This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

Guest Contributor, James K of Boulder, CO

In this age of AI technology, shock media, and divisive narratives, we must view reality through a lens of caution. We are subjected to a never-ending cycle of rapid-fire news lines on TV and social media. Through it all, we must not allow ourselves to become desensitized to the harsh realities affecting our fellow humans.

Although there are topics that can be emotionally overwhelming and exhausting, we must speak! Exhaustion and pain can indeed be felt just by learning of these atrocities, but we must be strong and take action for those without a voice.

Genocide can be defined as any act with the intent to destroy, in part or in whole, national, ethnic, racial, or religious groups. Sadly, as I type this, multiple genocides are occurring around the world, and unfortunately, your tax dollars are contributing to these atrocities. Therefore, it is our responsibility to call for an end to the U.S. government’s support of Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Demand a halt to support financially, diplomatically, and otherwise until the violence stops.

Over the last eighty years, Democrats and Republicans have provided bilateral support to the tune of 174 billion dollars to Israel. Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of funds from the US government since World War II. These statistics can be reviewed at congress.gov. Examples of both parties funding military actions of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) include a 38 billion dollar funding package approved by the Obama administration to be paid out over the course of a ten year period, with supplemental packages authorized by the Biden administration in April of 2024 for an additional 8.7 billion dollars, and at least 12 billion dollars from Trump’s administration in 2025 alone. The US has also secured defense deals with the UAE for the purchase of F-35 fighter jets, MQ-9B drones, as well as munition sales. These ‘deals’ come in the form of U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and are paid for with American taxpayer dollars. Funds are then used to buy weapons from US companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin. 

Now, we can see the implications of these FMF deals when the UAE has been shown to support the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have taken over El Fasher in Northern Darfur, Sudan. Unverified reports indicate over 100,000 people may have been killed in the last 4 months alone. The UN calls the city of El Fasher “a crime scene.” The daily deaths are only similar to the numbers seen during the Rwandan genocide, the highest in recent history, potentially reaching or surpassing 1,700 people a day. It is impossible to know the exact numbers since this conflict is ongoing. 

The Gaza Health Ministry indicates that over 71,000 deaths have occurred since October 2023, and a peer-reviewed study in The Lancet details that nearly 60% of these deaths, potentially more, are from children, women, and the elderly. 

To ignore or allow ourselves to be ignorant of these atrocities is a moral shortcoming and must be overcome. How people look, how far away they are from us, or how different their culture is does not matter. These are mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, and their lives have the same value as each of our own. We should show the same concern for Palestine and Sudan as we do for Ukraine. Even though the war between Russia and Ukraine is an awful tragedy in its own right, it is a war between two nations. What is occurring in Palestine and Sudan is a genocidal extermination.

Sadly, as we are seeing state-inflicted violence in American cities such as Minneapolis, Chicago, and Los Angeles, we understand, what imperialists are allowed to get away with abroad, will be seen as permission for what they can do to us here.

Also, it is not only government contracts contributing to this violence. There are private companies, such as Capital One, that are providing lines of credit of up to $100 million to companies like Elbit Defense Systems, an Israeli-owned company that is very active in providing arms to the IDF.

Choose wisely where you spend your money and advocate for how your tax dollars are used; we are accessories in these atrocities until then. 

It is within this insidious, deep pit of ongoing tragedies that we get lost and become overwhelmed. We must not give up! Rest, be strong, and take action! Demand that financial and diplomatic aid be immediately discontinued as long as violence continues in Palestine and El Fasher, Sudan! 

Please contact your state and national representatives and call for sanctions and an end to financial and diplomatic support to any government complicit in or supporting genocide. Those responsible must be held to account! 

Using the tool in the following link, you can easily contact your congressional representatives in the House and Senate.

In addition to making your voice heard, take action by joining Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

The post Op-Ed: A Call to Action for Palestine and Darfur appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Representative Junie Joseph 

Colorado House District 10 

Member of the Appropriations Committee

Member of the House Finance Committee

Member of the Committee on Legal Services

Democratic House Majority Caucus Co-Chair

Member of House Environment & Energy Committee 

1525 Sherman Street SSB-622 Denver, Colorado 80203

Cell: 720-432-6009

junie.joseph.house@coleg.gov

Junie4colorado.com

Twitter: Junie4colorado

Facebook: Junieforcolorado

 

Together we will leave no one behind

The post Representative Junie Joseph: Colorado Will Not Let Washington Interfere in Care for LGBTQIA+ appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

“I don’t know, because I am the least racist person you will ever meet.”

This whopper was Donald Trump’s response to Wolf Blitzer’s query as to why white supremacists were drawn to him.

Trump would not be the least racist person at a KKK rally.

Two recent cases in point were particularly striking, although singling out any particular racist utterances is a bit silly.

In a broad salvo, Trump called Somalia and all Somalians “garbage,” especially noting the Minnesota Congressperson Ilhan Omar. He showed the breadth of his good taste by calling Minnesota Governor Tim Walz “seriously retarded.”

As reported in the New York Times: “We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Mr. Trump said. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people who work. These aren’t people who say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’”

It’s worth noting that VP Vance pounded the table with undisguised glee as his boss spewed verbal sewage.

Omar responded, “His obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he (Trump) desperately needs.” JD could use some help too.

In his first term, Trump bemoaned immigrants from “shithole countries,” Somalia among them. Humorist Andy Borowitz wrote a typically clever “news” release claiming that Somalians were no longer willing to emigrate to countries with “shithole presidents.”

More recently Trump called ABC reporter Rachel Scott “obnoxious” when she dared ask him a question about releasing the video of Caribbean murder. He had blithely agreed to release the video, then denied saying so, despite video evidence to the contrary. He also called her “a terrible reporter,” a phrase he seems to reserve for any reporter who asks questions in lieu of fawning praise.

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Omar and Scott are women of color, because he is the least racist person. It’s also a coincidence that they are women, because he loves women. I believe he is also the least misogynist person you will ever meet, although “misogynist” is beyond his vocabulary. Misogynists hate women and would never, ever, “grab ‘em by the pussy,” as is his frequent wont.

Please pause with me to consider that in my first 300 words I’ve typed “garbage,” “retarded,” “shithole” and “pussy,” all in the journalistic service of accurately quoting the President of the United States.

I could be somewhat juvenile and point out that each of these pejoratives might be examples of rhetorical projection. But I won’t.

What with the mountains of lies, the litany of illegalities, the too-ridiculous-to-parody narcissism and just terrible decorating taste, there is just so much overload. Any reasonably dispassionate observer could cite several instances a week that would have sunk any other presidency. He has been called “Teflon Don,” because so much doesn’t stick. But it’s more like throwing spaghetti at a wall and finding it doesn’t stick because the wall is already covered with spaghetti.

But put all of that aside.

The most succinct descriptor of our president is “indecent.” The man is manifestly, malignantly, magnificently, majestically “indecent.”

His indecency is without equal. With all the self-claimed superlatives and the nauseating sycophancy of his supplicants, here is an area in which he is indeed peerless. He needn’t cheat, take surreptitious mulligans or pay millions of dollars to get phony prizes and honoraria.

He may not be the cruelest or least competent leader in human history (or may be), but his indecency stands alone, even in the company of the world’s greatest despots.

In a Senate hearing in 1954, U.S. Army chief counsel Joseph N. Welch responded to Senator Joseph McCarthy after McCarthy insulted a young lawyer in Welch’s firm:

”Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. … Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Trump makes McCarthy look like Emily Post.

The post Indecency appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

Well, he gave it a shot.

I refer to the angry white man wearing an ICE hat who strutted through the No Kings crowd in Erie, spoiling for a fight.

No takers, except Erie police officers who took him aside and apparently didn’t buy his stories of abuse by homemade signs at the hands of cheerful women in delightfully satirical costumes.

And so it was across the country, where an estimated 7 million smiling men, women and children gathered in protest of the vulgarian who would be king. It is remarkable that millions gathered in joyful peace. This turnout was necessary, but insufficient. Recent scholarship sets 3.5% of the population as the threshold to meet for resisting or overturning tyranny. 12 million is our goal number. We’ll get there.

The MAGA retorts were pitiful. Their script called for defining protesters as folks who “hate America.” Or Marxists. Or Antifa, the mythological organization that exists only in the putrified brains of thugs who hate antifascists, leading to a fair interpretation that they don’t mind fascism itself too much. They also hate anti-racists.  You may draw a similar conclusion. There were in Erie, as elsewhere, charming characters dressed as Aunt Tifa.

The MAGA folks also tried to ascribe the protests to George Soros. I’m surprised they didn’t mention Hilary’s emails or Hunter’s laptop. It is humorous to hear these absurdities from folks who wear matching red hats at rallies where all the signs come from the same printing press. MAGA folks have no equivalent to the sign on one of infant twins in a stroller: “I don’t shit the bed as much as Trump.” – or words to that effect.

An important distinction – too seldom made – is that progressive folks are usually good-humored and MAGAs are utterly humorless. Unless, of course, they are mocking anyone or anything vulnerable. Like Trump’s memorable mocking of a disabled reporter. Ha. Ha.

As encouraging as it was to be briefly in the company of such good souls, it was discouraging to know how many kindred spirits stayed home. Even I drift into the “What difference will it make?” crowd from time to time. I should know better. I’ve seen that it can make all the difference.

I cut my protest teeth in 1970.  In the summer of 1969, I returned from Southeast Asia as an Army 1st Lieutenant. The illegal, immoral war in Vietnam led me to write to the Pentagon, resigning my commission. I did not experience combat, but was indirectly complicit.

By the summer of ’70, the invasion of Cambodia led to widespread protests, including the peaceful demonstration at Kent State, where trigger-happy “patriots” slaughtered 4 students. College campuses erupted, and protests spilled into the streets. We lived in Cleveland, less than an hour from Kent State University, making it seem more personal.

Anti-war and pro-choice demonstrations were family matters for my wife, our infant daughter, and me. It was a matter of principle at the time, but most historians credit this social movement for the cascade of changes in subsequent years, including abortion rights and other advances for women.

It is critically important now to have rally after rally after rally. There are those who are waiting for the 2026 midterms, hoping to turn out the vote and turn out the scoundrels. That may be too late. There is little doubt that Trump’s military flexing is a dry run for declaring martial law and suspending elections. It’s Page One in the authoritarian playbook. We citizens, have to keep doing dry runs of our own. We are the many. They are the few.

If and when the time comes, we can surround the reluctant troops and put flowers in the barrels of their guns and sing songs of peace and joy on the way to the ballot box.

The only way tyrants win is when good people stay home.

The post No Kings – Echoes From the 70s appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The morning is quiet as you turn down a main street, either side of the wide avenue lined with two-story buildings housing shops and restaurants. The small cafe has a few people seated outside but on this Labor Day morning the town center is nearly empty.

The Weld County seat, this northeastern Colorado town challenges the largely rural reputation for its area an hour east of the Front Range city, Fort Collins. Originally named Union City it was settled and financed by its contemporary namesake, newspaperman Horace Greeley, as a realization of his Free Soiler call for northern anti-slavery Americans to go west.

The original town moniker foreshadowed the strength of organized labor in its future. Colorado is a state settled by miners and ranchers, the industry brought along to support their efforts including railroads and power. The state was founded during the end of the industrial revolution, when unions were fighting for dignity for the working class and their members were engrained in the region’s DNA.

In 1914, in southeastern Colorado town called Ludlow, at a mine operated by John D. Rockefeller, 21 people were killed as the union struck for better working conditions – including the company following state safety laws. In 2024, the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 organized against allegations of human trafficking and abuse of immigrant labor at a Greeley meat packing plant.

On Labor Day, 2025, though the streets were quiet near the cafes, a crowd was building in the city’s Lincoln Park in support of organized labor. Across the country, tens of thousands will join in solidarity as the Workers Over Billionaires day of action sewed a cohesive message of labor solidarity from town to town, coast to coast.

Rally goers hold American flags and protest signs aloft as they listen to a carousel of candidates and union leaders speaking in Greeley, Colorado, during the Workers Over Billionaires day of action on Labor Day, 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

With protests planned in Denver, Golden, Loveland, Boulder, left-leaning towns across the Square State, what would this call to action look like in a worker-strong county where President Trump won by 21 points?

As the scheduled start time approached, more than one hundred people were walking along the tables set up by organizations and volunteers with further calls to action, more opportunities to raise their voices. Some carried signs, prepared for the march starting in an hour. With a tap on a microphone, a chant was encouraged by the amplified voice starting the programming.

Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, newly created in response to population change, stretches from the north Denver suburbs of Thornton and Arvada stretching to its farthest northeast population center in Greeley. Between lays a spectrum of exurban and rural communities, housing quite the range of philosophical and political ideologies.

Currently represented in the House of Representatives by Republican Gabe Evans, the seat was founded in 2024 by Democrat Yadira Caraveo. Now, it is widely considered one of the most competitive race in the fight for control of the Capitol. As the Governor rejects following California and Texas in redrawing districts (and Missouri joins that conversation), this Colorado race is one that could decide the balance of the U.S. legislature in 2026.

And to recognize Labor Day, the unions and political organizers did not miss the chance to make that clear. For an hour, the microphone was passed between candidates – vying for city council, mayor, and Representative Evans’ Congressional seat, including State Treasurer Dave Young – and union leaders.

“We are in a moment in history where the trials and tribulations of our ancestors are not so foreign to us…and the very people with the power and intent to keeping it that way want nothing more than us to be distracted,” AFL-CIO organizer Len Harris told the crowd. “The moment we decide to reach across the divide, to stand in solidarity with our community, to fully reckon with and understand that ‘an injury to one of us is an injury to all of us’ is the moment their rule over us falters.”

The crowd chanted, hooted, and hollered as speakers paraded personal anecdotes alongside calls to action and messages for support. The local candidates mentioned concern about federal policies impacting their growing prairie metropolis. The disappearance of neighbors by ICE in the nearly 50% latino community, cuts in funding for medical care and education, attacks on the state’s electoral processes.

“We can, we must, and we will do all the things,” Amie Baca-Oehlert, a candidate for Congressional District 8 said during the rally. “We must pull on all the levers.”

Protestors rally during a march through downtown Greeley, Colorado, chanting and waving signs at passing traffic during the Workers Over Billionaires day of action on Labor Day, 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

As the sun rose higher and the shade hiding the crowd shrank, marshals wearing orange high visibility vests held a banner aloft. The rallygoers picked up their own signs and voices filled the air. Chants of “si, se puede” rose from the throng as they navigated the narrow sidewalks around the park and toward the town center.

Car horns soon joined the protest’s chorus as marchers reached the busier main strip. Some making their way through the protest made a show of covering their ears, a quiet way to counter with their own dissent. A handful voiced support for MAGA and President Trump as they passed quickly, one person asked the activists how much they’d been paid to be present. The majority of this Monday morning in Greeley, though, greeted the sentiment of workers over billionaires with an excited energy.

The next federal election is still more than a year away and members of this community are already mapping out how they can flip this MAGA slice of Colorado. While thousands rally in Denver, and tens of thousands more find a backyard and a barbecue, one hundred rallied, raising their voices, around workers and winning elections in Greeley.

Best known for capturing striking content from the frontlines of social movements, Heartland EMMY-nominated filmmaker and photographer Vince Chandler has spent 20 years creating art and documentary visuals across the U.S. They served as Communications Director for Denver City Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, and Vince has earned national recognition for their work as a visual journalist for The Denver Post. Vince was the principal cinematographer for the feature documentary film Running With My Girls, which premiered at the 2021 Denver Film Festival.

______________________________

What does resistance & resilience look like in the Heartland of America?

Sometimes it’s a protest outside an ICE detention center. Sometimes it’s a rural nurse explaining how Medicaid cuts will shutter the town hospital. Sometimes, it’s a law professor teaching systemic racism at a University in a state where CRT is banned in public schools.

As Trump’s second term unfolds — and the One Big Beautiful Act guts healthcare, empowers ICE, and reshapes American life — independent journalism is more vital than ever. However, the national press rarely shows up in the places where policy has the most impact.

We do.

These American Crossroads is a collaboration between Vince Chandler, Emmy-nominated visual journalist, and Yellow Scene Magazine, Boulder County’s only independent newsroom.

Become a sustaining supporter for just $8/month: https://fundrazr.com/Crossroads

The post Workers Over Billionaires on Labor Day in Greeley, Colorado appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author, and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

More dead children, shot by a disturbed young adult in Minneapolis. More thoughts and prayers.

Late that evening, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and MSNBC’s Jen Psaki tearfully suggested that we see our own children in the latest shooting victims, an 8 year-old boy and 10 year-old girl.

Imagining that pain, they and others suggest, may motivate meaningful change.

The shooting in Minneapolis was indeed horrible. And yes, I imagined my own beautiful grandchildren. Who wouldn’t?

Albeit painful, it’s easy to imagine and feel pangs of terror if the dead children are white and American.

If the tragic deaths of cute, white, American kids can lead to meaningful reductions in gun violence, I suppose the “imagine your own children” empathy is valuable. But I’m sure the sincere tears will have no impact. By the next morning, conservative mouthpieces were spouting the same vile nonsense about “people kill people, not guns” and vicious demonization of all trans people.

Gun manufacturers, dealers and lobbyists rake in millions with no regard for the mayhem they create. The rhetoric is unbearable. “Guns are just tools.” “It’s not a gun problem, it’s a mental health problem.” That one is particularly galling because our Dear Leader and friends are also decimating mental health services.

It’s been clear for a dozen years that if 20 dead, white, American children in Sandy Hook couldn’t change our approach to gun violence, nothing would.

The scale of death increases geometrically and empathy shrinks when the children do not look like ours.

You may know that gun violence is now the leading cause of death for American youth. You may not know that Black kids are 8 times more likely to be the victims. I invite you to reflect on the relatively meager media attention drawn to the violent deaths of young Black children.

And our empathy seems to shrivel away entirely when the children are at some distance.

On August 15th, Donald Trump welcomed Vladimir Putin to a friendly chat in Alaska. Red carpets were rolled out for both “dignitaries,” a word I enclose in quotes because these two are the antithesis of “dignified.”  Trump exited first and, as Putin approached the red carpet intersection, clapped his hands and grinned like a child about to receive an ice cream sundae.

Less than two weeks later, on August 28th, Putin unleashed a horrendous airstrike on Ukraine, killing 23 innocents, including four children. An estimated 2,500 children have been killed or maimed in Russian attacks since the war began. I guess that Nobel Peace Prize will have to wait.

Israel, fortified by American support and weaponry, kills 28 Palestinian children every day – an estimated 18,000 in all since the genocide commenced. Not a thought, prayer or “imagine your own child!” is heard.

Our complicity in child mortality is not limited to war violence.

The Washington Post reported, “An analysis by a 15-member research team from Spain, Brazil, Mozambique and the US, published Monday in the medical journal The Lancet, estimates more than 14 million people could die by 2030 as a result of USAID cuts, including 4.5 million children younger than 5 years old.”

The Guardian writes, “Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be ‘personally responsible’ for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children after he refused to renew US funding for a global vaccines body, public health experts said.”

And, closer to home, the Secretary of “Health” and Human Stupidity is blowing up the CDC, making it quite sure that children will die from any number of diseases that could be prevented or cured.

Gun violence in America is a moral failing. But the failure to see “the other” is immoral on a far more massive scale.

A dead child in Gaza or Kyiv is as great a tragedy as a dead child in a Minneapolis pew.

RFK, Jr. is as responsible for the preventable death of a child in an underdeveloped country as a shooter is for a death in the Annunciation Church.

And Donald Trump would have the deaths of “4.5 million children younger than 5 years old” on his conscience, but he has none.

The loss of any child is unbearable.

And not just if they look like ours.

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post We Kill Children appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The soft patter of the morning drizzle spattered on the pavement, the mid-Missouri humidity confounding the senses. The mind plays tricks, is it raining or simply the dampness in the air? As the trickle slows, it’s replaced by one of steadily arriving people, bringing with them an impending energy.

One pulls a child’s wagon laden with poster board, another carrying flags still furled. Waves and smiles are exchanged; calls of recognition. Another Saturday morning showing up for democracy in the show me state.

Missouri, a +18 President Trump state, seems to be in-line with many of the MAGA authoritarian decisions when looking at electoral politics. When voting for candidates with a party identity, for a representative, the GOP consistently wins statewide.

When the people are asked about policy, though, there are breaks from party platform standards. With practically an inverse voter split on the same 2024 ballot which gave the state’s ten electoral college votes to President Trump, voters overwhelmingly chose to raise the state’s minimum wage – also mandating that workers’ wages will increase with inflation – as well as requiring paid sick leave.

By an even wider margin they chose not to divert court fees to fund law enforcement retirement benefits. Those same voters also narrowly called to create a state constitutional amendment guaranteeing access to abortion.

The state’s Republican-controlled State House and courts, mirroring the federal administration’s authoritarian behavior, immediately got to work undoing the will of the voters. In July, Governor Mike Kehoe signed into law the bill repealing the voter-chosen paid sick leave decision and the workers’ wage increases with inflation.

On August 12, the state’s Supreme Court declined to decide on Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s challenge on the voter approved abortion amendment, deferring to a lower court. That particular attack on the rationale of the electorate will continue while the power individual voters can have will be brought into question.

Following the Texas legislature’s lead, the MAGA state house will begin to explore options to fulfill President Trump’s direct request to intentionally gerrymander Republican-led states in an effort to add party members to the U.S. House of Representatives. The legislature is responding by carving a changed district around Kansas City, Missouri, to fulfill the President’s request for only party loyal members being added to Congress.

With the decision of whether the voices of Missourians will be reflected accurately at the polls being made by their representatives, the people are finding consistent and constant ways to be heard in the streets. On this particular morning, about one hundred of them are lining the sidewalks holding signs, flags, and cowbells with speakers playing patriotic protest anthems raising their volume in support of saving their republic.

About one hundred Missourians gathered at a busy intersection minutes from the Mizzou campus in Columbia to demonstrate in defense of democracy. Issues like the Epstein Files, loss of due process, cuts to education and health care, global war and genocide brought the community together, united in their opposition to the creep toward authoritarian fascism by President Trump’s administration. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine).

The rain now entirely ended, the pavement dries quickly as the sun raises the heat. Standing on the sidewalks and medians, people surrounded the intersection calling for the restoration of due process and to heed the voters’ voices. Many cars passing enthusiastically met the demand of one sign reading “honk if you love democracy” while drivers smiled and waved to the activists. Some, with sour faces, chose to shout and respond with a more rude gesture.

Many of the sign wavers were traditional retirement age, lamenting the loss of the America they had grown up with. A 98-year-old lifelong Republican joined the crowd aghast and vocal. Veterans, grandparents, the group of elders made the handful of students from the local university stand out. A contemporary imagination may conjure a protest crowd as mostly young faces, but the morning’s action did not reflect that presumption. Some asked why more young people weren’t attending.

“I know so many people who can make it out on a random Friday, or who can make it out maybe one Saturday a month, but we’re tired, we’ve worked all week to survive,” 20-year-old Grace told Yellow Scene while reflecting on the weekend’s movement work from a downtown coffeeshop the following day after a hike. “And I get that, I understand where people are coming from. But, it’s worth it, because every one person that comes out and sees what it’s like is one more person that is less afraid of doing it again, you know?”

After a little more than an hour on the corner, the crowd stowed their signs and quickly started toward their cars. They were not headed to brunch or back home, though. They were headed to the next spot to make more noise. Some to an interstate overpass to hang a banner and picket to the passing cars and others to the Columbia City Hall to join another sign waving event in the town’s downtown corridor.

At the Keys to the City Sculpture, more familiarly known as The Keyhole, some from the previous protest joined a core group of activists who have held the space every day for more than 500 consecutive days. Organized by the Mid-Missouri Peaceworks, this daily demonstration originally began in support of peace and dignity for the Palestinian people. Since the re-election of President Trump, it has expanded to include the slew of issues arisen by his executive orders and policy decisions.

For more than 500 consecutive days, organizers from Mid-Missouri Peaceworks and Columbia community members have occupied the space during the noon hour in front of their city’s municipal offices calling for an end to the genocide in Occupied Palestine. Since the re-election of President Trump, they’ve also welcomed messages voicing dissent to his regime’s attacks on immigration, free speech, and civil liberties. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine).

“We have democratic input, but we’re at threat of losing it,” said Mark Haim, director of Mid-Missouri Peaceworks to Yellow Scene. They operate Columbia’s Peace Nook, and Mark is the organizer of the daily protest. “Of losing the most vulnerable, people who are undocumented and people who could be subjected to deportation – Trump has made no secret of his Islamaphobia, his transphobia – and we have all these losses of things that are so basic like health care, SNAP and food benefits, these things that people depend on to stay alive and be healthy.”

As the handful of humans on this corner ended the lunchtime hour they made their plans for the next protest. Not the weekend to follow, not the next day, but which one they would attend for the afternoon or the evening. The soonest opportunity to voice their dissent to federal decision making started in only an hour, organizers were readying for a march starting on the Mizzou campus at their first amendment zone, a space where a permit is not required to speak or rally.

The inalienable American right to free speech of course needing a space to be guaranteed at a university which has previously tried to ban certain topics.

Students, community members, and international activists were a part of the building crowd. This march was to garner continued attention to the ongoing Israeli forced famine in Occupied Palestine. There would be – however – no chanting, no yelling, and no banging of pots but for one lone percussive pulse. Walking in absolute silence and carrying banners, signs, and flags the protest made for a haunting, unsettling, visual as they walked off campus and into Columbia’s business district.

