linda Lindas.

Along with the new music, the guys – all 51 – are also celebrating a couple of milestones: 30 years since the release of their major-label debut, “Dookie,” and 20 for “American Idiot,” their most socially incisive album , inspired by the George W. Bush presidency.

Green Day will perform both albums in their entirety during the The Saviors Tour, as well as a smattering of new material and plenty of vintage hits.

“I think (those albums) have aged great,” Armstrong says, seated between Dirnt and Cool during a video call. “When we first recorded ‘Dookie,’ we wanted to accomplish something we could play 20 years later. With ‘Idiot,’ it has a way, especially around election time, of always coming up. So I think of that record as topical when what was going on in 2004 still resonates today.”

For “Saviors,” named for a song on the album that is about “feeling desperate for answers and leadership and getting out of the mess we’re in,” says Armstrong, Green Day reunited with longtime producer Rob Cavallo.

The architect behind some of the band’s most consequential albums – “Insomniac” and “Nimrod” as well as “Dookie” and “American Idiot” – hadn’t worked with Green Day since their moderately received 2012 trilogy, “Uno!,” “Dos!” “Tres!”

As expected, their 30 years of shared history benefited the band in the studio.

“Rob has that energy that translates to us,” Cool says. “If we get confident, maybe we’ll try stuff and he’ll help us walk away from it when it’s right.”

Adds Dirnt: “He’s fiercely energetic and competitive. We’ve made some amazing rock records together, and it’s a hell of a drug when you get it right.”

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Green Day holds up a mirror to America: 'This is our society'

Many of the songs on “Saviors” touch on the malaise infecting the country.

“The American Dream is Killing Me” talks about “my country under siege” and “Living in the ‘20s” opens with “another shooting in a supermarket,” both indicative of the “observing and reporting” approach the band took with the album.

“With ‘another shooting in a supermarket,’ people keep saying we can’t make this normal. And guess what? It is normal. This is our society, and unless there is some change, it’s going to be here forever,” Armstrong says.

He also points to the lyric “ ever since Bowie died, it hasn’t been the same” in the typically pungent rocker “Strange Days Are Here to Stay” as both prescient and a reminiscence.

“Me and my friends have said that when (David) Bowie died in 2016, it was the beginning of the weirdness,” Armstrong says. “We’re dealing and living in our own hypocrisy, whether it’s personal or political.”

Green Day pays tribute to their sons

Amid the punchy guitars and taut, metronomic drums, Green Day pauses – as they have in the past with “Wake Me Up When September Ends ” and “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life”) – for lyrical reflection couched in acoustic guitars and strings with “Father to a Son.”

All three members have sons, but the genesis of the ballad emanates from Armstrong, who dedicates the song to sons Joey, 28, and Jakob, 25.

“Becoming a father, I was so young and it was on-the-job training for sure. As all parents do, you make mistakes and try to be honest with yourself – 'Is this right, and am I doing a good job?'” Armstrong says. “Sometimes you’re not. And sometimes you say the right piece of wisdom that actually works.”

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Money blog: Slippery floors and a burst of heat - tricks shops use to get you to spend more

In the final part of our psychology of shopping series, we speak to fair fashion campaigner Venetia La Manna about the tricks fast fashion companies use to get people to spend, spend, spend. Read this and the rest of today's consumer news in the Money blog.

Thursday 6 June 2024 07:33, UK

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By Emily Mee , news reporter

We've all been there. You have a bad day and you need a little pick-me-up - so you head straight to your favourite website to buy something new.

That hit of dopamine you get when buying something is what many businesses rely on - and no one seems to understand it better than fast fashion brands. 

But not only is this hurting our wallets, it's also harming the planet. 

In the final part of our psychology of shopping series, we spoke to fair fashion campaigner Venetia La Manna ( @venetialamanna ) - who advocates for a more sustainable approach to clothing - about the little tricks fast fashion companies use to get people to spend, spend, spend... 

Always in a rush - and slippery floors

Many of the techniques fashion companies use involve ensuring people feel rushed to make purchasing decisions. 

Ms La Manna says websites and social media pages are set up to make them look "very immediate" so we "always feel like we have to buy something before it's gone" - meaning you're not able to sit with a purchase and think about whether you need it. 

Fast fashion companies also keep an eye on trends and push out products as soon as possible to make sure people are "buying very, very quickly without necessarily much thought". 

