Nobody puts Tammy in a corner

This clip of Tammy Duckworth today will make you angry and keep you laughing all night long.

For those of you who have had your head in the cave called Fox News, Senator Duckworth is an Iraq War veteran who lost most of both legs in after a missile hit the helicopter she was flying. She landed the helicopter *after* she was hit.

The first two minutes are an instant classic. Thank you Tammy for giving me the perfect phrase for my sign tomorrow.

#womensmarch2018 #powertothepolls weekend

Just a reminder, there are marches all over the country again this weekend. Here in Pittsburgh the March is tomorrow at 11:30am. Meet in front of the city-county building downtown.

You can catch it live all over the nation on the Periscope app.

I need your help to come up with a catchy sign to take with me tomorrow. Leave suggestions down below. Not you, Niles.

Some good images from today’s #womensmarch2018:

Go, Wichita!!

These people have been resisting for 3000 years.

Lololololol!!

Why the Dreamers matter and what they represent.

Never again.

Keep those words in mind while I tell you why the Democrats are holding the line on DACA and why they have to do it.

Masha Gessen, the journalist who had to leave Putin’s Russia has been writing the last year about what it’s like to live in an autocracy. One of her suggestions at the beginning of the One Party Rule- Trump Presidency era is to make a list. The list will be of things and principles you once held dear that you will gradually cede to the autocrat. These concessions will start to feel normal and that’s where the danger lies. Amy Siskind has been keeping the list. You may need to refresh your memory.

One of those things surely has to be how we allow the current government and its base to treat human beings it has identified as the scapegoats and the cause of all its problems. We are now at the point where we, each individual, has to decide if we can accept inhumane and immoral treatment of immigrants, specifically the ones who were brought here as children, had no choice in the matter, made America their home and in every possible way are culturally American.

Are we going to let this autocrat and his base strip these people of their rights as human beings to seek justice and protection? Are we going to throw them out of the only country they’ve ever known? Are we going to force them to adhere to draconian restrictions on their livelihoods, force them to leave their families and belongings behind as they are quickly rounded up and deported without recourse?

Think about this carefully. Because this is what happened to the Jews in Germany in the 1930’s.

Oh, surely, you exaggerate, RD. The Dreamers are nothing like the Jews. Really? Let’s review.

They had been living in Germany all their lives, considered themselves German. And they were stripped of their citizenship, professions, and property. They became the targets of angry mobs who vandalized their places of business and harassed them. But even that wasn’t enough for the base. No, once they were identified and targeted, they were rounded up and deported to collection centers for forced labor or death, whichever came first.

Think of the logistics of finding and deporting the Dreamers. And it won’t stop with them because Trump wants to throw all illegal immigrants out as quickly as possible reaching into the heartland to find and destroy every one of them.

How is he going to move all of those millions of people? We’re talking about the Dreamers and all the other Salvadorans, Haitians, Mexicans. There will be raids in the middle of the night. Children will live in fear of having their parents taken away from them. (This is already happening). Their property will be confiscated. Their jobs will be gone. They’ll be rounded up in some detention center until they can be returned to the country in which they were born.

How will they be moved to these detention centers when the deportations start? When they get there, how will they be fed? Who will give them health care? Are they even entitled to that? If appropriate detention centers can’t be built to house all of them, will they be sent to prisons run by private industry? We’re talking about millions of people.

Who gets all the stuff they leave behind? What if the base doesn’t want to spend even one more penny feeding them and housing them and taking care of them when they’re sick? We have a country that is loaded with guns and indignant white guys who are ready to form their own militias to give ICE a hand. If some get shot, what are they going to do? Have Dreamers Lives Matter protests? Do they have the right to gather and petition the government to address their grievances like all American citizens do?

It could, and WILL, get very ugly, very fast. But the Dreamers and illegal immigrants are just the start. Because the base blames all kinds of people for its problems. Gay people, black people, women, poor people, sick people, Muslims. They’ve already started their own little wars against those groups. Think of the 9 million poor children on CHIP whose lives are held hostage now. This is the GOP’s way of practicing politics. Take two groups hostage and force the rest of us to decide who lives: the sick kids or the Dreamers.

This is why Democrats have to hold the line until Trump and his hard ass advisors give in. They don’t like it, it’s bad politics. But sometimes, none of our options are good and we are forced to go with the one that has the potential for a better overall outcome in the end.

The reasoning behind the Trump treatment of the Dreamers is immoral. It’s petty. It’s dangerous. It’s beneath us. What does it cost us to let Dreamers stay in this country with a clear path to citizenship? Why are we so intent on making their lives so hard? Why? How does that make US better people? Richer people? More content people? How does exerting power over a helpless targeted group materially or morally improve our lives?

Put it on your list and ask yourself, can I as a citizen of this nation live with this?

If the answer is no, if you have a different vision for the future where we all thrive together, then tomorrow, we march.