One passerby exited their vehicle to call the group ignorant, stating that half the crowd would be killed by a Palestinian. The bombastic and unfounded threat was greeted with no pushback, no audible anger, but with continued silence and a few peace signs. Frustrated that the ludicrous statement had not garnered the response anticipated, they returned to their car fuming. The experience and restraint shown by the solemn column was a powerful response, forcing the antagonist to either continue the attack or to leave still angry. They left.

“Silence can be just as powerful as words, if not more sometimes,” Rasha A. told Yellow Scene after the protests ended. “They want you to fall into that trap of arguing with them, they want you to get frustrated. So why not turn it around on them and let them get frustrated. When you don’t respond, it really gets to them because they suddenly hear how childish they sound. You’re a grown man or woman yelling at people walking quietly down the street protesting the killing of other human beings.”

“There is something reflecting on the inside of them that they do not want to admit,” the Missourians for Justice in Palestine organization leader concluded.

The marchers returned to Speaker’s Circle and broke their silence. Water and produce were made available for those who wanted some and announcements were made. Organizers were working with allies on the ground in the areas surrounding Gaza coordinating food trucks and the delivery of supplies when possible. Attendees plugged their daily and weekly picket events across Boone County, politicos invited attendees to their upcoming party events. It became clear that just like you were going to find a space to use your voice any day of the week, people were also actively engaged in the mechanics of the cause.

Marchers move in silence along the sidewalks of the University of Missouri, protesting in support of peace and dignity for the Palestinian people and an end to the genocide. Without any exchanged words, no chants, the soft shuttle of the steps and a solitary slow percussive ping of a pot to set the pace, the silence reverberated. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine).

“Try to look through the veneer that’s kind of stuck in front of us now, there’s so much inequality, inequities, even here in mid-Missouri there’s a ton of bigotry still, there’s a great deal of classism,” Jeff Stack told Yellowscene. He helps to coordinate the Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation. “I feel that one of the greatest strengths of this society and country is its potential. That’s what kind of gives me hope, there’s a lot that can happen for the good.”

“There is so much to unlearn,” said Grace on that sun-soaked cafe patio the following day. “I like using joy as bait. And there’s nothing more recharging than having people talk to you about this and make you feel like ‘I’m not crazy.’ Set up something with friends, meet at a coffee shop and at a specific time just talk politics. I see my best friend every day, and we talk politics but all the time can be exhausting. People can’t be one thing all the time, it’s just not realistic. A specific time, and to gather in joy, I find it way more helpful.”

With two thirds of the day now gone, some still weren’t done. Dinner would be eaten while their quest for world peace continued. In classic midwest tradition, they were headed to a potluck in a park – one where politics, war, and organizing would all be openly discussed, surrounding the solemn topics with joy. In observation of the 80th Anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, Missourians from across the state gathered with the hope of ending nuclear war.

Retired state poet laureate, Aliki Barnstone, began the evening’s programming with an original piece. The rapt crowd listened intently as the expert wordsmith brought them on a journey remembering those fateful August days when the United States of America ended the lives of more than 200,000 human beings in two short instances.

Recently retired Mizzou professor and former Missouri State Poet Laureate Aliki Barnstone smiles while greeting a gathered crowd recognizing the 80th anniversary of the American atomic bombing of Japanese civilians at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. She read a poem penned for the event’s event titled “On August 6,” rhythmically reflecting on the horrors of the violent days when hundreds of thousands of people were killed in an instant. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine).

“At 8:15 a.m. all simple, daily beauty is aflame. No justification.

Nothing, nothing,
Not I can

say. Yet I speak
anyway, anyway

any way I can.”

Student Kerra Lindbloom followed, delivering a fiery epitaph which left those gathered stunned for a moment in silence before erupting into applause. Ripples of reflection already passed through many attendees, her rhetoric delivered with a vehement prose emanating a maturity and experience beyond what could be anticipated from her young age.

Volunteers shared the words of survivors’ memories of those fateful days. Veterans for Peace President John Betz reflected on his time fighting in the Vietnam War, concluding that war will beget cruel tragedy, no matter the cause or weaponry. All day, attendees had constructed and decorated dozens of Japanese lanterns. Now, with presentations concluded, they headed to the park’s lake to ignite their candles and send them floating across the dark water. Watching them glow and glide, conversation turned to what was next. The day over, the next question now was more intangible than where to spend the following few hours.

It was whether there could be reasonable hope that their pleas for peace could be heard, much less met. Some had spent the day traveling between protests carrying the consistent call for a changed course. One day wouldn’t be enough, they knew that. But, could the seemingly steady growth of authoritarianism and warmongering in the United States be stopped?

Some would spend their following morning in houses of worship, asking their gods to bring peace. Some would be at family or friends gatherings, carrying memories of the day and sharing stories to try to persuade their communities to care. Others would be gathering in coffee shops to discuss partisan organizing, making plans to build political routes toward measurable change.

Many of the younger crowd planning for politics were not doing so in the binary systemic choices of far right Republicans or centrist Democrats. The Missouri Green Party was present at many of the protests, offering an option in experienced ballot organizing with institutional knowledge. With students returning to campus the following week, the Revolutionary Communists of America were planning recruitment drives for their organization. The Democratic Socialists held a large general meeting in the last days of the scholastic summer.

Paul Lehmann, who ran for governor on the Green Party ticket in Missouri, spoke with Yellow Scene during the day of protest.

“My view of the Green Party is that we’re like a voice in the wilderness. We have some solid principles, platforms that 80% of the people would endorse in a survey, but they’re afraid to,” Lehmann said when asked about the viability of parties outside the American partisan binary. “There’s a lot of hostility to the Green Party by the so-called progressives of the Democratic Party and that’s unfortunate that they don’t have enough courage to say that they’re wasting their vote.”

For most involved in any of the many political protests and actions taking place that day, it was clear that the work was far from over. In historically conservative-leaning Missouri, progressives project an understanding that change won’t be immediate. In a generational movement they maintain consistent and constant presence, utilizing diverse approaches to garnering attention and creating conversation. The protest isn’t the end, it’s the start, and they aren’t gatekeeping the instructions, encouraging those who want to to find their avenue to voicing their dissent.

“It’s literally as simple as treating other people as humans,” said Grace. “If you really feel like you can’t do anything about anything politically, you can at least feel the humanity. You can at least be there and feel it and recognize that. And if you deny yourself that, and deny yourself the joy of working to prevent tragedy, I think that you’re denying yourself a core part of the human experience.”

As the seasons begin to change and summer’s heat fades away, the Missourians with something to be heard are not going to spend their autumn preparing for a winter’s hibernation. They’re planning and building and ramping their efforts, recruiting their neighbors who are horrified by the federal administration’s stripping of due process, military occupations of American cities, or the defunding of medical and education systems. They don’t plan to let this slide happen in silence and the show me state is going to show up.

Candle-lit lanterns float across the water at Stephens Lake Park in Columbia, Missouri. The gathering is a call for peace everywhere as well as serving as a call for the mutual, verifiable, universal and incremental abolition of nuclear weapons. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine).

Best known for capturing striking content from the frontlines of social movements, Heartland EMMY-nominated filmmaker and photographer Vince Chandler has spent 20 years creating art and documentary visuals across the U.S. They served as Communications Director for Denver City Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, and Vince has earned national recognition for their work as a visual journalist for The Denver Post. Vince was the principal cinematographer for the feature documentary film Running With My Girls, which premiered at the 2021 Denver Film Festival.

______________________________

What does resistance & resilience look like in the Heartland of America?

Sometimes it’s a protest outside an ICE detention center. Sometimes it’s a rural nurse explaining how Medicaid cuts will shutter the town hospital. Sometimes, it’s a law professor teaching systemic racism at a University in a state where CRT is banned in public schools.

As Trump’s second term unfolds — and the One Big Beautiful Act guts healthcare, empowers ICE, and reshapes American life — independent journalism is more vital than ever. However, the national press rarely shows up in the places where policy has the most impact.

We do.

These American Crossroads is a collaboration between Vince Chandler, Emmy-nominated visual journalist, and Yellow Scene Magazine, Boulder County’s only independent newsroom.

Become a sustaining supporter for just $8/month: https://fundrazr.com/Crossroads

The post Showing Up For Democracy and Demanding Peace in Missouri appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

I suppose I’m not alone in my Epstein Files fatigue. The political bantering and media attention are incessant and absurd.

A few observations before moving on . . .

Anyone who thinks any salacious Trump details are forthcoming is a fool. The criminals who command the Injustice Department long ago erased any seriously incriminating material.

Fierce Trump supporters will find a way to claim his association with Epstein as proof of his divinity. If pussy-grabbing, sexual assault convictions and leering at teen pageant contestants didn’t tarnish his godliness, a few long-ago party smirks and bad dances won’t dent the teflon. BTW, his dance skills have not improved over the years. The videos with Epstein showed the same pathetic fist moves. YMCA.

Last night as I barked at MSNBC’s inane, repetitive, faux serious opining, I went from cynicism to despair. A commercial break transitioned from Trump’s disgusting nightclub visage to an ad for one of the many charitable organizations seeking donations to feed children.  The contrast is telling and heartbreaking. Children in America are food insecure, and our progressive talking heads are blathering on about the goddamn Epstein Files.

Donald Trump is a monster, but his monstrosity should not be measured by flights on Epstein’s plane or the number of 14 year-olds he ogled. We all know he’s an entitled sociopath whose entire life has been spent wallowing in adolescent indulgence, exploiting everyone in his orbit for profit or crude gratification.

The victims of Epstein’s perversion deserve empathy and justice, but this entire tawdry business is child’s play – pardon the accidental double entendre – compared to Trump’s full oeuvre.

I don’t understand, and can’t forgive, the oh-so-sincere “journalists” and members of the House and Senate who twitter on and on about this tarnished object against the backdrop of dead, dying, bloodied and starving children left in the wake of Trump’s cruel and immoral campaign of revenge for every slight that ever pierced his pathetically thin skin.

It is insulting to watch the chuckling roundtables of hosts and guests trying to score political or ratings points.

50,000 children in Gaza have been killed or maimed by American weapons, authorized by the pompous fool who would sign any executive order placed before him. He loves his signature more than he has ever loved another human. The carnage continues because of his indifference and vanity.

2,500 Ukrainian children have been blown to bits by Putin’s attacks because, in part, Trump is unwilling to restrain a strongman he so deeply admires.

Because of Donald Trump’s complete capitulation to the cruelest mob of right-wing zealots, millions of low income Americans will lose basic health care. Thousands will die from preventable illnesses, many alone and without comfort.

A Lancet report estimates that 14 million lives will be lost as a result of cuts to USAID funding,  4.5 million children under the age of five among them. Rather than reading this as an abstraction, picture children, tender and vulnerable as your own, crying themselves to death because truckloads of food were destroyed to make a political point.

How many small children will contract measles or other preventable diseases because Trump has empowered a mentally-ill conspiracy theorist who is dismantling an infrastructure of science and good practice that has protected children for generations?

The number of adults killed, maimed, starving and left to die by dint of American action or inaction is many multiples of the small corpses left in Trump’s wake. I don’t mean to sanitize this grotesque reality, but it is the children’s faces that break my heart.

I have three grandchildren and would do anything in my power to save them from pain. I cannot look at pictures of children starving in Gaza or hungry in American cities and towns without my mind’s eye briefly superimposing my own grandchildren on the image.

It is a natural defense response to blink away such images, but it is rational and necessary to take away the understanding that each child – each of 50,000 in Gaza, each of 2,500 in Ukraine, each of 14 million around the world – was loved as much as your own. And to know that we are all indirectly complicit should haunt every human with a conscience.

Every person with political power, every influential person in the media, should rage against this wanton inhumanity, not sit and chitchat about the Epstein Files.

I had the privilege of brief acquaintance of the late poet and storyteller Grace Paley. Her poem, Responsibility, is timeless and urgent. We must all cry out like Cassandra before it’s too late.

It is the responsibility of society to let the poet be a poet
It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman
It is the responsibility of the poet to stand on street corners
giving out poems and beautifully written leaflets
also leaflets they can hardly bear to look at
because of the screaming rhetoric
It is the responsibility of the poet to be lazy     to hang out and
prophesy
It is the responsibility of the poet not to pay war taxes
It is the responsibility of the poet to go in and out of ivory
towers and two-room apartments on Avenue C
and buckwheat fields and army camps
It is the responsibility of the male poet to be a woman
It is the responsibility of the female poet to be a woman
It is the poet’s responsibility to speak truth to power as the
Quakers say
It is the poet’s responsibility to learn the truth from the
powerless
It is the responsibility of the poet to say many times: there is no
freedom without justice and this means economic
justice and love justice
It is the responsibility of the poet to sing this in all the original
and traditional tunes of singing and telling poems
It is the responsibility of the poet to listen to gossip and pass it
on in the way storytellers decant the story of life
There is no freedom without fear and bravery     there is no
freedom unless
earth and air and water continue and children
also continue
It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman     to keep an eye on
this world and cry out like Cassandra, but be
listened to this time

The post They Are Our Children Too appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

At the Colorado Capitol, overlooking Downtown Denver’s glass skyscrapers and Greek Revival municipal buildings, flags were unfurled while hand-made placards and posters were distributed to the few dozen who had gathered there.

On this Monday afternoon, rain teasing to disrupt the summer’s sun but never coming, concerned Coloradans discussed the state of artificial intelligence and surveillance. Conversations included apprehension about recent restrictions on civil liberties paired with being tracked and traced by widely unregulated technology funded by tax payers.

Coordinated with demonstrations in Palo Alto, Seattle, and New York City, Palantir Technologies’ presence in their cities that day is what had commanded their cries of dissent.

Headquartered in Denver, Palantir is a technology company founded by PayPal architect Peter Thiel and his Stanford roommate Alex Karp. They create software systems meant to capture consumer and customer data and to quickly synthesize the information collected to drive decisions. Ones made by humans and artificial intelligence.

In the private sector, that consumer data is used to help sell cheeseburgers or seat upgrades. With their largest clients, though, it’s used to choose who lives and who dies.

Last year, the U.S. Army, under the Biden Administration, gave Palantir more than $400,000,000 to help streamline their military force’s management of recruitment, deployment, and “readiness.” President Trump’s Department of Defense has since swelled their investment to more than $1,000,000,000 – anticipating a near future of increased need for military “readiness.”

Protestors carry anti-Palantir signs through the streets of Denver, demanding the artificial intelligence technology company working with military and police forces on civilian surveillance move their headquarters out of the city on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

Before the Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law by President Trump, making Immigrations and Customs Enforcement the largest federal policing force, ICE was already giving $30,000,000 to the artificial intelligence technology company, using it to make individual and mass detainment decisions.

As Stephen Miller continues his calls to increase arrest numbers, and now with a new $170,000,000,000+ budget, increased investment in the platform is expected. Some deaths in Palestine have been labeled accidents, like the 2024 killing of World Central Kitchen workers in Gaza, while Palantir allegedly partners with the IDF to aid in their targeting and decision-making.

Marching through the streets of Denver, the protestors chanted slogans carrying the names of company and government leadership, demanding that technologies of war not be used unethically and to stop the intentional targeting of marginalized and subjugated communities. Their banner at the front of the march read “Palantir is Watching You,” and some in the crowd wore facial coverings, acknowledging the technology they protested could likely see them.

Former Palantir employee and whistleblower Juan Sebastian Pinto leads a march from Palantir HQ to the Colorado Capitol in Denver, Colorado on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

One uncovered face in the crowd, though, was steadfast and sure as the march approached The Tabor Center in downtown Denver, home headquarters of Silicon Valley expat Thiel’s company. This was former Palantir employee and whistleblower Juan Sebastian Pinto. Parking a pick-up truck to be a makeshift stage, crowd members were invited to a microphone to speak their mind. Sentiments of being over-policed were shared, one Quaker activist sang a pointed song they’d written, and then Juan took the mic.

“I think fundamentally, what we are all here to represent is support for the families that are broken by these technologies,” he told those assembled, to nods and cheers of agreement. “And to bring a wider awareness to everyone in our city, where Palantir is headquartered, that we don’t support economies of mass resettlement, of deportation, or of genocide.”

While a majority remained to picket, Juan wrapped up his comments and invited 10 members to try to gain entrance to the building via a rented meeting space he had secured before the day’s event. Walking past a lone private security guard and signs reading the private plaza and building were closed to anyone who didn’t have permission to be there – the rented space inside provided them that permission in theory – they attempted the front door.

Behind the locked doors, militarized police waited in the lobby. They obviously weren’t going to get inside, let alone be permitted to make the case that they had a meeting. The group linked arms and sat down outside the doors. Delivering a short speech, Juan was soon interrupted by the arrival of Denver Police, clearly identified and wearing no masks, on the plaza.

Trying to reason with their police point of contact, explaining their right to protest, the officers gave no quarter and encouraged them to return to the sidewalk if they wished to continue. Otherwise, should they remain on the private property, they would be forcibly detained and arrested. With curious onlookers from the building above peering out the high rise windows, the protestors allowed themselves to be pushed back down a ramp and re-joined the picketers.

Protestors temporarily blocked the entry way to The Tabor Center, home to Palantir headquarters, after being denied entry by building security and Denver Police on Monday, July 14, 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellow Scene Magazine)

They demonstrated, they demanded, they spoke with curious passersby, educating and distributing literature. Then, they continued on, hoping to continue to raise awareness in the hometown of Palantir HQ. Marching a new route through downtown and back to the Capitol, Juan spoke from the pick-up truck turned mobile stage while signs and chants filled the street around him.

Resolved to return, the organizers’ remaining snacks and water were distributed to those in need in the large parks in the state’s government center. Dates and times for the next demonstration were made clear. This wasn’t going to be over today, but for now today was over.

The following afternoon, talking by phone with Yellow Scene Magazine, Juan reflected on the day’s action.

“It’s impressive to see so many people come out on a Monday, in the middle of the day, knowledgeable on the issue,” he said before bringing the conversation to the group of 50 activists who had disrupted Denver’s economic corridor, peacefully and openly walking the avenues with their voices high, unarmed.

He contrasts that by being greeted with an intentional display of overarmed militarized police, “It gives us a sense of power, the feeling was crazy to me. Alex Karp and Peter Thiel could not walk through the streets of Denver like that, because they’re afraid of how people would react if they were seen in public. They can hide behind a bunch of money as much as they want, but they don’t have that freedom.”

Along the route, and while picketing, Juan and the group of activists took careful care to greet curious onlookers with kind conversations, asking them to not think about the political motivation of the moment but the encroachment of civil liberties. While Americans push back at challenges and oversteps to due process, the issue of personal privacy being lost is raised.

“Consumers themselves have to pay attention. America hasn’t taken up the fight for privacy like Europe or other places have. The fight for privacy is not about you and your secrets, more than that it’s about your autonomy and freedom of choice,” he mused, the sounds of the street swirling in the background, as he walked into a late lunch.

Best known for capturing striking content from the frontlines of social movements, Heartland EMMY-nominated filmmaker and photographer Vince Chandler has spent 20 years creating art and documentary visuals across the U.S. They served as Communications Director for Denver City Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, and Vince has earned national recognition for their work as a visual journalist for The Denver Post. Vince was the principal cinematographer for the feature documentary film Running With My Girls, which premiered at the 2021 Denver Film Festival.

______________________________

What does resistance & resilience look like in the Heartland of America?

Sometimes it’s a protest outside an ICE detention center. Sometimes it’s a rural nurse explaining how Medicaid cuts will shutter the town hospital. Sometimes, it’s a law professor teaching systemic racism at a University in a state where CRT is banned in public schools.

As Trump’s second term unfolds — and the One Big Beautiful Act guts healthcare, empowers ICE, and reshapes American life — independent journalism is more vital than ever. However, the national press rarely shows up in the places where policy has the most impact.

We do.

These American Crossroads is a collaboration between Vince Chandler, Emmy-nominated visual journalist, and Yellow Scene Magazine, Boulder County’s only independent newsroom.

Become a sustaining supporter for just $8/month: https://fundrazr.com/Crossroads

The post Denver Demonstrators Demand Personal Privacy at Palantir Headquarters appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Sheets of cardboard were laid across the overgrown, tall grass as organizers walked across them carrying speakers, tables, tents, and even a trombone. Along the street, a dozen people greeted one another, some holding picketing signs and others hefting cases of water bottles over their shoulders. The large public parking lot closed by a concrete barrier haphazardly placed in its drive, they glanced at the no parking signs lining the street knowing their first civil disobedience of the evening would be to ignore them.

In Aurora, Colorado, at the private prison facility owned by GEO Group and currently being contracted by the federal government as the ICE Processing Facility for the region, the mood was light but serious. Ahead, there was an evening ahead of community, music, making art, and sharing food with a very real purpose.

To demand Jeanette Vizguerra’s freedom.

Community members, activists, and state-level officials picket and carry protest signs demanding the release of political prisoner Jeanette Vizguera outside of the GEO private prison facility licensed as the federal ICE processing center in Aurora, CO on July 7, 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellowscene)

An indigenous Mexican mother, author, immigrant rights advocate, and community leader, Jeanette rose to national prominence in 2017 when she successfully evaded the first Trump Administration’s attempts to deport her by seeking sanctuary inside a unitarian church.

In a game of cat and mouse played out on television screens and broadsheets she never silenced her voice, writing and speaking from the church – occasionally even surprising crowds of thousands by appearing in-person under community protection. As federal policies like family separation and intentional cruelty in detention became standard by the federal administration, the Colorado Congressional delegation stepped in and a judge blocked the deportation order until 2019.

In 2021, still living in the church, the Department of Homeland Security announced that she would not be deported. It was the Biden Administration, and while many of the practices created by the first Trump Administration continued, Jeanette was able to return to her family and her life.

Regaining control in 2025 with the re-election of President Trump, Stephen Miller pushed plans to punish dissenting voices and make an immediate example of those who had used legal protections to usurp his authority in the previous term.

Churches, hospitals, schools – so-called “sensitive places” – would no longer be safe and accessible places for every person in the United States. Elementary school students would face the trauma of seeing their classmates learn they no longer had parents to go home to, or worse be detained themselves with peers watching. The sick or injured had to weigh the benefits of seeking medical attention against the risks of never seeing their families again.

Places of worship had to grapple with the idea that their leadership could no longer defend their flock, the federal government was going to take their sheep.

Arriving to her job at Target one morning, Jeanette was arrested and detained. The community response was immediate, to many this was a political decision and not one about making our country safer.

An embarrassed administration, still reeling from their failures to enforce criminal actions against a peaceful working mother, had targeted Jeanette to make an example of. Because of a swift outpouring from watchful advocates, the due process afforded under the constitution to all persons within the United States were called for. She was to remain in detention while her attorneys fought in court, but her location was local – known – and direct communication was possible.

Many who are detained by ICE are not so fortunate.

Under the early afternoon sun in Aurora, the activists had cleared enough of the field that a small tent faced a crowd of fifty people, growing as the evening approached and more working folks were able to join.

Jamaican immigrant Jeneil and her grandmother Edna speak to rally attendees after traveling from Maryland to visit her detained father at the GEO private prison facility licensed as the federal ICE processing center in Aurora, CO on July 7, 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellowscene)

The audience was rapt, silent, listening to the choked words pour out of the young speaker’s mouth in front of them. Jeneil, with her elder grandmother Edna at her side, spoke on losing her father to Stephen Miller’s systems of snatching and shuffling human beings; his system to lose people in the system.

An immigrant from Jamaica, she was visiting Aurora from her home in Maryland with no idea she’d find a community rallying in support of her family and all of those impacted by ICE. She shared her story, that her father had made his first ever return trip to his homeland to see family in February and on the return was detained by immigration officials for two already-dismissed and closed charges.

First being told he would be held in Pennsylvania, close to his family, the notice came down that he would instead be heading for Texas. They found him in Colorado, having celebrated his sixtieth birthday in a cage.

As she finished, Luna Vizguerra, Jeanette’s daughter, took the stage echoing the difficulties of a family losing its leader.

“I miss my mom, as many of the families here do as well,” she told the crowd, making eye contact with those with whom she’s shared this unique experience with. “It comes with a lot of hardships, a lot of turmoil. You come home to an empty space, my mom’s room is empty. It’s been four months. She’s missed not only our lives but she’s missed her life.”

To discuss the generational impact, passed down and felt in bloodlines, Courtney took the microphone next. A third generation Japanese immigrant, she spoke on her own father being kidnapped from Peru and being interned in a Crystal City, CO concentration camp during World War Two.

The children and grandchildren of those persecuted through generations of United States domestic policy then led the picket of the GEO ICE facility, walking the crowd now numbering in the hundreds across the streets to march along the sidewalk outside the private prison.

For an hour, community members, with the support of union representatives, a half dozen state level elected officials, and Notes of Dissent – a protest marching band – chanted, sang, and disrupted the quiet which had existed around the building only hours before.

Notes of Dissent, a Front Range protest marching band, plays a medley of anti-authoritarian anthems and spirituals while activists picket the GEO private prison facility licensed as the federal ICE processing center in Aurora, CO on July 7, 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellowscene)

As the heat continued to climb and shade quickly shrunk over the sidewalks, water was distributed and hand fans deployed. The picket line continued to grow as people continued to arrive, some still dressed from their air conditioned office jobs, tucking work badges into pockets and out of sight, they’d come as quickly as they could.

After an hour, marshals briefly blocked traffic and the swollen crowd stepped their way from sidewalk to sidewalk, crossing the street back to the field where there was now a full resource fair for nonprofit and political organizations set up, hoping to capture their energy and funnel it to the next moment. Pupusa was sold as a fundraiser, a lecture was given on a blanket about nonviolent resistance, an art build began for an action planned later in the evening, and programming resumed.

Araseli, from Aurora, spoke about her husband – Hector – being snatched while riding his bike in their neighborhood. With no warrant, and not on the ICE list of folk to look for, she spoke from her personal experience on the importance of those who want to be allies in this moment to visit detainees, because they’re families cannot for fear of detention and deportation.