And the sense of urgency is not just limited to online stores.

Ms La Manna says physical clothes shops will make sure their floors are slippery "so you can almost whizz around with more ease".

Often they will also have loud music to encourage "shopping in a frenzy". 

They know what you want

Fashion sites use "highly advanced" search engine optimisation to find out what kind of products their customers are searching for and push these items to them, Ms La Manna says. 

They also work with popular online influencers and get them to post affiliate links - meaning if you want to look like your favourite influencer or celebrity, you can buy what they're wearing "in just a few clicks". 

Ultimately, they are making things "very easy to buy" and often have shopfronts on popular social media sites like Instagram and TikTok. 

Plus, there is the issue of affordability. 

Many are driving their prices down so low that "it makes you feel like 'hey, why not' when it's cheaper than a sandwich or a coffee", Ms La Manna says. 

Heaters at the entrance

Physical shops use other techniques to entice customers to buy. 

For example, Ms La Manna says the heat changes when you go into the shop so you're "invited into a warmer environment". 

Shops are also set out in a specific way, often placing cheaper items near checkouts and easy outfit formulas near each other. 

The dopamine hit

With lots going on in the world, we may be more susceptible to falling into the spending trap than ever. 

"The world is really heavy and people are struggling. Buying fast fashion or buying stuff gives us a momentary hit of dopamine, and of course we need that - when we're suffering, when we're feeling low, [shopping] is an easy one to reach for," Ms La Manna says. 

Despite practising "slow fashion" - trying to buy less and more consciously - for years, Ms La Manna says she still has moments where she feels that buying something would make her feel better. 

But she says it's possible to get much-needed dopamine hits from elsewhere - including by being active in your community, or by taking your time to find something you really, really want (ideally secondhand!). 

Why does it matter? 

Aside from being bad for your wallet, Ms La Manna says overconsumption is also bad for the planet and for the garment workers making your clothes. 

She says many big fashion companies don't pay their garment workers a fair living wage - with many unable to provide food for their families, living in poverty and lacking paid time off. 

The overproduction of clothing is also harming communities in the global south who are left to deal with vast piles of unwanted items, she says. 

The majority of clothes taken to charity shops or recycling bins don't end up being resold - instead they are shipped off largely to places in the global south, where communities are "left to deal with a problem that's not theirs". 

For more information on slow fashion, Ms La Manna suggests checking out The Or Foundation, Remake and the Clean Clothes Campaign. 

Asda has gone from selling the cheapest petrol out of the supermarket chains to now costing the most, according to the latest fuel price figures.

RAC says Asda's big rivals, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco, all sold a litre of unleaded petrol for 2.1p less on average at the end of May.

Diesel was also coming out costlier at Asda, with the supermarket 2.5p per litre more expensive than the rest of its supermarket competition.

Drivers are being urged - by the RAC - to change their refuelling habits to find the best prices. 

What makes up the cost of a litre of petrol?

The price you pay for fuel at the pumps is governed by wholesale fuel prices, which are affected by several factors.

These include the global price of crude oil, which itself is governed by supply and demand and oil refinery production and capacity.

Distribution costs, fuel duty (currently 52.95p a litre in the UK), VAT (currently at 20%) and profit margins dictated by fuel retailers all come into account when working out why prices of fuel rise and fall.

Fuel duty rate and VAT largely stay the same, though oil prices and the strength of the pound to the US dollar (refined fuel is sold in dollars per metric tonne) can cause prices to be extremely volatile.

How have UK petrol prices changed in the 21st century

Unleaded fuel in 2000 had an average cost of 80.35p, while the average cost of diesel in the same year was 81.73p.

The lowest average cost for unleaded petrol in the last 24 years came in 2002, where the average was 73.5p. Diesel also had its cheapest average cost in this year at 75.6p.

Unsurprisingly, the most expensive average prices for fuel have fallen in recent years. In 2022, the average cost of unleaded fuel was 165.06p and the average cost of diesel was 178.13p.

P Diddy has sold off his stake in the media company he founded more than a decade ago. 

The rapper, whose real name is Sean Combs, released his shares of Revolt with the company saying the have been fully redeemed and retired. 

Revolt has not disclosed how much Combs was paid for his stake in the hip-hop news and entertainment company, which he founded in 2013.

It also announced a new ownership structure that will give its employees an equity stake in the company. 

The move comes after several lawsuits were filed against Combs , accusing him of sexual assault and rape. 

