May Day march in Grand Rapids: Immigrants demonstrate their power!

Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy

Yesterday, an estimated 2,000 people marched for immigrants rights, demanding dignity, respect and permanent protection for all immigrants.

Movimiento Cosecha GR organized the march, which also coincided with International Workers Day. Like the traditional workers movement, Cosecha GR uses the tactics of boycotts and strikes. The immigrant-led movement also frames the labor of immigrants as a source power, since so much of the economy depends on immigrants – most of the food system is dependent on immigrant/migrant labor, the services sector, construction, etc.

However, one main focus right now by Cosecha GR, is a campaign to get Driver Licenses for All people in Michigan. They talked about the campaign briefly before the march began at Roosevelt Park in the southwest part of the city, a primarily Latino/Latinx neighborhood.

The police presence was different from last year’s May 1st march. There were more cops, from the GRPD, the Kent County Sheriff’s…

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Trump and Congress Launch Libertarian Attack on Poor Adults; Forget All About The Children

Starring Paul Ryan as Ursula the Sea Witch: “Now it’s happened once or twice
Someone couldn’t pay the price
And I’m afraid I had to rake ’em ‘cross the coals
Yes I’ve had the odd complaint
But on the whole I’ve been a saint
To those poor unfortunate souls”

janresseger

Paul Ryan’s firing of the chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives has cast a bright light on the absence of any kind of public ethics in public policy coming out of the Trump administration and Congress.

The Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank writes: “Praying for the poor is now apparently a firing offense in the corridors of power…Only in this perverted time could a priest lose his job after committing the sin of crying out for justice for the poor. But then, look around: Everywhere are the signs of a rising kleptrocracy. The $1.5 trillion tax cut did make winners of corporations and the wealthy. And actions since then show that the Trump administration is making losers of the poor… If you preach about the poor in today’s Washington, you don’t have a prayer.”

Writing for the Post’s “Morning Plum Line” on Friday, Greg Sargent reported:…

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