With the air heavy with angst, Yuzo Nieto of Pink Hawks kicked off the music for the evening with his song “Want to be a Gangster,” energizing the crowd, bringing a reminder that art is a tool those who would dissent can use to raise their voices.

Organizations from across the metro, including Aurora Unidos CSO and Housekeys Action Network, spoke on community organizing together and that there is infrastructure to join for those who want to help, but don’t know how to start.

Then, a roar rippled across the crowd, the largest it would be for the day, as Luna Vizguerra re-took the stage. A phone was in her hand.

Political prisoner Jeanette Vizguerra speaks to rally attendees via video call and translation provided by her daughter during a protest demanding her release from a GEO private prison facility licensed as the federal ICE processing center in Aurora, CO on July 7, 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellowscene)

Jeanette’s voice, amplified from a video call through the PA system, was greeted by cheers. From inside the building across the street, the tearful and thankful grandmother spoke through her daughter’s translation for more than twenty minutes.

Grateful for the community which has continued to show up for her and all of those being swept away inside Stephen Miller’s punitive nightmare, she blasted Colorado’s Congressional delegation for using her platform to win their previous elections and failing to show up even once for her now.

Her case is moving forward in the courts, an appeal filed in the fifth district could be decided any time and her attorneys are hopeful that she’ll be celebrating her release soon, right there outside the walls she’s speaking from behind, rallying for everyone still inside.

“If worse comes to worse, my work will continue bi-nationally and I will be back sooner than later,” she closed.

The sun was starting to sink, dusk sweeping across the now-flattened field where hundreds were gathered, and the soft yellow light inside the GEO private prison illuminated out. All day, a station had been set up to cut out and decorate paper butterflies.

Now, they were carried across the street to be hung on a chain link fence which acted as a second cage outside the barred, amber-light windows. To add a little bit of color, for those who could see out. A reminder that people on the other side of the cage saw their humanity and cared about them.

Notes of Dissent played loud, solemn spirituals and demonstrators sang, silhouettes appeared in the windows. Detainees inside waved, made hearts with their hands, and held up scrawled messages for those outside – who returned the gestures.

It was a heartbreaking and powerful moment. Tears were shed by many, some having to step away as they were faced with the distant-but-intimate contact with those who the system has worked so hard to dehumanize and hide.

Protestors sing and hang a paper art installation of butterflies and streamers on the fence outside the A large crowd of people fill the tree lawn and sidewalk outside of a chain link cage and prison windows, spilling in to the street around parked cars, while hanging an art installation and singing for the detainees inside a GEO private prison facility licensed as the federal ICE processing center in Aurora, CO on July 7, 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellowscene)

Darkness crept around and it was decided it was time to turn up the volume and for the final three bands of the evening to take the stage – performing over the crowd before them for those locked inside behind.

Wheelchair Sports Camp, 2MX2, and Flobots were slated to close out the evening. Former Denver Mayoral candidate and Sports Camp frontperson Kalyn Heffernan started with a warning that “they’re punk now,” before making the crowd move and whoop with their band’s signature mash-up of experimental music, observant humorous lyrics, and defy-authoritarianism brand.

Flobots frontman Jonny 5 gestures to a sign reading ICE while singing a bilingual protest song during a community action at the A large crowd of people fill the tree lawn and sidewalk outside of a chain link cage and prison windows, spilling in to the street around parked cars, while hanging an art installation and singing for the detainees inside a GEO private prison facility licensed as the federal ICE processing center in Aurora, CO on July 7, 2025. (Photo by Vince Chandler / Yellowscene)

2MX2 continued to ramp the energy up, fusing chicano melodies with rap / rock lyrics delivered in a fiery escalation. Headbanging, two-stepping, bodies were encouraged to move instinctively as the protest evolved toward the joyful party environment synonymous with many Colorado grassroots movements.

“I don’t know if Tim Hernández is still here,” Flobots’ Jonny 5 said as the Denver hip hop group took the stage, “but I’m reminded tonight of something he once said. We cannot become the thing we hate.”

Referencing the Colorado educator and former State House Representative’s assertion that authoritarianism robs the community of creativity and joy, he reminded the crowd that we have to have energy to have power, and our power is rooted in collective good.

Closing the evening with a wildly high energy set which included their Billboard charting hit “Handlebars,” the crowd amplified their reminder of joy as resistance, allowing it to ripple through the concrete and steel separating families and communities from their loved ones inside.

___________________________________

Best known for capturing striking content from the frontlines of social movements, Heartland EMMY-nominated filmmaker and photographer Vince Chandler has spent 20 years creating art and documentary visuals across the U.S. They served as Communications Director for Denver City Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, and Vince has earned national recognition for their work as a visual journalist for The Denver Post. Vince was the principal cinematographer for the feature documentary film Running With My Girls, which premiered at the 2021 Denver Film Festival. When they’re covering protest and autonomous action, you can often see the first draft of their articles as live threads on Bluesky. 

What does resistance & resilience look like in the Heartland of America?

Sometimes it’s a protest outside an ICE detention center. Sometimes it’s a rural nurse explaining how Medicaid cuts will shutter the town hospital. Sometimes, it’s a law professor teaching systemic racism at a University in a state where CRT is banned in public schools.

As Trump’s second term unfolds — and the One Big Beautiful Act guts healthcare, empowers ICE, and reshapes American life — independent journalism is more vital than ever. However, the national press rarely shows up in the places where policy has the most impact.

We do.

These American Crossroads is a collaboration between Vince Chandler, Emmy-nominated visual journalist, and Yellow Scene Magazine, Boulder County’s only independent newsroom.

Become a sustaining supporter for just $8/month: https://fundrazr.com/Crossroads

Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post Community Art, Music & Joy for Aurora ICE Detainees appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The tension radiates from the head down.

At the top, sits the most profoundly ignorant and grotesque president in American history. Does engaging with him, in any way, normalize the abnormal?

There seem to be two distinct realms; the arguably necessary and the apparently entirely optional.

In the first realm are visits from the likes of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Like it or not, the rotten head of our executive branch can make life miserable for other nations. Carney threaded the needle with great skill and emerged with his dignity intact, a feat no Republicans can manage. Carney was clear during his recent campaign that he had no affection for Trump and his absurd lust to annex Canada. His firm stand may have sealed his victory.

In the Oval Office meeting, Carney pleasantly absorbed Trump’s fawning gestures of friendship, yet directly dismissed the 51st state overtures. He did what he had to do, despite what I’m sure is deep disdain for Trump’s crude, boorish, unethical self.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been equally deft, even when JD Vance, Trump and others in the CCC (clown car cabinet) humiliated him in a White House ambush. Zelenskyy, even more than Carney and others, must walk a tightrope in the interest of his country.

There are other obvious examples of the arguably necessary.  But what about optional interactions?

I omit a class of optional ass-kissing, consisting of rich people who want to be richer. That class has too many members to count. One can only surmise that a majority of corporate or financial wizards is several levels of magnitude smarter than Trump and think him a pompous fool. But members of that same majority have likely splattered chunks of their integrity along the road to their conspicuous success. What’s a little more compromise when the payoff is so enticing?

A controversial case in point was comedian/arrogant pundit Bill Maher’s White House dinner. Maher characterized it as necessary in order to bridge the trench and stench of partisan divide in the country.

In response, comedian/writer and equally arrogant pundit Larry David penned a sharp New York Times essay titled “My Dinner With Adolf.” In David’s characteristically sardonic voice, the parody body-slammed Maher’s choice to sit with the oaf, hoping to either understand the monstrosity or set an example of getting to know your MAGA neighbor.

Another needless example was the April 28th White House event for the Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles. Some players declined, but made inoffensive excuses. No one, to my knowledge, said they refused to meet with a racist tyrant. Did management set some rules?

And finally, the optional-choices-once-removed.

Members of the Leonard Bernstein family co-authored a NYT piece justifying their decision to sanction performances of Bernstein’s works at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Other performers have opted out, not wanting to be associated with the Center following Trump’s self-appointment as Chairman and filling Board seats with an assemblage of sycophants.

Part of the family’s justification, rather presumptuously in my estimation, was that Lenny would have wanted his music played. As with some of his lesser compositions, that record is not clear. (Apologies for the mess of a double meaning.) Their other argument was that great musical works can be uplifting and/or carry meaning of value – even subversive – at a time of existential crisis. Shostakovich and Stalin come to mind. The difference, and a great distinction indeed, is that Shostakovich composed at the time of and in direct defiance of Stalin. Bernstein did no such thing.

Staying at a Trump hotel or playing at a Trump golf course would be among many other optional-once-removed examples.

And finally closer to home – literally. Should we visit with MAGA neighbors over the back fence or at neighborhood gatherings? Will that mend fences or change minds?

A reader may be grateful or confused by my failure to offer my own opinion, although a semi-astute glance might reveal it by way of my word choices.

FWIW, my words and actions would lean – run away – from any gesture that holds any risk of normalizing. I can say “hello” in response to a cheerful greeting from a MAGA neighbor, but no dinner date or neighborhood gathering. I would not play at the Kennedy Center or go to the White House.

Any person, with or without power or position, who supports this descent into undemocratic indecency, is complicit.

I seldom receive comments, but I would really like to hear from you. There are legitimate arguments on both sides.

The post What Would You Do? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Kennedy Schmennedy. Who needs the Kennedy Center when we have Erie’s Red Hawk Elementary School?

Donald Trump has kidnapped Washington’s Kennedy Center entirely, naming himself Chairman and installing such artistic luminaries as Lee Greenwood and Laura Ingraham as Trustees. Performances from Kid Rock and Ted Nugent can’t be far behind.

He may even traipse his birthday military parade through the center with a drill team of Proud Boys twirling AR-15s and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt leading a pom-pom troop wearing crucifix sweaters. Trump will head the parade in the popemobile, driven by Pete Hegseth, fueled by a few mimosas. Such patriotic fun!

But don’t despair! The arts are alive and well, including subversive theater.

This weekend, May 2nd and 3rd, the 4th and 5th graders from Red Hawk mounted a stirring performance of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang.  Chitty, for short, is based on a book by Ian Flemng – yes, the James Bond guy – later adapted for stage and screen.

The performances were superb, although full disclosure that my grandson played Jeremy on Friday night may indicate a teeny-tiny bias. Herding several score of elementary school kids is no mean feat, and the lioness’s share of credit goes to music teacher Amy Abbott, who manages this feat every year, aided by a great crew of assistants and volunteers.

What these kids may lack in polish, they more than compensate for in enthusiasm and charm. Kennedy Center aside, I’d rather attend a children’s performance than a Broadway show any day of the week.

These kids worked all semester, rising before dawn for 7:30 rehearsals at least three days a week. It paid off. There were no botched lines or choreographic bobbles. The singing was brilliant, although not intonational perfection. The melody was always nearby and usually rediscovered. Delightfully costumed, mic’d-up and made-up, the roles were not indicated, they were inhabited – to use a bit of theater vernacular.

It is at some peril that I highlight any specific performers, as the lead roles were all played with great aplomb and confidence, especially since both nights played to a full house of 600 or so. How many of us could perform flawlessly for 600?

Peril be damned, the Baron and Baroness were hilarious and just over the top enough on both nights. (Different casts for different nights, with a few double-ups.) The pas de deux of evil spies mostly skulked on the stage perimeter, but hammed it up to a “T.” They could have been a skit to themselves.

The production was chock full of complex ensemble pieces, imaginative props and clever gags. Not a beat was missed, although, like the melodies, a few were dropped and picked up with a flourish.

Among my favorite moments were the frequent times an ensemble member would search the audience for family or friends in the midst of a song or dance number. You won’t see that on Broadway!

Why subversive theater?

Well, the evil empire in Chitty is Vulgaria. What name could better capture the spirit of the current administration, with its Vulgarian-in-Chief?

Vulgaria’s Baron is a fool. The Baroness hates children, so the regime will not tolerate children, especially those who arrive from distant places. Sound familiar? Taken in this light, the character called Child Catcher hauling off children in a cage was eerie.

Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang itself was vaguely reminiscent of a Cybertruck, what with its metal panels falling off.

I can imagine someone younger than I writing and staging a parody of the Trump administration based on Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. The Kennedy Center Board and its boundlessly ignorant Chairman would probably attend and completely miss the point. Trump would think he was Truly Scrumptious and his buddy Elon would see it as a glamorous Tesla ad.

But in the end, it was the children saving the day, overwhelming the bumbling fools of Vulgaria and flying home in Chitty-Chitty. Here, of course, the Cybertruck comparison fades, as no self-respecting never-Vulgarian would entrust children to a Cybertruck.

And isn’t that our great hope? That children will save the day?

On these two nights such hope seemed possible, thanks to Amy Abbott and the Red Hawk School community.

The post Chitty and the Children to the Rescue! appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

During the first days of Donald Trump back in the White House, the country has been hit by a wave of executive orders that threaten to dismantle LGBTQ+ protections, especially in states like Colorado, which are known for being one of the most LGBTQ+-friendly states in the country. 

But Colorado’s local government is not letting Trump bulldoze over blue-led strongholds. Attorney General Phil Weiser is leading the charge on a legal blitz to block Trump’s actions from hurting the state. 

According to Axios Denver, the state already had been in Trump’s line of sight with vows of starting deportation in Aurora. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston made a pledge to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation, drawing more attention to the state. This resulted in the federal government investigating Denver’s policies and threatening Denver’s sanctuary city policies. 

State law prohibits local law enforcement from working with federal immigration authorities to remove illegal immigrants, which currently goes against Trump’s mass deportation orders.   

But Johnston doesn’t regret his actions. Axios Denver reports that Johnston issued a warning to lawmakers in Washington that the state will “stand our ground if our residents are under threat,” he said. “We’re not going to be bullied or blackmailed.” 

Despite Johnston’s warning, the bullying tactics continue. In January, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights announced it would be investigating Denver Public Schools’ gender-neutral bathrooms. The department claimed this investigation was prompted by alarming reports that the Denver Public Schools District was denying female students a restroom comparable to males.

Chalkbeat Colorado shared the Denver Public Schools District’s statement. The district reiterated that the restroom was added “as the result of a student-led process that reflects our commitment to inclusivity and student voice, leadership, and empowerment, providing a welcoming space for all.” The district added, “This restroom serves all students, including those who may feel uncomfortable in gender-specific facilities, and aligns with our values of supporting every student.” 

It should be noted that the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights failed to mention in its announcement that Denver schools do provide designated restrooms for female and male students. Known for having the nation’s first elected gay governor, Colorado has been a leader in supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Gender-neutral restrooms within public schools, which are a testament to that support, are now under threat from Trump. 

In response to Trump’s executive orders and inference into Denver’s LGBTQ+ policies, Attorney General Phil Wieser is putting Colorado on the front lines with numerous lawsuits. On behalf of the state, he has joined at least 11 lawsuits from attorney generals across 21 states. Two of the most important lawsuits are about federal challenges the state is currently facing. 

 

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The state filed a lawsuit with three others to void Trump’s order that ended federal spending on hospitals providing gender-affirming care and, in the process, criminalized doctors who assisted in these services. 

This lawsuit resulted in a win for Weiser and the state as services resumed, and the Colorado Sun reported that Weiser said if Trump’s order was allowed to stand, it would have caused “irreversible physical and mental health harms for transgender youth” and added, “Gender-affirming care is legally protected health care in Colorado, and with this lawsuit, Colorado hospitals will again be free to provide critical care.” 

As a sanctuary city, Trump’s executive order to end citizenship for U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants threatens the city. Weiser’s lawsuit argues that citizenship is protected by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and federal law. In a statement, Wesier said, “The executive order cannot be allowed to stand, and I will fight to ensure that all who are born in the United States keep their right to fully and fairly be a part of American society as a citizen with all its benefits and privileges.” 

This ban will not only strip individuals of their basic rights but also cause states to lose federal funding that provides basic rights. 

The legal battles waged by Wesier on behalf of Colorado highlight how blue states are fighting Trump’s efforts to reshape national policies. From protecting sanctuary city policies to fighting for LGBTQ+ rights, Colorado refuses to back down.  

The post Trump v. Colorado: AG Phil Weiser Challenges Trump’s Executive Orders appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

“Put a Little Love in Your Heart!”

This tune by Jackie DeShannon was a hit in 1969, later reprised by Annie Lennox and Al Green.

It was among the social anthems of a tumultuous era when the civic and cultural temperature was high. Anger over the war in Vietnam and racial resentment had the nation at a constant simmer, occasionally boiling over.

Assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. dampened hope, and optimism that had briefly surged in the mid-sixties was deeply submersed by the election of Tricky Dick Nixon.

It is paralleled by our time now, when the hope inspired by Barack Obama’s tenure was drowned in the surge of racial and cultural resentment that produced the most profane, incompetent and mean-spirited president in American history.

History is usually described by political eras and in policy or economic terms. I’ve never believed that this is accurate. History is actually written in broad social and cultural strokes. The economic or policy issues are almost incidental. This is why, for example, that a certain segment of the electorate will vote against their own interests. It’s not that they are too ignorant or stupid to understand the ramifications of their political actions. It’s that they don’t care.

That’s why Trump has succeeded. He knew, or the puppets pulling his strings knew, that all of politics is a culture war, not a battle of ideas and analysis. “Owning the libs” is the only objective of Republican politics. Egg prices, tariffs, Panama, Greenland and most of DOGE activities are a sideshow. A dangerous and damaging sideshow to be sure, but not in the center ring for most conservatives. They are just happy that the libs are finally getting screwed and getting it good and hard.

It’s the libs at Columbia, the libs at Harvard, the libs at the Kennedy Center, the libs at the Smithsonian, the libs in the media, the smug eggheads in NIH, the lib know-it-alls in major law firms . . .

Trump’s cabinet members are all – every single one of them – second rate posers. It is laughable to watch a faux tough guy like Pistol Pete Hegseth preening around in his fashionable mod suits, heading up chats that are insecure in every meaning of the word.

Watching the incompetence was surpassed only by the disgust I felt at the Signal chat glee expressed when their bombs blew innocent civilians to bits. The emojis were like a celebration of a middle school football victory. I have no affection for Houthis and have no insight into whether the strikes were useful or necessary. But killing any humans, much less innocent bystanders, should be a somber and sobering experience, not cause for whooping it up.

Watching Mike Waltz, insecure Director of National Security, explaining how a journalist got into a classified chat about the execution of a war plan was like listening to a dog-less child explain how the dog ate his homework.

It is only in an environment like this that a nasty little prick like Stephen Miller could weasel his way into a position of influence. Or a clearly lightweight blonde princess out of a parody of 90210 could stand at the podium in the White House briefing room.

It is amateur hour in Washington all around.

Imagine if a group of giddy high school kids took to the Broadway stage as the cast of Hamilton. Or if the tipsy winners of a corner bar’s karaoke contest mounted a production of Madame Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera.

In addition to the DEI purges, the trans hatred, the bumbling chat sessions, the Elon Chain Saw Massacre, the masked men capturing legal residents on street corners and the full disassembly of public schools . . . these lib-owning doofuses seem committed to removing every competent human from government service. Ya see, real competence embarrasses them.

So, having gotten that off my chest, what to do? There is an encouraging upswing in activism to join or support. But many folks I know are choosing to back away a little from the endless torrent of psychological sewage.

I think when all else seems grim or hopeless, take Jackie DeShannon’s advice. Put a little love in your heart.

Several times a week my wife and I go to the elementary school to pick up our grandson. Watching small children swinging through a playground can even make a troubled heart smile.

We may not be able to stop these nasty dilettantes from changing the country. But we can’t let them change us.

It is time to hold our loved ones, especially children, close.

The post Put a Little Love in Your Heart appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Press releases are provided to Yellow Scene Magazine. In an effort to keep our community informed, we publish some press releases in whole.

Monday, March 17, 2025
CONTACT: Sara Loflin, ProgressNow Colorado at sara@progressnowcolorado.org

NORTHGLENN: As public concern grows over the unprecedented actions taken during the first two months of Donald Trump’s second Presidency, residents of freshman Republican Rep. Gabe Evans’s congressional district have repeatedly called on Evans to hold a town hall. After weeks of no response, the residents of the district, with the assistance of local advocacy groups, have announced a People’s Town Hall in a church next door to Rep. Evans’ District Office. The Congressman has been invited to the Town Hall, but he has not confirmed his attendance. Residents of the district will gather to share their experiences, questions and concerns related to the administration’s and Congress’s actions.

“We’ve repeatedly asked Congressman Evans to hold a town hall,” said Jacob Stevens, a Thornton resident. “We’ve sent the emails, made the phone calls, met with his staff, and we’ve protested outside his office for the past three weeks. We are his constituents and we have questions and concerns. We need him to communicate directly with his community.”

“In less than two months, Donald Trump with the total support of Gabe Evans has plunged the federal government and the American economy into chaos,” said ProgressNow Colorado executive director Sara Loflin. “From thousands of federal workers who have lost their jobs to the impending cuts to Medicaid and other essential social safety nets set to devastate working families in Evans’ district, Gabe Evans owes his constituents answers and not more excuses. We’re calling on Gabe Evans to come to Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church next door to Evans’ Northglenn office next Saturday, and to promise to protect the institutions Elon Musk and Donald Trump are working at this moment to destroy.”

WHAT: The People’s Town Hall: Where is Gabe Evans?
WHEN: Saturday, March 22 at 1:00PM
WHERE: Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church, 10785 Melody Dr. Northglenn
WHO: Residents of Colorado’s Eighth Congressional District, Colorado Working Families Power, TWN Indivisible, ProgressNow Colorado, CIRC Action Fund, Cobalt, Sierra Club

To RSVP to attend, click here: https://bit.ly/whereisgabe

The post ADVISORY: People’s Town Hall In CO-08 Saturday: Where is Gabe Evans? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

DHS Arrests Columbia Student Who Led Pro-Palestinian Protests Last Spring

Palestinian-American Mahmoud Khalil, who played a critical role in the student-led protests at Columbia last Spring, has been arrested and detained by Federal immigration agents for the crime of criticizing Israel.

According to his lawyer, Amy Greer, Khalil was inside his university-owned apartment on Saturday night when ICE agents entered and detained him. Originally, it was believed that Khalil was in the country on a student visa, which ICE agents claimed would be revoked; however, when Greer informed agents that he was an American citizen with a green card, they said they’d be revoking that instead.

This comes as a direct response to Trump’s executive order to combat anti-Semitism. A spokesperson for Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed that the arrest was directly connected to Khalil’s involvement in the protests, alleging he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”

Outraged by the blatant violation of Khalil’s constitutional rights to free speech and peaceful assembly, the activist group Jewish Voice for Peace occupied the New York Trump Tower earlier today. The group said it was “taking over the Trump Tower to register our mass refusal.”

“We will not stand by as this fascist regime attempts to criminalize Palestinians and all those calling for an end to the Israeli government’s US-funded genocide of the Palestinian people,” the group said in a post on X.

Of the 150 protestors occupying Trump Tower, NYPD arrested 98. Kaz Daughtry, the deputy mayor for public safety, said on Fox News that there were no injuries and all the protesters had been removed from the building.

Perhaps most troubling was the lack of clarification given by the Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar when pressed by NPR journalist Michel Martin to explain exactly what Khalil’s crimes were.

See an excerpt of the interview below: 

Martin: Is any criticism of the government a deportable offense?

Edgar: Let me put it this way, Michel, imagine if he came in and filled out the form and said, ‘I want a student visa.’ They asked him, ‘What are you going to do here?’ And he says, ‘I’m going to go and protest.’ We would have never let him into the country.

Martin: Is protesting a deportable offense?

Edgar: You’re focused on protests. I’m focused on the visa process. He went through a legal process …

Political commentator and Twitch Streamer Hasan Piker, a staunch advocate for Palestinian emancipation, felt that Deputy Secretary Edgar purposefully kept his answers vague.

“What makes you think tomorrow they’re not going to do this [to] gay students, trans students, Black students, anything they want,” Piker said on his live stream. “What makes you think they’re not gonna do this because [schools] have too much DEI, for example. That’s also an intentionally vague definition.”

This sentiment echoes another point in history, one best described by the famous poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller.

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

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Democracy needs journalism more than ever. We’ve been telling the truth for 24 years. Your support helps us keep telling it for at least the next four years.

The post “Is Protesting a Deportable Offense?” appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

As the Trump administration 2.0 takes aim at marginalized groups and runs roughshod over the rule of law, it’s easy to become discouraged and pessimistic. Music often does a lot to lift spirits, and this is a rundown of the best songs to listen to that can bring hope in the current political moment:

-”It’s Okay to Punch Nazis” by Cheap Perfume –

Easily one of the best bands currently smashing things up in the Denver punk scene, Cheap Perfume remind us not to normalize the far right in this track from their 2019 album Burn It Down. It’s a reminder that, just because a Nazi got a PR firm doesn’t mean they’re not a Nazi.

-”Old Man Trump” by Ryan Harvey feat. Ani DiFranco and Tom Morello –

“Old Man Trump” is actually a song that legendary political folk singer Woodie Guthrie wrote back in 1954, not about Donald Trump, but about Donald Trump’s father Fred Trump, who owned an apartment complex Guthrie lived in called Beach Haven where Guthrie felt that Trump profited by stirring up racial hatred in the area. Guthrie never recorded the song, but a few other artists have, and the 2016 version with Ryan Harvey, legendary feminist folk artist Ani DiFranco, and world-famous activist and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello is easily the best recording of it.