In November, he was sued by R&B singer Cassie, who said he subjected her to a years-long abusive relationship that included beatings and rape.

Combs settled the lawsuit with Cassie, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, a few days after it was filed.

Three in five secondary school teachers and nearly 80% of primary school teachers are spending their own money on supporting students, according to new research.

A report by the National Foundation for Educational Research, based on a survey of 1,282 teachers and senior leaders, found a quarter of teachers had already spent £100 of their own cash on their pupils or school this academic year.

Some 79% of primary school teachers and 62% of secondary school educators reported spending their own money at some point.

And nearly one in five primary and 17% of secondary teachers said they were spending money on meeting pastoral needs such as providing food or clothes.

Jude Hillary, the NFER's co-head of UK policy and practice, said the report "clearly highlights the high level of need among young people".

She said teachers were "going above and beyond to meet pupils' pastoral needs using their personal funds" and the "unrecognised" support was coming at a time when staff themselves are facing their own cost pressures.

Tesco has started re-stocking its packs of a dozen eggs online, after lengthy supply issues forced them to stop selling them.

The supermarket had already re-started selling them in stores, but online shoppers had to buy two packs of six eggs if they wanted 12, costing them very slightly more.

The shortages began in the autumn of 2022 as farmers left the industry or pulled back on production due to rising costs.

An outbreak of bird flu last year also impacted the sector.

Customers of Loveholidays have had their travel plans thrown into chaos after the parent company of two of its partners unexpectedly went bust. 

In a post on Facebook, the holiday firm said FTI Group, which owns YouTravel and Meeting Point, had filed for insolvency. 

As a result, the accommodation and transfer arrangements of some travellers have been affected. 

A "small number" of hotels have already started contacting Loveholiday travellers, asking them to pay for their rooms again.

In the comments of the post, one person said they had been "threatened to be removed by police" for refusing to pay again. 

"We are supposed to go home Thursday evening and worried our transfers and flights might be affected because we are refusing to pay again," Scott Love wrote. 

"Shambles this and has ruined our holiday for me, my partner and three children." 

Several other people commented, asking the provider to tell them if their trip had been impacted. 

Loveholidays said it was "working hard" to honour its customers bookings and "minimise disruption" to any holiday. 

It also said it was "absolutely committed" to covering costs and was working with affected customers, and the hotels involved, to make sure that happens.

Those who are on holiday and need support have been advised to contact the holiday support team by calling the number on their booking documents. 

"If you're travelling with us soon and are wondering if your holiday is affected: Please don't worry. There is nothing you need to do - our team is working hard to honour any impacted bookings with another partner," Loveholidays added. 

Sky News has contacted the company for comment. 

Chef Tom Brown has announced he is closing his high-end Hackney restaurant Cornerstone due to high costs of the tasting menu format and changing diner preferences.

The seafood-focused restaurant first opened in 2018 and earned a Michelin star in 2021.

In a statement, Brown said Cornerstone had been his "proudest moment" and his "home for the last six years", and added that his focus would now be on his nearby Pearly Queen site.

First Direct is ending its text message banking service after 25 years, according to a report.

An email seen by This Is Money said the service - which texts customers mini bank statements and alerts them to their balance dropping below a certain amount - will be stopped on 10 August.

First Direct told the outlet that customers could get "more detailed and up-to-date information" by logging onto its app or online banking.

Tesco has partnered with Virgin Red to offer Clubcard holders the chance to turn points into experiences.

Those signed up to the supermarket's loyalty scheme will get twice the points value when they turn points earned on their shopping into Virgin Points.

A bonus 5,000 points is available for anyone who signs up to auto-exchange all their Clubcard points to Virgin Points for the first time.

McDonald's has lost the EU trademark for "Big Mac" when it comes to chicken sandwiches after a long-running dispute with an Irish restaurant chain. 

The European Court of Justice upheld a complaint from Galway-based Supermac's against the US fast food giant. 

The trademark for the words "Big Mac" was initially registered with the EU International Property Office (EUIPO) in respect of meat, fish and chicken sandwiches as well as a range of restaurant services by McDonald's in 1996.

Generally, the rights of a holder to an EU trademark are revoked if it has not been put to genuine use within a continuous period of five years.

Supermac's argued McDonald's had insufficiently used the contested trademark in relation to "chicken sandwiches".

