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Seattle Destroys Black Lives Matter Garden Planted During George Floyd Protests

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seattle black lives matter garden

The city of Seattle removed the Black Lives Matter garden on Wednesday morning. The garden was planted during the 2020 George Floyd protests.

The Seattle Parks and Recreation department said that it was going to undertake a “turf restoration” project in Cal Anderson Park, the home of the garden, according to the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog.

The Parks Department called the Black Lives Matter garden which had existed for three years “makeshift” and “temporary,”  and said the removal was due to “public health and public safety issues,” as well as the aforementioned turf restoration. In addition, the city also removed homeless encampments near the garden. None of the gardeners were given advance notice, according to The Seattle Times.

Seattle made its plans to remove the garden months ago, but Black Star Farmers protested the city’s plans. Black Star Farmers is a local non-profit group dedicated to “improving BIPOC communities’ food sovereignty,” “[reclaiming] Black and Indigenous relationships with the land,” and works “to create self-sufficient communities,” according to its website. BSF maintained the garden, according to The Stranger.

READ MORE: ‘Propaganda’: Fox News Added a Gunman Into Photos of Seattle’s ‘Autonomous Zone’

Black Star Farmers alleges that SPR was “removing the garden to placate minority-but-powerful stakeholders that have been pushing for the removal of BLMG since 2020.”

The city, however, says that the Black Lives Matter garden “has created unsafe conditions for all park users, including the vandalism of Cal Anderson public bathrooms, public drug use, unauthorized camping, and a significant rodent problem, along with other issues.”

One of the community gardeners, Saunatina Sanchez, told KING-TV that the community tried to work with the city to protect the garden.

“We have consistently gotten pushback from the city about helping with that project,” Sanchez said. “Instead of working with us, they have consistently decided to be antagonistic and tell us that this wasn’t in their control so we needed to leave.”

SPR says it offered Black Star Farmers space near a community center where the garden could be moved, but BSF said the garden must stay as it’s part of an occupation protest, according to KING-TV. A recent statement says that Mayor Bruce Harrell is hoping to move the garden elsewhere in Cal Anderson Park, the station reports.

The garden was planted in 2020, during the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, or CHOP, later renamed to CHAZ, or the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Between June 8 and July 1 of that year, protesters took over a few blocks of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood near Cal Anderson Park.

The protesters called on the city to cut the police budget by 50% and use that money for community programs in Black communities, according to NPR. The site was cleared after an executive order from then-Mayor Jenny Durkan on July 1.

During the occupation, activists also painted a Black Lives Matter road mural, which has been maintained by SPR after being restored in late September 2020.

Featured image by Casey Rogers/Flickr under Creative Commons License.

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Trump: ‘We’re Bringing Back God’

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President Donald Trump delivered a forceful message to attendees at the March for Life rally in Washington, D.C.

In pre-recorded remarks, the president told the anti-abortion gathering, “under the Trump administration, we’re strongly defending religious liberty, we’re bringing back faith in America.”

“We bringing back God,” Trump declared.

Having praised the end of the constitutional right to abortion, Trump said, “the work to rebuild a culture that supports life continues in every state, every community, and every part of our beautiful land.”

“This is a battle that must be fought, must be won, not only in the corridors of power, but, above all, in the hearts and souls of the people,” he continued, suggesting a desire to end all abortion in the United States.

“We have stopped forced taxpayer funding of abortion at home and abroad, we’re championing faith-based adoption and foster care, and supporting our parents by investing $1,000 into an account that will grow over time for every newborn baby.”

READ MORE: ‘Good Chance’ Trump Will Be Electorally ‘Humiliated’ in November: Carville

Vice President JD Vance told attendees, “let the record show you have a vice president who practices what he preaches,” before announcing that he and his wife Usha are expecting their fourth child, as Fox News reported. “And it will be our third baby boy. So, we’ll take whatever prayers you can give. We certainly need them.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson also spoke at the rally, declaring that Republican policies “support” American families.

“Republicans are working hard to deliver on the mandate you gave us in the last election, to make it easier than ever before, to raise a family in this great country of ours. And because we know that support for American families doesn’t end at birth, our policies reflect this.”

Critics challenged Johnson’s claim.

Health care activist Melanie D’Arrigo remarked that Republicans offer no universal health care, paid family leave, universal childcare, a living wage as a minimum wage, affordable housing, or tuition-free public college, but, she said, they have rolled back labor laws, gutted food assistance, and deregulated food safety.