-”Make America Great Again” by Pussy Riot –

You probably remember Russian punk collective Pussy Riot from the 2012 incident when they were jailed for staging a protest/performance at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour that was critical of the church’s support of Vladimir Putin, leading to human rights groups around the world calling for their release. Their 2016 track “Make America Great Again” is more of a light-electronic pop song reminding us of what could actually make America a great country: letting in immigrants, listening to women, and not killing Black people.

-”Ascension” by Gorillaz feat. Vince Staples –

On virtual hip-hop group Gorillaz’s 2017 album Humanz, which features a laundry list of collaborators throughout the entire album, Gorillaz’s mastermind Damon Albarn told all the collaborators to imagine a terrible dark future in which Trump won the 2016 Presidential Election. Recording well before the election, everyone imagined this to be a remote possibility, but they still reflected the horror of the situation. Vince Staples’ contribution, “Ascension,” offers up a critique of American culture and a reminder to enjoy life before the world ends.

-”Pursuit of Liberty” by Bad Cop/Bad Cop –

Bassist and vocalist Linh Le of California’s all-girl outfit Bad Cop/Bad Cop is the daughter of immigrants who fled Vietnam for the United States during the Fall of Saigon, as she reminds us that America was once a place that welcomed immigrants. As she shouts “Borders are baseless, there’s one human race!” it’s hard not to agree with her and remember the importance of looking out for all humans, regardless of where they hail from.

The post Editors Picks | February 2025 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Editor’s Note: Press Releases are provided to Yellow Scene. In an effort to keep our community informed, we publish some press releases in whole.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, led 13 of their Democratic colleagues in demanding that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) end wrongful searches and interrogations of Tribal members and uphold the United States’ trust and treaty responsibility with Tribal Nations and their citizens.

In the letter, the lawmakers raised concern over reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents stopping and harassing United States-born citizens on suspicion of being undocumented migrants since President Trump issued an Executive Order seeking to terminate birthright citizenship. While defending this order in court, Trump’s Department of Justice lawyers called into question Native Americans’ birthright citizenship. These incidents have stoked fear and panic for many Tribal citizens living on and off reservation lands.

“Whether it is simple ignorance or worse — outright disrespect for and harassment of Tribal citizens — ICE’s law enforcement tactics reflect an abdication of U.S. trust and treaty responsibility with Tribal nations and their citizens, and cannot stand,” the senators wrote in a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. “We ask that the Department issue guidance and training to ICE agents on forms of Tribal identification that are acceptable as proof of United States citizenship (alone or in tandem with other documents). We also ask that your Department communicate and consult with Tribal governments to ensure they are given timely and accurate information to inform and protect their Tribal citizens from unnecessary searches, interrogation, and detention related to immigration enforcement efforts.” 

The senators pressed Secretary Noem to answer a series of questions on this issue in detail by March 4, 2025.

U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) led the letter, which was also signed by U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Angus King (I-Maine.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.).

The text of the letter is here and below:

Dear Secretary Noem:

We write to express our growing concern over reports that, since President Trump issued the Executive Order on birthright citizenship, United States-born citizens of federally recognized Tribes have been stopped and questioned by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on suspicion of being undocumented migrants. These incidents have stoked fear and panic for many Tribal citizens living on and off reservation, resulting in at least one Tribal government issuing its own guidance and standing up a citizen hotline to report incidents and receive assistance. Whether it is simple ignorance or worse — outright disrespect for and harassment of Tribal citizens – ICE’s law enforcement tactics reflect an abdication of U.S. trust and treaty responsibility with Tribal nations and their citizens, and cannot stand. 

Accordingly, we ask that the Department issue guidance and training to ICE agents on forms of Tribal identification that are acceptable as proof of United States citizenship (alone or in tandem with other documents). We also ask that your Department communicate and consult with Tribal governments to ensure they are given timely and accurate information to inform and protect their Tribal citizens from unnecessary searches, interrogation, and detention related to immigration enforcement efforts.

Both Congress, exercising its plenary authority over Indian Affairs, and the United States Supreme Court have established that Indians born in the United States are United States citizens. Indians may also be citizens of federally-recognized Tribes, making them dual citizens of both the United States and their Tribal nations. As such, Tribal citizens may possess multiple forms of identification, including Tribal government-issued identification, such as enrollment cards and Certificates of Indian Blood (CIB), and state-issued or federally-issued identification. However, it is not uncommon for Tribal citizens to only carry their Tribal government-issued identification, which is often accepted as valid proof of United States citizenship for purposes of federal benefits.

In addition to consulting with, and issuing guidance for, Tribes on what forms of identification ICE will accept as valid proof of United States citizenship, including Tribal identification, we also request that your Department issue internal guidance for ICE agents on how to lawfully engage with federally recognized Tribes and their citizens, including on Tribal lands. Lastly, we request that you reply, in detail, to the following questions:

• Does ICE policy accept of Certificates of Indian Blood (CIBs), Tribal enrollment, or other Tribal identification documents as valid proof of United States citizenship?
  • If yes, please provide a full description of these policies and how they are communicated within your Department, and with Tribal governments.
  • If no, please clarify what information needs to be present on Tribally-issued identification documents for those to be accepted as valid proof of United States citizenship.
• What training are ICE agents given about different forms of valid identification and documentation of United States citizenship for enrolled members of federally recognized Tribes, including CIBs, Tribal enrollment, or other Tribal identification?
• What training are ICE agents, and other law enforcement personnel in your Department, given about interactions with citizens of federally recognized Tribes?
• What specific corrective actions are you taking to ensure that the rights of United States-born Tribal citizens, as American citizens, are being upheld and respected by your Department?
• How does ICE justify the use of taxpayer dollars and its limited resources to conduct enforcement actions involving United States-born citizens of federally recognized Tribes?
• What has been the estimated cost of ICE enforcement actions within reservation boundaries thus far? Will ICE enforcement actions occur within community locations such as schools, hospitals, clinics, and religious institutions that are on Tribal lands, including trust land, restricted fee, and fee simple lands, or located off of Tribal lands? 
• What implications do ICE enforcement actions have for Tribal nations whose historic lands transcend the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders, including Tribes with members living in Mexico or Canada and/or having transborder migratory privileges using special identification documents, such as the Tohono O’odham Nation and the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas? What will ICE do to ensure that tribal members residing in Mexico or Canada are not inappropriately detained as a result of these enforcement actions?  And how is ICE educating its agents about the access guaranteed in the Jay Treaty to the United States for Canadian First Nations members for cultural, trade, and other purposes?

The post Heinrich, Schatz lead colleagues in demanding Trump’s DHS uphole federal trust and treaty responsibilities to tribal nations and immediately end wrongful ICE searches and harassment of tribal members appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The publisher of Yellow Scene recently identified the owner of our neighborhood bike shop as a MAGA sort. She alleged that he scoffed at diversity issues, trans rights and was otherwise rude and dismissive in dealings with her.

I will seek confirmation of her allegations, but I have no immediate reason to doubt. If true, this will lead me to a small personal boycott, even though I enjoy the convenience and have had pleasant experiences there.

This one is easy, as everything they sell and services they provide are available within 10-12 miles, including at REI, a co-op with great values and value.

Virtue signaling? I suppose so, although I’ve always wondered why signaling virtue is a bad thing. If the signals are not linked to action, I guess criticism is merited. But I suspect that those who “signal” also do.

Signaling virtue may draw snide retorts from the virtue-free conservative opposition, but has another salutary effect. It sets an example to emulate, signals a cause to join, and may raise an issue others have not noticed. Boycotting a small business is small potatoes, but it is a start.

During my many decades of progressive inclination and progressive exhortations, I’ve never entered ethical calculations into the majority of my economic choices. In recent years I’ve assiduously avoided the homophobic leaders Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby and shifted my home maintenance shopping from the odious Home Depot to the slightly more reasonable Lowes, but for the most part have been indiscriminate.

Now, as we wobble on the precipice of autocracy and watch our democratic norms crumble, these ethical calculations seem more urgent. I wish it was as simple as bike shop boycotts and avoiding mediocre fast food. But it is not.

Unless one has the strength and circumstances to live off the grid, in all senses of the phrase, ethical compromise is inevitable. The tentacles of corporate greed are all around us. As an older couple with the usual array of maladies we are at the mercy of Big Pharma and corporate health care. There is no realm of life where total avoidance of corrupt corporate practices is possible.

But we can and should try our best.

Many good folks have begun assembling lists of the good and bad actors in various business sectors.

Here is a piece about companies who continued or discontinued diversity initiatives since Trump’s ascension.

Here’s a Newsweek report on Trump financial supporters.

At the end of this post is a long list by sector of companies that contributed to Trump’s campaign or inauguration. I cannot attest to its accuracy or completeness, but it can be a reference to start your own review of spending choices.

I strongly urge you to visit The People’s Union USA and join the boycotts they organize or support. If you visit their Command Center, you will find details about a February 28th total boycott and several specific weeklong actions, including against Amazon and its many subsidiaries. You may be surprised how much you are unknowingly contributing to Jeff Bezos.

And, of course, do everything in your power to enfeeble Elon Musk, although we are all but gnats trying to dent an elephant’s ass. I see that there are Tesla owners with bumper stickers like “bought it before we knew how awful he was.”  Now that’s virtue signaling I can disdain. Sell the damn car then. Or drive it over a cliff just like Elon is driving our country over a cliff.

Anyone who owns a Cybertruck is beyond hope, so just don’t let your children near the monstrosity or its owner.

When this reaches my wife’s inbox, she’ll challenge me to put my money where my mouth is. Fair enough.  We, like other concerned folks, should at least look at where we can do better.

I expect we’ll at least support the People’s Union boycotts.

And I know where I’m not getting my much needed mountain bike overhaul.

The List

Cars

Buick

Cadillac

Chevrolet

GMC

Hendrick Motorsports

Home-Goods

Ace Hardware

Ashley Furniture

Dirt Devil

Farberware

George Foreman Grill

Hoover Vacuum

My Pillow

Oreck Vacuums

Stanley Black and Decker Hardware

Stiletto Tools

Toast Master

Electronics

Boost Mobile

Garmin Sports Products

Motorola

Groceries

Chiquita Brands

Dean Foods

Dole Foods

Folgers

Land o’ Lakes

Martins Famous Pastry Shoppes

Purdue Farms

Publix

Smucker’s Products

Automotive

ArmorAll

Auto Zone

Discount Tire

NAPA Auto Parts

Shell Oil

Sunoco

Turtle Wax

Travel Services

Allegiant Air

Horizon Bank

Las Vegas Sands

Norwegian Cruise

Omni Hotels

Wynn Resorts

Clothing

Anthropologie

Brooks Shoes

Champ Clothing

Hanes

Marshalls

L.L. Bean (likely just one family member donated)

Leggs Pantyhose

Soma Intimates

TJ Maxx

Urban Outfitters-Free People

Restaurants

Arby’s

Baskin and Robbins

Buffalo Wild Wings

Carls Jr.

Cinnabon

Dairy Queen

McDonald’s

Papa John’s

Schlotzsky’s

Wendy’s

Retail

ACE Hardware

Marshalls

Sierra Trading Post

TJ Maxx

Walmart

Underwear

Bali Underwear

Fruit of the Loom

Hanes

Leggs Pantyhose

Maidenform Underwear

Playtex

Soma Intimates

Alcohol

Bacardi

Coors Beer

Grey Goose

Miller Beer

Milwaukee’s Best Beer

Molson Beer

Tito’s Vodka (Tito’s claims they do not support any politician)

Sports Teams

Arizona Diamondbacks

Buffalo Bills

Los Angeles Angels

New Orleans Saints

NY Yankees

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Miscellaneous

1800 Flowers.com

Bausch + Lomb

Big Heart Pet Brands

Fruit Bouquets.com

Harderg Diamonds

Keller Williams Realty

Public Storage

Rayovac

The Popcorn Factory

Wow! Cable

Vanity Fair Paper Products

Rental Cars

Alamo Rental Cars

Enterprise Rental Car

The post Use Your Dollars Wisely appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author, and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

The entire Northern Gaza Strip has been reduced to rubble, made entirely unlivable. After over 15 months of harrowing genocide in Gaza, Israel has reluctantly agreed to a ceasefire. Palestinians on the ground ignited in joyous celebration with the confirmation that the prolonged bloodshed was finally coming to an end. 

Beyond Gaza, the Palestinian American experience since October 7 has been a chaos of emotions. Many Palestinian Americans felt completely abandoned while dealing with the lingering effects of survivors’ guilt as well as the challenges facing them in the belly of the beast. Zionist organizations and institutions intend to destroy the livelihoods of any Palestinian American or ally that dares to speak out against Israel’s genocide. 

We’ve seen this play out through threats of deportation to individuals on student or work visas who are pro-Palestine or attend pro-Palestine protests. We have seen it through the vilification, blacklisting, and doxing of thousands of Palestinians and allies on hinky Zionist websites. Not to mention anti-BDS laws and genocidal and racist statements made by American politicians and senators. The list tirelessly goes on. 

I took the time to speak to a couple of Palestinian Americans in Colorado to get their reactions toward the recent ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas and whether or not there is still hope for the future of Palestine.

Through engaging with dena harry saleh, a queer Palestinian artist and writer, saleh reflects on the inevitable fact that Israel will break the ceasefire but that the hope lies in the momentum that is shifting on Palestine.

“It’ll be broken, but what I am hopeful for is that because of the world’s knowledge now about what is happening and the settler colonial project that is Israel, especially related to the United States, we are starting to see a more widespread awareness of the violence of settler colonialism,” saleh says. 

Haythem, a Palestinian American engineer from Denver, says, “I think the thing about the ceasefire deal is that it’s nasty and meticulous in a way that still absolves Israel in their own eyes from continuing to murder innocent lives.” He expands, “It is a chance of relief and respite, but it’s not like Palestine is free. People get to go home, but the north is completely unrecognizable from what it was before.” 

Since Donald Trump’s win, he has gone out of his way to take credit for initiating the ceasefire deal and putting an end to the mass killing—something Biden endorsed and funded, and the Harris administration wholly ignored.

Even after countless interruptions and political demonstrations made against Harris, she refused to acknowledge the continued death sentence she and her constituents signed off on for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Saleh says, “We can’t just fall along the lines of this binary of Republican and Democrat because, ultimately, they are all capitalists. We need to understand that it’s really a class war on a global scale.”

Haythem says, “It doesn’t help when Trump says, it’s good land, it’s good real estate, I don’t think the new administration cares much for Palestinian people so much as they care about Palestinian land just as Israel does and that’s always been the thing about the American government if anything with this new administration I’m worried with the new risks.”

Donald Trump recently spoke at a press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, revealing that the actual death toll of Palestinians in Gaza could be 500,000. More so, he declared that America was going to purchase and take over Gaza, turning it into a hot hub for Americans, ethnically cleansing Palestinians from the strip entirely.

Trump still stands firm in his decision, as he told reporters on February 9 that he was still dedicated to purchasing Gaza, saying that Gazans would not have the right to return under his new plan. On the same day, Israel shot and murdered two young Palestinian women in the West Bank, 23-year-old Sondos Jamal Muhammad Shalabi and 21-year-old Rahaf Fouad Abdullah al-Ashqar, who was murdered by the Israeli Defense Forces in her home. Shalabi was 8 months pregnant. 

When asked what they feel about the recent increase in international support for Palestine, Saleh says, “The tide has turned, and people are now aware that it’s much more than a ceasefire that we need; we need an end to the state of Israel which did not need to be created in Palestine in the first place, and then an end to settler colonialism.”

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has reported that since the ceasefire deal, Israel has killed over 110 Palestinians. Launching airstrikes and attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, as well as Palestinians returning to their destroyed homes in Northern Gaza. 

Israel refuses to abide by international law; in fact, Israel believes it is above the law; why wouldn’t it if it thinks it can get away with slaughtering over 17,000 Palestinian babies with no repercussions? Why does this foreign entity get a pass every time? The American people genuinely need to wake up and smell the coffee – Israel is America’s 51st state, profiting off you to continue committing its genocide against the Palestinian people. 

What we allow to happen in Gaza will happen everywhere. This is the holocaust of our time; act accordingly or live with the consequences forever.

The post Palestine is Still Not Free appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Well, just when you think the man can’t be any more offensive . . .

In a rambling set of remarks on Thursday, Donald Trump blamed Wednesday night’s tragic plane/helicopter crash on DEI. In the relentless MAGA campaign against any form of social justice there is nothing that cannot be blamed on DEI, CRT or transgender women and men.

This needless and cruel absurdity was accompanied by the release of another executive order, this one with a sweeping mandate to remove any wisps of DEI, CRT, gender fluidity, white privilege, structural racism or unconscious bias from America’s schools. In their stead, schools must inculcate patriotism and American exceptionalism and give the Christian God His rightful place in the classroom.

The Order also encouraged aggressive expansion of vouchers, so Americans can escape the recalcitrant public schools and send their children to a school that already does all of those nice “Christian-y” things.

I’ve frequently written about the conservative campaign to eliminate any and all vestiges of the civil rights era. By attacking the 1619 Project, dismantling affirmative action and making patently false claims about DEI and CRT, they express what appears to be pent-up frustration felt by a plurality of Americans. Whenever life seems unfair or difficult for white folks, the resentment toward what they see as racial preference soars. I’ve used the crude phrase “shit slides downhill” to characterize this phenomenon. It is a historic truth that those who feel dumped on by life are the most inclined to dump on others.

The “patriotism” demanded by the executive order exemplifies a very narrow and ultimately dangerous concept. Patriotism itself is problematic. Love of country can, I suppose, be rooted in appreciation for and understanding of the elegance of our system and the principles on which it was founded. But the “patriotism” implicit in the MAGA movement is not about those things. It is a demand for conformity and unquestioning allegiance, two notions that are diametrically opposed to the imperfect beauty of our democratic republic. Every step of progress over our 249 year history has come from rejecting conformity and demanding that our allegiance be earned.

While the analogy may seem forced, the relationship between citizen and state cannot be like like an arranged marriage. Love is a choice, not a command. It should be self-evident that no person can be instructed to love another. It is only through knowing, questioning, examining and challenging one another that real love can emerge and be sustained. And so it is, or should be, with love of country.

Like personal love, love of country has reciprocal obligations. A democracy is a sprawling community with expectations that we both participate in and benefit from the arrangements that we agree upon. It is part contract, in the sense of the Constitution and body of laws to which we stipulate, and part social contract, in the sense of the extra-legal understandings that guide our community values and social relationships. As with personal relationships, neighborhoods, towns and cities, national harmony is possible only to the extent that the arrangements provide reasonably for the needs and aspirations of the community’s members.

Our trajectory as a country reveals undulating progress, where imbalances that threatened the community were addressed by revolt, redress, recalibration and reconciliation. These things include the end of slavery, sliding back into Jim Crow, moving forward toward voting rights and civil rights, and now sliding back into an insincere complacency where conservatives are screaming “Enough already!”

That undulating progress continues only if the coming generations are encouraged to be loving critics, not compliant minions. Loving criticism demands honesty and transparency. The absolute worse thing for children is to pledge thoughtless devotion to a God, a flag or a nation. They should not required to say our country is “exceptional” when they can see that it is not. They should be encouraged to acknowledge their “white privilege” so that they might be willing to yield now and then. Believe me, kids of color have no problem identifying white privilege!

I find the broad rejection of DEI to be infuriating and bewildering. Diversity, equity and inclusion are prime among the aspirations that have animated nearly every bit of progress that might make the United States admirable. And this is what our government, with eager complicity among so-called progressives, is banishing.

If our kids must pledge something, how about this:

I pledge allegiance to the ongoing project to create a beloved community, founded on the principles of liberty, justice, diversity, equity and inclusion for all.

The post Pledge of Allegiance appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words. I’ll write the words too, because the pressure of my disgust needs relief.

The world saw a powerful display of speaking truth to power on Tuesday at the National Cathedral. Bishop Maryann Budde ended her sermon, looked directly at Donald Trump and gently, simply, asked him to show mercy toward our society’s most vulnerable. In the highly unlikely event that you’ve not viewed the video, I urge you to watch it here.

It is necessary to emphasize what she did not say. She did not insult, attack or demean Trump, his family members in attendance, or his political allies and supporters. She did not speak in opposition to any policy or political act.

She did ask for mercy and kindness, emphasizing the people, especially young people, who are currently afraid. She bravely included gay and transgender children, who fear the possible consequences of policy proposals and mean-spirited rhetoric. As you are likely aware, one unnecessarily cruel executive order erased transgender humans from existence.

Her most elaborate invitation was mercy for millions of immigrant workers who work the fields, prepare the food, and care for the youngest and oldest among us. She asked that this grace be extended to those with and without proper documentation. She did not propose amnesty or sanctuary. She merely asked for human kindness and understanding.

In an effort to connect the president with the nature of her request, she alluded to his own statements about the hand of God having intervened on his behalf when a bullet grazed his ear in a Pennsylvania field. Surely a man who felt the hand of a loving God in such a providential way would see the goodness of extending God’s grace to frightened children and to parents anticipating the terrible possibility of splintered families.

Surely not.

For contrast, I offer a partial list of the actions and intentions from Trump’s first days in office.

Immediate mobilization of the military to the Mexican border.

Termination of birthright citizenship for innocent children born and raised in the U.S.

Pardons or commutations for violent felons, including child molesters, involved in the January 6 insurrection attempt.

Suspend the Refugee Admissions Program

Bar asylum for people newly arriving at the southern border.

Resume a policy requiring people seeking asylum to wait in Mexico

Ensure that states carrying out the death penalty have a “sufficient supply” of lethal injection drugs.

Cuts in Medicaid for the poorest Americans

There are many more where, as often observed, the cruelty is the point.

Trump’s response was predictable. He demanded an apology. He said her sermon was “nasty.” Women who say anything slightly critical are always “nasty.” He called her a “ so-called Bishop” and a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater.”

That response was not what drove bile to the back of my throat. It was the facial expressions captured by the camera trained on the first pews. Trump was, at first, impassive. As her gentle but insistent words landed, impassivity turned to smirk. Melania looked dark, but usually seems without life or love. J.D. Vance raised his eyebrows and tried to engage Usha with a “Can you believe this?” whisper. Other Trumps – Eric, Don Jr., Ivanka, Tiffany and their families – fidgeted and looked irritated and incredulous. All these people, minus the “converted” Ivanka, claim to be Christians.

The contrast between this entitled, mean-spirited, arrogant, smug, ceaselessly ambitious and intentionally cruel assemblage and the modest, gentle woman at the pulpit was remarkable. For any person with a heart, the heartlessness was heartbreaking.

At a time of great human suffering, a group of the most powerful and privileged people on Earth cannot accept a dignified request to go about their lives and work with care and compassion for least powerful and privileged. She asked only that. Nothing more. Nasty woman.

I have no respect for anyone who supports and enables this callously inhumane regime.

The post Preaching Truth To Power appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Dear Pete,

I watched your confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Forces Committee with great interest, Don’t feel either singled out or special. I watch everything on Earth with great interest.

It was somewhat disappointing to hear your regular references to me. First, I have no place in the secular proceedings of Congress, as my inclusion contradicts the 1st Amendment of your Constitution. The fact that such contradictions are increasingly commonplace makes them more, not less, problematic.

Two aspects of your testimony were particularly troubling.

As you know, perhaps, the Bible refers to me as the Prince of Peace. I’m actually not a biblical literalist, as it gets many things wrong, but that part is essentially accurate. It is, therefore, deeply troubling that you uttered the words “warrior” and “lethal” throughout your answers. While justifications for war are seldom convincing, your posture and rhetoric were those of a man spoiling for a fight; your right, I suppose, but not a personal or professional quality with which I wish to be associated.

If you know your Bible, this may be familiar:

“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
   And the government will rest on His shoulders;
   And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
   Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”

I am that son.

While, God forbid, the government does not rest on My shoulders, it may partially rest on yours. I fear your inclinations seem more belligerent than peaceful.

The other thing that troubled me deeply was your apparent belief that I have offered or could offer you redemption.

“I have failed in things in my life, and thankfully I’m redeemed by my lord and savior Jesus.”

I might offer the retort,”Who says so?” Your public assertion, reverting to my original faith, takes a lot of chutzpah.

But let us stipulate that I can offer redemption. Given that redemption, whether through good works, 12-step programs or profound honesty and remorse, is possible, you have not earned such grace. (By the way, the claim that I could turn water to wine was metaphorical, not a suggestion to drink wine like water.)

In response to questions about your serial infidelities, sexual assault and many episodes of public and private drunkenness, you could only say, “Anonymous smear.” While that might have served as cover for your MAGA enablers, the so-called “smears” are not anonymous. Inconveniently for you, at least as redemption goes, I remind you that I’ve seen it all – and I don’t mean that in the, “Well, now I’ve seen it all!” sense. I’ve actually seen it all.

The victims of your aggressions, assaults and indecency were absent in the testimony, both by affidavit or by any acknowledgment or statement of remorse on your part. And to think that you dodged those issues in part by alluding to a child born of your affair with a mistress while married! Chutzpah on steroids.

Frankly, I’m quite tired of you mortals sliding by through false and convenient piety. The whole Catholic confession thing was not my idea, but a rather transparent “get out of jail free” exercise. It is particularly galling that in the gradual contortions of Christianity, only priests can gain absolution, which is rather like an unconditional pardon. I trust that you recognize the injustice in a system of belief that offers such relief only to the men who have committed the most venal of sins – molesting innocent children.

I did find the tribute to your wife quite touching. I hope you meant it, but for her sake I also hope for an airtight prenuptial agreement.

“Thank you to my incredible wife Jennifer, who has changed my life and been with me throughout this entire process. I love you sweetheart, and I thank God for you. And as Jenny and I pray together each morning, all glory—regardless of the outcome—belongs to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His grace and mercy abound each day. May His will be done.”