McDonald's and the EUIPO put forward examples of advertisements and display boards relating to "Grand Big Mac Chickens".

However, the court found the evidence was not sufficient to prove McDonald's had used the contested trademark enough in relation to poultry products.

Supermac's complaint was upheld and McDonald's protection of the phrase for such purposes was overturned. 

Subway is following in the steps of some of its fast-food rivals with the introduction of self-service kiosks and its own dedicated app.

Customers will be able to place orders via digital screens sent to the kitchen instead of making their way along the chain of ingredients.

The self-service kiosks will be in all UK stores before the end of the year,  The Grocer  reports.

The sandwich shop chain is also launching a new app which will enable online orders - and offer customers points towards its "Subway Rewards" loyalty scheme, it said.

The points can eventually be converted into "Subway Cash" to spend on menu items.

Dan Holm, digital leader at Subway, said: "As we think about Subway's future, we're doubling down on our global digital commitment to streamline and simplify the guest experience from start to finish."

Rishi Sunak's claim in last night's debate that Labour will raise everyone's taxes by £2,000 comes from a "dossier" published by the Tories last month, which purported to calculate their tax and spending plans. 

The headline "finding" was that over the course of the next four years, Labour had roughly £59bn of spending plans but only £20bn of revenue-raising plans.

That leaves a £39bn hole. Divide that by the number of households in the country (18.4m) and you get a figure of just over £2,000.

Now, there are all sorts of objections to the way the Conservatives have carried out this exercise. 

For one thing, they deployed a weapon Labour don't have: because they're the party of government, they were able to ask Treasury civil servants to cost some Labour policies.

Today there has been a backlash - including from the Treasury's permanent secretary himself - about the way the Tories have portrayed these sums. 

The £2,000 figure isn't really a Treasury calculation or an "independent" one, as Mr Sunak called it last night. It's a Conservative figure - but it was put together in part with figures commissioned from civil servants. 

Labour also says many of the policies in that Tory dossier won't cost half as much as the Conservatives claim. 

Regardless, while £2,000 sounds like a big number, it's actually a cumulative total from four years. A far more representative figure to take from the dossier is £500 - the annual figure. 

And while that's not to be sniffed at (if you believe it - which you probably shouldn't) it's far, far smaller than the tax rises we've all experienced under this Conservative government since 2019.

They amount, all told, to an average of around £3,000 a year per household or, if we grit our teeth and tot it up as the Tories did in their dossier, over £13,000 over the course of the parliament. 

Which rather dwarfs that £2,000 figure.

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Robert De Niro says 'justice has been served' after New York jury convicts Donald Trump in his hush money trial. Here's a timeline of their 13-year feud.

• On Thursday, Donald Trump became the first former US president to be convicted of a crime.
• Robert De Niro, one of Trump's biggest critics, said "justice has been served."
• Here's a timeline of their 13-year feud.

Robert De Niro said a New York jury was right to convict Donald Trump of 34 counts of falsifying business records, amid the pair's long-term feud.

On Thursday, a Manhattan Criminal Courthouse jury found the former US president guilty of falsifying records to cover up a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels , a porn actor who claims to have had sex with Trump in 2006.

The prosecution said this payment influenced the 2016 election by burying the negative story, but Trump has denied this. The result means Trump is the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime.

De Niro, who has been a critic of Trump for 13 years, told PageSix that he wasn't excited about the conviction.

"I don't wanna get too excited about anything. It's as it should be. Justice has been served. That's it," he said.

Since 2011, Trump has been locked in a mostly one-sided feud with De Niro, which has seen the actor criticize Trump's politics and behavior in interviews, award speeches, and political campaign videos.

Though it is common for politicians to garner support from celebrities to boost their reputations, De Niro's feud with Trump has escalated over the years, particularly when the actor said he wanted to punch Trump "in the face" in a 2016 campaign video .

Their beef intensified again ahead of November as Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, gears up for the 2024 election .

Earlier this week, De Niro criticized Trump at a Democrat news conference outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, where his hush money trial was taking place. Trump hit back on Truth Social, writing that De Niro suffers from an "incurable case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME."

Here's a timeline of De Niro and Trump's feud.

April 2011: De Niro criticizes Trump for commenting on former president Barack Obama's citizenship.

Trump and De Niro first exchanged verbal blows in April 2011 after Trump questioned the citizenship status of then-president, Barack Obama .

