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Protesters in D.C. mark "Not My President's Day."
A belated Happy (sic) Not My President's Day, from a populace bruised and reeling yet still defiant in the face of a right-wing junta by staggeringly arrogant jackwads too hyped by their own megalomania to comprehend, never mind regret, the devastation they wreak on our storied democracy. How do we hate thee? Let us count the ways in an inane war on equity, reason, kindness, workers, chickens, freckles, gender, Greenland, brown people, knowledge itself. But resisters abide.
"No Kings" is increasingly the righteous cry against a regime run by an apartheid-born Nazi and his figurehead president, abetted by a cadre of extremist lackeys who know nothing about the agencies, one after the other, they're being handed to run, or run into the ground. After a Munich conference that made clear today's Germany is resolutely anti-Nazi but America isn't, Garrett Graff offered up "a more clear-eyed" assessment of a new regime that, if it was unfolding in a third-world country, would be deemed "a full-blown autocratic coup": Seized capital, dismantled legal constraints, corrupt law enforcement decriminalizing crimes by power elites and brash bands of roving mercenaries and "political commissars" insidiously installed across the government in key positions, much like Stalin's Russia.
Astoundingly, the new regimen of "masculine maximalism" (LOL) is overseen by a doddering, addled, moronic know-nothing who, when he speaks, somehow still knows nothing, Witless and wandering, he babbled on at last week's National Prayer Breakfast, wildly veering from teleprompter to fever dream: Religion "suffered greatly over the last four long dark years," "they say you can't run again, sir," "in God we trust, there was a movement to get that out," we "got rid of woke, woke is gonzo," the election "didn't work out too correctly," "God works in strange ways," the "spirit of the country is up 49%," "a light is shining all over the world," "I shouldn't be here, like sinking a one-foot shot," "the persecution they've," "blessed are the peacemakers," "You can take an aeroplane, it costs two dollars," "nobody's ever seen anything like it."
Yet still the idiot lackeys jump, along with most of the media. Only the A.P. has refused to herald the inane "Gulf of America," for which treacherous act they've been banned from the macabre festivities. One eager rep wants to rename Greenland "Red, White and Blue Land," another to make a national holiday of the master's birthday. Conspiracy-steeped Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Nazi progeny, veteran, former cocktail waitress and armed swimsuit model in camouflage bikinis who compared Hillary Clinton to herpes, wants to add his mug on Mt. Rushmore. Her prize: Head of a House task force to expose "federal secrets" - a move "not just monumental but pivotal" in a "new era when the light of truth begins to shine through." She'll be "investigating" UFOs, 9/11, Jeffrey Epstein, and the death of JFK; she plans to call an august panel of eye-witnesses who all died decades ago. So that should be cool.
More ugly cranks emerge daily to spew. After the Superbowl's halftime show, wingnut Stew Peters raged about the NFL's tiresome "satanic rituals": "Every single one of America’s biggest entertainment platforms (has) completely given in to this degenerate black filth culture (created) by a bunch of subversive Jews." Many brandish not just hate but stunning, deadly ignorance. With avian flu rampant - spreading through poultry, dairy cattle, raw milk, farmworkers - and DOGE cutting public health funding, freezing most CDC info and firing a quarter of the National Animal Health Lab that tracks it, we're left with economist Kevin Hassett burbling there's no eggs at the grocery store 'cause Biden "spent billions of dollars randomly killing chickens," which is how to stop the spread among chickens packed into factory farms, but in the new regime "We're going to have a better, smarter perimeter," aka fence, created by "the best scientists in government."
Hopefully, those best ever scientists will also help maintain safety at workplaces nationwide after DOGE purged its ranks and safeguards, often in botched raids that wildly misinterpreted its own rules in the name of eradicating nefarious diversity. In a story that would be hilarious if not so terrifyingly dumb, Judd Legum's Popular Information uncovered an OSHA order for "the digital and physical destruction" of 18 hefty publications on workplace safety to "terminate any activities associated with "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility." Ultimately, the order targeted safety on or for construction sites, hazardous waste, workplace injuries, first responders, nursing home ergonomics to prevent musculoskeltal disorders and multiple other best practices, all because a Musk robot detected the word diverse - "diverse conditions under which EMS responders work" - or gender - respiratory issues may be related to "genetic causes, gender, age, and other factors."
