Tidbits – Feb.13- Reader Comments: Dictatorial Coup Unfolds; Resistance Grows; Federal Workers Mobilize; What You Can Do To Fight This Coup – a Guide; No Tax on Tips Will Harm More Workers; Role of the Labor Movement in Defending Immigrant Rights;

Reader Comments: Dictatorial Coup Unfolds; Resistance and Protests Grows; Federal Workers Mobilize; What You Can Do To Fight This Coup - A Guide; No Tax On Tips Will Harm More Workers; Role of the Labor Movement in Defending Immigrant Rights; more;

Portside
Printer friendly  
Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements, AND cartoons - Feb. 13, 2025,Portside

.

Resources:

 

.
Announcements:

 

.

.
 

Branch Removal  --  Cartoon by Mike Luckovich

 

Mike Luckovich
February 12, 2025
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

Re: A Plan for the Resistance
 

If you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.

(One summary e-mail a day, you can change anytime, and Portside is always free.)

Come April, it will be time to celebrate—and renew—America’s 1775 revolt against usurping monarchs.

The activists who have been struggling to figure out how to mount an effective resistance to Trump’s barrage of power grabs represent a panoply of causes and constituencies, which sometimes obscures (to themselves as well as others) the fact of their common commitment to a democratic order. That common commitment should be the purpose and focus of an April 19 protest; its message should be that they are marching to honor and restore America’s distinctly anti-autocratic heritage. That might even begin a process of reconnection with those working-class Americans who backed Trump for economic reasons while seeing the Democrats as alien ideologues.

As ideologies go, that of April 19 is the least alien and most American imaginable. As the Minutemen were fighting to create what became defining American values, so the Resistance can fight to reclaim them.

Mary-Alice Strom
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: The Courts Can’t Stop the Trump-Musk Coup
 

Excerpt:

Or take the funding freeze. As of right now, according to the courts, Trump is not allowed to withhold funding to any organization or institution that receives federal money appropriated by Congress. But it’s not at all clear that Trump has turned the money back on. Trump is likely in violation of the TROs suspending his funding freeze as we speak, but the Trump-aligned media refuses to talk about it that way.

TROs and nationwide injunctions worked in the past only because other presidents agreed to be restrained by them. If courts tell Trump not to do something, he’ll pretend his cell phone dropped the call and keep right on doing it.

In response to this full blown crisis, rule-of-law aficionados, feckless institutionalists, and Democratic Party leaders will counter with something like “but the courts are all we have.” They’ll wave court orders around like they’ve won the day. Meanwhile, Trump and Musk will just laugh while their sycophants will crow about how their daddies “defy Washington elites” even when that “defiance” amounts to common thievery.

Dave Lott
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Federal Workers Can Defeat Musk’s Coup. Here’s How.
 

Elon Musk is not invincible

Roy Schulman
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Super Bowl  --  Cartoon by Clay Jones

 

Clay Jones
February 10, 2025
Claytoonz

 

Re: Two Grifters Off To Seize the World
 

Most fascist dictators have been more about ideology and absolute power than about personal wealth. Trump and his crony Musk are at least as interested in personal enrichment as they are in destroying the deep state or the rule of law.

Lynn Hamilton
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

Dictatorship of the lumpen bourgeoisie

Ethan Young
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

Neonazis

Deborah R Kingery
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

The Protégé  --  Cartoon by Daniel Boris

 

Daniel Boris
February 11, 2025
Daniel Boris

 

Re: Warren Says Trump and Musk Pushing To Gut CFPB As ’Payoff to the Rich Guys
 

"If they succeed, CEOs and Wall Street will once again be free to trick, trap, and cheat you," said the Democratic senator.

Kyle David
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Tariffs  --  Cartoon by Nick Anderson

 

Nick Anderson
February 10, 2025
Pen Strokes

 

Re: Who Is Behind Trump’s Intimidation of South Africa?
 

Pres. Donald Trump's bizarre, fact-free threat against South Africa did not just arise in the back of his head last week. It is the initiative of alt-right ex-South Africans in America and like-minded people here who are urging them on.

Chuck Dineen
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Musk's Team Is Just as Bad as He Is, Just Younger Versions  --  Cartoon by Clay Jones

 

Clay Jones
February 7, 2025
Claytoonz

 

Re: A Coup Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes. Here’s What You Can Do
 

Editorial from the York, Pennsylvania York Dispatch - Donald Trump and his shadow president have worked to undermine our country's founding democratic principles. Here are some things you can and must do.

Jay Willard
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: King Musk’s Government Purge Hits a Snag
 

Before Elon Musk and Donald Trump can exercise authoritarian power, he must purge the federal bureaucracy. But federal workers aren’t playing ball. Federal workers see they are the targets of an authoritarian attempt to abolish democracy.