Being somewhat of a deist myself, the “outcome” to which you refer is not in my hands. But if My will were to be done, a misogynist, dishonest, serial womanizing, uncontrollable alcoholic would never be in close proximity to nuclear weapons.

Love,

Jesus

The post Dear Pete, appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

O Canada!

Our home and native land!

True patriot love in all of us command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,

The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

My roots are partially planted in Canadian soil.

I met my wife in Windsor, Ontario and we married there not long thereafter. We lived in Windsor briefly in 1971 and in the U.S. forever thereafter. She has retained Canadian citizenship, in part because the Vietnam debacle loomed large, activating the possibility of Canadian shelter. The possibility of Canadian shelter has since been a constant theme, although work and family kept us in the U.S.

Only by serendipity, our daughter also married a Canadian, although that was, unfortunately, not forever after. Their daughter now has dual citizenship, attended a Canadian university, and is now a second year law student in Vancouver, British Columbia. I suspect she will not again grace the United States with her sublime presence, except to visit now and then.

Our amoral, ignorant, felon-in-chief has suggested annexing Canada as the 51st state. Trump claimed on his Truth Social platform that “many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st state.” Many Canadian commenters think he’s joking or bluffing, including the threats to impose crippling tariffs.

Trump’s blathering imperialistic threats are like some reasonable Christian’s views of the Bible. Paraphrasing, I suggest that the threats needn’t be taken literally to be taken seriously.

(Although taking the threats seriously doesn’t preclude humor. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo suggested renaming the United States “Mexican America” after Trump offered up the “Gulf of America.”)

To twist the famous retort with which Lloyd Bentsen deflated Dan Quayle, “Believe me Donald, I know Canadians and they do not LOVE Canada being the 51st state.”  Even Canada’s Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, pegged as likely successor to Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister, agreed with Trudeau’s view: “Canada will never be the 51st state.” Poilievre might well be described as Trump with a smaller body and bigger brain, so he’s not stupid enough to fully align with someone as irredeemably ignorant as Donald.

Trump’s Monopoly Board ambitions also include Greenland and the Panama Canal. Here too, there is no roll of the dice that make those annexations probable. Trump’s bluster has always been bullshit. His real estate “empire” in New York and elsewhere has been largely comprised of developers that paid a licensing fee to slap his name on a building erected and managed by others. His erections have always been less significant than advertised.

The danger to Canada is not annexation. The danger is, and always has been, cultural and economic suffocation. And, to that extent, systems of government and sovereignty are almost incidental. The behemoth to Canada’s south needs no invasion to dominate its northern neighbor. It just needs unwitting cooperation. And that seems to be forthcoming.

Doug Ford, Ontario’s Progressive Conservative (??) Premier, pooh-poohs Trump’s threats, but is eager to succumb to the temptations of mutual greed, especially when it comes to energy. Perhaps not Trump himself, who has neither knowledge nor ideology, but his behind-the-scenes co-conspirators lust for Canada’s resources. They are not interested in poutine, maple syrup, curling or vast swathes of nearly uninhabitable tundra. They want oil, timber, water, minerals and more.

Even though the U.S. currently produces more crude oil than any other country, Canada’s reserves are 5 times – 5 times! – greater. Trump et al are ignorant about many things, but prescient when it comes to wealth. Our past foreign policy has had some balance, but the present and future is more about raiding someone else’s pantry after we’ve eaten everything in our own and essentially burned down the house when we finished. Los Angeles anyone? If you think current wildfires are not related to oil, money, greed and global warming, I’ve got a Trump Bible to sell you.

Yes, Trump is just doing his trademark bullying, using economic threats like tariffs and geopolitical “threats” about annexation to cut favorable deals for the U.S. and plunder Canadian resources and soil Canadian culture with the cheap bangles he’s used to dazzle his ignorant supporters.

So beware, you few Canadians who think Trump or Trump’s America seems a dandy prospect. His American supporters are, for the most part, stupid, believing that he wants to make America Great Again when he really just wants their money. That’s what he wants from you too.

Resist, resist!  Remember, nothing good has ever come from getting into bed with Donald Trump.

The post Oh? Canada? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The Trump administration aims to support the oil and gas industry. Trump’s policy mind has a track record of thwarting environmental activism, and his political allies profit from natural resources. The oil and gas industry have the same priorities, for the most part. Yellow Scene Magazine (YS) looks at the key information regarding environmental and energy policy “Trumping” into the 2025 republican enterprise. 

The American Petroleum Institute (API) published a five-point policy roadmap shortly after the 2024 presidential election. The roadmap prioritizes five ideal Trump-administration energy actions. These actions are protecting consumer choice, bolstering geopolitical strength, leveraging natural resources, reforming our permitting system, and advancing sensible tax policy.

“Leveraging natural resources” means revoking the Biden Administration’s offshore program: 

“Unfortunately, the previous administration impeded resource development, including implementing the weakest offshore leasing program in history. A pro-American energy approach is needed to initiate a new era of federal energy leasing. Oil and natural gas production from federal lands and waters offers tremendous benefits to all and is using the highest safety and environmental standards. Given the scale of our resource base, opportunities for development stretch decades into the future.”

Permitting reform fastens faulty energy infrastructure repairs: 

“Americans can’t drive down the road without witnessing firsthand our failing infrastructure. Unfortunately, it is even worse than potholes and crumbling bridges. Burdensome regulations and government red tape have made it impossible to build anything in this country. We need smart, comprehensive permitting reform that ensures transparency, predictability, timeliness, and durability.”

Advanced “sensible tax policy” faithfully withstands American-produced energy:

“Industry investment rests on sound, predictable tax policy. With many key tax provisions expiring at the end of next year, it is critical they be extended to ensure the next chapter of our energy future is once again written here in America.”

Project 2025 And The National Picture

Some members of the oil and gas industry are more progressive than others. Not all of them care about conserving profits more than environmental justice. Some care about a balanced economy that also benefits the environment. Trump’s all-the-above energy solution supports sustainable energy sources. This republican agenda includes creating jobs, maintaining domestic supply, and boosting the economy. 

A Law360 report suggests that citizens should expect oil and gas decisions to look more like merger and acquisition (M&A) business deals. However nuanced the case may be, Trump’s agenda is to ramp up fossil fuels and resist sustainable energy emerging from the hottest year on record. 

“Just days after the election, we are already seeing big polluters emboldened by Donald Trump’s agenda to increase costly fossil fuel use and devastate our public health and our environment,” Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous said in a press release. 

“Ramping up coal use would mean higher monthly costs for ratepayers, more deadly pollution in our communities, and more climate chaos, all for the sake of boosting profits for coal executives.”

The coal industry is weakening because it is an archaic model. Other sources of natural gas are more affordable. Many of the people in control of the energy industry are right-leaning conservatives — the type of people who vote for Trump because their interest is maximizing profits. The fossil fuel industry has a disproportionate financial and lobbying influence, according to AmericanProgress.org. 

This influence undermines popular views and hinders climate action proposals. With Republicans dominating all three branches of The U.S. federal government, the authors of Project 2025 intend to self-regulate the interests of conservatives. Even though Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, his track record of deregulation will continue to put profit over people.

California And Colorado Lead The Fight to Protect The Environment

During Trump’s first presidency, California won most of its court cases to protect environmental regulations. 

“The good news for California,” said Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor and director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, “is that the first Trump administration lost 83% of its court cases involving attempts to roll back environmental regulations.” Neither the Bush nor the Trump administration impeded the state’s defense of air quality and climate change. States’ rights’ survival is the fittest. 

“When the Trump administration attempted to roll back California’s standards, many major automakers chose to negotiate with the state instead to avoid the uncertainty.” Cal Matters reports.

 “The state in 2020 finalized an agreement with BMW, Ford, Honda, Volkswagen Group of America, and Volvo, which agreed to follow the state’s standards through 2026 regardless of what the federal government did.” Some major corporations care about the well-being of the American people, after all. Although, actions speak louder than words.

Colorado boasts some of the cleanest air quality in the world. But this state has more hurdles to overcome than the political powerhouse known as California. 

“Despite Colorado operators producing some of the cleanest molecules of energy in the world under stringent environmental protections,” Dan Haley, the president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association trade group, told The Denver Gazette, “federal permit processing and leasing significantly slowed during the Biden administration, with only one lease auction held in Colorado.” 

“For far too long, federal lands in Colorado have been leased to big polluters for pennies on the dollar — often with disastrous long-term results for our climate and communities,” Conservation Colorado Executive Director Kelly Nordini stated in The Colorado Sun.

“President Biden’s order pausing this outdated practice is long overdue.” Democratic change comes out like the minimal toothpaste in a shared bathroom. Industry and local officials report that blocking the activity on federal lands responsible for a significant portion of oil and gas in the United States would devastate employment and slash government budgets.

“Colorado’s oil and gas industry understands the importance of responsible energy production and operates under some of the most stringent regulatory standards in the world,” API Colorado Director Kait Schwartz told The Denver Gazette. 

“While we support balanced federal energy policies, we will continue to lead by example by maintaining our commitment to responsible energy production.” 

The Trump Administration does not care much about sustainability. Individuals and states play a crucial role in sustaining environmental justice. Standing solidarity ensures corporations’ monetary interests do not override Mother Earth’s needs. 

The post Preventing An Energy Collapse Under The 2nd Trump Administration appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

[ Local ]

• During a ribbon cutting ceremony, Boulder City Council member Tara Winer was attacked by man shouting racist comments againt the Asian business. Man was arrested on the spot and Weiner suffered minor injuries
• Doherty High School in CO Springs bans cell phone use by students in growing trends across Colorado and the nation
•  CO Rep. Steven Woodrow, D. successfully uses claim of “legislative privilege” to dodge paying a fine on speeding ticket in an attempt to point out a lawful loophole
• Rep. Yadira Caraveo bravely admits she has sought treatment for mental health issues, helping destigmatize treatment and showing even leaders among us can struggle

[ Election]

• Trump claims he can interfere with Presidential Elections, stating that he had the right to attempt to overturn 2020 results
• Colorado to keep brain-worm infested RFK Jr. on Presidental ballot after his bid to be on ballot, then to retract from ballot, fails
• Trump hush money payments trial is delayed until after the election in November for some inexplicable reason

[ National ]

• Wildfires erupt in California, your editor can’t go outside without seeing plumes of smoke
• New Mexico police chief Harold Medina is fully exonerated by his department after he turned off his body camera, ran red light, and crashed into car in intersection seriously injuring other driver
• U.S. job growth numbers come up weaker than expected with adjustments to last month and low numbers this month as well
• Too many shootings to keep track of in sad state of affairs in world’s richest nation
• Hunter Biden pleads guilty to charges, but hey, at least he was never given political power by his father… looking at you Jared and Ivanka

[ International ]

• Scandal erupts in stand-up comedy world as an unknown number were paid by Russia to disparage Democrats, liberal ideals. See: Russel Brand
• Israeli strike on displaced civilians in Gaza kills at least 19, likely helping create a whole new generation of conflict going forward
• Rebecca Cheptegei, 2024 Ugandan marathon runner, dies after former male partner douses her in gasoline and immolates her
• Ukraine counterattacks and invades part of Russia, shocking Putin and changing the scope of the battlefield
• Planned attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna was thwarted by authorities, the concert was canceled but thankfully no attack occurred

Debate quotes from Kamala/Trump

“He beat us by a whicker. It was a terrible thing,”
–  Trump finally admits he lost the 2020 election, although it is doubtful he even realizes what he is saying.

“If I designed the tax system, I would be tens of billions of dollars poorer than I avm. The tax system could be more progressive without significantly damaging the incentive to do fantastic things”
– Bill Gates, Billionaire.

“Concerned for his safety, he sent his a pin drop to his co-workers already descending,” 
–  Chaffee County Search & Rescue on CO man left behind by his company on high altitude hike.

“I want the war to stop. I want to save lives,” 
– Trump, when asked if he wants  Ukraine to win the war with Russia, evading a clear stance.

“If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now,” 
– Harris sharply refutes, claiming Trump’s leadership would have emboldened Russia.

“She has a plan to confiscate everybody’s gun,” 
– Trump, accusing Harris of supporting widespread gun confiscation.

By the Numbers

88%

Increase in billionaire’s wealth since 2020

2/3

Elon Musk now controls the vast majority of satellites in space, most of them being starlink communication satellites

1.3 Billion

Amount recovered by Treasury Department from unpaid taxes on the wealthiest Americans in 2024

$25 Million

Harris campaign has raised so much money they are donating $25 million to down-ballot candidates

3.8%

Percent of Americans that believe we need a Civil War to straighten out the country. They are an insignificant minority that should not be given voice or power

The post Month In Review | September 2024 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

[ Local ]

• CO Springs settles $2 milloin lawsuit from three officers beating Black man during a traffic stop
• Boulder plans to install “bi-directional” car chargers that will be able to both charge vehicles and power buildings
•  Ranchers bemoan the loss of half a dozen cattle, call for halts, after wildlife experts reintroduce native Grey wolves to Colorado in a move that will help restore natural balance and strengthen the ecosystem
• Colorado prisoners injured while performing hard labor at below minimum wage for corporations have little recourse to sue, cannot protest, and can be sent to solitary confinement as punishment for not working
  The Northern Lights make an extremely rare appearance over Colorado skies putting on a natural light show for anyone with clear skies

[ National ]

• Trump makes several statements over the month, indicating he will revoke any LGBTQ+ protections he can, tells donors he supports Israel “crushing” Palestinians, and will deport students for protesting
• Supreme Court rules that a gerrymandered South Carolina district can stay rigged, which in effect excludes thousands of Black voters
• Biden and Trump agree to a debate in June, likely to change absolutely no one’s opinion of either candidate
• Judge Cannon indefinitely postpones trial on the former President’s mishandling of classified information, in a sign that our courts are totally healthy and functioning as they should to protect democracy and hold power accountable…

[ International ]

• U.S. State Department states it is logical to conclude that Israel has committed war crimes and violated international law, yet weapons are still being sent to the belligerent party
• Iranian president dies in a fiery mountain helicopter crash during foggy conditions on a mountain range near Armenia
• Horrifyingly, but not surprisingly, Human Rights Watch states that Israeli attacks on aid being sent to Palestinians are “not unusual”
• Assassination attempt against Slovakia’s far-right Prime Minister leaves him gravely wounded but luckily still alive, attacker was arrested immediately

Quotes

“These efforts target and single out an already vulnerable group of kids and, if successful, will place an additional administrative burden on our already-overworked teachers, coaches, and school administrators” – Bruce Parker of Out Boulder on anti_LGBTQ+ ballot initiative

“…under new anti-terrorism legislation just passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, that kind of hard-hitting investigative journalism could cost The Intercept our nonprofit status” – The Intercept about  losing funding over their criticism of the Israeli war in Gaza

“I used to believe I was born biologically… upon reflecting on my experiences I was convinced God had sent me” – Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, the world’s largest democracy

“All Colorado parents should be aiming to remove their children from public education” – email directive from director of special initiatives for the Colorado GOP

By the Numbers

$2 Million / 17 Children

City of Uvalde settles with the families of 17 children killed in the mass shooting that continued because of incompetent law enforcement

34 of 34

Guilty counts for the first ever felony conviction of a former president

2025

Project 2025 openly calls for an authoritarian take-over of the federal government following the next Republican presidential victory, remaking the presidency using executions and the military to quell opposition

50th / 1.1%

Colorado saw the second smallest increase in teachers’ salaries nationwide, at just over 1%, ranking 50 out of 51 (including Washington D.C.)

-18%

Property crime rates in Boulder dropped by almost 1/5 since 2020, but report notes violent crime rates have risen slightly over the same period

The post Month in Review | May 2024 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

[ Local ]

• Colorado Senate Republicans block a measure that would have allowed child sexual abuse victims to sue their abusers past the current statute of limitations
• Elizabeth School District decides to replace Scholastic Book Fair with a conservative book group, citing concerns about LGBTQ+ stories, Critical Race Theory, and “dark magic”
• GreenLatinos celebrate their 15-year anniversary advocating for safer communities, cleaner transit, and racial equity
• Paramedic who injected the lethal dose of Ketamine that killed Elijah McClain avoids jail time and is sentenced to 14 months of work release and probation instead
• Colorado ranchers are upset after newly released wild wolves killed a handful of calves, the Ranchers will be compensated for their losses. Wolves are key in maintaining balance in the ecosystem

[ National ]

• Protests, sit-ins, and demonstrations against the Israeli war in Gaza rock multiple campuses across the nation, sparked by Columbia University students, with authorities responding variously from mass arrests to apathy
• News organization NPR is in the news themselves following a scathing op-ed by a former editor, and a NYT piece on the supposed left-wing bias and internal division of the newsroom
• Trump is ruled in contempt of court, threatened with jail time, by the judge during his current Supreme Court trial after Trump refused to stop posting comments about the ongoing trial on social media
• Arizona lawmakers vote to repeal Civil-War era abortion ban, with some Republicans breaking party lines to vote with Democrats to advance the measure after state court previously upheld the ban
• O.J. Simpson passes away, ending his life-long search for Nicole Brown’s killer

[ International ]

• Israel and Iran exchanged missile, drone attacks prompting a brief scare that the war would widen, however tensions seemed to have calmed after both strikes supposedly caused minimal damage
• Haiti forms a transitional government looking to rebuild major institutions after a massive collapse in power and take-over by numerous warring violent groups
• Trials for international money laundering by the mega-wealthy stemming from the Panama Papers investigation began earlier this month, nearly a decade after the secret off-shore accounts were first revealed
• Wanna-be strongman Erdogan is voted out in Türkiye (Turkey) following latest election results in a positive sign for the nation straddling Europe and the Middle East

Quotes

“I take firearm safety very seriously. This is a humbling experience and I will reaffirm my commitment to responsible handling procedures” – CO State Rep. Don Wilson (R) on leaving his loaded handgun in a Capitol building restroom

“I’ll give you the truth why I’m not Speaker, It’s because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old” – Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on the reason he was ousted earlier this year

“People have to stop having such thin skins… What’s more is we also believe that being offended is a sufficient reason for attacking something — but actually, everything offends somebody, always” Salman Rushdie during his appearance on the Daily Show, talking about the person who attacked him

By the Numbers

2 Feet

More accurate measure of sea-level chops an average of 2 feet off of Colorado’s 14k+ foot peaks

81, 89

Colorado Ammendment  81 — an abortion ban — fails to gather enough signatures, while 89 enshrining abortion access, is successful at getting on the ballot for this November

55,000

Residents near Boulder who had their power cut by Excel Energy without proper notice for a pre-planned outage in early April

$96 Billion

Amount in latest military aid approved by the US to send to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan

116°

Temperatures soar to unbearable heights in the Philippines. Southeast Asia is expected to see already life-threatening temperatures rise in the coming decades

The post Month in Review | March 2024 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Support for Donald Trump has always been unfathomable, but “unfathomability” has reached dizzying new heights with the Trump-as-Jesus phase.

This week a news piece on the Jesus phase featured an interview with a woman who oozed sincerity.  How could she not support Trump when Jesus died for her?  Connecting those dots requires a web of synapses beyond my ken, but she was baffled that anyone would fail to see the logic.

The “logic” derives, of course, from Trump’s relentless characterization of his prosecutors as persecutors. “Witch hunt” has faded from favor, as the most fevered MAGA fans are not necessarily big “witch supporters.”  They are, however, big Jesus supporters, so Trump’s persecution pageant is a big hit.  It evidently doesn’t matter that Jesus was persecuted for being an exceptionally good man, while Trump is being persecuted for being an exceptionally bad man.  It’s just so unfair!

Before departing the gratuitously snide portion of this piece, I cannot resist sharing my unbidden images of Trump-as-Jesus on the cross.  That would take some mighty carpentry!  Go ahead, try to unsee that.

Which brings me to . . .

Inadequate attention is being paid to the systematic insertion of religion into American education. Among the most recent incursions comes the Bible instruction in Ohio’s public schools, courtesy of a group called LifeWise Academy.  They dodge the possible constitutional challenges by conducting the programs “off-campus,” thereby conforming with decades-old Supreme Court rulings.  Such initiatives are in the works nationwide, along with vouchers supporting religious schools, religious charters supported by tax dollars and other evangelical mischief.

I recognize the risk, and possible offense given by, of tying the Trump-as-Jesus phenomenon to Bible classes, but the link seems irrefutable.  For the sake of civility and family good will, I stipulate that religious folks are among my friends and – especially – among my most beloved family members.  One of my dearest friends was the late Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., who would find the Trump-as-Jesus notion deeply offensive. He was also prominent among those progressive Christians who maintain that you can’t take the Bible seriously if you take it literally. 

A favorite Coffin quote is especially germane.  “The problem with small Christian schools is that they produce small Christians!”

The majority of Catholics – perhaps 85% –  also decline literal interpretation in favor of instructive allegory, moral guidance, deeply spiritual inspiration and some magnificent music!.

But neither Coffin nor my religious family members are complicit in the intentional assault on the separation of church and school.  That campaign is the work of evangelicals,  particularly fundamentalists.  And therein lies the relationship to the success of theTrump-as-Jesus tactic.

Much of religion, admittedly including the beliefs of those I love and respect, demands a degree of submission to authority.  Most often the “authority” is confirmed through faith, not evidence. In its more innocuous manifestations, the allusions to faith are unarguable. That’s the nature of faith, and even an atheist – as I am – must submit to other’s experiences.  After all, my experiences with love and music are not “provable,” but they are as real as any dimension of my life.

But the architects of the religious incursion into public education and politics have submission to authority as the central, unassailable characteristic of their belief system.  They rail against the “homosexual agenda” and transgenderism because a higher authority tells them so.  Neither reason nor humanity is necessary.  Their Holy Father and sanctimonious pastors know best.

This is why critical thinking, including Critical Race Theory, has no place in their educational intentions. It’s why books that challenge their “authority” may be banned or burned. It is why seemingly decent people will discard a family member – their own child – because of who they are and whom they love.

It’s not Bible study per se – although I often wonder why it takes so damned much studying!  I mean really, a couple of times through should reveal the gist.  Religious studies, including the Bible, Koran, andTorah, can certainly have a place in education. But such studies should be comparative and critically consumed, not presented as infallibility.  But that is not what fundamentalists and their political handmaids and maidens intend. They wish to impose their religious authoritarianism on everyone else.

And this is why the insidious creep of God into the classroom is so dangerous.  When submission to authority is demanded of children, they will find it a hard habit to break. They will be susceptible to the next authority, even in the form of a disgusting charlatan like Donald Trump.

He presents himself as Christlike in that he will endure these persecutions for his devoted followers.  He is just like Jesus! (And he will sell them golden sneakers and Bibles too!)

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The post Trump As Jesus appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision to hear Donald Trump’s absurd immunity case is disheartening. Among rationale observers there is little doubt about the lack of merit to the appeal. Many believe it is evidence of a Court in service of Trump’s ambitions, choosing to be complicit in the delay tactics that Trump is employing in all his legal cases. I’m not so sure of that motive on the Court’s part, but no person can argue the point either way other than through pure speculation.

Dismay, anger and confusion consume the commentariat as lawyers and political analysts opine constantly. There are two primary concerns: Why did they take the case in light of the apparently sound, thorough opinion of the Court of Appeals? And, why did they delay the start of arguments until April 22? Assuming they affirm the extant ruling, the timeline going forward from that point makes a pre-election trial highly improbable. (If they overturn the lower court, Trump’s immunity will set a precedent that has unimaginable hazards. I proceed from the view that affirming this ridiculous iteration of immunity is beyond the mischief capacity of even this Court, and that’s saying something!)

So why did they take the case, given the airtight reasoning of the Court of Appeals? I doubt the intent is to directly enable the pathological narcissist who is claiming immunity. I hold the entirely speculative opinion that even the most rabid conservative justices – Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch . . . – are bright enough to see that he is manifestly unfit for office.

There is some merit to the argument that Trump’s reelection would allow Alito and Thomas to retire, knowing the Court would retain a Christian Nationalist majority. And the ethically compromised jurists would then be free to openly enjoy the lavish beneficence of conservative billionaires, although that golden well might dry up when the quid pro quo is unavailable. If I were a conservative billionaire, I could find far more useful and enjoyable travel companions than a retired, self-loathing Black man and his insurrection-abetting spouse. Gratuitous, but true.

So, why? I believe that the Justices, perhaps including some or all of the liberal minority, see this case as so pivotal in American history that it should have the SCOTUS stamp on it for posterity, even if it is a rubber stamp on a cleanly decided Appeals Court decision

While that may be a minority opinion on those questions, the next minority opinion is a doozy.

I believe delaying the Washington, D.C. insurrection case may be better than expediting the case.

A great many legal experts view the case as the most difficult that Trump faces. It is unquestionably the most serious, but the legal complexities are daunting. The charges are without precedent and the potential defenses are more plausible than in the other cases. I don’t suggest that you or I would find them convincing, but the possibility of a jury seeing reasonable doubt is quite real.

If the trial concluded before the election and Trump was “exonerated,” even because of a juror or two, his claims of persecution and witch hunt would be vindicated. That is a real risk. If he were to be convicted, an appeal is absolutely certain, preventing any satisfying closure. The seductive fantasy of the Orange Man in an orange suit is . . . well . . . just a fantasy, at least before November.

Either way, despite the understandable frothing on the political left, the delay, the possible outcome, and the proceedings themself will have no material impact on the presidential election.

There is no seismic shift in the offing. Those of us with a modicum of sense and perspicacity already know the facts. We watched the speech, we watched the attack, we read the texts, we already knew the dismal inclinations and history of the man. No person in her right mind would view an acquittal and say, “Damn! He’s innocent. I think I’ll just go right ahead and vote for Donald now.”