Trump was one of many celebrity and political figures who began demanding to see Obama's birth certificate at the time because they didn't believe he was born in the US.

During an interview with NBC News' Brian Williams at the Tribeca Film Festival, De Niro criticized those who made this claim.

"A lot of these guys, they're intentions are not even good. They're just playing the game. And they're playing with people's lives," De Niro said in 2011 (per The Hollywood Reporter) . "It's crazy. They're making statements about people that they don't even back up. Go get the facts before you start saying things about people."

De Niro confirmed later in the interview that Trump was among the people he was referring to.

Trump hit back a few days on " Fox & Friends ," where he said De Niro was "not the brightest bulb on the planet."

"I have been watching over the years, and I like his acting, but in terms of when I watch him doing interviews and various other things, we are not dealing with Albert Einstein," Trump added before doubling down on his demand for Obama to show his birth certificate.

August 2016: De Niro calls Trump "nuts."

De Niro and Trump's beef cooled off until Trump became the Republican Party's candidate for the 2016 presidential election.

While speaking at an event for the 40th anniversary of "Taxi Driver" in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in August 2016, De Niro brought up Trump's campaign and said the businessman was "totally nuts."

"It's crazy that people like Donald Trump, he shouldn't even be where he is, so God help us," De Niro said. "What he's been saying is really totally crazy, ridiculous stuff."

Fall 2016: De Niro joins the Democrats' campaign and says he wants to "punch" Trump.

De Niro was one of the many celebrities who supported Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidency in the run-up to the 2016 election.

In October of that year, De Niro participated in a video for the #VoteYourFuture campaign to get young people involved but spent most of the video slinging insults at Trump.

"I mean he's so blatantly stupid. He's a punk, he's a dog, he's a pig, he's a con, a bullshit artist, a mutt who doesn't know what he's talking about, doesn't do his homework, doesn't care, thinks he's gaming society, doesn't pay his taxes. He's an idiot," he said.

De Niro added: "He talks about how he wants to punch people in the face. Well, I'd like to punch him in the face."

De Niro later told " The View " that the "punch" threat was symbolic and he didn't actually want to hit Trump.

"I said that because he said that about somebody that he would like to punch them in the face. How dare he say that to the crowd?" De Niro said of Trump.

In the following weeks, De Niro argued publicly with actors Jon Voight and Arnold Schwarzenegger over their support for Trump and spoke out against Trump during a speech at the Hollywood Film Awards.

When Trump was elected in November 2016, De Niro told The Hollywood Reporter that he felt "like I did after 9/11."

De Niro also told " Jimmy Kimmel Live !" that he won't punch the president.

"I can't do that now; he's the president. I have to respect the position, though we all know what…," he said, trailing off as a joke. "We have to see what he's gonna do, and how he's really gonna follow through on certain things."

Their feud then cooled off for the remainder of 2016.

2017: De Niro criticizes Trump in speeches and interviews.

In 2017, De Niro took almost every opportunity to fire more shots at Trump.

In January 2017, De Niro appeared in a "United We Stand" rally against Trump, where he joked about the president's social media rants and criticized his stance on immigration.

"He's a bad example of this country," De Niro said of Trump. "We're all rooting for the new administration, of course, to abandon the divisive, racist, misogynist, ignorant plans it's trumpeting and lead us with intelligence and compassion."

In the same month, he told " Today " that calls to boycott Trump's presidential inauguration were justified.

"I think that whatever people do, they should do it fully because there's a lot of crazy stuff happening now," De Niro said.

In May 2017, De Niro used a speech at Brown University as he accepted an honorary doctorate of fine arts to mock Trump.

"When you started school, the country was an inspiring, uplifting drama. You are graduating into a tragic, dumbass comedy," he said.

During another speech at the Annual Hudson River Park Gala, De Niro called Trump a "motherfucker," New York Daily News reported.

2018: Trump finally responds to De Niro after further insults.

In March 2018, De Niro called Trump an "idiot" in a speech for an event to celebrate the Fulfillment Fund for promoting higher education.

"He lacks any sense of humanity or compassion," De Niro said per Variety . "Now I'm not trying to turn this non-political event into a political one, but as long as our country's leadership is so appalling and so corrupt, I'll be speaking out at every venue."

He added: "To be silent in the face of such villainy is to be complicit, and it's especially appropriate tonight because Trump treats education as a con, a way to make a profit at the expense of the suckers."