The idiocy extends to the Dept. of Education - being shuttered - and books increasingly banned to halt "radical indoctrination," dreaded second cousin to critical thinking. The latest victim of the frenzied censorship: Freckleface Strawberry, a Marxist manifesto by actress Julianne Moore, about "a girl who dislikes her freckles but learns to live with them." "I wrote it for my children and other kids to remind them that we all struggle," Moore claimed from her gulag, "but are united by our humanity and community.” Still it goes on. The Führer just got driven around the Daytona 500 track in "The Beast" while loudspeakers blared the Foo Fighters’ There Goes My Hero as his fans cheered; the strongman stunt cost about $5,000,000. The White House sent out a vicious "Valentine" menacing immigrants. Trump insisted, "We're gonna have Gaza and keep it and make sure there's (no) problem...We're gonna cherish it." And he posted a fiery quote he "picked up online like a dime on the sidewalk," from a movie on Napoleon: "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."
Yes: Hitler famously said in 1929, "The authority of the Führer is not limited by laws or statutes.” Yes, we are evidently here. But Gandhi famously said, “Civil disobedience therefore becomes a sacred duty when the State has become lawless." And amidst the rage, dread, grief, dark sense of powerlessness, many Americans, often quietly, are refusing to go quietly, vowing per the fabulous sign of a literary friend's daughter at a protest here in Portland, to "Rage, Rage Against the Lying of the Right." Marking Monday's Not My President’s Day, aka No Kings Day, thousands turned out at dozens of protests across the country, many organized by #50501 - 50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement” - in partnership with Political Revolution. They ranged from modest but heartfelt In Austin to massive in D.C., where crowds lined the National Mall's Reflecting Pool chanting "Where Is Congress?", "Do Your Job" and "Nobody Voted for Elon Musk." And Canadians are doing their thing.
Federal workers, often unheralded, have stepped up, putting themselves and their jobs on the line. They've refused to be "terminated," resigned rather than follow illegal orders, marked memos from Trump/Musk as "spam" and kept working, flooded Slack and other platforms with spoon emojis in response to Musk's grand "Fork in the Road" buyout demand, launched encrypted chats to hide and save their sensitive data, created a "fednews" subreddit urging workers to "hold the line" and “support the Constitution by NOT resigning." Because there is, still, power in a union, the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal workers, now has the highest number of members in its 92-year history, with thousands joining daily. In unprecedented solidarity, half of New York Mayor Eric Adams' top deputies just joined multiple prosecutors in resigning to protest the corrupt federal move to drop charges against him.
Organizers have declared an economic blackout for Feb. 28. Choose Democracy is reminding patriots of ways, large and small, to fight back. Experts cite the historic success of civil resistance campaigns, focusing on the "3.5% Rule" that no government can withstand challenges from that number of citizens.Rep. Jamie Raskin has "spit fire" on the hubris of fascists who think they can overthrow democracy for a "techno-state monarchy" of their own inept imagining. Musk's dimwit "move fast and break things” firings - like his SpaceX' "rapid unscheduled disassembly - are rightly, finally encountering pushback; one FAA official says, "I'm scared to death, and the American public should be too." Stephen Greenberg proffers a "Weekly Trump ll Anti-Fascist Music Minute because "what’s songwriting for if not to document the latest administrative atrocities?" And, almost unnoticed, Texas Rep. Al Green has begun impeachment proceedings against Trump for "dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done." Ok, unlikely. But the gist, per Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Don't panic."
we are
endless as the sea, not separate, we die
a million times a day, we are born
a million times, each breath life and death:
get up, put on your shoes, get
started, someone will finish
–Diane di Prima, Revolutionary Letter #2
Canadians are putting up googly-eyed hockey stick sentries at the Manitoba border to reassure King DonaldFacebook screenshot
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
A belated Happy (sic) Not My President's Day, from a populace bruised and reeling yet still defiant in the face of a right-wing junta by staggeringly arrogant jackwads too hyped by their own megalomania to comprehend, never mind regret, the devastation they wreak on our storied democracy. How do we hate thee? Let us count the ways in an inane war on equity, reason, kindness, workers, chickens, freckles, gender, Greenland, brown people, knowledge itself. But resisters abide.
