wnylib
wnylib's JournalBagel shops giving out free breakfasts and raising money to feed people
I haven't been on DU for a few days, so my apologies if this has already been posted.
A bagel shop in Seattle raised $24,000 in one day from paying customer donations to cover the costs of giving away free breakfasts to people whose SNAP benefits are cut off. They got the idea from a Portland bagel shop which is doing the same. If you know someone who gets SNAP, check up on them, see if they need something.
Just left the No Kings rally in my town.
Small town, but several hundred turned out, more than at the No Kings protest in June. All ages, from little kids to old geezers like me.
One of the speakers today is the Dem candidate for my Congressional district, which is now held by a MAGA. This candidate was impressive. I'm going to contact his campaign to volunteer.
One guy brought his dog who was wearing a sign draped over his back. It was the quote from JD Vance that Trump used in the debate against Harris: "They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats."
The rally was held in a public park where two main streets in town intersect. As various guests were speaking, a guy stood on the edge of the park, behind the speaker's podium so that people in front of the crowd could see him. He held a tiny little Trump sign that was about 10" x 6". Most people behind the front row couldn't see him.
After the rally speeches, we took to the sidewalks around the park with our signs and chants. At one point, we got people to sing, "This Land is Your Land," but it took some effort to get them started. We had to get someone with a strong voice on the megaphone that the organizers brought to start singing and lead the rest.
After a couple hours when the crowd diminished to around 50 people, one guy showed up alone with a huge Trump flag. If he started shouting anything, I was ready to get the crowd singing again, but he stayed about 2 minutes and left.
A very good rally. Peaceful and fun with a lot of good messages on signs and a lot of support from cars passing by.
No Kings protests - keeping it peaceful and non-violent
For me, the No Kings protest is a means of taking a stand FOR something more than against someone or some thing. There are many things in the Trump regime that I'm against and I don't mind saying so. But the things that I'm for, if supported and followed, would negate the entire MAGA shitshow.
I am for democracy and following the constitution. I am for human and civil rights. I am for diplomacy over extortion and brow-beating.
So I want to sing traditional patriotic songs for the No Kings protests, songs that we learned in school so that everyone knows them and can sing along, like America the Beautiful; My Country "Tis of Thee; God Bless America; Star-spangled Banner. Singing those songs publicly in a group is taking a stand for the values that the nation is supposed to uphold. It also can keep people focused on the peaceful aspect of the protests. And, as a bonus, it undercuts Trump's claim that protesters hate this country and are violent.
I would not underestimate the value of such songs. Remember Captain Von Trapp in "Sound of Music" singing Edelweiss at the Salzburg film festival? Remember the resistance leader, Victor Laszlo, singing the French National Anthem in Casablanca?
I expect that there will be agitators trying to create violence at protests. I am certain that Trump approves of such agitators at protests in order to have violent reactions that will give him an excuse to declare martial law. At the No Kings protest in June, there was a single counter-protester striding up and down the street shouting, "God bless Donald Trump and God bless the USA." One of our own protesters tussled with him at first but the rest of us repeated, "Peaceful protest" over and over to drown out the argumentative words between those two until the protester from our group finally listened to us and backed down.
Not a bad idea to stop something from escalating if it looks like that could happen. Just chant, "Peaceful protest" and then break into America the Beautiful or My Country 'Tis of Thee.
Have fun on Saturday and enjoy the protests.
EDIT TO ADD: I'm printing out and taking with me several copies of the lyrics to those songs for people who might not remember an entire verse.
Democratic slogan from now until the midterms: Stop the MAGA steal.
Trump and his cronies are rigging the 2026 midterms in order to steal elections and prevent losing control of Congress.
Imagine that. The whiner who complained nonstop about rigged elections and who organized an insurrection around the words, "Stop the steal" is now rigging elections in order to steal the outcome.
We should be pointing this out loudly and often everywhere.