And a conviction would not convince the brain-scrambled MAGA zealots to suddenly see the errors of their affections. It would just be more “evidence” of the malice of the dark state and they would double-down on their delusional worship.

Best, I believe, to let the facts sit with the rational electorate and not risk a trial that would not move the needle in a positive direction anyway.

The preservation of democracy will not be found in the jury box. It can only come from the ballot box.

The post Courts Won’t Save Us appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

[ Local ]

• We say goodbye to Boulder Beat, one of the best local publications around, and wish their founder the best of luck going forward. Local media needs support now more than ever
• Mike Lynch steps down as Colorado GOP minority leader after surviving a no-confidence vote, but still being urged by colleagues that his time is up
• Erie sued over their town charter by Miguel Zuniga who claims his constitutional rights are being violated by the elected official’s terms ending dates
• The NAACP Boulder chapter calls for a review of the interim Chief of Police over his involvement in Elijah McClain’s death and subsequent mishandling of the case. Can the Police Oversight Panel finally live up to its name?
• Boulder homeless programs are set to run out of Covid-era funding as homelessness rises across the state and nation

[ National ]

• John Stewart returns to The Daily Show to help cover the 2024 Election cycle on Monday nights as a much-needed voice for democracy and common sense
• Nikki Haley loses to “None of these candidates” in a performative, rather than substantive, poll result in Nevada 
• Wayne LaPierre, long-time head of the NRA, resigns after years of allegations of tax fraud and misuse of donated funds
• Democrats win special House election to replace the ousted George Santos in New York
• Trump, Biden win all major primaries setting up a rematch for the oldest-ever duo of candidates, with many voters concerned about the ages of both
• Former coaches for the Patriots, Bill Belichick, and the Crimson Tide, Nick Saban, leave their long-time Championship winning teams. Both are considered the best ever at the NFL and College levels respectively.

[ International ]

• US retaliatory strikes in the Middle East against the Houthis, and other Iranian proxies prompt concerns of a widening war
• Concerns that Elon Musk’s Starlink system is being used by Russia again bring to the forefront the inherent danger of one man having so much power over things like national security communications
• 737 Max grounded after a window fell off mid-flight, luckily no one died. Investigations revealed missing bolts among other problems with the fleet
• U.N. rules on South Africa’s genocide accusations against Israel, ordering Israel to prevent genocide but not to stop the invasion in a toothless proclamation.  

By the Numbers

$83.3 million

Amount Trump ordered to pay E. Jean Carrol for comments he made denying her accusations against him

216,000

Jobs added in December, stronger than many predicted

4th

Broomfield County ranked in the top 5 healthiest places to live in the US

500+

Journalists let go from various organizations in January including the Los Angeles Times, Politico, and Sports Illustrated

81, 77

Ages of Biden, Trump, our two realistic choices for president

Small Talk

“I said, ‘Everybody’s gonna pay.’ They said, ‘Well, if we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They couldn’t believe the answer. ‘No, I would not protect you,’ Trump recalled … In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills” 

– Trump tells NATO members he would encourage a Russian attack over payment issues

“Let me tell you something about acting. I was doing the Showtime movie, Hot Ice with Anne Archer — never once touched my per diem. I’d go to craft service, got some raw veggies, bacon, cup of soup, baby, I had a stew goin’!” 

– The late Carl Weathers as a comedic version of himself on TV show Arrested Development

“The state has admitted a relationship existed. So what remains to be proven is the existence and extent of any financial benefit, again if there even was one. Because I think it’s possible that the facts alleged by the defendant could result in disqualification. I think an evidentiary hearing must occur to establish the record on those core allegations” 

– Judge in Trump case after discovering inappropriate relationship between DA, Prosecutor

The post Month in Review | February 2024 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

There are many legitimate concerns that we are drifting – perhaps plummeting – toward autocracy.  Certainly Donald Trump’s declaration of dictatorial intent is a flashing warning sign.

There are also legitimate concerns of a steady drift toward theocracy, given the majority Catholic leanings on the Supreme Court and the unfathomable influence of Christian nationalism and evangelicalism on American politics.

And there is the reality of our partial plutocracy, where monied interests exert explicit and implicit control over nearly every aspect of our lives.  This has been true for many years, but on steroids since the Citizens United ruling legitimized corporate bribery.

But these various “ . . . . cracies” are dwarfed by the irreversible “cracy” taking hold in the nation today:  Idiotocracy.

The most visible manifestations of Idiotocracy are found in the Trump phenomenon, best exemplified by the man himself.  The man is disgracefully, remarkably, irredeemably, frighteningly ignorant.  He is intellectually illiterate, astoundingly incurious and bereft of even cursory knowledge of the government he disdains.  His supporters are an enthusiastically compliant flock, having all of those traits themselves.

But those potshots are too easy.  The greater Idiotocratic threats to our formerly democratic republic are found in the steady assault on fact and reason within various public and private institutions.

A recent example is in the dual SCOTUS cases that show the Court prepared, once again, to demolish decades of precedent by shattering the so-called Chevron Doctrine.  Without getting too far into the weeds, the Chevron Doctrine essentially requires that the implementation and interpretation of regulatory statutes give deference to the expertise of civil servants and others with scientific training and experience.   In other words, scientists should make environmental and other judgments rather than, say, Lauren Boebert.  But the arguments this week seemed to point toward the Boebert approach.

The money behind the assault on Chevron comes from Charles Koch and his oil and gas buddies, who are regularly rankled by pesky experts who point out that they are making the planet uninhabitable.  Why should they or anyone else defer to the lifelong experts at the EPA when Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar and all the other Rhodes Scholars they bought in Congress can better interpret complex statutes?

The perpetuity of the Idiotocracy is the project of the assault on education.  Here too, folks like the Koch Bros. and other billionaires like the Waltons, are hard at work creating an endless supply of useful idiots for the Idiotocracy by letting one generation of low information customers choose low or no-information schools for their children.  The vast majority of school vouchers, for example, are used for religious schools, many of which deny climate change, deny evolution and often have only one textbook – and you can guess which one.

The Idiotocractic assault on education aims to produce more citizens – if you can call them that – who emulate Nikki Haley and erase slavery from the list of Civil War causes.  The very successful Idiotocratic attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion have even convinced some Democrats that we don’t need no darned affirmative action and let’s just judge everyone on their SAT scores.

The Idiotocrats use the “who could argue?” language of parental rights to dumb down school libraries and curricula.  Here, as with the dismantling of the Chevron Doctrine, marginalizing the wisdom, training and experience of real educators is the point.  Who, after all, is better equipped to decide what is taught in schools: an actual teacher or a parent from the Westboro Baptists, who knows that God kills soldiers because of them gays?  I exaggerate only very, very slightly.

There are multiple dimensions to the right wing threats to our republic.  Backlash to decades of racial progress, gay rights and women’s rights animates a great deal of contemporary conservative politics.    

But the Idiotocracy capitalizes on another reality of the MAGA enthusiasts.  For many decades – perhaps for all of time – a large slice of the American pie has been comprised of people who are tired of the eggheads and damn snooty folks in their Ivory Towers telling them what’s what.  Nothing new there, but their bitching used to be confined to the back fence, the local bar or the four-wheeler club (don’t take offense – I’m sure there are a few Bernie Sanders four-wheelers).

But now the Idiotocrats hold power.  The Supreme Idiot was president and may be again. The GOP side of Congress is riddled with Idiotocrats and the rest of their seats are filled by cowards.

It is the Idiotocracy we should fear most because its growing influence will enable the autocracy, the theocracy and the plutocracy.   When asked what kind of government we’d been given, Benjamin Franklin famously responded, “A democracy, if you can keep it.”

Not looking so good.

The post Fear the Idiotocracy! appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

[LOCAL]

• Person breaks into and fires a gun inside the Colorado Supreme Court, causing extensive damage but thankfully no injuries
• Loveland to pay out $400,000 for DUI arrest in which driver was not actually under the influence of a substanceColorado conservatives have gone off the deep end, calling for law enforcement to enforce “obscenity laws” to remove books in Colorado Springs school districts
• Officer Nathan Woodyard, who was acquitted in the death of Elijah McClain, has been reinstated back on the Aurora police department
• In another right-wing assault on democracy, an La Plata County elections official and the Boulder County GOP have refused to certify the November election results
• Colorado House Speaker McCluskie has Representatives Epps and Marshall, all Democrats, removed from Judicial Committee over their actions supporting protests against the Israeli war in Gaza

[NATIONAL]

• UC Berkeley scientists make breakthrough in understanding the language of whales by identifying vowels and other linguistic ways to encode information, ie. communicate
• Colorado invokes the 14th Amendment to block Trump appearing on the ballot for his attempted coup, Michigan allows him to remain on ballot
• Anti-gay Mom’s for Liberty founder is found to have filmed lesbian sex tapes when she was younger, we’re not kink shaming, just pointing out her hypocrisy
• Biden pardons marijuana offenses that have occurred on Federal lands, adding to his pardons for non-violent drug offenses from last year
• Harvard President Claudine Gay, resigned after credible allegations of plagiarism emerge from her academic past

[INTERNATIONAL]

• Earthquake strikes Japan killing dozens right after New Years
• In a step forward for the Catholic church, the Pope allows priests to bless same-sex marriages
• Thailand, already known as being an LGBTQ+ friendly nation, moves towards legalizing same-sex marriages. They are the first to do so in Southeast Asia
• NASA data shows that Russia has stolen nearly 8 million tons of wheat from occupied territories in Ukraine, disrupting global supply
• US, allies strike Houthi targets in Yemen in response to attacks on cargo ships as part of wider Israel – Gaza war

By the Numbers

5 – Gray wolves released into the wild on the Front Range in an effort to rehabilitate the natural lands through a balanced ecosystem

900+ – Threats of abuse, including 64 death threats, aimed at Colorado Secretary of State Jenna Griswold after Trump is barred from running for President in the State

300 – Miles away Boebert’s new district is from her current home. She is switching to seek a safer seat to expound her ideas from

10 –Years ago Colorado legalized recreational cannabis use, the first state in the nation to do so

$90,000 – Amount embezzled by Eugene Weekly employee, forcing the 40 year old weekly magazine to shut down

Small Talk

“I didn’t want to believe it at first, but God may allow our nation to enter into a time of judgment for our collective sins… America needs to recognize that we have much to repent for if we want to avoid the judgment we so clearly deserve…”

– House Speaker Mike Johnson threatens the US may be smote by God

“When it comes to the orangutan, 4-month old Siska, Berani, you are the father!”

– Maury Povich announces DNA results of paternity test on young Denver Zoo orangutan

“Any civilian deaths are regrettable, [but] it is inevitable that mistakes will be made.”

– Israeli government spokesperson on Christmas Eve airstrike that hit refugee camp, killing nearly 90 people

“Once we realized some of the statistics in these mountain regions, in the Rockies in particular with people calling it the Suicide Belt, it was like, if we do this right, this is something that can help people”

– Filmmaker Brett Rapkin on his film, The Paradise Paradox” that highlights the high suicide rates in Rocky Mountain states

“Donald Trump, while holding the office of president, used his business entities to pocket millions of dollars from foreign states and royalty and never once went to Congress to seek its consent.”

– Rep. Jamie Raskin on the Oversight Committee’s report that Trump violated emoluments clause by accepting foreign money from China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other nations

The post Month in Review | December 2023 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

[LOCAL]

• Aaron Brockett wins a narrow mayoral race in Boulder’s first ever ranked-choice voting system
• Thornton City Council results eliminates mayor Kulmann’s majority power bloc, dropping from 6-3 to now a minority of 4-5
• King Sooper shooter pleads not guilty, claiming insanity l Change in Boulder city energy code will eliminate gas power in most new buildings to lessen impact on environment
• Colorado Judge allows Trump to appear on statewide ballot for 2024 Presidential race, rejecting efforts to bar the insurrectionist from running again
• Erie and Superior both approve Home Rule Charters, allowing more autonomy for the city governments

[NATIONAL]

• Henry Kissinger finally dies, here’s to hoping hell exists
• Mike Johnson, MAGA Republican from Louisiana, is finally voted in as the next Speaker of the House after a tumultuous vacancy
• New York City mayor Eric Adams had his phone seized by the FBI in a campaign finance violation investigation
• Joe Manchin will not run for reelection, a move that will have implications next year when a Republican is highly likely to take his Senate seat
• Voters in Ohio pass a ballot measure in ensuring access to abortion in big win for reproductive rights access in the midwest
• Trump takes the stand in New York civil trial while losing his temper during and ranting on social media after, surprising noone but rightly prompting a gag order from the judge
• Hollywood Writers and United Auto Workers strikes — admittedly very different groups — both came to end with very favorable outcomes to auto workers unions and concessions to the writers unions in two wins for labor

[INTERNATIONAL]

• Israel surrounds Gaza City in an attempt to remove Hamas from power in Palestine, sparking another humanitarian crisis in the process
• Pod of Orcas sink yet another boat near the Strait of Gibraltar in an apparent coordinated attack on the vessel
• Sudan’s Darfur region erupts into ethnic violence, continuing this century’s first genocide and widening violence in the country
• Argentina elects far-right libertarian as president, his platform includes abolishing the national currency, shutting down the national bank, and slashing public services. Small Talk

“We’re going to make sure every Colorado voter knows about how Boebert, Buck, and Lamborn turned their backs on Colorado by supporting a MAGA extremist for speaker.” – Colorado Democratic Party statement on new House Speaker

“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking.” – The late Anthony Bourdain on Henry Kissinger

“Coloradans are looking to us to reduce property taxes and provide relief to families, and as we always have, we will work to deliver solutions that protect and enhance the Colorado we love.” – Gov. Polis on defeat of Prop HH

“Saving approximately 100 people in Colorado this year outweighs the aggregate harm of minimal expenditures of time and sacrifice business opportunities.” – Judge John Kane on his ruling to uphold Colorado’s three day waiting period for gun purchases “No refugees in Jordan.

No refugees in Egypt.” – Jordan’s King Abdullah said at newconference regarding Palestinians fleeingthe war in Gaza

By the Numbers

$5.14 Million – 2024 budget for the city of Boulder
190 – Bodies found improperly stored at Return To Nature funeral home in Colorado Springs
1 guilty, 2 acquitted – Results of the three police officers trials for the Elijah McClain murder
$1.7 million – Amount raised by 2023 Weld County Fair’s Junior Livestock Sale, breaking previous fundraising records
$15 – Average cost of a burger in Colorado according to Colorado Sun article

The post Month in Review | November 2023 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Storyshare with Colorado Times Recorder, by Erik Maulbetch, original publication Oct. 14, 2023

This weekend Colorado’s most prominent multi-issue progressive advocacy organization will celebrate two decades’ worth of delivering digital communications, rallying progressives for real-life events, and generating headlines with memorable political stunts.

Fittingly, the festivities are taking place at the newly remodeled and reimagined Casa Bonita, an aging Colorado kitsch icon that COVID couldn’t kill. From waterfall-high dives to pirate-gorilla theater, Colfax’s pink landmark inspired so many laughs and passion that it found a way to survive. Progressive change requires the same driving forces: people have to care enough to get involved and they have to have enough fun to keep going in the face of footnoted reports and the blandest of talking points.

ProgressNow was ahead of its time. Established in the early-ish days of the internet as Colorado’s largest online progressive advocacy organization, PNC leveraged the efficiency of low-cost digital communications to push progressive messages to Coloradans and when it engaged people in real life, it tried to make them laugh.

Most of the 75,000 fans who showed up to watch their Broncos take on the Dolphins in November of 2008 weren’t thinking about the upcoming election, at least until a plane buzzed over Mile High Stadium towing a banner that read “McCain is Raiders Fan.” Some chuckled and some no doubt booed, but perhaps a handful were reminded to go vote, and the same goes for thousands more who saw it in the news the next day.

Founded by attorney Michael Huttner in 2003, the organization has had seven executive directors over its time. It’s currently helmed by Sara Loflin, who came to PNC from a long career in environmental advocacy.

Best known for its frank and humorous skewering of conservatives, PNC specializes in exposing candidates’ weaknesses through research and branding. There’s nothing as devastating in politics as a negative nickname, hence PNC’s affinity for tagging Republican targets with ruthlessly effective alliterations.

Its first truly memorable success came in 2006, when they pummeled then-Congressman Bob Beauprez during his gubernatorial race against Bill Ritter. Armed with a nickname bestowed by Beauprez’s Republican primary opponent, PNC drove home the “Both Ways Bob” brand so effectively it remained stuck to Beauprez eight years later when he again tried for the state’s top office, this time losing to John Hickenlooper. Westword gave their “BWB Flip-flops” its “Best Political Campaign Souvenir” Award.

Beauprez wasn’t the only Bob on an involuntary first-name basis with a PNC brand. 2008 U.S. Senate hopeful Bob Schaffer, who like Beauprez, was a former congressman, became “Big Oil Bob” thanks to a series of PNC press releases and digital media about his post-Congress career, including an online ad featuring then-executive director Bobby Clark.

After environmental groups ran ads with the same theme, news outlets noted that Schaffer had been “hammered by opponents as ‘Big Oil Bob.’”  He eventually lost to Mark Udall by more than ten points.

Ken Buck, who these days has stayed in the headlines by kneecapping his own party’s speaker, is still in the House in part thanks to PNC, which helped keep him out of the Senate in 2010 by highlighting his decision not to prosecute an admitted rape because, he told the victim, jurors might consider it “buyer’s remorse.”

Fast forward to 2012, as President Obama was gearing up for a second term, he faced a stiff challenge from Mitt Romney. The former blue-state governor decided to add another preppy haircut to his ticket choosing feisty Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate. The youthful, attention-loving veep hopeful, who posed for his own tank-top workout photo shoot today might be described as “thirsty.” Ryan made a pair of boasts about his athletic achievements that he lobbed up for Progress Now’s team to dunk right in his face.

Ryan raised eyebrows when he claimed he finished his only marathon in a pro-level three hours. After fact-checkers determined he was off by more than an hour, PNC’s stunt team went to work. A couple weeks later at Denver’s Rock ’n’ Roll marathon, Alan Franklin set up his own “Paul Ryan Finish Line” at 19 miles —where the 4-hour marathoner would have been at the 3-hour mark— earning cheers and inspiring similar signs at other races across the country as the election entered its, ahem, home stretch.

In an even more direct affront to Coloradans, Ryan also claimed to have climbed 40 of the state’s 53 fourteeners (14,000’ peaks). He eventually walked that number back as well, but not before PNC’s team ascended to the top of Pike’s Peak to spoof Ryan with a timely photo riffing off another GOP meme from that cycle, Clint Eastwood’s RNC convention speech to an empty chair.

Before either of his bro-y sports bungles, the PNC crew derailed the Romney-Ryan campaign’s kickoff event, which it dared to set in Lakewood. Focusing on Ryan’s biggest policy weakness- his support of the so-called Personhood amendment, which Colorado voters had already rejected by wide margins twice, PNC volunteers reserved advance tickets for the event under the names Fertilized Egg and Fertzie Eggers. While they waited in line, a plane circled overhead towing banner that read, “Hey girl, choose me, lose choice. – P. Ryan.” The jokes involving Ryan Gosling memes are too old to explain, but were relevant enough at the time to intrigue Rachel Maddow, who devoted a full segment to it.

All of these anecdotes highlight PNC’s ability to call out a politician for dishonesty or hypocrisy or unpopular policy positions- they’re all attacks. And they all garnered statewide or national press that presumably impacted the races. Yet they all pale in comparison to PNC’s biggest media coup, the “Got Insurance” ads they ran in 2013 as part of the #Thanks Obamacare campaign. The brainchild of digital director Jen Caltrider, Thanks Obamacare was launched in 2011 from a simple premise- the law that expanded healthcare is a good idea that most people like.

In 2013 Caltrider’s edgy digital ads took the internet, mainstream media, and eventually the United States Congress, by storm. Dozens of images featuring young Americans celebrating their access to healthcare, including for risqué reasons like keg stands (more money for beer!) and one-night stands (free birth control!) dominated news shows and digital media to the tune of tens of millions of views, eventually leading to a pearl-clutching Cory Gardner displaying posters of the ads to a House committee and (via C-SPAN) the nation, to express his outrage at such naughty subjects.

In February of 2014, Obama, who had previously been reluctant to embrace the term, was asked by Charles Barkley about the term on national TV. His answer?  “I like it. I don’t mind.”

2014 wasn’t all roses and glory, however. Republican Cory Gardner edged out Mark Udall in Colorado’s U.S. Senate race. Once in office, however, Gardner became very hard to find, at least for his constituents and the press. Working with Front Range activists who organized in the wake of Trump’s election, PNC helped launch “Cardboard Cory,” a campaign using a literal cardboard cut-out to call out the senator’s absence from public events. His avoidance of cameras may have had something to do with an experience he had a couple years earlier. As a freshman congressman he did appear on air, albeit unwittingly, after CBS learned of a fundraising junket at a swanky resort in the Florida Keys and caught Gardner hobnobbing with lobbyists on a boat called “Good Life.” PNC promptly memorialized that incident by hauling an actual boat to the state capitol for a press conference.

Once Trump took office Cardboard Cory became a staple of Gardner’s term. Cutouts would do stand-in duty at myriad accountability rallies and events, giving participants a two-dimensional version of their senator at which to direct their questions.

PNC wasn’t just focused on statewide figures. In a contest that proved prescient in light of today’s wave of religious right groups attacking public schools over LGBT issues, PNC helped recall the conservative evangelical majority on the Jefferson County School Board, which after their election in 2013, tried to replace AP U.S. History curriculum with a more “patriotic” version that didn’t include lessons they considered to be “America-bashing.” To highlight the whitewashing, PNC’s digital team helped the online #JeffcoSchoolBoardHistory campaign go viral, eventually getting covered by the New York Times.

Dust Bowl was a football event sponsored by Lemon Pledge #JeffcoSchoolBoardHistory #copolitics

— Kathryn Poindexter (@klpoindexter) September 23, 2014

PNC also helped snuff out the campaign of another potential Republican senator, state Rep. Jon Keyser. The group’s researchers discovered forged signatures among those his campaign submitted to get on the ballot. As so often happens when politician’s egos are involved, an incident that could have been managed with an apology and dismissing a consultant or two instead snowballed when the campaign refused to answer reporters’ questions and even implicitly threatened 9News’ Marshall Zelinger with his dog. Keyser eventually lost the 2016 GOP primary to far-right habitual candidate Darryl Glenn, who lost to Bennet in an otherwise rough year for Democrats.

Leveraging pop culture for political protest has always been a PNC specialty, and it again used the technique when then-Vice President Pence visited Colorado Springs to speak at Focus on the Family. The location, Pence’s policy positions, and the date all led to a successful protest featuring women in the red shawls of the Handmaid’s Tale, which had concluded its first season two weeks earlier. PNC didn’t come up with the concept (which began in Texas), but its targeting of Pence seemed to stick, as his public appearances were often bird-dogged by red-cloaked protesters for the rest of his term.

As the Trump years wore on, PNC helped lighten the mood in the summer of 2018, by smuggling a portrait of Vladimir Putin into the state Capitol gallery and briefly installing it in the empty space reserved for the 45th president’s painting. National and international new coverage followed.

As seen in the Colorado State Capitol Hall of Presidential Portraits today…#putinpotus pic.twitter.com/cW2cmqtmWM

— Steve Fenberg (@SteveFenberg) July 26, 2018

As November 2020 loomed, and with Trump’s loss in Colorado a foregone conclusion, PNC focused its efforts on Gardner. The Cardboard Cory campaign added a bus and launched a statewide tour, bringing his quarter-inch thick commentary on his 3-D version’s failing to every corner of Colorado. The Colorado Sun described it as “one of the most iconic advocacy campaigns in recent memory.”

Is filming people asking a piece of cardboard stern questions about healthcare policy or gun violence silly? Yes. Of course. But it also spoke to people’s real concerns and gave them a way to have fun, and take action, even if it was just sharing a short video message with friends online.

Last year’s election saw more of PNC’s research and media work that has kept it a force in Colorado politics these past two decades. This time the battleground was state’s new Eighth Congressional District, where the PNC team generated headlines calling out GOP candidate Barbara Kirkmeyer’s blatantly false ads. As a state senator, Kirkmeyer knew full-well that her legislative colleague, Democrat Yadeira Caraveo, didn’t “legalize fentanyl,” but that’s what the attack ads claimed. Ultimately, Caraveo eked out a narrow win in the district’s first-ever contest.

Next year there will be another set of elections, and PNC will again deliver facts, figures, and framing, along with a nickname or two. The goal as always, help progressives across the finish line by getting Coloradans to care about politics and hopefully have some fun along the way.

The post ProgressNow & Then: 20 Years of Politics & Pranks That Helped Turn Colorado Blue appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

It was 2002, and I was the youngest person at the book signing. That’s probably why, out of the large crowd gathered at the Tattered Cover that day, Scott Adams picked the eleven-year-old with his hand raised.

“What is the strangest thing you’ve ever seen in the office?” I asked.

Adams thought about it for a moment. “I didn’t see it,” he said, “but someone told me about an office where people were walking down the center of the hallway, and it was wearing out the carpet in the middle. The management circulated a memo through the office, asking the employees to ‘distribute their walking.’ “

We all laughed. It was the kind of story that has drawn us to the Tattered Cover, where Adams signed copies of his latest book, Dilbert And The Way of the Weasel.

In one of my favorite Dilbert comics, the boss tells the engineers “We used to say our employees were our most valuable asset; that is wrong. Money is our most valuable asset. Employees are ninth.” And what came in eighth, an engineer asks? “Carbon paper.”

