Category Archives: Doing Something

It was a Press Conference, a Rally, a Call to Arms

1 Reply

A crowd big enough to attract the ire of any passing fire marshal jammed into the Statehouse’s normally placid Cedar Creek Room for an event that was inspiring, worrying, and kind of all over the place. (More on the curious backstory of this event later. Stick around if you can.)

Technically it was a press conference led by state Senate leadership, but about 300 people packed into the room to cheer on the speakers as they called for due process under law, freedom for Mohsen Mahdawi, unlawfully detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a fight by any nonviolent means necessary against Donald Trump’s assault on democracy and justice.

There were statements and there were questions from the press, like any normal press conference. But there was also an awful lot of enthusiastic response from the crowd. And for maybe the first time at such an event, the featured lawmakers acknowledged that working through the legislative process would be far from enough. “What it’s going to take is slowing ICE down and coming close to illegal interference,” said Senate Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale.

State Sen. Becca White, pictured above, led the crowd in “an oath of nonviolence and peaceful protest.” The voices filled the room as she led a brief call-and-response:

Continue reading →

Doing Something.

1 Reply

I did two related things today. I made a donation to the Vermont chapter of 50501 and signed on to their email list. 50501 is a brand-new national organization that’s been promoting days of protest against the Trump regime, starting with April 5 and continuing with April 19, with much more in the pipeline.

The Vermont chapter seems to consist of a handful of volunteers, and they’re having an impact far greater than their numbers. As of this writing, they’re more than halfway to their starter goal of $20,000. Chip in if you can, but definitely sign up for email updates.

The next national day of protest is May Day, Thursday, May 1. So far it looks like a lot of the gatherings will be in the late afternoon because weekday. Some protests are aiming for Sunday, May 4 because “Star Wars Day” seems like a great time to strike back at the Evil Empire. Many rallies are being announced close to the last minute, so keep informed and come on out.

Doing Something, Wet Cardboard Edition

2 Replies

Several hundred Vermonters, including Yours Truly, gathered at the corner of State and Main in downtown Montpelier for a Saturday morning protest against Orange Hitler and his gang. It was a lively event, and impressive considering that it was apparently organized at the last minute. (We’d been monitoring the 50501 website for events in the area, and we didn’t see a Montpelier rally on the schedule until late in the week.) Also considering that it started raining about halfway through the scheduled hour-long honk-and-wave. Most people stuck it out until noon, although some of their signs looked a bit worse for wear.

We got an encouraging response from passing vehicles, many of which honked their support and got enthusiastic cheers in return. It was a beautiful thing.

Do gatherings like this matter? Do they make a difference? I can’t prove that they do, but they’re better than the alternative of not doing something.

Doing Something: A Follow-Up

1 Reply

Yesterday’s installment of “Doing Something,” my daily report on Doing Something Every Day in response to Trump’s assault on the government, democratic norms, and the rule of law, was about emails I had written to the chairs of the Vermont House and Senate Judiciary Committees. I suggested that one or both of the panels should hold hearings on how various state agencies and departments cooperate with (or are complicit in, your choice) Trump’s crackdown on people of color who are in the United States legally. I provided a starter list of questions and state agencies that should be included in such hearings.

Credit to both chairs, Sen. Nader Hashim and Rep. Martin LaLonde, for getting back to me within hours. More is likely to come, but I wanted to report back on what I’ve learned so far. Which is that neither of them needed my encouragement to become actively engaged on these issues.

Continue reading →

Doing Something.

4 Replies

Another daily report on my effort to Do Something Every Day about Donald Trump’s assault on government, free speech, and the rule of law. Today I sent emails to House Judiciary Committee chair Martin LaLonde and Senate Judiciary Committee chair Nader Hashim repeating an idea I explored in my most recent blogpost: That one or both committees hold wide-ranging hearings on the state’s immigration-related relationships with the feds. Cut-and-pasting the message to Sen. Hashim:

Sen. Hashim: 

Hi, John Walters here. Not a constituent, but an interested party. You may have read my most recent blogpost about Gov. Phil Scott’s, shall we say, measured response to the illegal detention of Mohsen Mahdawi. It included a suggestion which I am repeating here because it involves the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

The events surrounding Mr. Mahdawi’s kidnapping and detention raise a number of questions regarding state/federal cooperation beyond the fact that he is being held in a state prison. Cut-and-pasting a passage from the blog, in which I call for a hearing of the House or Senate Judiciary Committees or possibly a joint hearing to raise these questions with appropriate state officials. 

“We know the motorcade that whisked Mr. Mahdawi away had Vermont license plates. What can the DMV say about that? Can it reveal who registered the vehicles? How does it facilitate this unAmerican secrecy? Do state or local police agencies participate in or offer any support to the Trump regime? What rules do sheriff’s departments operate under, if any? How does the Department of Corrections interact with the feds? Are federal agents allowed access to detainees in state prisons? Do they interrogate detainees in state facilities? 

“That’s a starter list of questions. Such a hearing wouldn’t disrupt the system, but it would put useful information on public record and perhaps lead to legislation limiting state interaction with the feds.”

I think this would be a relevant and appropriate legislative response to Mr. Mahdawi’s detention. I hope you agree. 

Thanks and best wishes, 

John Walters

Phil Scott Dips a Toe Into the Resistance River and Finds the Water a Bit Chilly

4 Replies

At his weekly press conference, Gov. Phil Scott refused a call from Senate Democratic leadership to terminate Vermont’s agreement with the federal government that allows immigration detainees to be held in state prisons. “I’m not sure it helps the people being detained by moving them out of Vermont,” Scott said, citing a report that one detainee expressed relief that he was being held in our B.L.S.

And you know, he’s not wrong. At least not in one important way. Immigration attorney Brett Stokes of the Vermont Law and Graduate School and Falko Schilling of the Vermont ACLU told VTDigger that they’d prefer their clients to be close at hand, not sent to unknown facilities in other states — or even overseas. I understand that, and I think we should take their viewpoint seriously.

That said. There is a moral dimension to this question that Scott did not address. Do we as Vermonters want to be complicit in the Trump administration’s crackdown on alleged thought crimes? Are we comfortable being part of this authoritarian project? Phil Scott apparently is, as long as we can help shave the rough edges off.

I must also point out a bitter irony that went unnoticed by our news media.

“I get the frustration that people are feeling. People want to do something about what they see happening,” Scott said. ““But is that in the best interest of those who are being detained to just ship them off to somewhere else, Mississippi, Texas, wherever?”

Ahem.

Mississippi, you say?

Continue reading →

Doing Something.

3 Replies

Here’s my brief daily post chronicling my effort to do at least one thing every day, no matter how small, to fight the authoritarian sociopath in the White House. Today’s entry: We gave a donation to Social Security Works, an organization whose mission has been to promote expansion of Social Security as a vital part of our social safety net. Now, sadly, they’re likely to spend a lot of their time battling Elon Musk’s apparent plan to kill Social Security. They have my support.

(SSW is promoting a national day of action entitled “Hands Off Social Security” tomorrow, Tuesday April 15, but the nearest protests are in the Boston area and the southern Hudson River Valley, so I won’t be attending.)