Continuing the sentiment about speaking up against Trump, in June 2018, De Niro said "fuck Trump" while hosting the Tony Awards, and received a standing ovation.

This comment finally garnered a response from Trump.

"Robert De Niro, a very Low IQ individual, has received too many shots to the head by real boxers in movies. I watched him last night and truly believe he may be 'punch-drunk,'" Trump wrote on X two days after the Tony's.

Robert De Niro, a very Low IQ individual, has received too many shots to the head by real boxers in movies. I watched him last night and truly believe he may be “punch-drunk.” I guess he doesn’t... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018

"I guess he doesn't realize the economy is the best it's ever been with employment being at an all time high, and many companies pouring back into our country. Wake up Punchy!" he continued.

De Niro was also one of several Trump critics who were mailed bombs in October 2018, though police never linked these incidents to the former US president.

De Niro was unfazed and instead responded by encouraging people to vote in the midterm elections.

"There's something more powerful than bombs and that's your vote. People MUST vote!" De Niro told Sky News . "I thank God no one's been hurt, and I thank the brave and resourceful security and law enforcement people for protecting us."

In 2018, "Saturday Night Live" began featuring regular sketches mocking Trump, with Alec Baldwin portraying the president. De Niro joined these sketches in April, making frequent cameo appearances as Robert Mueller , the special counsel overseeing an investigation into Trump's election campaign and Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 US elections.

2019: De Niro says Trump's "impeachment and imprisonment" would make America great again.

In March 2019, Mueller released a report on his investigation into the US 2016 election. The report found that Russian agents "interfered in the presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion" but said there was not enough evidence to accuse Trump's team of being involved.

However, the evidence within the report kickstarted a campaign to impeach Trump.

De Niro also joined calls for Trump's impeachment. During a speech at the American Icons Awards in late March, De Niro said Trump's "impeachment and imprisonment" would make America great again.

In May, De Niro wrote an open letter to Mueller in The New York Times to encourage him to testify against Trump in Congress.

In October, De Niro also told The Guardian at the London Film Festival that he wanted to see Trump jailed after his impeachment inquiry.

"Oh, I can't wait to see him in jail. I don't want him to die, I want him to go to jail," De Niro said.

Trump was impeached in 2019 , but for a different investigation, and the president was later acquitted by the Senate.

Throughout 2019, De Niro also threw further insults at Trump, including calling him " too stupid to even know he's evil ," a " total loser ," a " white supremacist " and a " nasty little bitch ."

2020: De Niro criticizes Trump's response to the COVID pandemic.

During Trump's last year in office, the world was hit by the COVID pandemic.

In May 2020, De Niro criticized Trump's response to the pandemic on BBC Newsnight , saying that the president did not care how many people had died.

"It's Shakespearean, the whole thing, you've got a lunatic saying things that people are trying to dance around," De Niro said. "They're doing it in the hearings a little more, trying to say tactfully that this is what will happen, Fauci is doing that."

“It’s like Shakespearean the whole thing” – actor Robert de Niro on how the coronavirus outbreak is being handled in the US #Newsnight pic.twitter.com/k64t3Mhcl9 — BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) May 12, 2020

De Niro added, referring to Trump: "It's appalling. He wants to be re-elected. He doesn't even care how many people die."

Trump was eventually voted out of office in November 2020, but that didn't mean De Niro was done criticizing him.

De Niro told MSNBC in November, after the 2020 election, that he though there would be another "Trump-like" candidate who would be smart enough to trick the public.

"It's the same playbook as Mussolini, as Hitler, as wannabe dictators," De Niro said. "It's all appealing to the worst prejudices, the worst weaknesses of the public and instead of leading them and guiding them and being someone that they can look up to."

2023: De Niro reignites the feud during the press "Killers of a Flower Moon" press tour.

With Trump out of office, De Niro's feud stalled for a few years. However, ahead of the 2024 election, De Niro began speaking out about Trump again as he promoted his upcoming movie "Killers of a Flower Moon."

Variety reported that De Niro compared Trump to the "evil" men in the movie during a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival for "Killers of a Flower Moon."

"There are people who still think he can do a good job. Imagine how insane that is," De Niro said, referring to Trump.

In October, De Niro missed the Stop Trump Summit in New York City after contracting COVID but sent a statement for the recorded event in which he criticized Trump.