I was reading Scott Adams’ comic strip Dilbert years before I ever commuted to an office. Dilbert was my introduction to the ways language can be used and misused. Dilbert taught me about buzzwords, words that once inspired, but whose luster had faded like an old vacation photo. I learned how two people can hold a conversation that contained no meaning whatsoever. I learned how bad or unpopular ideas could be revived on Frankenstein’s slab through the dark science of “rebranding.”

Permit an anecdote. Many years ago at CU Boulder, a president decided he needed to leave his mark on the university. His big idea? CU would be rebranded as a “TLE”, a “Total Learning Environment.” Never mind that this has been the definition of a university since the Middle Ages, no CU was a TLE, and fortunes were spent branding it onto banners, beer coasters, sweatshirts, and stationery. Meanwhile, actual learning continued unabated, and amongst the staff, TLE stood for “Total Lack of Enthusiasm.” 

In 2016, Adams appeared on my radar again. He has a lot to say about the rise of Donald Trump, how his ranting showed calculation where most saw dementia. Adams is a trained hypnotist, and he noted how Trump’s repeated insults, “Crooked Hillary”, “Lyin’ Ted”, and later “Sleepy Joe’, were the work of a master crowd manipulator, embedding phrases in the popular psyche. At first, I thought Adams was well-suited to warn people of the dangers Trump poses, but I soon realized his goal was to help hold open the door for him.

Adams has claimed that men are being displaced from modern society, that the election of Joe Biden would result in Republicans being “hunted down”, and characterized the January 6th Insurrection as “more patriotic than criminal.” He claimed the TV series based on Dilbert was canceled in 2000 because he was a white man. In 2023, speaking on his podcast, he said that black Americans were a hate group, which led his publisher Andrew McMeel Syndicate to cut ties with him.

There were some fore-shadowings. Adams was always a contrarian, someone who liked to question the official story. He once described himself as a “smart-ass vegetarian”, the guy who would show up to a cookout and remind people that they didn’t throw out the cow’s rear end when making ground beef. Sometimes, a contrarian can turn that critical eye inward when receiving criticism, and use their instincts toward self-improvement. Other times, criticism is met with a snarling “Don’t tell me what to do,” and they dig in deeper toward more extreme views. Each friend lost, each business partnership ended, becomes a point of pride — further validation that they alone stand against a world gone mad. 

Perhaps that’s what happened, perhaps not. Mostly I feel sad. We’re always warned to not meet our heroes. I did, a long time ago, but there aren’t any heroes, not really, only people who change. Think of who you were years ago: a completely different person would be my guess. In another twenty years, we’ll be different all over again, different, or… well, let’s leave that alone. As Geddy Lee sang, “Changes aren’t permanent, but change is.” 

Over on my bookshelf, I can see my copy of “Shave the Whales” that Scott Adams signed for me over two decades ago. I think of slumber parties spent watching the Dilbert cartoon series with my similarly-oddball schoolmates. I can’t tell you why Scott Adams changed, but I know I miss the man I once met.

The post When Heroes Fade appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

As seen on Post.news, reprinted with permission from author Mick Massicotte.

• The Matt Gaetz underage sex scandal
• Jared Kushner just randomly receiving $2,000,000,000 from the Saudis, for… all his good work or something?
• The 5 to 15 (can’t recall the exact number) actual members of Congress who literally asked for pardons after Jan 6!
• The conveniently-erased Secret Service text messages
• Speaking of Secret Service, the dozens or even hundreds of times Trump made them stay at his own properties, and charging the government/taxpayers an insane amount for it, which went right into his pocket. Feels a tad illegal to me.
• Ginni Thomas (for too many things to keep track of)
• Lauren Boebert tweeting out all of Nancy Pelosi’s movements on Jan 6 (I guess she’s just a big fan?)
• Barry Loudermilk and everyone else who gave “private tours” of the random entrance/exits of the Capitol (because that’s normal) a few days before Jan 6
• Steve Bannon somehow still not in jail and still allowed to travel and do his crazy show
• Speaking of crazy show, Alex Jones apparently still allowed to have business as usual
• Ali Alexander literally announced he planned the “stop the steal” stuff with Biggs, Gosar, and Brooks… nothing
• Multiple Fox News hosts just having normal texts with the White House (Meadows) before, during, and after Jan 6 (imagine Fox discovering that Rachel Maddow is in constant contact with Ron Klain about Biden’s policy decisions and campaign strategies, their heads would explode)
• I thought Justice Roberts (and all the right wing media) was SO intent on finding who leaked the plan to overturn Roe. “Oh it was actually Alito who leaked it himself? Okay nevermind, we’ll sweep it under the rug like everything else and never mention it again, even though we were all so pretend-angry about it back then!”
• Ted Cruz, Gosar, Peter Navarro, Boris Epstein (unsure on spelling), and anyone else who literally admitted to the coup attempt, and even came up with a name for it! (The Green Bay Sweep. Navarro and Boris were even on live TV basically confessing their crimes multiple times to Ari Melber.)
• Charlie Kirk even organized buses in advance (and tweeted all about it) for people to travel to the insurrection
• Ron DeSantis committing obvious crimes using federal funding for his multiple immigrant-kidnapping stunts
• The ACTUAL voter fraud committed by Republicans, most notably in The Villages in Florida.
• The Stormy Daniels affair and payoff (at the very least, you’d think Melania would care, but nah of course not. After all, Trump cheated on his previous wives too, so I guess it’s cool?)

The sad part is, I know I’m still forgetting things myself. But sure, please go on and on about “Hunter Biden.”

Mick Massicotte is self-described as “just a normal guy with gripes against zero-consequence Republicans and would say the same about Democrats too if they were as blatantly evil, but they’re not. And if they do happen to stray, Democrats actually do strive for accountability (see: Andrew Cuomo as an example).

The general American public, like myself just has very little faith that any accountability is coming from the higher-ups. Really really hoping to be proven wrong… but nothing has happened whatsoever to make us too hopeful?”

https://post.news/@mick41

The post Things that magically went away with zero consequences because they’re rich white people appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

A great many rational people, and more than a few slightly irrational folks, seem mystified by the never-ending Trump show.

Trump himself is not a daunting subject to analyze. He is, and always was, a pathological narcissist, a serial womanizer, an unrepentant fraud, and a remarkably capable sociopath who can lie without a tell. For the uninitiated, a “tell” is an unintended gesture, twitch, or other giveaway that allows a poker player to know when an opponent is bluffing. Or perhaps his “tell” goes the other way and he twitches when he tells the truth. Who would know?

But what about so many others in this disturbing era? What should we think about politicians like New Hampshire’s Senate candidate Don Bolduc who believed the 2020 election was stolen until he didn’t? Or the candidates who were fervent right-to-lifers until their poll numbers tanked or their mistresses were pregnant? Or the 147 Republican lawmakers who refused to certify the 2020 election despite no shred of evidence of fraud?

Throughout the land the Big Lie lives on. Most readers can provide their own list of amoral sycophants who cling to Trump despite the stench. Many are Ivy League graduates, which should lead us to reexamine college ranking schemes. Breathtaking hypocrisy has become so ho-hum – or perhaps so ubiquitous – that it hardly merits a second glance.

Much of this phenomenon is explained by the quest to gain or retain power. Many politicians will say anything to get elected. I’ve lived long enough to have given up hope that they will revert to principle once elected. There are, of course, many admirable legislators including principled Republicans like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. But the stubborn support for Trump defies logic.

Initially, Trump ended up serving as a useful idiot for conservatives who would have rather seen any other candidate in 2016. Spineless men like Ted Cruz were insulted and ruthlessly attacked in the 2016 primaries. They railed against Trump’s incompetence and lack of character until he became the nominee, after which they serially debased themselves. As humiliating as it should have been, at least they were getting much of what the GOP wanted: a virtual makeover of the federal judiciary; tax cuts and deregulation for their corporate benefactors; a generational Supreme Court conservative majority. But why now, when those long-sought ends justified the tawdry means, don’t they move on?

Apparently, according to most political analysts, it is because so many Republicans fear being supplanted by a MAGA candidate in primary elections or losing to a Democrat if they openly depart from the Big Lie or other far right craziness.

It really is quite astonishing. My political biases notwithstanding, I can’t imagine that most Republican leaders are actually that blind. Trump is conspicuously ignorant, garishly narcissistic, blatantly corrupt and obviously dishonest. He faces possible criminal charges for tax fraud, election fraud, obstruction of justice, violation of the Espionage Act and was impeached twice. And yet, the GOP remains Trump’s party. How is that possible?

It is possible because Trump unleashed the power of white, racist, homophobic, misogynistic nationalism. To Trump, Make America Great Again initially meant military strength, fighting terrorism, advantages in foreign trade, tightening the southern border and other GOP mainstays. He didn’t, at first, understand the long-simmering resentment his slogan would arouse. But when tens of thousands of fervent fans flocked to his rallies, he began to recognize the genie he let out of the bottle. From that point on, he wasn’t leading them. They were leading him.

Anyone following Trump over the years know he has no values or strongly held convictions. He was pro-choice then pro-life. He was a Democrat then a Republican. His only consistent qualities were; the need to be liked, to be a celebrity, to be surrounded by fans and to be admired for his wealth. His reputation in New York City was as an arrogant, preening fool. He was considered boorish and was never embraced by “high society”- not that such an embrace should matter.

There is no better evidence of his bottomless need for approval than his response to an interview question about QAnon, the bizarre conspiracy cult. “I don’t know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate . . .” Unlike Groucho Marx who famously quipped, “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member,” Trump was delighted to join any club that would have him.

In the dark, conspiratorial, white nationalist corners of America he found the adoration he desperately needed. He easily embraced their values as his own, since he has none. Their increasingly rabid support held him hostage. Now they are holding an entire political party hostage.

The post The Big Lie Won’t Die appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Graphic by De La Vaca

Right now, as I write this, dozens of them. They’re standing in Dealey Plaza in Texas in the formation of a giant Q, unmitigated idiocy on full display, waiting for their messiah to rise from the dead like an Easter celebration for the daft, a crowd of utterly mindless cultists who fervently believe JFK Jr. — who died in a plane crash more than 20 years ago — will somehow appear any moment now to announce his candidacy for VP in 2024 on the next Trump Presidency ticket.

And they call the left “sheep.”

They’ve been there since November 2 in their red MAGA hats and Q-addled pageantry, banging their handheld drums and chanting for the return of this so-called prodigal son, long since cremated and then ashes scattered at sea back in 1999.

And we laugh and point and mock them, because they certainly deserve it. The derision they inspire is absolutely rational and justified. But we should not discount them. We should not ignore them. We should not coddle them.

As Jan. 6 insurrectionists — the perpetrators of Trump’s own take on the Beer Hall Putsch — receive sentencing for their participation in the attempted overthrow of the U.S. government, their compatriots have learned nothing.

The famed “Q-anon Shaman,” Jacob Chansley, could be facing decades in prison and his contrition is on full display. In a statement provided by his lawyer, he admitted, “for years during the Trump administration, the President honed and routinely utilized his mass communication means to effectively groom millions of Americans with respect to his policies, protocols, beliefs and overwhelming fixation on all matters conspiratorial.”

Accountability is something these traitors never imagined they’d face. And though it’s certainly not going to be severe enough punishment for their crimes (with the exception of former Air Force service member Ashli Babbitt, who was shot while trying to break into the U.S. Capitol Building and paid for this act of sedition with her life), it’s incumbent they face the music.

A message needs to be sent. The GQP has gone off the rails in such utterly spectacular fashion that normal rules of discourse no longer apply. It’s not justice or a platform or another presidency they seek at this point.

They seek a reckoning.

The crowd at Dealey Plaza may not have turned violent. But mark my words, violence is what they want. They are a simmering cauldron of bubbling hate, convinced that their way of life has been stolen away from them amid election fraud that never really happened. And the perpetrators of this Big Lie hold public office — including representing the 3rd Congressional District from Colorado.

The cynicism of the Republican Party is out of hand. They’ve given up trying to legislate anything on behalf of the citizenry of the United States. Their platform is solely built on a culture war, and they’re going to fight that war in the streets soon enough. It will be bloody and it will be catastrophic.

We are merely in the calm eye of the storm.

The post They’re still there. | Duly Noted appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Graphic by De La Vaca

Over the course of the last several years, we’ve watched the party of Lincoln abandon any pretense of honor. The Trump era was a paean to rationalization of means — that no matter what the cost, the goal is all that matters. And to that end, the GOP sacrificed any hint of honor or moral high ground they may have once clung to — arguable as that may have been since the Nixon era.

Today’s GOP is a bust. It has strayed so far from the simple platform of limited government and personal freedom that it no longer bears any resemblance to a party of liberty. Now, it’s a cabal of corrupt ghouls, shaking down an uneducated base with wild conjecture, insane conspiracies and unyielding pride in ignorance. The party’s stars are its worst offenders — acolytes in the Trump cult of personality who continue to push the party ever rightward, past conservatism into an ugly miasma of authoritarianism steeped in jingoism, xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism and bigotry.

Acolytes like Colorado’s own Lauren Boebert, doing her best to utterly embarrass Colorado’s 3rd District in the House of Representatives on a daily basis. She’s a III%er in a pant suit¹, a high-school dropout whose biggest claims to fame include food-poisoning 80 people at a Garfield County fair in 2017 where her restaurant served pork sliders to the unsuspecting attendees (without proper permits)²; multiple arrests and failure to appear warrants for a range of petty offenses³; and tweeting out the location of the Speaker of the House amid an armed insurrection⁴. To date, she has accomplished nothing in Congress, aside from a steady spate of tweets demonstrating both a complete lack of understanding of either the Constitution of the United States or the basic machinations of government. She’s peddled Q-anonsense multiple times on Twitter and Facebook and tried to carry a gun into the House chambers⁵.

And then there’s “Jewish Space Laser” celebrity Marjorie Taylor Greene⁶, who’s spent her first several weeks in Congress making Colorado’s 3rd District look reasonable, compared to Georgia’s 13th. This is the bully who stalked Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg through the streets of Washington D.C. verbally accosting the child for wanting gun control reform⁷. She embarrassed herself so thoroughly that she was ejected from committee assignments — effectively turning her into a lame duck about 20 minutes after she moved into her office⁸. Her social media accounts are littered with endorsements of the flat-out stupidest theories spun up over the last several years, including pizzagate, election fraud, 9/11 and false flag theories about the Sandy Hook and Parkland school shootings⁹.

But what’s worse — these aren’t rando nutbags who snuck into office. This is the face of the new GOP. And for proof, all you had to do was tune into CPAC last month to see it live. From the most horrific rendition of the Star Spangled Banner ever inflicted upon a willing audience¹⁰ to the parading of a golden Trump statue — holding a fairy wand and sporting a pair of American flag shorts and flip flops¹¹ — to the stage itself, carefully constructed into the shape of an Odal Rune¹².

For the uninitiated, the Odal Rune is a symbol that was first adopted by Nazi SS troops during WWII and has since been chosen by the National Socialist Movement as their logo, replacing the neo-nazi organization’s swastika¹³. The dog-whistles at this point are just big, bold neon signs.

CPAC’s theme this year — a tempest in a teapot — was “America Uncancelled,” a foot-stamping tantrum aimed at myriad cases of members of the party and their cohorts being held accountable for the things they’ve said and done via social media¹⁴. Things like the outrage expressed over former Mandalorian cast member Gina Carano’s brain-dead and tone-deaf Instagram post comparing Republicans today to Jews in the Holocaust¹⁵. Or, ya know, former President Trump’s deplatforming from Twitter for his seditious and unyielding attacks on the U.S. Constitution that resulted in an insurrection attempt at the Capitol building on Jan. 6. Of course, the first thing CPAC did — prior to the 4-day event even starting — was “cancel” one of its speakers for unleashing a torrent of horrifically anti-Semitic tweets¹⁶.

The CPAC agenda¹⁷ included sessions titled, “Why the Left Hates The Bill of Rights… and We Love It,” “Protecting Elections: How judges & Media Refused to Look at the Evidence,” “Same Badge, Different Beat: To Protect and Serve, Or Socialist Social Workers?” “California Socialism: Promising Heaven, Delivering Hell,” “Losing My Religion? Why a Christian Worldview is Foundational to Political Engagement,” a session on Climate Change (with noted climate expert …Kevin Sorbo?), and several other sessions on “Protecting Elections” and the myriad of alleged threats China poses to the United States.

And, of course, it all culminated with a speech by the former POTUS himself. It was a rambling, 90-minute long, lie-filled rant, where the disgraced, twice-impeached former Chief Executive hammered on his election fraud lie, lied about Biden’s plan to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline, lied about “dead voters,” lied about Biden’s refugee vetting plans, lied about South American deportations, and on, and on. And all of it was music to the ears of the largely maskless crowd in attendance¹⁸.

To call it all a circus would be a disservice to the Ringling Brothers. Yet that’s what the GOP has become, a spectacle. A clown show committed to the insane acrobatics of runaway fear-mongering, with a ring-master who refuses to go quietly into the night, even though his own spotlight has been dimmed. 

The post Whither is the GOP? | Duly Noted appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

By Tony Gambee, local Resident

reshared from Medium

No one asked for one more opinion but here we are. I’m doing this more to work through my feelings. I have no expertise, education, or experience… but I do have thoughts on some of this.

I am a person who has a tendency to love deeply and easily and the divide in our world is tearing me up and interrupting that.

I’ve caught myself getting caught up in frustration and anger towards people I care about.

I want to remind myself that the loudest people on each side are the extremes and most likely the people I know would never destroy property, harm anyone, or storm a government building wielding weapons.

They are good people with diverse opinions who may feel very frustrated that the extreme behaviors of some on “their side” are reflected on them.

I’m very fatigued hearing “what about” when someone wants to defend their beliefs. “What about my thing, doesn’t that negate your thing and change the subject away from your point?”

The two-party system has devolved to a place where people have to blindly compromise values that they may not otherwise compromise in the name of party loyalty. Single issue voters have it easy really. Those who see merit in both sides are actually doing the work to listen, digest, and face hard questions.

The thing I hate most is what the news media has turned into. They are no longer a source of information; they are an amplifier of a scripted message that has an agenda. This is true on both sides.

They want us to hate the “other side”. They want to identify the most sensitive areas of our leanings and set fire there. Then fan that fire into rage and hostility towards each other.

I’m extremely frustrated that something, some powerful thing, has so much influence over so many. I am on social media, but it seems to be the conduit for these influences outside of “the media”. I don’t have a solution; I just have a deep concern for people who let themselves be so brainwashed by those forces. I believe that this is orchestrated by people who want chaos to weaken our country; chaos to kill our compassion for each other; chaos to replace kindness and empathy with fear and vitriol.

You may think I’m a liberal, but I want lower taxes (for most — looking at you Bezos), 2nd amendment protection with reasonable insight, and less government control of the free market.

You may think I’m a conservative, but I want a fair economy for all, revised voting system, less legal/tax loopholes, and health care changes.

The reality, in my simple brain, is that most of “the issues” should not be partisan. They should be tied to science, to common sense, and to common decency. But someone, on one side or the other, claims an opinion and then we fight. The insane part of all of this is that the parties used to be reversed! “…sometime between the 1860s and 1936, the (Democratic) party of small government became the party of big government, and the (Republican) party of big government became rhetorically committed to curbing federal power.” (from Natalie Wolchover)

To be super clear: There are issues that have no gray area here in my eyes. Working hard to end racial inequality in every sense should not be a partisan issue. Minorities are treated differently and violently. Period, end of story. Both sides should be unified in fixing this with burning passion to love and care for each other. I do not suggest people stop protesting for social justice. When a voice is ignored it has no other choice. I hope those voices are joined by millions of others until they are a chorus of positive change.

I acknowledge that some of my opinions and feelings could be influenced by my social feeds, echo chamber, social circles, upbringing, and news sources of choice. And I reserve the right to listen, digest, and change my mind about any of it.

Except for loving people, I’m sticking with that one no matter what.

It wouldn’t be a complete thought from me without some lyrics from my two favorite bands:

“For life and its loveliness
And all of its ugliness
Good as it’s been to me
I have no enemies”

– The Avett Brothers

“I am on the fence about nearly everything I’ve seen
And I have felt the fire be put out by too much gasoline
And we’re all strangers passing through a place and time afternoon
Life is but a vision in a window that we’re peeking through
A helpless conversation with a man who says he cares a lot
It’s a passive confrontation about who might throw a punch or not
We are all transgressors, we’re all sinners, we’re all astronauts
So if you’re beating death then raise your hand but shut up if you’re not”

– NEEDTOBREATHE

The post Could that be my friend on TV at the Capitol? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

It was a strange morning. January 20th had been in progress since the midnight before and it was just after noon as I left I left my home in Erie and stopped by the local gas station for a cup of coffee and gas. President Biden and Vice President Harris had already taken their oaths of office, Jennifer Lopez had already sung, and Arlington cemetery was abuzz with cannon shots and the official presidential motorcade. As I drove the county roads on my way to the on-ramp, heading into downtown Denver, I noticed the city seemed much more alive than it has in quite some time. This is inauguration day.

It was a view of the town that struck me as being at odds with what I felt inside, knowing I was on my way to photograph and document at the Colorado State Capitol as left leaning rally-goers sought to send a message to Biden and Trump’s death cult pro-coup MAGA-stans were supposed to be massing to demand his installment as king…bit I digress. Here I was in Erie and there were kids walking down back roads where I’ve never really seen people walk before. The streets were bustling. Local work sites were filled up and busy. Maybe it was the 56-degree day, in the middle of winter, or maybe it was me projecting hope or optimism onto a day that, I have to admit, I have been slightly dreading. 

It was a nice reminder that even if parts of the world fall apart, not all parts of the world fall apart, that even if parts of America are falling apart, it’s not all of America. Even if Denver might be roiled with turmoil, lots of areas around the Front Range and across our state are holding it together; forward facing, gorgeous, and shining bright like a new administration on its way to the White House to hopefully (don’t hold your breath too long) undo the damage Donald J. Trump inflicted.

Arriving at the Capitol it was clear that none of the Trump supporters, the #MAGAcoup crowd, the white supremacist overthrow collective, were going to make it. I was pointed to a group of about five – “if you wanna see fascists, look over there” on the edge of Lincoln and 14th streets, with masks on, taking pictures and hanging out, but otherwise not engaging. I was also pointed to a “Karen” who had apparently been attempting to instigate, pretending to be a journalist, who had been escorted out a handful of times already. 

At this rally, hosted by Colorado Brown Berets and Denver Communists, there were about 200 participants, over the course of the day. They came with intention, to send a message to the newly-inaugurated Biden-Harris administration that the children in the cages needed to be released immediately, that oil and gas pipelines have to be killed, that wars have to be ended, that Black and Native lives matter, and that racist policing has to be curtailed. 

And that last part, in itself, is an excellent point because I was here at the state capitol on January 6th as the #GOPcoup acted in sedition and stormed the U.S. Capitol Building. I was here on the Colorado State Capitol lawn, surrounded by right-wing militia members, where I was ultimately shoved into traffic, which was summarily ignored by the Executive Protection Unit of the Colorado State Patrol. There were at least three times as many Trump supporters on that day, but a clear half of the total cops deployed for today’s peaceful rally. The CSP officers today were there from the beginning, not deployed later in the day, as it appeared on January 6th. 

Arriving January 6th I was able to hang out for hours before officers arrived or made their presence known. Today, officers were everywhere, obvious, on all four sides of the capital, on both balconies, on side streets, parked at the RTD terminal, willing to walk through the middle of a crowd to insulate a right wing agitator – instead of preventing his incursion – with pepper ball gun in a show of force; a show that told the crowds, yet again, that the officers are always on the side of white people, on the side of white supremacy, on the side of the violent agitators. 

There were also armed bike patrol officers on site and, as we know, bike units are there like mounted (horse) units as a riot control measure. The bikes are used as mobile barricades. I approached a sergeant with the bike division on the north side of the Capitol and I asked him if he could explain to me why there were multiple deployments of officers, including riot control measures, when this level of response wasn’t given on January 6th… but I didn’t get my question answered because he motioned to his officers to leave and they fled. That’s correct, they fled a member of the media asking reasonable questions. I later tried to ask the sergeant what his name was, but he ignored me. 

That is the Colorado State Patrol, exempted from the state law to hold officers accountable, SB 217, but tasked with and enforcing Denver City policies; a lovely loophole for Colorado state police repression to continue without accountability. 

To the final point, there were left-wing community defense organizations on site to help insulate and protect from white supremacist aggression. That was necessary because – apart from the fact that #MAGAtraitors had claimed intent to hold 50 capitols hostage today – on at least three occasions, excluding events that transpired while I wasn’t around, white supremacist agitators approach the crowd, attempting to engage and disrupt. The patrol members on site didn’t prevent that, didn’t engage them, didn’t protect. The agitators were all grown white men. There were children in the crowd at the rally. 

White supremacy attempted to rule the day, even though the crowd on the capitol grounds should be allowed to engage in their first amendment rights without threat of violence. That’s literally why the officers were on site, but it seems they only defend constitutional rights, First Amendment rights, when it’s the right wing demanding to be heard. It’s the same as January 6th, where officers were lined up and facing counter-protestors while the officers facing the MAGA crowd were just hanging out; this I witnessed after I was assaulted and shoved in traffic, but it was ignored by officers who told me to get out of the street. 

White supremacist agitators walk through, Brown Berets keep singing (lower left)

They came to disrupt but the Brown Berets, Latinx people, stood at the microphone and led the crowd in traditional songs till they left. And the event continued with the recitation of poetry, with Black and Brown performers singing and rapping, and with the group sending their message: that Joe Biden isn’t off the hook just because he’s not Trump, that Kamala Harris isn’t off the hook just because she’s a Black and Indian woman, that the United States government isn’t off the hook just because we have a new administration in place.

