Another Resource

I read the free Democracy Docket; it’s good, but not complete. However, on items like this, everyone can see it. The more of this sort of thing we have, the better.

https://www.democracy2025.org/

We will fight for people, freedom, and our democracy against any odds

Democracy 2025 is the strategic hub to protect people and their rights should the Trump-Vance administration seek to unlawfully strip away freedoms and prosperity.

We know the playbook, and we’re ready to fight back

The threats are no longer hypothetical. The effort to turn Project 2025 and other dangerous plans into action has begun.

We’ve planned for this moment. In courtrooms and communities across the country, we will use all the tools our Constitution provides to defend our rights and achieve a democracy that works for all people. (snip-Go Visit! Bookmark it, use it, and do what you can.)

Good News

The Anti-Trump Resistance Is Alive at This Historic Black DC Church

The Crucible and more in Peace and Justice History for 1/22

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january22

#actuallyautistic voices

Autistic Pride Is NOT Just about the Good Parts of Being NeuroDivergent

I am not autistic. But many of us here read Barry’s blog to learn, and to be more effective allies. The next 2 entries on his blog are informative, as well.

This could be a resource, or you could be or know of a resource

Either way, I thought I’d paste it in here, and whoever needs it, wants it, or knows something about it can do their thing. The title leans in one particular direction, but there is more info within, and I pasted it all here.

Seeking trans-friendly employers who sponsor visas

Nobody should have to move to another country to be themselves.

However, I’ve spoken to multiple people who feel they need to move away from the US in order to avoid harms caused by the new administration’s executive orders that target trans people. Exactly how to do this is sometimes opaque and feels difficult.

If you are actively hiring for positions in a company that is friendly to transgender people, in a country that is safe for transgender people, and you are willing to sponsor visas for people seeking to emigrate for these positions, I would like to hear from you.

If this is you, please enter your details here, and I’ll make them available on a public, open source website soon.

If you’re unsure which countries are considered to be safe for transgender people, and if your country is one, Rainbow Relocation has a reasonable list, and others are available.

To be clear: I want trans people to feel safe here in the United States, and I want them to be here. But I also understand peoples’ need to feel safe in the current moment. I am not urging people to move, but I would like to make life easier for people who want to. I’m making this request in the spirit of assistance, because I’ve already been asked.

I am also probably not the right person to put this together! But I didn’t see anyone else doing it. If you are from a reputable organization that supports transgender safety in a professional way, and you would like to take ownership of this list or collaborate, or if you are already doing something like this and I missed it, please email me at ben@benwerd.com.

I’m writing about the intersection of the internet, media, and society. Sign up to my newsletter to receive every post and a weekly digest of the most important stories from around the web.

Nev-Ver!

Jim Benton Cartoons by Jim Benton for January 21, 2025

Jim Benton Cartoons Comic Strip for January 21, 2025

“Infinite Hope”: Angela Davis Speaks at 2025 Peace Ball Ahead of Trump Inauguration

January 20, 2025 Watch The Show

Peace Ball

With the U.S. political establishment gathered in Washington for the second inauguration of Donald Trump, the iconic venue Busboys and Poets on Sunday hosted the Peace Ball, an event held around presidential inaugurations since 2009 and featuring voices of resistance to war, racism, poverty and more. This year’s Peace Ball featured author Angela Davis, who spoke of the power of “infinite hope” to fight against injustice. “I want us all to generate the kind of collective hope that will usher us into a better future,” said Davis. We air highlights from the event.’

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

On Saturday night in Washington, D.C., Busboys and Poets hosted the 2025 Inaugural Peace Ball, which first started in 2009 with the inauguration of President Obama. The theme was “A Gathering for Positive Change.” While the event had once been held at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, this year Busboys and Poets founder Andy Shallal was quoted in The New York Times saying that the museum had complaints about, quote, “the tone of the event,” even though some of the featured speakers are also featured in the museum, including the abolitionist, the author, the professor and longtime activist Angela Davis. The event did proceed, however, at the Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. This is Angela Davis.