STOP THE STEAL!!!
Just returned from the local No Kings protest.
I'm in a small city in a rural, deep red Congressional district. People here are not much into social activism so I was surprised at the large turnout, especially since it rained this morning and the protest started at 11:00 am. It was a light, misty rain that fortunately stopped by 11:30. There were quite a few young people, from around 18 to 30 years old. Plus some oldsters like me.
The location was a park that's bordered by a very busy, two lane, one way street. We stood on both sides of the street with our signs. A traffic light at the end of the block meant that drivers had to slow down or stop, so they had a good chance to read the signs. We got a LOT of supportive responses from drivers going by -- horns honking, hands out of the window with thumbs up. A few people who saw on Facebook where the protest was located drove by in their cars swinging US flags and protest signs out the windows so that a couple times, it was almost like a parade.
I did not get any pictures, but some of the things I saw on posters were:
NO FAUX--KING WAY!
Quick, think now before it becomes illegal.
My poster had 3 short messages, with illustrations. First message was NO KINGS. Underneath it was a picture of Britain's King George III. Next to that the message was NO DICTATORS. Below it were two pictures, one of Mussolini and one of Stalin. Below those two messages was the third one: NO ROUNDUPS WITHOUT DUE PROCESS. Beside that message was a picture of Hitler in uniform.
There was one, lone Trump supporter. He was a tall, belligerent looking guy who cursed obscenities at the protesters while stopped for the red light. Then he got out of his truck and tried to pick a fight. The No Kings protesters immediately broke into a chant of "PEACEFUL PROTEST" over and over. The Trump supporter pulled his truck into a nearby parking lot, pulled out a large Trump flag -- the US flag with Trump's ugly mug desecrating it -- and marched up and down the sidewalk behind the No Kings protesters, waving the flag and screaming, "God Bless America! God Bless Donald Trump!" over and over. We easily drowned him out with "No Kings!"
I suggested to the organizer that, in the future for other protests, we should have a laugh track hooked up to a megaphone and play it it response to Trump supporters. He liked the idea and said he might do it next time.
Trump versus LA -- Some thoughts to ponder and questions to ask
1) When Neo Nazis at Charlottesville chanted, “Jews will not replace us” and killed a young woman, Mr. Trump called them fine people. But currrently, he attacks Harvard University for not protecting Jews during pro-Palestinian protests. Does turning Gaza into a Trump resort have anything to do with this about face? What a quandary for white supremacist MAGAs, who hate both Jews and Palestinians. Perhaps Trump needs to throw them some other hate meat to feast on, like refugees and immigrants in the US, in order to maintain his quest for more money and power.
2) The FELON President calls migrants and immigrants criminals and says we must uphold law and order against them. Really? Is he planning to dump his Slovenian wife, whose entry visa and subsequent work activities have raised questions? Would he have deported his immigrant mother? Would he have deported his immigrant grandfather who ran a brothel at a gold rush town? Does anyone know where the sex workers at the brothel came from?
3) Mr. Trump calls the protesters in LA insurrectionist thugs who need to be stopped by the federal government taking over the CA National Guard (without consulting the CA governor) and calling in US Marines. Isn’t this the same guy who incited a seditious and insurrectionist attack on members of Congress at the Capitol in order to halt the certification of the lawful election winner so he could stay in office? He’s the same guy who sat for hours watching Capitol police being assaulted in attacks that injured several people and killed some, while refusing all requests to call a halt to the riot that he instigated. The same guy who later called it a love fest by tourists. Clearly, protection of government property and the safety of people are not his actual priorities. Looks like using force for his own agendas is a higher priority for him.
The situation in LA is NOT about immigrants and migrants. It is about Trump deliberately inflaming a situation in order to provoke protesters and use brute force against them. Once that precedent is set, it will not stop there. Protests and criticism of the government will be criminalized and military force used, in Trump’s own words, “Everywhere.” Our response is about preserving democracy and civil and human rights in peaceful protests that heed the examples of MLK and Gandhi, exposing a stark contrast to the violence of troop attacks.