READ MORE: Trump Promotes His Triumphal Arch as Millions Face Massive Storm

 

Image via Reuters 

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Trump Promotes His Triumphal Arch as Millions Face Massive Storm

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Americans in more than half the country are bracing for “hazardous ice, heavy snow and brutal cold” from a storm that a National Weather Service forecaster has predicted will be “crippling.” A potentially “catastrophic” ice storm is headed for the Southeast, and at least 14 states across the country have already declared a state of emergency.

The “potentially historic, massive winter storm will slam more than half of the United States today, moving east as it brings heavy snow, widespread ice accumulation and dangerous cold,” NBC News reported. “Up to a foot of snow is likely on the northern side of the system from Oklahoma to Massachusetts, according to the National Weather Service.”

About 1,300 flights have already been canceled ahead of the storm that is expected to hit 40 states across the nation.

Business Insider reported, “Americans strip store shelves bare as millions brace for a potentially historic storm.”

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump on Friday morning took the opportunity to mock what he called “Environmental Insurrectionists,” as he asked, “whatever happened to global warming???”

READ MORE: ‘Blitzkrieg Against Public Opinion’: Columnist Calls Trump’s Agenda a ‘Cry for Help’

Hours later, Trump posted to Truth Social artist’s renderings of his Triumphal Arch, which he wants built in Washington, D.C, near the Lincoln Memorial — with a start date of sometime in February. He wants it completed by Independence Day for the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration.

“It hasn’t started yet. It starts sometime in the next two months. It’ll be great. Everyone loves it,” Trump told Politico in December. “They love the ballroom too. But they love the Triumphal Arch.”

Last month, President Trump revealed what the White House’s top domestic policy goal is. The president shared with attendees at a Sunday holiday party that the “primary thing” for the head of his Domestic Policy Council, Vince Haley, is building Trump’s dream arch in Washington, D.C.

“Vince is unbelievable on policy. And we have a policy thing that’s going to be unbelievable happening,” Trump said of the proposed arch, as The Daily Beast reported.

READ MORE: ‘Good Chance’ Trump Will Be Electorally ‘Humiliated’ in November: Carville

“It’s something that is so special. Uh, it will be like the one in, in Paris, but to be honest with you, it blows it away. Blows it away in every way,” Trump said. “And Vince came in one day and his eyes were teeming. I mean, he couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. He saw it and he wanted to do that. That’s your primary thing.”

Critics slammed the president for focusing on his arch while ordinary Americans are struggling.

Patriot Takes, a social media account with nearly half a million followers, blasted the president, sarcastically saying he “is laser focused on things that matter to the American people.”

READ MORE: Sean Duffy’s DC IndyCar Grand Prix Dream Is Stalling
Image via Reuters 

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‘Blitzkrieg Against Public Opinion’: Columnist Calls Trump’s Agenda a ‘Cry for Help’

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President Donald Trump’s coalition is “falling apart,” according to columnist Matt K. Lewis, who writes at The Hill that Trump’s list of accomplishments seems more like “a cry for help.”

Pointing to Trump’s rapid subject-changing, Lewis noted that the president kicked off the new year by invading Venezuela and capturing Nicolás Maduro.

“From there, things escalated briskly,” he wrote. “He defended an ICE agent who shot and killed a protester in Minneapolis named Renee Good. He threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act. He threatened to take Greenland — possibly by force. He threatened to slap tariffs on European allies over Greenland. He suggested his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize justified taking Greenland. And he almost failed to issue any acknowledgment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, waiting until bedtime to do so.”

Lewis says that while somewhere there is a “constituency” for each of these individual actions, “taken together, they resemble a blitzkrieg against public opinion.”

READ MORE: Sean Duffy’s DC IndyCar Grand Prix Dream Is Stalling

He summed up Trump’s low poll numbers and concluded, “America has seen this movie before, has been reminded of how it ends, and is already edging toward the exit.”

So, if the 2024 election held today, it’s “not at all clear” that Trump would win. he said, in part because “Trump’s winning coalition was so sprawling and incoherent that pleasing one group would automatically enrage another.”

So what’s happened in the past year?

“Trump is very good at campaigning and very bad at governing. This explains almost everything that has happened since he took office one year ago this week, including the nation’s rising consumption of Rolaids.”

Disappointment from the “newer members of his coalition” came from “the ultimate realization that Trump’s most electorally appealing promises — such as lowering grocery prices on day one — are never actually going to happen. Indeed, Trump’s policies — tariffs, for example — were almost custom-made to increase grocery prices, which is generally frowned upon by people who eat.”

As it turns out, “Trump’s true superpower … only works when he is not actually in charge.”

READ MORE: ‘Good Chance’ Trump Will Be Electorally ‘Humiliated’ in November: Carville

 

Image via Reuters 

 

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