ANGELA DAVIS: A lot more is happening in the world than the inauguration of someone who represents fascism in this country and the world. And if we look back at struggles for justice and equality, we find that there aren’t often propitious moments for those struggles. We’ve always confronted waves of conservatism. And while we cannot create the conditions for the struggles in which we engage, we can bring our determination. We can bring our vision for a better future. And even as we express the deep disappointment — and I’m not going to try to enumerate all of the things about which we are collectively disappointed, but we can’t find ourselves so ensconced in that disappointment that we don’t create the kind of hope that will allow us to move forward and pass legacies to the next generation of people who are struggling. And we do — we do — we do want to join that celebration that Linda Sarsour talked about on the sands of Gaza. We want to be able to look forward to that moment.

Now, I guess I should at least mention the fact that the conditions of struggle today are horrendous. And when I try to imagine what it might mean to confront, you know, all of those who are the billionaires, who once were opposed to Trump, who are now offering themselves up to him, but when I think about the move toward fascism, I also celebrate the fact that we have never seen as many people stand up for the freedom of Palestine. People who were dissuaded in the past by Zionist propaganda are standing up and powerfully demanding a free Palestine. Free, free Palestine. And that is what we are celebrating this evening. That is what we are celebrating.

Now, I think it might be propitious — I’ll use that word again — that the inauguration is happening on the same day as we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King. And in that context, I want to remind us that it was Dr. King who said that we cannot capitulate to finite disappointments, and what we do is we confront those finite disappointments with infinite hope. And that is what we are in the process of doing.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Angela Davis, the abolitionist, the author, the professor, the longtime activist, speaking at the 2025 Inaugural Peace Ball at the Arena Stage on Saturday night. Special thanks to the whole Democracy Now! team and to Guy Warner.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/20/infinite_hope_angela_davis_speaks_at

Peace & Justice History for 1/21

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january21

Good Advice From Jenny Lawson

Not giving up by Jenny Lawson (thebloggess)

Read on Substack

It’s a hard time to be an empath out here, y’all.

I suspect many of you are also feeling too much of the darkness of the world, which can be especially dangerous for those who already stand too close to the edge of the abyss. It can be easy to burn with anger at hypocrisy and hate and chaos, but here is what I have learned…and what I keep telling myself:

You can use that heat as fuel to create change, to promote kindness, to protect yourself and those who are most vulnerable…to keep you warm when the world seems too cold. But, that burning anger can also be dangerous. It can exhaust you. It can pull the oxygen from the room. It can cause you to lash out in fear at those who want to help. The smoke obscures how much good and joy is out there. And those who thrive on turmoil and hate are so happy to see you lost in it…to see your precious energy drained putting out the fires they scatter about just to keep you too busy to live.

Don’t let the world burn you to ashes.

Protecting your fragile heart can be an act of rebellion. Don’t be afraid to love and laugh and find joy and silliness even in the hard times.

Especially in the hard times.

Don’t underestimate the beautiful works of love and kindness and help that you put out into the world. You may do them loudly or you may do them quietly, but they are invaluable in ways you may never see.

Today’s doodle is inspired by one of my favorite Czech artists, Alphonse Mucha, who came from the same land that my father’s family immigrated from.

“NOT. GIVING. UP.”

Most people know Mucha from his flowy art-nouveau posters and cigarette ads but my favorites of his came at the end of his life, when he used his art to explore both the pain and the beauty of life. This one, Woman With a Burning Candle, stays with me:

It was painted during the rise of Nazism…a slavic woman tending to a candle…keeping the light in the dark going, but watching as it slowly burns down…unsure as to what would come next but still focused on the glowing illumination. He painted about enlightenment, love and knowledge in a time when all that seemed to be threatened and was an act of revolution. The day after Prague was stormed by Nazi’s, Mucha was arrested and while in custody he contracted the pneumonia that would kill him. He never lived to see the victory over the darkness, but even in that darkness and uncertainty he created light that we can still see today. He still found beauty and joy. He found a way to celebrate life and enlightenment and humanity in his own way.

He didn’t give up.

I’m not going to either.

I super-crazy love you.

~ Jenny

PS. If you ever want to feel bad about your doodles you should follow one up with a painting by an actual master because…wow. Lesson learned. (snip)

OK, So There Is Bad News Within,

but the reason I’m posting it is so we can be aware, and be better able to help our own neighbors locally. It may not be ours to start writing letters and calling on ACLU or any of those things, but maybe simply keeping our eyes open for the regular people we know or interact with. So here is this, which came to me from Death Penalty Action. It’s the first 10 EO’s issued today, plus some policy info.