"No Kings" is increasingly the righteous cry against a regime run by an apartheid-born Nazi and his figurehead president, abetted by a cadre of extremist lackeys who know nothing about the agencies, one after the other, they're being handed to run, or run into the ground. After a Munich conference that made clear today's Germany is resolutely anti-Nazi but America isn't, Garrett Graff offered up "a more clear-eyed" assessment of a new regime that, if it was unfolding in a third-world country, would be deemed "a full-blown autocratic coup": Seized capital, dismantled legal constraints, corrupt law enforcement decriminalizing crimes by power elites and brash bands of roving mercenaries and "political commissars" insidiously installed across the government in key positions, much like Stalin's Russia.
Astoundingly, the new regimen of "masculine maximalism" (LOL) is overseen by a doddering, addled, moronic know-nothing who, when he speaks, somehow still knows nothing, Witless and wandering, he babbled on at last week's National Prayer Breakfast, wildly veering from teleprompter to fever dream: Religion "suffered greatly over the last four long dark years," "they say you can't run again, sir," "in God we trust, there was a movement to get that out," we "got rid of woke, woke is gonzo," the election "didn't work out too correctly," "God works in strange ways," the "spirit of the country is up 49%," "a light is shining all over the world," "I shouldn't be here, like sinking a one-foot shot," "the persecution they've," "blessed are the peacemakers," "You can take an aeroplane, it costs two dollars," "nobody's ever seen anything like it."
Yet still the idiot lackeys jump, along with most of the media. Only the A.P. has refused to herald the inane "Gulf of America," for which treacherous act they've been banned from the macabre festivities. One eager rep wants to rename Greenland "Red, White and Blue Land," another to make a national holiday of the master's birthday. Conspiracy-steeped Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Nazi progeny, veteran, former cocktail waitress and armed swimsuit model in camouflage bikinis who compared Hillary Clinton to herpes, wants to add his mug on Mt. Rushmore. Her prize: Head of a House task force to expose "federal secrets" - a move "not just monumental but pivotal" in a "new era when the light of truth begins to shine through." She'll be "investigating" UFOs, 9/11, Jeffrey Epstein, and the death of JFK; she plans to call an august panel of eye-witnesses who all died decades ago. So that should be cool.
More ugly cranks emerge daily to spew. After the Superbowl's halftime show, wingnut Stew Peters raged about the NFL's tiresome "satanic rituals": "Every single one of America’s biggest entertainment platforms (has) completely given in to this degenerate black filth culture (created) by a bunch of subversive Jews." Many brandish not just hate but stunning, deadly ignorance. With avian flu rampant - spreading through poultry, dairy cattle, raw milk, farmworkers - and DOGE cutting public health funding, freezing most CDC info and firing a quarter of the National Animal Health Lab that tracks it, we're left with economist Kevin Hassett burbling there's no eggs at the grocery store 'cause Biden "spent billions of dollars randomly killing chickens," which is how to stop the spread among chickens packed into factory farms, but in the new regime "We're going to have a better, smarter perimeter," aka fence, created by "the best scientists in government."
Hopefully, those best ever scientists will also help maintain safety at workplaces nationwide after DOGE purged its ranks and safeguards, often in botched raids that wildly misinterpreted its own rules in the name of eradicating nefarious diversity. In a story that would be hilarious if not so terrifyingly dumb, Judd Legum's Popular Information uncovered an OSHA order for "the digital and physical destruction" of 18 hefty publications on workplace safety to "terminate any activities associated with "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility." Ultimately, the order targeted safety on or for construction sites, hazardous waste, workplace injuries, first responders, nursing home ergonomics to prevent musculoskeltal disorders and multiple other best practices, all because a Musk robot detected the word diverse - "diverse conditions under which EMS responders work" - or gender - respiratory issues may be related to "genetic causes, gender, age, and other factors."