I’m reminded of watching Biden’s inaugural address this morning, and his claim of a peaceful transfer of power, the first in a long line of lies I expect from his administration. Power in America has never transferred as peacefully as people believe it has over the last 240 years but, if there ever was a violent transfer of power, this year was it. We should be clear that it’s Black and Brown bodies, Indigenous bodies across the nation, that fought tooth-and-nail to prevent Donald Trump from having a second term. We can’t forget that it was nearly one-hundred-thousand white supremacists who attended Trumps #SaveAmericaRally and tens of thousands who stormed the US Capitol, prepared to take hostages and execute members of Congress, in an attempt to install Trump as a dictator or King. 

For the last 529 years, through today, and as long as they’ve had breath in their lungs, regardless of white supremacy, regardless of white policing, regardless of white preferences in prosecutorial and judicial logic and outcomes, regardless of media, Indigenous people are still here, Black bodies are still here, and they’re going to be heard. They’re going to fight. And I thing they’re going to win. 

This is a letter from #DeLaVacasDesk.

Agitator is spoken to by officers, allowed to enter rally, officers follow to protect

The post On holding Biden’s feet to the fire, disproportionate policing, and white supremacists: the Colorado Capitol on Inauguration Day 2021 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Who could have believed that Trump and his administration would do better at preventing Colorado evictions than our own Democratic Governor and Legislators in Colorado? It is now true.

Today, September 4, 2020, as I write this, the Center for Disease Control has published into the Federal Register its notice of Agency Order: “Temporary Halt in Residential Evictions To Prevent the Further Spread of COVID-19.” The order is not a panacea, requiring a declaration under penalty of perjury that a tenant meets five criteria. Some of the criteria may be difficult to prove in court, such as that “eviction would likely render the individual homeless—or force the individual to move into and live in close quarters in a new congregate or shared living setting—because the individual has no other available housing options.” At the very least, a landlord can still file for eviction with the well-founded hope that many tenants will not show up to defend themselves based on the CDC order.

The order does not relieve tenants of the obligation to pay rent, but for many, failure to pay will not be sufficient to evict.

Thus, from now until December 31st, this order may protect far more Colorado tenants than our state government has. Landlords, who may also face inability to pay their own mortgage and are unprotected under the order, are understandably likely to cry foul.

To address such imbalance in protections, our Legislators in Colorado could have passed an emergency law protecting both landlords with mortgages and tenants, backed by a 1934 Supreme Court ruling in Blaisdell that is still in effect today (https://bit.ly/3i13H5x). In fact I shared a memo (see https://bit.ly/3btDcD0) with multiple Colorado Legislators providing a basis to do just that, but the Democratically controlled Legislature and our Governor didn’t have the stomach to go up against the landlord lobby. Governor Polis even went so far as to “repeatedly [state] that he does not have the authority to interfere with contracts,” apparently having never read Blaisdell or consulted an attorney.

If you are facing eviction, you may be able to seek rental assistance from the State at https://cdola.colorado.gov/rental-assistance. You can also seek free legal assistance from volunteer attorneys with the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project: https://cedproject.org/.

Here is some free legal advice: if you get a “SUMMONS (UNLAWFUL) DETAINER,” show up in court and fight it. The law is on your side. 

The post Feds Protect Against Colorado Evictions While Governor Sleeps At The Wheel | Community Corner appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Graphic by De La Vaca

“If you don’t like it, leave!”

That’s a pretty common refrain Cult 45 likes to fall back to when faced with criticism of the High Priest of their American Freedumb Movement, or any of the litany of social and political ills he’s unleashed on the populace to date. And let’s ignore for a moment that for thinking people, the very soil American patriotism is grown from has been fertilized with the blood of dissenters throughout our history. 

The fact is, we can’t.

We can’t even leave now. Save for a handful of countries, we’re now banned from traveling to more than 30 countries, and the list is growing. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part of this is that where we are now is not happenstance. It’s not even due to Trump’s unflinchingly inept leadership. 

This was all by design. 

His administration architected this catastrophe, not unlike the infamous “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” where, in 1932, Black farmers in Tuskegee, Ala. infected with syphilis were placed in a study, not told what they had, and instead experimented on and allowed to transmit the disease to family while they were monitored until their eventual death — in many cases after Penicilin was discovered to be an effective cure, which was purposefully withheld from these men. 

The difference: The Tuskegee experiment destroyed the lives of a few hundred people.

The COVID-19 body count has eclipsed 160,000 and is surging. [Editor’s note: America has now passed 200,000 COVID related deaths.]

The story, broken by Vanity Fair (1), reads like a Grisham novel. To summarize: Trump’s son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner was appointed head of a task force to architect a national response to the virus in mid-March. The makeup of the task-force itself is worth admonishment — a cabal of cronyism with little-to-no medical expertise in the room. However, according to Vanity Fair, they did craft a nationwide testing program plan, which multiple experts say is critical to scaling up to support the tidal wave of need. 

“Without systematic testing, ‘We might as well put duct tape over our eyes, cotton in our ears, and hide under the bed,’ said Dr. Margaret Bourdeaux, research director for the Harvard Medical School Program in Global Public Policy (2).”

Ultimately, the plan was scrapped. The reason? An anonymous source who worked closely with the task force told Vanity Fair: “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy (3).”

Or, put another way: Trump and Kushner decided to sacrifice the lives of 160,000 — and counting — Americans in order to boost Trump’s chances at winning re-election.

The word “unprecedented” has been bandied about with abandon throughout this President’s term. The truth is, we’ve seen most of it before. Pandemics, civil unrest, bumbling leadership and the tragedy of populist cult worship. 

But, if true, this decision (which, it should be noted, is predictably denied by the administration), is truly unprecedented. It was a genocidal stroke of unbridled narcissism that deserves to be tried at The Hague. 

If true, Donald J. Trump has committed a crime against this nation so egregious that it bears no peer in the 244 years of this country’s history. [Editor’s note: the genocide of Native Americans was planned and systematically impl;emented, killing, by some estimates, 100 million Natives.] There is no analog for the destruction he — and the GOP machinery that has continued to enable him in Congress — has wrought. And worst of all: it shows no signs of abating any time soon.

If you don’t like it, leave, they say. And here we are, facing the horrific truth of this callous proposition:

We can’t. 

1. Katherine Eban, “How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan Went Poof Into Thin Air,” Vanity Fair, July 30, 2020
2. ibid.
3. ibid.

The post AMERICA: Love it or… appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

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I’ve seen variations on this theme dating back to his candidacy in 2016. It’s always posed by a gentile — even right-wing Likudnik Jews know why the rest of us dislike him. And the reasons are myriad. It should be obvious, but because of the performative displays of support for Israel, it gets muddied, as it so often does where anti-Semitism is on display.

To understand the nature of the Republican party’s deeper embrace of this particular brand of anti-Semitism, a little background is in order. And it starts with the founding of Israel in 1948. But let’s back up a little more. Evangelicals. Depending on how you define the sect, as much as 35% of U.S. citizens fall into the category of Evangelical Christian. That feels a bit too broad, but historian George Marsden made it a simpler explanation decades ago: “people who liked Billy Graham.” In that case, there are 10s of millions. And one commonality is their adherence to the belief in their end times prophecy.

“You have this group of people looking around for signs of the end time, and in the 20th century when Israel was founded, this was seen as a major sign,” says Elizabeth Oldmixon in a 2018 interview with Vox. She’s a politics professor at University of North Texas who studies the evangelical/Israeli alliance. “This was electrifying for that community because the gathering of all the Jews in exile to the Holy Land is a prerequisite for all of these (end times) events unfolding.”

Since then, the evangelical right has had a personal stake in Israel’s existence — and an interest in seeing all Jews relocated there. And this ridiculous notion is what’s driven their push to champion Israel as a pet cause — in addition to the perception of Israel as a hated enemy of radical Islam. The enemy of my enemy, as it were. 

Israel is a country, just like the United States, and yes, I do care about her fate. But most American Jews also aren’t Likudniks — we want a peaceful 2-state solution to the Palestinian question. We want peace for all. But here’s the bigger thing: American Jews are American. We’re not Israeli.

Yet Trump and his ilk don’t see us as Americans like they are. We are Jews first and foremost to them. He’s said it himself: “In my opinion, you vote for a Democrat, you’re being very disloyal to Jewish people, and you’re being very disloyal to Israel,” Trump said in a press conference on Aug. 21, 2019, “and only weak people would say anything other than that.” He expects our first loyalty should be to Israel, and that voting Republican is a natural extension of that loyalty. 

That’s the kind of rhetoric that creates distrust. It “others” American Jews. It sets us aside as interlopers who have less skin in this game. And that’s why, underneath the veneer of his pro-Israeli propaganda beats the heart of a white nationalist who is only too happy to co-opt American Jews for his own political ends.

But more than all of that is a very simple answer to the question: Why don’t more American Jews like Donald Trump? It’s because he’s a destructive man who has hurt this world. From his penchant for creating acrimony to his isolationist policies to his demonstrative cruelty where asylum-seeking immigrants are concerned to his unfettered, untethered corruption and his unhinged vitriolic diatribes to his utter and complete failure in leadership amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump and the enabling Republican party have indelibly harmed this entire world. That’s why more American Jews don’t like Trump.

The only question left is, can we heal it?  

The post The American-ness of American Jews appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Written by Ashraf Shaikh

Here’s how the current actions of Donald Trump are a literal scam — the target of that scam is us, the taxpayer. The benefactor is, as always, Trump and those he likes.

A few baseline facts:

• Feds are seizing masks and other coronavirus supplies from states and hospitals without a word

• The US government is stealing shipments of masks and PPE bound to other countries

Here are the steps to the scam:

1. Trump used a verbal line item veto (deemed unconstitutional by the SCOTUS since 1998) on the $2T stimulus bill, saying he would not abide by the oversight required in the text. This oversight was the only reason Dems agreed to the large percentage of corporate bailout money, i.e. so Trump would not just direct that money to his own businesses and friends’ businesses.
2. Trump has claimed the authority to determine which businesses get awarded stimulus-related contracts.
3. Friends and donors of Trump stand up companies or repurpose old companies through which tax money can be funneled. This leads to ridiculousness like a 3 week old company founded by a Republican donor now being the center of medical supply distribution in the US, or a bankrupt military training company with no history in providing medical supplies and zero employees since May 2018 being awarded a no-bid $55M contract to provide masks to the government at over 7 times the cost per mask that well established companies like 3M are charging.
4. The feds sell the supplies from the federal stockpile and the supplies seized from various states and countries to the distribution companies at a reduced rate
5. The states then have to bid on these supplies, driving up the price that the distributors are able to pocket
6. FEMA is spending taxpayer dollars to ship in supplies by plane from China in 2-3 days vs the normal 20-40, which by itself is not bad, until you realize these supplies are going to be given to the commercial distributors to put out for bidding by the states. In other words, Trump is using taxpayer dollars to express ship supplies to a commercial company who will be making a profit selling these supplies
7. Trump is retaliating against companies that refuse to take part in his streamlined scam

As a result of the above, states are having to smuggle in PPE from China via methods like sending their state’s NFL team’s jet to China to pick them up in person, and then having state police escort them to hospitals to prevent them from being seized by the feds. Even when states are sending each other supplies, they need to be escorted by state troopers to protect them from the federal government, like when Massachusetts sent 300,000 masks to NYC and 3 states (MA, RI, CT) banded together to escort the supplies so they couldn’t be seized by the federal government. Think about the ridiculousness of that for a second. Individual states are having to protect needed supplies from seizure by the federal government.

Other states have had to charter flights to direct ship PPE from China and  COVID-19 test kits from South Korea. 

In summary, we have the following situation:

• Trump made a deal with Dems so that the stimulus money would be subject to oversight, and then openly declared his intention to ignore said oversight.
• Trump has claimed the power to direct which companies get contracts related to coronavirus relief efforts.
• His donors and friends have stood up medical companies to be able to receive these contracts.
• Trump has directed the federal government to seize masks bound for other countries, and to seize supplies directly from hospitals.
• The federal government then sells these supplies to companies that Trump can unilaterally choose, at a discount.
  • These companies also benefit by having Trump use taxpayer funds to express ship supplies from China to the US for distribution via government contracts that Trump personally awards.
• These companies then sell supplies via a bidding process to states, driving up prices, and pocketing the difference.
• This causes a shortage of supplies in states that need them, leading to some states getting creative in procuring supplies.

So, does anyone think this is in any way defensible?

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The post Trump’s numbers add up to one big scam appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

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The world teeters – as it is wont – on the precipice of revolution and reimaginations of antiquated, failed ideas. Yesteryear has never been as near as it is today, with a second, apparently failed run for president by Senator Bernard Sanders, the most consistent politician in America, being proven the only prescient candidacy we had. Medicare-for-All, worker’s rights, minimum wage laws, domestic economic concerns, and visionary leadership – things Americans voted for four times when electing and reelecting America’s most famous socialst, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt – are common concerns in 2020. Why? Well…

Coronavirus – also called COVID-19 or #theRona – has ravaged the planet and a lackluster American response (based on a failed American capacity under the Trump administration) threatens to upend the US in more ways that I can delineate here. 

Governor Jared Polis has reacted strongly to the onset, even if a statewide shelter-in-place was needed sooner than was enacted, and is needed longer than currently planned. Locally, the Weld County Sheriff said he’d “rather take my chances with the virus than socialism,” an abdication of responsibility and a scientifically illiterate response to a crisis he is sworn to address; Weld County jail inmates have sued the Sheriff for risking the lives of inmates. 

At the time of this writing, Boulder County has ~300 cases. Times-Call reports on Monday, April 13th, that we’ve had our 11th COVID-19 related death. America has over 20,000 deaths, taking the top spot globally for number of cases and number of deaths.

We’re all a little scared, and with good cause. CU students ended up with Coronavirus while attending St. Patrick’s day parties on the Hill, encouraging community spread. A local wedding in Erie was lambasted on local Facebook pages but, I was told, “no public shaming is allowed” so the original poster rejected comments pointing out the danger they posed to us locally. Driving around Boulder County for supplies I witnessed dozens of people failing to distance, enjoying life as if nothing apocalyptic was happening. Denver park and front range mountain community photos are shared with pleas for people to #stayhome. 

These are the things that will bring this situation to a head, meaning overwhelmed hospitals, excessive loss of life, an economy in ashes. New Jersey reported that 700 police officers had the virus. Doctors and nurses are living away from family for fear of transmitting to their loved ones. California projects 56 percent of the population will contract it. 

The virus has a 1.2 percent mortality rate. Some quick math: if we have a Boulder county population of 326,000 (give or take), and even 25 percent are infected, the mortality rate can be as high as 1,000 people (in just our little corner of Colorado). Predictions for the state are response dependent and range from ~350 to ~350,000. We’re already at ~300. While some of our neighbors are out playing, hanging out, having get-togethers, I’d challenge them to decide which 1,000 people they plan to sacrifice. If you can’t fathom it, think of your family and friend circles. Which 1 or 2 people in your immediate life can you live without? 

That’s not math I’m willing to do. That’s why Yellow Scene Magazine offices have been empty, why everyone’s fully remote. We have writers retooling articles to address the moment. We have articles in progress. We have photographers in the street documenting the eerie silence of the world as the pandemic encourages us to remain at home. We’re still here, though, doing our jobs, documenting, writing, sharing your stories, being a conduit of hope and information – the two intertwined in dire times. 

It’s your job to do the same: stay home. 

Live your life as safely as possible. So much of the nation has it worse than we do. Colorado is a privileged state and no area more so than Boulder County. If you need help, reach out to a local mutual aid page. If you need contact, call friends. If you need air, it’s Springtime; go for a walk. And if you need hope, read YS. We’re here for you. 

The world may be on its knees, in need of a long term reprieve, but ultimately that’s up to us. Everything Bernie was fighting for is being implemented or discussed; what was fringe in 2016 is party talking points, damn near orthodoxy, today. I once heard that a tax, once implemented, is never repealed. Once things change, they tend to stay that way. The changes being made now – considerations of a Universal Basic Income, payments to citizens, Universal Health Care, increased wages for “essential” employees, etc – have been long overdue. 

Will we get to keep these benefits? It’s a tough question, rooted in our own personal capacity for action. 

As you spend your nights with family, as people you know fall ill, as society is further strained, ponder the question: do we concede to power and go back to failed “business as usual” or do we demand the world FDR envisioned, the one Bernie fights for today, the one most Americans support (according to polling), a permanent implementation of universal healthcare, UBIs, and other forms of globally accepted social safety nets… or nah? 

I leave you with the description of CoroNAH: Beyond the Pandemic, a mixtape by Denver’s favorite Democratic Socialist, Candi Cdebaca. It’s the hope I have for all of us, the actions I want us all to be engaged in: “Crushing on liberation. Breaking up with capitalism. Celebrating socialism. Flirting with revolution. Drunk on love. Seducing imagination. Ride the rollercoaster with us! For our people.” For our neighbors. For our nation. For our survival today and always.

For all of us, with love from #DeLaVacasDesk: #stayTFhome 

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The post Notes on YS, #theRona, and the CO response: #DeLaVacasDesk appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Today, Congress finally unveiled Articles of Impeachment against President Donald Trump. Finally. this process has a chance to become less about Trump and more about saving our Constitutional Republic from the irreparable harm it faces. Make no bones about it, our way of life is in great peril at this pivotal moment in history.

As I watched the historic news conference, I became hopeful that Congressional leadership would change the focus of this process from Trump to the Constitution. I became hopeful that we all could turn from the partisan rancor that is driving us toward the unthinkable and instead focus on the threat our Republic faces. Regardless of Party and ideology, it is to our great detriment if a President no longer needs to worry about Congressional oversight, Constitutional law, and requirement to acquiesce to Congressional authority.

The dangers we face now are many. We face turning the Presidency from the current perceived dictatorship to an actual one. Recently, this President has suggested that he is above the law and can do anything he likes. He basically challenged Congress to exercise their Constitutional duty to impeach; first by calling on foreign governments to investigate a political rival through both public, and certainly private, channels as a “favor”. Now while it may be contested that Trump’s behavior in those instances represents a “high crime and misdemeanor” I do believe it is impossible to argue that his actions during the investigation of those charges are an impeachable act.

By refusing to answer legal subpoenas and to allow subordinates to testify, Trump has certainly committed an obstruction of justice as defined — “the crime or act of willfully interfering with the process of justice and law especially by influencing, threatening, harming, or impeding a witness, potential witness, juror, or judicial or legal officer or by furnishing false information in or otherwise impeding an investigation or legal process.”I am not sure how that is refuted regardless of Party affiliation or if you agree with the impeachment inquiry to begin with.

I may not agree with a criminal investigation directed at me, but I certainly have no legal right to obstruct it. Imagine if John Gotti, or Robert Dear could just say, “I’m not going to comply with your kangaroo court” and prevented (or attempted to interfere with) any witness testifying? I think most legal minds would believe that when you are innocent of something there is no need to obstruct. In fact, the need to cooperate would make much more sense. Frankly, can anyone imagine a society where the accused, any accused, can just obstruct justice and impede an investigation? I can’t imagine this society tolerating such acts.

Yet, that is exactly what Trump and his cronies have done. With the complicity of Republicans in Congress and the faction of Americans who side with them, they have decided that no one has the right to investigate their actions and hold them accountable should their arrogance turn into criminality.

That is the dangerous road we are walking, and I fear that if Republicans don’t have a sudden surge of morality we will continue walking towards a cliff of no return. There is no turning back from legalizing corruption or, at the very least, preventing the Constitutional checks and balances from actually checking and balancing.

I’m just an average American, but this is how I see it.

The post Impeachment appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

There it is. The admission of guilt, in print. The architect of the Trumpian era, Steve Bannon, knew exactly what he was doing all along. Bannon reached into the deep, dark fears of the weak-minded, white, male, incel psyche, and twisted it with the help of Cambridge Analytica and a library’s-worth of false conspiracies and racist rhetoric, according to a Newsweek article published on Oct. 29, 2019. Reporter Tareq Haddad interviewed Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie, who revealed the details of Bannon’s strategy leading up to Trump’s election in 2016 in his book, Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America (Random House, Oct. 2019).

It really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to most of us. Anyone with even a cursory understanding of 20th Century history could see the strings Bannon was pulling as he drove Trump into an Electoral College win over a popular vote landslide loss. It was a steady drumbeat of xenophobia, racism, and unbridled nationalism — with just enough evangelical Christianity mixed with a subtle undercurrent of anti-semitism — to put the Malignant Narcissist In Chief into the most powerful office in the world. The playbook he used is one we’ve all seen before.

And yet, we know this admission won’t matter to his rabid, foaming-at-the mouth base — even people who might otherwise demonstrate a reasonable amount of logic and intelligence — because, to them, Trump has become a foundational identity. To part ways with him would require too much self-awareness. It would require a sense of empathy they do not possess. It would require the ability to admit they hitched their wagons to the most racist, hateful train this nation’s seen in the Oval Office in our lifetimes.

Meanwhile, Bannon’s “success” didn’t stop at the steps of the White House. A sinister domino effect rippled throughout the darkest recesses of identity cults in white America. And the result manifest itself in blood.

From San Diego, to El Paso, to Charlottesville, to Pittsburgh, to Parkland, the white-right has become the most prolific perpetrator of extremist terrorism on U.S. soil — eclipsing Jihadi acts on an exponential scale. To quote the Nov. 7, 2018 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, The Rise of Far-Right Extremism in the United States, “The number of terrorist attacks by far-right perpetrators rose over the past decade, more than quadrupling between 2016 and 2017” (emphasis mine).

In short, Trump didn’t need to set the National Guard loose on U.S. citizens, or employ the efforts of some new, underground, dark-of-night secretive branch of the military. In this case, the disenfranchised, involuntarily celibate, white, male, lone gunman, has become Trump’s own, autonomously operating Schutzstaffel.

Bannon may have been cut loose by this administration more than a year ago, but the damage is done. We remain in a cold civil war, and the current impeachment process is fanning the flames. The closer we get to holding this administration accountable for its criminal actions, the more the Trump faithful see it as an attack on their very identity. And, emboldened by a figurehead whose entire administration has been a case study of lawlessness and corruption, our populace is imperiled in a way we haven’t witnessed in a generation at least.

Our very union is being torn asunder from within. And all it took was one man’s clever manipulation of the most suggestible among us — and one sideshow barker with a knack for self-promotion to capitalize on it. When the dust finally settles, the question remains: Just how fragile were we all along?

I only hope there’s a future where this question is answered and prevented from being exploited again. 

The post “…Unmarried, straight white dudes who couldn’t get laid.” appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

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Credit: Jeff Heinemann

A wave of Trump-loving trolls descended on the Facebook page of Mutiny Information Cafe to leave bad reviews. Most of the actors were connected to profiles listed in other states — simply people looking to take down one of Denver’s more beloved counter-culture institutions.

It’s fair to note the owners arguably opened the door to the conflict by displaying an anti-Trump-and-Trump-supporter flyer in their window, which seemed to have triggered the legions of brokflakes in their endeavor. From a branding perspective — it was a spot-on choice by the owners, who have long made South Broadway their home and an inviting spot for local writers, artists and musicians. Mutiny’s edge is its brand, and the handful of hornets they stirred up simply drove home that fact. The community around them fired back, drowning out the noise with positive reviews.

But the next target was far from a pirate-flag waving knuckle-dusting Golden Triangle swashbuckler. Bookbar in north Denver represents its neighborhood as much as Mutiny’s a reflection of theirs; family friendly, middle-upper class bohemian progressives. Where Mutiny has a cereal bar with Cap’n Crunch, Bookbar’s stocks a well-balanced pinot noir. They tout locally sourced menu items and responsibly sourced coffee beans in their roasts. They have local author signings and an on-site Air BnB where they can put up traveling authors who appear for readings.

And they got targeted, too. This time, the miscreants were local. They snuck by the shop, furtively planting their little white supremacist hate stickers on walls and glass. Then, during Drag Queen Storytime on June 27, one sad coward showed up with spray paint — he was chased off by employees, and then arrested in a nearby alley by Denver Police who had already been alerted by Bookbar owner Nicole Sullivan based on the walk-by stickering earlier. When news broke about the arrest, Bookbar fielded another barrage of hate from keyboard warriors who hate storytelling and pretty dresses or something. Whatever. Little minds with little lives (Bookbar’s “…Extremely Official Response to Extremely Negative Comments… With Book Recommendations!” is a fantastic read. Find it here: http://bit.ly/BookBarResponse).

And finally, at last month’s Drag For All Ages show at Mile High Comics (4600 Jason St, Denver), word leaked that some more wannabe-nazi mouthbreathers with too much free time were gonna show up and throw Hail Hydra signs or whatever to intimidate attendees. Luckily, the “Parasol Patrol” showed up in droves, using colorful umbrellas to create a whimsical barrier to shield the eyes of children in attendance from the sight of the goosestepping brigade’s little tantrum. A perfect defense, if you ask me.

In a vacuum, we’re seeing handfuls of little hate fires, sprayed down as they pop up. But the thing is, it’s not a vacuum anymore. Trump’s ire grows. The thin veil of “capitalism first, dismantle all the regulations and give a tax break to the rich” he wore into his first term is shredded, and behind it, his true ugliness is revealed. He sees anyone who’s not a member of his evangelical Christian White base as an “infestation” — his words. His drum beat of jingoism, xenophobia and racism grows, his unabashed admiration of despots is evident, and he emboldens the weak-minded white nationalists in our ranks to stand out more and more.

People frequently ask, “What has he done to you personally?” when trying to foster the illusion that it’s all just media-generated noise. But here are three examples of how what’s happening on a national stage is impacting our own local communities.

The real question is, how much more are you gonna take?

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The post The Trump Trolls: How much more will we take? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.