All of the Day 1 executive actions Trump has announced so far

Updated January 20, 20251:50 PM ET By Lexie Schapitl Franco Ordoñez

For updates, context and analysis of Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration, check out NPR’s live blog throughout the day Monday.

President Trump is expected to sign a flurry of executive orders, memorandums and proclamations after his inauguration on Monday, reversing many of his predecessors’ policies and reinstating actions from his first term in office.

The actions are expected to address a range of issues, including campaign priorities like border security and culture war issues like DEI policies.

Here’s what we know so far:

Immigration

Trump is expected to declare a national emergency at the U.S. southern border, designate criminal cartels as terror groups and end birthright citizenship for children born to immigrant parents without legal status, according to incoming White House officials who spoke to reporters on a call on condition of background.

Trump will also reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which would require some asylum seekers at the southern border to wait in Mexico for their hearings in U.S. immigration court, the officials said.

The moves are some of 10 sweeping executive actions on border security that incoming officials say Trump plans to sign on Monday:

Declare a national emergency at the border: The officials on the call said this action will allow U.S. armed forces to finish the border wall and allow the secretary of defense to deploy members of the armed forces and National Guard to the border.
“Clarify” the military’s role in border security: This action “directs the military to prioritize our borders” and protect territorial integrity “by repelling forms of invasion, including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking and other criminal activities,” the officials said.
End “catch and release,” continue building the wall, and end “Remain in Mexico”
Designate criminal cartels as terrorists: This will allow the U.S. to more easily remove members of groups like Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal organization from Venezuela, and MS-13.
Suspend refugee resettlement: The official said the U.S. would suspend refugee resettlement for at least four months.
End asylum and close the border to those without legal status via proclamation: Officials said they are planning to end asylum entirely and close the border to those without legal status via proclamation, “which creates an immediate removal process without possibility of asylum.”
End birthright citizenship: The officials said the White House plans to end birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the 14^th Amendment. They argued the amendment does not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to parents without legal status. This action is likely to see immediate legal challenges.
Enhance vetting and screening: The officials said they are going to “enhance vetting and screening of illegal aliens.”
“Protect American citizens against invasion”: Officials said this “equips agents and officers of ICE and CBP with the authorities” they need to deport people from the U.S.
Restore the death penalty: “This action in particular, directs the Attorney General to seek capital punishment for the murder of law enforcement officers and capital crimes committed by illegal aliens. It encourages state agencies and district attorneys to bring capital state charges for these crimes,” the officials said.

Defining ‘sex’ and ending DEI programs

Trump will sign an executive action on Monday that says it’s the policy of the United States to recognize two biologically distinct sexes — male and female — an incoming White House official speaking on background told reporters Monday.

“These are sexes that are not changeable, and they are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” the official said.

The change will require government agencies to use the definitions on documents like passports, visas and employee records the official said. Taxpayer funds will not be allowed to be used for “transition services,” the official said.

A second action will end diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government, the official said, giving as examples environmental justice programs in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as diversity training.

National energy emergency and “electric vehicle mandate”

Trump intends to declare a national energy emergency on Monday, aiming to cut red tape and regulations for the energy industry, and a second one specific to Alaskan resources, an incoming White House official told reporters on a background conference call.

“That national energy emergency will unlock a variety of different authorities that will enable our nation to quickly build again, to produce coal and natural resources, to create jobs, to create prosperity and to strengthen our nation’s national security,” the official said. The official said energy prices are too high, but declined on the call to name a lower target price.

The action will end what incoming Trump officials call the “electric vehicle mandate” and will end “efforts to curtail consumer choice on the things that consumers use every single day, whether it be showerheads, whether it be gas stoves, whether it be dishwashers and the like,” the official said.

Trump has long railed against energy efficiency standards on the campaign trail, and specifically taken aim at “electric vehicle mandates,” a term he uses to encompass all policies designed to encourage a transition to battery-powered cars. Rules actually requiring 100% of vehicles to be electric do not exist on the federal level.

Inflation

Trump will sign a presidential memorandum on inflation Monday, an official from the incoming administration said. The official did not provide additional details.

NPR correspondents Tamara Keith, Ximena Bustillo and Camila Domonoske contributed to this report.