The idiocy extends to the Dept. of Education - being shuttered - and books increasingly banned to halt "radical indoctrination," dreaded second cousin to critical thinking. The latest victim of the frenzied censorship: Freckleface Strawberry, a Marxist manifesto by actress Julianne Moore, about "a girl who dislikes her freckles but learns to live with them." "I wrote it for my children and other kids to remind them that we all struggle," Moore claimed from her gulag, "but are united by our humanity and community.” Still it goes on. The Führer just got driven around the Daytona 500 track in "The Beast" while loudspeakers blared the Foo Fighters’ There Goes My Hero as his fans cheered; the strongman stunt cost about $5,000,000. The White House sent out a vicious "Valentine" menacing immigrants. Trump insisted, "We're gonna have Gaza and keep it and make sure there's (no) problem...We're gonna cherish it." And he posted a fiery quote he "picked up online like a dime on the sidewalk," from a movie on Napoleon: "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."
Yes: Hitler famously said in 1929, "The authority of the Führer is not limited by laws or statutes.” Yes, we are evidently here. But Gandhi famously said, “Civil disobedience therefore becomes a sacred duty when the State has become lawless." And amidst the rage, dread, grief, dark sense of powerlessness, many Americans, often quietly, are refusing to go quietly, vowing per the fabulous sign of a literary friend's daughter at a protest here in Portland, to "Rage, Rage Against the Lying of the Right." Marking Monday's Not My President’s Day, aka No Kings Day, thousands turned out at dozens of protests across the country, many organized by #50501 - 50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement” - in partnership with Political Revolution. They ranged from modest but heartfelt In Austin to massive in D.C., where crowds lined the National Mall's Reflecting Pool chanting "Where Is Congress?", "Do Your Job" and "Nobody Voted for Elon Musk." And Canadians are doing their thing.
Federal workers, often unheralded, have stepped up, putting themselves and their jobs on the line. They've refused to be "terminated," resigned rather than follow illegal orders, marked memos from Trump/Musk as "spam" and kept working, flooded Slack and other platforms with spoon emojis in response to Musk's grand "Fork in the Road" buyout demand, launched encrypted chats to hide and save their sensitive data, created a "fednews" subreddit urging workers to "hold the line" and “support the Constitution by NOT resigning." Because there is, still, power in a union, the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal workers, now has the highest number of members in its 92-year history, with thousands joining daily. In unprecedented solidarity, half of New York Mayor Eric Adams' top deputies just joined multiple prosecutors in resigning to protest the corrupt federal move to drop charges against him.
Organizers have declared an economic blackout for Feb. 28. Choose Democracy is reminding patriots of ways, large and small, to fight back. Experts cite the historic success of civil resistance campaigns, focusing on the "3.5% Rule" that no government can withstand challenges from that number of citizens.Rep. Jamie Raskin has "spit fire" on the hubris of fascists who think they can overthrow democracy for a "techno-state monarchy" of their own inept imagining. Musk's dimwit "move fast and break things” firings - like his SpaceX' "rapid unscheduled disassembly - are rightly, finally encountering pushback; one FAA official says, "I'm scared to death, and the American public should be too." Stephen Greenberg proffers a "Weekly Trump ll Anti-Fascist Music Minute because "what’s songwriting for if not to document the latest administrative atrocities?" And, almost unnoticed, Texas Rep. Al Green has begun impeachment proceedings against Trump for "dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done." Ok, unlikely. But the gist, per Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Don't panic."
we are
endless as the sea, not separate, we die
a million times a day, we are born
a million times, each breath life and death:
get up, put on your shoes, get
started, someone will finish
–Diane di Prima, Revolutionary Letter #2
Canadians are putting up googly-eyed hockey stick sentries at the Manitoba border to reassure King DonaldFacebook screenshot
A belated Happy (sic) Not My President's Day, from a populace bruised and reeling yet still defiant in the face of a right-wing junta by staggeringly arrogant jackwads too hyped by their own megalomania to comprehend, never mind regret, the devastation they wreak on our storied democracy. How do we hate thee? Let us count the ways in an inane war on equity, reason, kindness, workers, chickens, freckles, gender, Greenland, brown people, knowledge itself. But resisters abide.