Is LA Trump's Reichstag fire?
Looks like it to me.
The LA raids look to me like they were deliberately timed to be the forerunner to his military parade on Saturday. It was predictable that the people of a large, liberal, diverse city in a liberal state would push back against the ICE raids.
On 1/6/21 Trump got cheated out of his opportunity to be at the Capitol with his insurrectionist militias to announce his win "officially" and then declare martial law to enforce it. So this Saturday's parade is his chance for a do over. He can announce a national emergency and martial law with great ceremony and fanfare while military forces march in DC. He would use the LA protests to justify his actions.
Ember, my tortoiseshell tabby, has become a self-taught meteorologist.
Ember used to enjoy occasional water as a kitten, e.g. swishing her paws in the toilet bowl, or chasing down suds in the kitchen sink after I drained it. As long as I didn't try to put her into water, she was ok.
But then storms brought out her sheltering instinct. It probably didn't help that she was on the sill of an open window, checking out the pretty light flashes in the sky when a heavy downpour splashed through the screen onto her. Poof, faster than lightning itself, she was on the floor far away from the window, peeking out to see what or who had attacked her.
Gradually, Ember learned to associate cloudy skies with threatening weather. On cloudy days, she glances out the window as she walks across the room. If she hears thunder in the distance, she looks at me and then at the window. She knows now that the booming noise is the voice of the water monster and lightning is its eyes flashing arrogant threats. She paces the floor, checking out the window as skies get dark, thunder booms, and lightning flashes. Then, when the downpour hits, she scoots behind the couch and will not come out until the storm stops.
There are times when even I am a bit nervous about storms if there have been tornado watches for the area. At those times, I go to the window to scan the sky and always leave a radio and my phone on to catch weather warnings. When I search the skies from the window, Ember knows that I am a kindred spirit and joins me at the windowsill.
But now she has ratcheted up her weather warning skills. She has observed that, when the radio makes a loud buzzing sound and a robotic voice speaks our of it, I stop what I'm doing to listen. Storms have followed the radio warnings often enough so that Ember associates the radio warnings and perks up to look at me, look out the window, and get closer to the couch in case she needs to make a quick dive behind it.
If the radio buzzing is just a US Weather Service test, Ember relaxes when I tell her it's ok.
She's my own personal, in house weather watcher.
Trump is running concentration camps by paying other nations to help him disappear people.
Trump is trying to avoid the accusation of running concentration camps by outsourcing the "disappeared ones" to prisons in other nations. He knows that such camps in the US would become focal points of protests and demonstrations. They would also take time to build and staff. So, just grab people off the street, ship them to foreign prisons, and pay foreign governments to take them.
DOGE is supposed to cut the costs of government? Well, they could start by eliminating the costs of planes and foreign prisons for Trump's concentration camps.
Trump, Miller, and ICE have already moved beyond imprisoning people who lack documentation. They are now sending legal asylum seekers to Trump's foreign concentration camps. It won't stop there. They are pushing to eliminate birthright citizenship. Then they could then ship US born citizens to the foreign concentration camps if their parents were here with or without documentation.
This unholy trio of Trump, Miller, and ICE would next move on to revoke citizenship for naturalized people that they don't want here.
When will they start shipping American born citizens of US citizen parents to foreign concentration camps because of their political views?
We know this movie. The world has seen it before. Silence about this is complicity. Remember what Martin Niemoller said:
"First they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists but I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me."
For MLK Day - archived recording 1963 March on Washington
Includes singing of We Shall Overcome, the entire I Have a Dream speech, and Marian Anderson singing He's Got the Whole World in His Hands. Plus, remarks from JFK on equality.
Some of us will remember these voices of great people from the past. Some might not remember, but will share the ideas and feelings. This is what America is about.
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