Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Giving up is unforgivable.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Finding joy where we can, and muddling through where we can’t.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Let me file that under fuck it.

I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today.

So many bastards, so little time.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Lights for Liberty – Tucson, Elk River, and Camano Island

Lights for Liberty – Tucson, Elk River, and Camano Island

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RandyG in Tucson, Arizona: About 1,500+ attendees, 98° at game time. Scheduled for 7:00-9:00pm, with a candlelight vigil scheduled for 8:30pm. Sounded great, started on time. Apparently the organizers thought it made sense to keep bringing up more and more people essentially saying the same thing and very little in the way of actually following up with some useful action items. At 9:00pm we (my wife and 2 other friends) left…. more speakers were still being brought up, no candlelight segment in sight, about 3/4 of the crowd had already left. Yes, I give the organizers a lot of credit for doing the heavy lifting of getting this organized, but gee, most left-wing grassroots groups have no feel for effective tactics or strategy. Did I mention that it was hot and late?

esme: These are from the Sherburne County Jail in Elk River, MN. A good crowd for a small town. A bunch of us from St. Cloud drove down.

thalarctosMaritimus: About 30 dedicated activists turned out for the vigil on Camano Island, Washington, a community about 65 miles NE of Seattle. We chose it over the Everett vigil because we thought that in a smaller, more rural community, 2 more supporters could have more impact than in a larger city crowd. The weather was warm and sunny, and the Camano Island Democrats chose a location where a lot of Friday rush-hour traffic passed by. We were encouraged by horn-honking and waves from passing drivers, and Mr. thalarctos and I made some contacts to stay in touch with for upcoming events.

More to come…open

Reader Interactions

15Comments

  2. 2.

    Hungry Joe

    I took the trolley for the march at the border with Tijuana and damned if the thing didn’t break down at the Petco Park stop about 45 minutes before game time. “It’s a sign,” I thought, and seriously considered bailing to watch the Padres play the Braves. But my better angels prevailed; I waited for the next trolley and made it in time for the last part of the rally and the march. About 3,000 people, lotsa spirit, no shortage of anger.

    And it was the right call: Padres lost.

  3. 3.

    CarolDuhart2

    400,000 can intimidate people who just don’t have any alternative to turn to . So we should starve kids to death, and let those people die without sanitation and food? Or traumatize kids by taking them away from their parents? Clarissa has no clue or heart either.

  4. 4.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @germy:

    Now and then I like to check in and see how she feels about things.

    Why? Abused people can become abusers? That’s not new. We shouldn’t let refugees from El Salvador into the US because we might let some of the abusers in as well? That is the whole point of the screening process – to identify the actual refugees and give them asylum and to exclude those who are guilty of the behaviors that caused the refugees to leave their homes. The fact that the system isn’t doing that means that we need to fix the system. Unless I am completely misreading this post, Clarissa seems like a bit of a monster.

  5. 5.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Migrants Inside ICE’s Only Transgender Unit Decry Conditions

    The 29 migrants from the letter say medical staff fail to provide proper health care to people with disabilities and HIV-positive individuals, and deny treatment for visible skin infections — some of which they allege were contracted within the facility. They say several detainees have been denied necessary medications. The inmates describe daily verbal and psychological mistreatment from officers, and a fear of retaliation in the face of complaints.

    “We are afraid of repression but more afraid of being in this situation,” the letter states (translated into English by the reporter).

    It should be noted that many of transgender migrants left because of death threats in their home countries. In February, a trans asylum seeker was killed only weeks after she was deported back to her country.

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Elise Jordan @ Elise_Jordan
    Milton Eisenhower (Ike’s brother) was appointed in 1942 as the first director of the internment camps. He lasted 90 days on the job, quitting because, quote, “I can’t sleep and do this job.”

    Fred Wellman @ FPWellman
    My wife was a flight attendant and I was an Army officer in Atlanta in the late 90’s. I used to drop my kids off at a daycare that wasn’t bad and had cameras I could watch online. My daughter was maybe 3 or 4. I started noticing her spirit fading.
    thread

    I remember Bob Dole campaigning in ’96, yelling “Where’s the outrage!?”. He was looking for outrage because (IIRC) the Clinton campaign had a fund-raiser attended by some Chinese nationals, and returned the money, and Al Gore had made some fund-raising phone calls from his office instead of going across the street to a campaign office. Bob Dole now supports Donald trump.

  7. 7.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I remember Bob Dole campaigning in ’96, yelling “Where’s the outrage!?”. He was looking for outrage because (IIRC) the Clinton campaign had a fund-raiser attended by some Chinese nationals, and returned the money, and Al Gore had made some fund-raising phone calls from his office instead of going across the street to a campaign office. Bob Dole now supports Donald trump.

    I guess he got over the outrage.

  9. 9.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    I do deliveries on Camano Island, but I stopped early yesterday, If I saw you, I would have Honked in support. If one travels down LaConner-Whitney there is a brave soul with a large Anti-Trump sign and on the Fir-Conway road there was once a spray painted Trump Sucks on the road.

  10. 10.

    Jon Meade

    Tucson has another immigrant issue, where a building used to house many immigrants in a dorm on a temporary basis has become unavailable soon, but the alternative location planned for is an unused portion of a jail. Optics aren’t good. Reality isn’t much better when the bad option is the only one available and that gets rejected.

    Purity strikes again!

  11. 11.

    Raoul

    So great to see the Elk River / Sherborne Co protest. I read recently that the county is trying to expand the facility by several hundred beds, basically as a revenue enhancer. Why relegate the ‘profits’ of abusive incarceration to for-profit ghouls?

    As we are not in MN this week, we drove down to Denver for the protest at GEO Corp’s misery money maker in Aurora. Some activists I gather cut through a chain link fence and ignored the terms of the permit for the rally and caused the organizers to decide to suspend the event. After we left, we heard that the event resumed. Not ideal. I’m sad for the folks who put in countless hours organizing and planning to have the non-strategic splinter do its thing and make the vigil go wobbly.

    I think some folks may have a different spin. We had 90 mins of driving so leaving at 8:30pm wasn’t our worst outcome, but then none of us are in detention which is the actual worse outcome. This whole immigration thing is deeply infuriating and Trump’s gross urges towards cruelty are despicable.

  12. 12.

    lastwriter

    @Jon Meade: If memory serves, isn’t that the former Benedictine church in midtown? I think the Daily Star had an article about that.

    (Long-time lurker delurking to help out a fellow Tucsonan!)

  14. 14.

    RandyG

    @lastwriter:
    Yes, the former Benedectine church has been used as a shelter since January, but will be closing down at the end of July. Two former Tucson schools are now being proposed as shelters, in addition to (or opposed to) the juvenile detention facility. Tucson.com article

  15. 15.

    RandyG

    @RandyG:
    ETA: For those in the Tucson area, there has been a magnificent ongoing volunteer effort to provide food donations, kitchen and serving help, etc. at the shelter. The organizers plan to continue at whatever shelter is set up come August. Go here to sign up for a slot in the coming weeks or to get on their distribution list.

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