"When I look at him, I don't see a bad man. Truly. I see an evil one," De Niro said of Trump. "The man who was supposed to protect this country put it in peril, because of his recklessness and impulsiveness. It was like an abusive father ruling the family by fear and violent behavior."

When De Niro was asked to speak at the Gotham Film Awards to honor "Killers of the Flower Moon," he brought up Trump again. However, this time, he stalled during his speech and accused Apple, the producer of the movie, of editing what he wanted to say.

"I just want to say one thing. The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out. I didn't know about it. And I want to read it," De Niro said before bringing out his phone to read the original speech .

"The former president lied to us more than 30,000 times during his four years … in office, and he's keeping up the pace in his current campaign of retribution," De Niro said, referring to Trump. "But with all his lies, he can't hide his soul."

De Niro told Rolling Stone that he found out after the event that Apple had tried to ask him to tone down the speech, but he had missed the memo.

Trump fired back at De Niro's comments in a post on Truth Social.

"Robert De Niro, whose acting talents have greatly diminished, with his reputation now shot, must even use a teleprompter for his foul and disgusting language, so disrespectful to our Country," Trump wrote.

"De Niro should focus on his life, which is a mess, rather than the lives of others. He has become a total loser, as the World watches, waits, and laughs!" he added.

March 2024: De Niro fires back at Trump's social media posts.

During an episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" in March, Kimmel asked De Niro about Trump's social media posts about him.

"He's so fucking stupid," De Niro responded. "Look at the lame, inane things that he said. He's so stupid he can't even say anything clever. He's a fucking moron."

De Niro said he was confused why people supported Trump and encouraged the audience to vote so he wouldn't be re-elected.

"He is a malignant narcissist. He's a socio-psychopath," he said. "It's so frightening and scary, and he's dangerous. We got to get rid of him."

May 28 2024: De Niro appears in another Democrat campaign video and news conference.

The Democrats seem to be using De Niro's feud against Trump again this year ahead of the 2024 elections.

On May 22, De Niro lent his voice to a video for Biden's presidential campaign .

"Now, he's running again, this time threatening to be a 'dictator,' to terminate the constitution," De Niro said. "Trump wants revenge, and he'll stop at nothing to get it."

On May 28, De Niro appeared at a news conference for Biden's presidential campaign outside Trump's hush money trial. At the conference, he said he had joined Biden's campaign.

"When Trump ran in 2016, it was like a joke. 'This buffoon running for president? No, never could happen,'" De Niro said. "We'd forgotten the lessons of history that showed us other clowns who weren't taken seriously until they became vicious dictators."

De Niro said the new Biden-Harris ad was created to show how Trump uses "violence" against people who stand in his way.

"But it's a coward's violence," he added.

De Niro claimed in his speech that Trump wants to destroy New York, America, and the world. The actor also warned that if Trump is re-elected, the US would become a dictatorship.

"If Trump returns to the White House, you can kiss these freedoms goodbye that we all take for granted and elections," De Niro said. "Forget about it. That's all that's done. If he gets in, I can tell you right now, he will never leave."

In another interview with the press outside the courthouse, De Niro said: "He's a monster. He cannot be president of the United States again. Never ever."

Trump mocked De Niro on Truth Social in response.

"I never knew how small, both mentally and physically, Wacko Former Actor Robert De Niro was," Trump wrote on Wednesday. "Today, De Niro, who suffers from an incurable case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, commonly known in the medical community as TDS, was met, outside the Courthouse, with a force far greater than the Radical Left - MAGA."

Trump added that De Niro looked "so pathetic and sad" and the actor's brand has "gone WAY DOWN IN VALUE" since he started supporting Biden.

May 30, 2024: De Niro supports New York jury's decision to convict Trump.

On May 30, Trump became the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime.

A Manhattan Criminal Courthouse jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

Trump maintains his innocence and, according to the Associated Press , told reporters outside the court after the verdict: "This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people. They know what happened, and everyone knows what happened here."

Trump can still run for president despite his conviction.

De Niro was one of many celebrities who supported Trump's conviction.

"It's as it should be. Justice has been served. That's it," De Niro told PageSix, adding that the public must stop Trump from being elected in November.

De Niro told Variety that he was upset by the current political situation.

"This never should have gotten to this stage. I don't want to be talking, but I am so upset by it. I have to say something," he said. "This is my country. This guy wants to destroy it. Period. He's crazy."

"People are fed up, they're going to fight back. That's not what we're about in this country," he added.

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