"No Kings" is increasingly the righteous cry against a regime run by an apartheid-born Nazi and his figurehead president, abetted by a cadre of extremist lackeys who know nothing about the agencies, one after the other, they're being handed to run, or run into the ground. After a Munich conference that made clear today's Germany is resolutely anti-Nazi but America isn't, Garrett Graff offered up "a more clear-eyed" assessment of a new regime that, if it was unfolding in a third-world country, would be deemed "a full-blown autocratic coup": Seized capital, dismantled legal constraints, corrupt law enforcement decriminalizing crimes by power elites and brash bands of roving mercenaries and "political commissars" insidiously installed across the government in key positions, much like Stalin's Russia.
Astoundingly, the new regimen of "masculine maximalism" (LOL) is overseen by a doddering, addled, moronic know-nothing who, when he speaks, somehow still knows nothing, Witless and wandering, he babbled on at last week's National Prayer Breakfast, wildly veering from teleprompter to fever dream: Religion "suffered greatly over the last four long dark years," "they say you can't run again, sir," "in God we trust, there was a movement to get that out," we "got rid of woke, woke is gonzo," the election "didn't work out too correctly," "God works in strange ways," the "spirit of the country is up 49%," "a light is shining all over the world," "I shouldn't be here, like sinking a one-foot shot," "the persecution they've," "blessed are the peacemakers," "You can take an aeroplane, it costs two dollars," "nobody's ever seen anything like it."
Yet still the idiot lackeys jump, along with most of the media. Only the A.P. has refused to herald the inane "Gulf of America," for which treacherous act they've been banned from the macabre festivities. One eager rep wants to rename Greenland "Red, White and Blue Land," another to make a national holiday of the master's birthday. Conspiracy-steeped Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Nazi progeny, veteran, former cocktail waitress and armed swimsuit model in camouflage bikinis who compared Hillary Clinton to herpes, wants to add his mug on Mt. Rushmore. Her prize: Head of a House task force to expose "federal secrets" - a move "not just monumental but pivotal" in a "new era when the light of truth begins to shine through." She'll be "investigating" UFOs, 9/11, Jeffrey Epstein, and the death of JFK; she plans to call an august panel of eye-witnesses who all died decades ago. So that should be cool.
More ugly cranks emerge daily to spew. After the Superbowl's halftime show, wingnut Stew Peters raged about the NFL's tiresome "satanic rituals": "Every single one of America’s biggest entertainment platforms (has) completely given in to this degenerate black filth culture (created) by a bunch of subversive Jews." Many brandish not just hate but stunning, deadly ignorance. With avian flu rampant - spreading through poultry, dairy cattle, raw milk, farmworkers - and DOGE cutting public health funding, freezing most CDC info and firing a quarter of the National Animal Health Lab that tracks it, we're left with economist Kevin Hassett burbling there's no eggs at the grocery store 'cause Biden "spent billions of dollars randomly killing chickens," which is how to stop the spread among chickens packed into factory farms, but in the new regime "We're going to have a better, smarter perimeter," aka fence, created by "the best scientists in government."
Hopefully, those best ever scientists will also help maintain safety at workplaces nationwide after DOGE purged its ranks and safeguards, often in botched raids that wildly misinterpreted its own rules in the name of eradicating nefarious diversity. In a story that would be hilarious if not so terrifyingly dumb, Judd Legum's Popular Information uncovered an OSHA order for "the digital and physical destruction" of 18 hefty publications on workplace safety to "terminate any activities associated with "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility." Ultimately, the order targeted safety on or for construction sites, hazardous waste, workplace injuries, first responders, nursing home ergonomics to prevent musculoskeltal disorders and multiple other best practices, all because a Musk robot detected the word diverse - "diverse conditions under which EMS responders work" - or gender - respiratory issues may be related to "genetic causes, gender, age, and other factors."
