November 9 was awful. This week feels even worse. Are you feeling overwhelmed, depressed, anxious, or panicked? Do you find yourself crying, hyper-ventilating, or sick to your stomach? Yeah – you’re not alone. And for all of us who need a reminder, here are some coping mechanisms from friends and experts — some ways to take care of yourself and still keep fighting. Continue reading
Filed under organizing
This is the photo the New York Times used in its article about food stamp recipients and soft drinks. Looks pretty bad, right?
I was awakened at 1:51 a.m. by a chiming phone signaling an incoming message that began, “am I right to be infuriated about this? what is the New York Times doing?” Yeah, I thought, as I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. You’re right, but I’m still not going to reply until morning.
My friend’s message was about a front-page article in the New York Times that trumpeted biased – and inaccurate – criticism of food stamps (SNAP) and the people who use them. We already know that Facebook news is not necessarily real news, that fake news sites abound on the left and the right, and that anything emanating from Trump’s spokespersons should be fact-checked. But the New York Times? Continue reading
All these conditions could be excluded from health insurance coverage under Republican legislation.
Minnesota Republicans want to free health insurance companies from providing any benefits: “Notwithstanding any state or federal law to the contrary, a health plan company may offer health plans that do not include federally required health benefit mandates.” As I read it, this would allow insurance companies to refuse to pay for vaccinations or valve replacements, for contraceptives or cancer treatment. Insurance companies would be free to pick and choose what they cover and what they exclude – and who they cover, and who they exclude for pre-existing conditions or any other reason. That’s in the bill passed by the Minnesota House of Representatives on January 19. Continue reading
Filed under health care, health insurance
Parallel universe by Scary Side of Earth, published under Creative Commons license
Trump senior advisor Kellyanne Conway gave us a new category on Meet the Press this morning: “alternative facts.” Alternative facts look like sci-fi’s alternate realities or parallel universes, described in Wikipedia as “a hypothetical self-contained reality co-existing with one’s own…. A universe where the very laws of nature are different …” That seems like a useful description of Trumplandia. Continue reading
Filed under media, news, Tracking Trump
Today’s Women’s Marches seem destined for history books, with half a million marchers in DC, 60,000 here in St. Paul, and hundreds of other marches around the country. As I walked to downtown St. Paul from the march, a man at a bus stop called out to me: “They shut down Michigan Avenue! Way to go, y’all!” If the whole world was watching, we gave them a picture of widespread resistance to the new regime. Continue reading
Filed under organizing
UPDATED WITH ADDITIONAL EVENTS 1/19, 8 P.M. – At the checkout counter at Target, the clerk noted the Black Lives Matter button on my coat and asked me, “Going to the march?” I told her yes, and she went on to say that the website was down this morning, so she had been unable to sign in. She was talking about Saturday’s Minnesota Women’s March. That’s not the only march this week (and not the only one I plan to go to.)
I’ve noticed that the various demonstrations, while all protesting the incoming administration, sometimes seem to draw from entirely different communities that don’t talk to each other. For example, I’ve talked to friends who are going to the Minnesota Women’s March on Saturday, but haven’t heard of the Resist From Day One mega-march on Friday. I’ve seen calendars that list one or the other, but no calendars that list both. Besides the two big marches, many smaller events also offer ways to join in solidarity. So – here’s my big list of inauguration protests in the Twin Cities, quite likely incomplete, but with plenty of ways to opt in. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Want to know how to tell if a report is true or false? Some things are complicated, but others are really easy to check. Here are three simple tips for do-it-yourself fact checking, and three good fact checking sites for back-up. Continue reading
Myrlie Evers-Williams at the Missouri Theatre in 2015. Photo by Mark Schierbecker, published under Creative Commons license.
She heard the shots ring out, that long-ago summer night. Inside the house, she heard her husband’s car pull up, and then the shots that killed him. One of the bullets came through the living room window, into the house where she and their three small children waited for a father who would never walk in the door again.
At today’s Martin Luther King Day breakfast, Myrlie Evers Williams recalled that night, Continue reading
Filed under human rights, organizing, race
Dave Snyder on MNA picket line (photo courtesy of Dave Snyder.)
In this increasingly awful political climate, I resolve to write to or call a politician every week, even when it feels like throwing words into the wind. Beyond words, I resolve to put my body on the line, some line, some march, some meeting, some protest, once every week.
One difficulty comes in choosing who to call and about what, with emails and Facebook messages and texts pouring in, each of them urgently asking me to contact Congress about X, where X is some godawful cabinet appointment, some threat to civil rights, some new move to roll back health care coverage or Medicare or workers rights or consumer protection. Dave Snyder is a friend, an organizer, and a very smart guy. With his permission, I want to share one of his recent Facebook posts, which offers a very good idea about making activism effective. I hope someone or some organization picks it up and runs with it. Continue reading
Filed under organizing
Sex. Russians. Sex and Donald Trump and the Russians.
Now that I have your attention, consider this: whatever Donald Trump did in a Russian hotel is far less damaging to the United States than what the Republican Congress is doing right now in Washington, D.C. Continue reading
Filed under health care, health insurance, human rights, Tracking Trump
Mary Turck