Rosin Ramirez
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: What Happened Here
 

The key difference between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 is the alignment of a reactionary fraction of Silicon Valley tech oligarchs with Trump, or rather, the transformation of a significant part of tech capital from an ostensibly progressive, liberal section of capital into a reactionary one.

Very simply put, here’s what I believe happened: In the process of accumulating enormous wealth, the tech-oligarchs created the conditions for their loss of social power and, when they realized this, they got a big dose of class consciousness and turned furiously reactionary. The process is analogous to what Marx thought was taking place in the industrial capitalist economy but transposed into the digital realm: to accumulate wealth, the bourgeoisie needed factories, and the factories needed workers, but the need for workers and their exploitation created a mass, militant proletariat. This is the famous “gravediggers” thesis immortally described in the Manifesto.

David Johnnson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

How Can So-Called ‘Lazy’ Immigrants ‘Steal Jobs’?  --  Cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz

 

Lalo Alcaraz
February 11, 2025
https://www.pocho.com/

 

Trump Revives Language of White Supremacy
 

During the centuries of slavery and the years of segregation Americans turned English into a language of words and stories that ridiculed, humiliated, and isolated people of color. When I was growing up in Louisiana and Georgia in the 1950s and 60s, it was almost impossible for white people to speak without that language of hatred and exclusion. Resistance to segregation required people to switch to language that showed respect and inclusion of all people.

Donald Trump is demanding that Americans revive the language of racial hatred, and he must be resisted. The initials DEI stand for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, three universal values of humanity, and yet Trump is trying to turn DEI into a bad word. He knows that a system of white supremacy requires a language of white supremacy, and he is trying to establish a new system of white supremacy. Trump has the support of a majority in Congress and most of the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in his effort to establish white supremacy in the United States.

A Supreme Court majority has told us that any effort to remedy centuries of exploitation of nonwhite people injures white people. The opposite is true. The division of white and nonwhite people has perpetuated poverty and insecurity for the masses of both white and nonwhite people. Racial division has deprived our entire population of the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness that was the goal of the Declaration of Independence. A new multiracial freedom movement is the only way to escape division and to restore democracy.

Alex J. Hurder
Murfreesboro, Tennessee

 

Re: Anti-Trump Protests Break Out at State Capitols Across the Country
 

Protesters gathered nationwide to protest Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Patricia Adams
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Trump Resort  --  Cartoon by Rob Rogers

 


 

Trump is scoping out his next real estate deal, but unlike Canada or Greenland, this one could incite and anger terrorist groups. Good thing our intelligence agencies are focused on keeping us safe and not distracted by petty White House retribution --- oh, wait.

Rob Rogers
February 7, 2025
TinyView

 

Re: Palestinians in Gaza on Trump’s Plan: ‘We Would Rather Die Here Than Leave’
 

The US president’s idea to take over the territory and his claims Palestinians were keen to move were met with anger – and a determination to stay

Jose Luis Medina
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Don't Praise in Advance: A Cure for Mad Surrender Disease 
 

I'm wondering why Harris' refusal to condemn the genocide in Gaza isn't mentioned. The negative responses on social media were intense and revealing. I suppose that nobody thought it important enough to ask those registered non-voters why they sat this one out.  

Michael Kotting

 

Re: Unionized Grocery Workers Are a Sleeping Giant

(posting on Portside Labor)
 

Colorado Kroger workers are striking this week, and 130,000 union grocery workers are bargaining contracts this year. Reformers see it as a chance to transform the UFCW from America’s largest private sector union into a fighting force.

US Progressive Activists' Update
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

And just imagine if every store had an actual Union Rep. who would explain to all the (Safeway eh?) employees that pay union dues that they ARE in a Union and what that means.

Spicer Blount
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: A New Kind of Crisis for American Universities
 

I spent my life teaching part-time at universities and community colleges in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. I am offended that you would publish an article by a professor at a PRIVATE university that is a major recipient of federal research money and is a university for the elites of the U.S. Public colleges and universities are clearly in crisis and have been for a long time because Dems and Republicans have fostered the commercialization of university research rather than fostering decent and affordable higher education.

I almost always appreciate the articles you present, but in this case i am very disappointed that you think private university research carried out by people who are paid much too much, exploit graduate students, and suck away funds needed by public universities and community colleges to hire full time faculty, keep class sizes reasonable and tuition affordable somehow advances the interests of working people. Shame on you!

Jim Lunday

 

Re: Socialism or Barbarism – a Statement of Fact
 

Trump’s return when we already see a world at war, breathtaking inequality and climate catastrophe confirms Engles’ famous dichotomy. 

the great socialist Rosa Luxemburg said: “What does ‘regression into barbarism’ mean to our lofty European civilization? Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization.”