The idiocy extends to the Dept. of Education - being shuttered - and books increasingly banned to halt "radical indoctrination," dreaded second cousin to critical thinking. The latest victim of the frenzied censorship: Freckleface Strawberry, a Marxist manifesto by actress Julianne Moore, about "a girl who dislikes her freckles but learns to live with them." "I wrote it for my children and other kids to remind them that we all struggle," Moore claimed from her gulag, "but are united by our humanity and community.” Still it goes on. The Führer just got driven around the Daytona 500 track in "The Beast" while loudspeakers blared the Foo Fighters’ There Goes My Hero as his fans cheered; the strongman stunt cost about $5,000,000. The White House sent out a vicious "Valentine" menacing immigrants. Trump insisted, "We're gonna have Gaza and keep it and make sure there's (no) problem...We're gonna cherish it." And he posted a fiery quote he "picked up online like a dime on the sidewalk," from a movie on Napoleon: "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."
Yes: Hitler famously said in 1929, "The authority of the Führer is not limited by laws or statutes.” Yes, we are evidently here. But Gandhi famously said, “Civil disobedience therefore becomes a sacred duty when the State has become lawless." And amidst the rage, dread, grief, dark sense of powerlessness, many Americans, often quietly, are refusing to go quietly, vowing per the fabulous sign of a literary friend's daughter at a protest here in Portland, to "Rage, Rage Against the Lying of the Right." Marking Monday's Not My President’s Day, aka No Kings Day, thousands turned out at dozens of protests across the country, many organized by #50501 - 50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement” - in partnership with Political Revolution. They ranged from modest but heartfelt In Austin to massive in D.C., where crowds lined the National Mall's Reflecting Pool chanting "Where Is Congress?", "Do Your Job" and "Nobody Voted for Elon Musk." And Canadians are doing their thing.
Federal workers, often unheralded, have stepped up, putting themselves and their jobs on the line. They've refused to be "terminated," resigned rather than follow illegal orders, marked memos from Trump/Musk as "spam" and kept working, flooded Slack and other platforms with spoon emojis in response to Musk's grand "Fork in the Road" buyout demand, launched encrypted chats to hide and save their sensitive data, created a "fednews" subreddit urging workers to "hold the line" and “support the Constitution by NOT resigning." Because there is, still, power in a union, the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal workers, now has the highest number of members in its 92-year history, with thousands joining daily. In unprecedented solidarity, half of New York Mayor Eric Adams' top deputies just joined multiple prosecutors in resigning to protest the corrupt federal move to drop charges against him.
Organizers have declared an economic blackout for Feb. 28. Choose Democracy is reminding patriots of ways, large and small, to fight back. Experts cite the historic success of civil resistance campaigns, focusing on the "3.5% Rule" that no government can withstand challenges from that number of citizens.Rep. Jamie Raskin has "spit fire" on the hubris of fascists who think they can overthrow democracy for a "techno-state monarchy" of their own inept imagining. Musk's dimwit "move fast and break things” firings - like his SpaceX' "rapid unscheduled disassembly - are rightly, finally encountering pushback; one FAA official says, "I'm scared to death, and the American public should be too." Stephen Greenberg proffers a "Weekly Trump ll Anti-Fascist Music Minute because "what’s songwriting for if not to document the latest administrative atrocities?" And, almost unnoticed, Texas Rep. Al Green has begun impeachment proceedings against Trump for "dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done." Ok, unlikely. But the gist, per Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Don't panic."
we are
endless as the sea, not separate, we die
a million times a day, we are born
a million times, each breath life and death:
get up, put on your shoes, get
started, someone will finish
–Diane di Prima, Revolutionary Letter #2
Canadians are putting up googly-eyed hockey stick sentries at the Manitoba border to reassure King DonaldFacebook screenshot
"Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country who are standing up and speaking out for our voting rights, fundamental freedoms, and essential services like Social Security and Medicare."
