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dop123.bsky.social
@dop123.bsky.social
130 followers 430 following 1 posts
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Reposted
jeffvandermeer.bsky.social
This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)
For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary. Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from). The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe. Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky. Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat? This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight: * Waste of public resources on military theatrics. * Fraud in the name of “public safety.” * Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect. Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation. Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here. When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness. Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy. A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control. Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard. Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.
October 12, 2025 at 1:02 AM
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iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social
This Is Fascism
October 12, 2025 at 1:43 AM
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writesloud.bsky.social
Me taking any tiny win these days.
An adorable little orange crab on the beach, holding up a tiny gray fish. Looks like a sardine or something similar.
September 19, 2025 at 2:14 PM
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goldengateblond.bsky.social
everything is terrible so here's the Muppets channeling the Beastie Boys
July 27, 2025 at 10:33 PM
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darthbluesky.bsky.social
a red panda holding its paw up in support of new yorks hopes and dreams
June 25, 2025 at 2:05 AM
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cerberusxt.bsky.social
Good morning !
May 18, 2025 at 5:32 AM
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gregsargent.bsky.social
Urging people to focus on this. The Trump administration always has the option, *at any time,* to bring back Abrego Garcia and *try to deport him again through conventional channels.*

Why won't they take *that* step? This is the question that must be answered now.

newrepublic.com/article/1939...
April 14, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted
thefool37.bsky.social
Kevin Kruse describes the stakes...and it isn't good
April 14, 2025 at 5:54 PM
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kevinmkruse.bsky.social
There's been a LOT going on, but the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case really deserves all of our attention. Some thoughts at CAMPAIGN TRAILS:

campaign-trails.ghost.io/homegrown-cr...
Homegrown Criminals
Whether it's been an intentional strategy of "shock and awe" or just the inevitable result of a bunch of ignorant assholes being empowered at the same time, the opening months of Trump's second admini...
campaign-trails.ghost.io
April 14, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted
in-otter-news.bsky.social
The otter keeper gave this baby otter a sock to keep warm. She later turned it into a onesie with holes for the hands, feet, and tail
April 6, 2025 at 6:18 PM
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darthbluesky.bsky.social
who amongst us
moiradonegan.bsky.social Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · Mar 31
Monte loves having his butt scratched, and has started throwing his ass towards people and looking back at them with an expression of crazed insistence.
March 31, 2025 at 11:46 PM
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catwomanresists.bsky.social
March 31, 2025 at 3:13 AM
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tomesandtextiles.bsky.social
When you look at the list of institutions they want to defund: libraries, museums, the Smithsonian, public schools, PBS, NPR, archives, you can clearly see that the real threat to an authoritarian regime is an informed and educated public
March 29, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Reposted
lindsayleewallace.bsky.social
RFK Jr's move to eliminate the Administration for Community Living, which helps disabled & aging people stay at home instead of being institutionalized, is disastrous.
I'm never done shouting about what my mom's institutionalization took from her & from us (so here's my @teenvogue.com piece again).
Graduating From Dead Mom University
In this op-ed, Lindsay Lee Wallace explores grief, and how no amount of success in school or work could protect her from it.
www.teenvogue.com
March 28, 2025 at 6:56 PM
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mehdirhasan.bsky.social
Yep
March 28, 2025 at 6:45 PM
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jay.bsky.team
"When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order."

Iya Prigogine, Noble prize-winning chemist
"When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order." Iya Prigogine, Noble prize-winning chemist
March 23, 2025 at 4:39 PM
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angus.bsky.social
For a political movement that has ostensible control of all three branches of government, a willingness to burn the constitution, and a bunch of really violent supporters, Trumpism is rickety as fuck.
March 7, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Reposted
gothamgirlblue.com
The only reason to join a CR is if they get to shut down DOGE and not reopen until there are full hearings in the House and Senate on each violation of federal law, and establishment that any action taken without permission from Congress will be treated as an attempted coup
March 7, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Reposted
gothamgirlblue.com
A week from now Republicans are going to shut down the government and Democrats should let them
March 7, 2025 at 4:23 PM
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swin24.bsky.social
oh no too bad. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
Elon's Email Demand Is Being Met With 'Very Rude' Flood of Spam
After Musk demanded federal employees list five accomplishments or be fired, internet users are encouraging people to flood the email with spam
www.rollingstone.com
February 24, 2025 at 10:43 PM
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jwadhams.bsky.social
It occurred to me this morning—he’s slashing their INFLUENCE and they haven’t noticed yet. Why bribe a congressman (even soft stuff like speaker fees and junkets) if they have zero effective power? Suddenly congress critters are also just some vestigial schmuck.
February 20, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Reposted
govpritzker.illinois.gov
The root that tears apart your foundation begins as a seed of distrust, hate, and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe didn’t arrive overnight.

It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.
February 19, 2025 at 6:44 PM
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johnknefel.bsky.social
I wrote about how Project 2025 helped lay the groundwork for Trump's early attacks on worker safety, which will likely accelerate. P2025 proposed that safety regulations be treated as "negotiable" and called for exemptions to OSHA.

Also, Trump's pick to head OSHA is a former Amazon & UPS exec.
Project 2025 laid a foundation for Trump’s attacks on workplace safety
www.mediamatters.org
February 20, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted
jeff-merkley.bsky.social
The Republican budget plan is simple: billionaires win, families lose. Republicans say it's about border security, but it's not. They want to rip away support for working Americans, gut critical programs like Medicaid, and balloon the deficit.
February 20, 2025 at 3:38 AM
Reposted
avishaybsg.bsky.social
Has anyone in the media talked to Suzanne Mettler? I feel like the political scientist who studied the idea of “Get your government hands off my Medicare” is someone we should be hearing from.

www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/o...
Opinion | Our Hidden Government Benefits (Published 2011)
The threat to democracy today is not the size of government but rather the hidden form that so much of its growth has taken.
www.nytimes.com
February 16, 2025 at 4:51 AM