Today, as we see the climate catastrophe, the wars in Gaza and elsewhere, the insane new nuclear arms race which is set to escalate, and the dire economic situation globally, it is clearly the case that the choice is socialism or barbarism.

Mary-Alice Strom
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Emilia Pérez Is the Ultimate Unloved Oscar Nominee

(posting on Portside Culture)

Despite Emilia Pérez’s mixed reviews and poor audience reactions, Hollywood handed the musical 13 Oscar nominations in the hopes of proving its progressive bona fides. Then old tweets from its star surfaced.

Robert Mercado
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: How Refrigeration Ruined Fresh Food

(posting on Portside Culture)
 

This is LONG, but cleverly written.& VERY informative: so many facts I never knew

Marylyn Fortin

 

Back in the Day  --  Cartoon by Rex A. Jones

 


 

Rex A. Jones
2018
Krazy Kartwonz

 

The Consumer Financial Destruction Bureau  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Jen Sorensen

 

Founded by Elizabeth Warren in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau addressed all sorts of sleazy practices in the financial services industry, from shady loans to exorbitant junk fees to insecure payment apps. They recovered some $21 billion on behalf of the American people. This was an example of good government fighting corporate abuses on behalf of the public. Yet how many voters even knew or heard about it? Many have been led to believe the oligarchs ransacking the country are fighting “corruption.”

Jen Sorensen
February 11, 2025
https://jensorensen.com/

For my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.

 

What Can I Do To Fight This Coup?  (Choose Democracy)

 

If you look, there are people resisting at every level. Blockades of freeways. American Bar Association urging an end to illegal orders. Past inspector generals penning op-eds, as a current inspector general refuses to accept her illegal firing. The Pope slamming VP Vance’s theology.

We can’t put everything you could do in here — including ways to ground yourself in these times — but here are some starting points on how to orient and help fight the coup.

Click here

Click here

Choose Democracy has a mission: prepare US Americans to prevent and stop undemocratic power grabs. Our work involves psychological preparation, lessons from history and around the globe, and strategic sensibility.

Opt in to email updates from Choose Democracy
Click here  

 

“No Tax On Tips” Will Harm More Workers Than It Helps  ( Economic Policy Institute)
 

Proposals in Congress and now 20 states could encourage harmful employer practices and lead to tip requests in virtually every consumer transaction
 

Click here to pull up map 

When President Trump proposed exempting tipped income from taxation during his 2024 presidential campaign, many viewed it as a politically expedient gimmick to win support among tipped service workers. Unfortunately, then-Vice President Harris soon followed suit, and since the election, a federal “no tax on tips” bill has been reintroduced and lawmakers in at least 20 states have proposed similar bills (see map below).

Now that lawmakers in a multitude of states have supported the idea, it’s worth unpacking just how incredibly foolish and dangerous these proposals are. In summary, exempting tips from taxes would:

  1. help very few workers and undermine pay increases for many more;
  2. expand the use of tipped work—a system rife with discrimination and worker abuse— potentially leading to consumers being asked to tip on virtually every purchase; and
  3. deplete state and federal budgets and create new avenues of tax avoidance, especially for high earners.

Read more here

 

Armed by Design: Posters and Publications of Cuba’s Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (OSPAAAL)

 

Edited by Interference Archive (Lani Hanna, Jen Hoyer, Josh MacPhee, Vero Ordaz, Sarah Seidman)

A stunning full-color, multilingual exploration of the profound graphic and intellectual legacy of the OSPAAAL—for internationalism, solidarity, communication, and art among movements today.

OSPAAAL developed out of the 1966 Tricontinental Conference in Havana, a meeting of delegates representing national liberation movements and leftist political parties almost exclusively from the Global South. Based in Havana, OSPAAAL produced nearly five hundred posters, magazines, and books beginning in the late 1960s, with most of their work ceasing by the late 1980s. Until 2019, OSPAAAL was a political organization focused on fighting US imperialism and supporting liberation movements around the world through poster production, regularly produced publications, and a series of books featuring the writings of the intellectual leadership of these movements.

Armed By Design brings together artists and thinkers from around the world whose work has been impacted by the legacy of OSPAAAL. These contributions reflect on impacts of OSPAAAL’s work on regional movements, including in the Arab world and Korea, design iconography, the evolution of tricontinentalism, our present-day relationship to OSPAAAL posters as a commodity, and authorship and reproduction.

The book itself is also a project of international solidarity. The entire text is published in four languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English) and we worked with four publishers in three countries (Common Notions/US, Coop Rebozo/Mexico, Tumblacasa/Mexico, and Sobinfluencia/Brazil).

Interference Archive
314 7th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11215

 

The Role of the Labor Movement in Defending Immigrant Rights  --  New York  --  February 25  (Left Labor Project)