In communities large and small across the United States on Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people collectively took to the streets to make their opposition to President Donald Trump heard.
The people who took part in the organized protests ranged from very young children to the elderly and their message was scrawled on signs of all sizes and colors—many of them angry, some of them funny, but all in line with the "Hands Off" message that brought them together.
"Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country who are standing up and speaking out for our voting rights, fundamental freedoms, and essential services like Social Security and Medicare," said the group Stand Up America as word of the turnout poured in from across the country.
A relatively small, but representative sample of photographs from various demonstrations that took place follows.
Demonstrators gather on Boston Common, cheering and chanting slogans, during the nationwide "Hands Off!" protest against US President Donald Trump and his advisor, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in Boston, Massachusetts on April 5, 2025. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP)
"Everyone involved in this crime against humanity, and everyone who covered it up, would face prosecution in a world that had any shred of dignity left."
A video presented to officials at the United Nations on Friday and first made public Saturday by the New York Times provides more evidence that the recent massacre of Palestinian medics in Gaza did not happen the way Israeli government claimed—the latest in a long line of deception when it comes to violence against civilians that have led to repeated accusations of war crimes.
The video, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), was found on the phone of a paramedic found in a mass grave with a bullet in his head after being killed, along with seven other medics, by Israeli forces on March 23. The eight medics, buried in the shallow grave with the bodies riddled with bullets, were: Mustafa Khafaja, Ezz El-Din Shaat, Saleh Muammar, Refaat Radwan, Muhammad Bahloul, Ashraf Abu Libda, Muhammad Al-Hila, and Raed Al-Sharif. The video reportedly belonged to Radwan. A ninth medic, identified as Asaad Al-Nasasra, who was at the scene of the massacre, which took place near the southern city of Rafah, is still missing.
The PRCS said it presented the video—which refutes the explanation of the killings offered by Israeli officials—to members of the UN Security Council on Friday.
"They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives," Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN's humanitarian affairs office in Palestine, said last week after the bodies were discovered. Some of the victims, according to Gaza officials, were found with handcuffs still on them and appeared to have been shot in the head, execution-style.
The Israeli military initially said its soldiers "did not randomly attack" any ambulances, but rather claimed they fired on "terrorists" who approached them in "suspicious vehicles." Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an IDF spokesperson, said the vehicles that the soldiers opened fire on were driving with their lights off and did not have clearance to be in the area. The video evidence directly contradicts the IDF's version of events.
As the Times reports:
The Times obtained the video from a senior diplomat at the United Nations who asked not to be identified to be able to share sensitive information.
The Times verified the location and timing of the video, which was taken in the southern city of Rafah early on March 23. Filmed from what appears to be the front interior of a moving vehicle, it shows a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck, clearly marked, with headlights and flashing lights turned on, driving south on a road to the north of Rafah in the early morning. The first rays of sun can be seen, and birds are chirping.
In an interview with Drop Site News published Friday, the only known paramedic to survive the attack, Munther Abed, explained that he and his colleagues "were directly and deliberately shot at" by the IDF. "The car is clearly marked with 'Palestinian Red Crescent Society 101.' The car's number was clear and the crews' uniform was clear, so why were we directly shot at? That is the question."
The video's release sparked fresh outrage and demands for accountability on Saturday.
"The IDF denied access to the site for days; they sent in diggers to cover up the massacre and intentionally lied about it," said podcast producer Hamza M. Syed in reaction to the new revelations. "The entire leadership of the Israeli army is implicated in this unconscionable war crime. And they must be prosecuted."
"Everyone involved in this crime against humanity, and everyone who covered it up, would face prosecution in a world that had any shred of dignity left," said journalist Ryan Grim of DropSite News.
"They're dismantling our country. They're looting our government. And they think we'll just watch."
In communities across the United States and also overseas, coordinated "Hands Off" protests are taking place far and wide Saturday in the largest public rebuke yet to President Donald Trump and top henchman Elon Musk's assault on the workings of the federal government and their program of economic sabotage that is sacrificing the needs of working families to authoritarianism and the greed of right-wing oligarchs.
Indivisible, one of the key organizing groups behind the day's protests, said millions participated in more than 1,300 individual rallies as they demanded "an end to Trump's authoritarian power grab" and condemning all those aiding and abetting it.
"We expected hundreds of thousands. But at virtually every single event, the crowds eclipsed our estimates," the group said in a statement Saturday evening.
"Hands off our healthcare, hands off our civil rights, hands off our schools, our freedoms, and our democracy."
"This is the largest day of protest since Trump retook office," the group added. "And in many small towns and cities, activists are reporting the biggest protests their communities have ever seen as everyday people send a clear, unmistakable message to Trump and Musk: Hands off our healthcare, hands off our civil rights, hands off our schools, our freedoms, and our democracy."
According to the organizers' call to action:
They're dismantling our country. They’re looting our government. And they think we'll just watch.
On Saturday, April 5th, we rise up with one demand: Hands Off!
This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history. Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies are orchestrating an all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic rights—enabled by Congress every step of the way. They want to strip America for parts—shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid—all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam.
They're handing over our tax dollars, our public services, and our democracy to the ultra-rich. If we don't fight now, there won’t be anything left to save.
The more than 1,300 "Hands Off!" demonstrations—organized by a large coalition of unions, progressive advocacy groups, and pro-democracy watchdogs—first kicked off Saturday in Europe, followed by East Coast communities in the U.S., and continued throughout the day at various times, depending on location. See here for a list of scheduled "Hands Off" events.
"The United States has a president, not a king," said the progressive advocacy group People's Action, one of the group's involved in the actions, in an email to supporters Saturday morning just as protest events kicked off in hundreds of cities and communities. "Donald Trump has, by every measure, been working to make himself a king. He has become unanswerable to the courts, Congress, and the American people."
In its Saturday evening statement, Indivisible said the actions far exceeded their expectations and should be seen as a turning point in the battle to stop Trump and his minions:
The Trump administration has spent its first 75 days in office trying to overwhelm us, to make us feel powerless, so that we will fall in line, accept the ransacking of our government, the raiding of our social safety net, and the dismantling of our democracy.
And too often, the response from our leaders and those in positions to resist has been abject cowardice. Compliance. Obeying in advance.
But not today. Today we've demonstrated a different path forward. We've modeled the courage and action that we want to see from our leaders, and showed all those who've been standing on the sidelines who share our values that they are not alone.
Citing the Republican president's thirst for "power and greed," People's Action earlier explained why organized pressure must be built and sustained against the administration, especially at the conclusion of a week in which the global economy was spun into disarray by Trump's tariff announcement, his attack on the rule of law continued, and the twice-elected president admitted he was "not joking" about the possibility of seeking a third term, which is barred by the constitution.
"He is destroying the economy with tariffs in order to pay for the tax cuts he wants to push through to enrich himself and his billionaire buddies," warned People's Action. "He has ordered the government to round up innocent people off of the streets and put them in detention centers without due process because they dared to speak out using their First Amendment rights. And he is not close to being done—by his own admission, he is planning to run for a third term, which the Constitution does not allow."
Live stream of Hands Off rally in Washington, D.C.:
Below are photo or video dispatches from demonstrations around the world on Saturday. Check back for updates...
United Kingdom
France
Germany
Belgium:
Massachusetts:
Maine:
Washington, D.C.:
New York:
Minnesota:
Michigan:
Ohio:
Colorado:
Pennsylvania:
North Carolina:
The protest organizers warn that what Trump and Musk are up to "is not just corruption" and "not just mismanagement," but something far more sinister.
"This is a hostile takeover," they said, but vowed to fight back. "This is the moment where we say NO. No more looting, no more stealing, no more billionaires raiding our government while working people struggle to survive."