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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 12h

This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)

For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary.

Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from).

The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe.

Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky.

Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat?

This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight:
* Waste of public resources on military theatrics.
* Fraud in the name of “public safety.”
* Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect.

Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation.

Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here.

When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness.

Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy.

A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control.

Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard.

Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.

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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

Lex McMenamin (they/them) @leximcmenamin.com · 4d

23-year-old journalist Plestia Alaqad, like many Gazans, lost her home in the first days after October 7. unable to reenter her homeland, stuck watching the horror continue, she’s publishing her diaries from reporting on the ground.

full interview @teenvogue.com www.teenvogue.com/story/plesti...

Pic of Plestia Alaqad overlaid with text from interview: Plestia Alaqad: I can't believe that it's almost — [she pauses] no, it's not almost, it's actually two years. Okay, I can't believe that it's been two years of this ongoing genocide. When I was reporting in Gaza for 45 days, these 45 days felt like 45 years. And now it's 200 days feeling like 200 years for the people who are actually still on the ground facing bombing, displacement and starvation, which is being used as a method by Israel. Israel is literally ethnically cleansing people in Gaza, and we're watching a genocide unfold live on TV.

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Elisa G. Schneider @elisagschneider.bsky.social · 6d

From yesterday's rally/march 🇵🇸

The New York War Crimes newspaper with the headline "Two Years of Genocide. Who will Rise For Gaza?" In front of the arch at Washington Square Park

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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

Mondoweiss @mondoweiss.net · 10d

30 boats from the Global Sumud Flotilla remain steadfast, just 46 nautical miles from Gaza, despite relentless hostility from the Israeli navy. The Israeli navy has intercepted 13 boats from the Global Sumud Flotilla so far.

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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 12d

Mass shootings in the US, per Gun Violence Archive:

2015: 332
2016: 383
2017: 347
2018: 335
2019: 414
2020: 611
2021: 689
2022: 644
2023: 659
2024: 503

So far in 2025...324 mass shootings in just 272 days.

We do not have to keep living like this.

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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

50501: The People’s Movement ❌👑 @50501movement.bsky.social · 14d

Trump has declared war on Oregon! Protect Oregon by going to www.protect-oregon.com/no-military-...

Oregon is home no military take over of our communities

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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 14d

BREAKING: At least 82 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks throughout Gaza since dawn, medical sources have told Al Jazeera.

🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/570it8

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Elisa G. Schneider @elisagschneider.bsky.social · 17d

🔥🔥🔥🔥

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Elisa G. Schneider @elisagschneider.bsky.social · 17d

I'll be here, will you?

Get Free @getfree-mvmt.bsky.social · 17d

And if you're in NYC this Friday, join our free speech rally outside Nexstar corporate offices NYC at noon to demand they free the airwaves and end their role in MAGA regime-backed censorship.

RSVP: events.boycottdisneyabc.com/events/0fb71...

Free Speech Rally - Nexstar Corporate Offices

Sep 26, 2025, 12:00:00 PM - GMT-4 - Calyon Building, 1301 6th Avenue, New York, NY 10019, United States of America, 1301 6th Avenue (New York) - “The Imperial need for control is so desperate because ...

events.boycottdisneyabc.com

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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

Get Free @getfree-mvmt.bsky.social · 17d

Star Wars Fans of conscience: join members of 50501 and Get Free’s Project Fulcrum to demand Nexstar and Sinclair free the airwaves, show Jimmy Kimmel, and refuse to comply with future regime attacks on truth and freedom.

RSVP to a rally near you:
friendseverywhere.network

JOIN THE STAR WARS FAN FREE SPEECH RALLIES
OUTSIDE NEXSTAR & SINCLAIR OFFICES
FRIDAY, SEPT 26 AT NOON LOCAL TIME
RSVP & TOOLKIT @ LINK IN BIO

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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

50501: The People’s Movement ❌👑 @50501movement.bsky.social · 19d

NEXT UP: Boycott Amazon, Starbucks, and all the top recommendations by @bdsmovement.bsky.social as well, because our struggles are all connected!

#boycott #BDSmovement #jimmykimmel

Photo of Jimmy Kimmel, smiling with text overlay that says “DISNEY BRINGS BACK KIMMELL AFTER LOSING BILLIONS IN BOYCOTTS
THIS is the power of boycotts.
50501”

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Elisa G. Schneider @elisagschneider.bsky.social · 21d

Happy to see your smiling faces!

Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 22d

BREAKING: The UN General Assembly has voted to allow Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to address the annual gathering of world leaders next week via video after the US said it would not give him a visa to travel to New York.

🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/4nih6d

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Elisa G. Schneider @elisagschneider.bsky.social · 22d

This:

Text from the vulture article from anonymous late night writers and how they're feeling after Jimmy Kimmel's suspension.

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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

LFC Blog @lfcblog.bsky.social · 23d

On this day in 2020, Diogo Jota became a Red ❤️

Always in our hearts. Forever our number 20.

#LFC

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Elisa G. Schneider @elisagschneider.bsky.social · 23d

I figured it out! Had to remove the Add-on in my Manage Add-Ons section. Phew!

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Elisa G. Schneider @elisagschneider.bsky.social · 23d

But fr, does anyone know how to cancel Hulu if its paid for my a third party? T Mobile sends me to Hulu's website and Hulu says to go to T Mobile...

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Elisa G. Schneider @elisagschneider.bsky.social · 23d

Because I'm not actually paying for Hulu (it's included in my phone plan), I couldn't figure out how to cancel my subscription, so I'm just deleting my whole MyDisney account. #BoycottABC #BoycottDisney

MyDisney account deletion request submission.

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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

50501: The People’s Movement ❌👑 @50501movement.bsky.social · 24d

Check out this thread for a list of other cancellations and boycotts to fight back against this fascist takeover of our media.

50501: The People’s Movement ❌👑 @50501movement.bsky.social · 24d

They want to cancel Jimmy Kimmel and kill free speech?

Time to hit them where it hurts—their pockets:
- Cancel Disney+
- Cancel Hulu
- Boycott ESPN
- Boycott ABC

Let them know why you’re canceling/boycotting.
- ABC contact: support.abc.com/hc/en-us/art...
- Nexstar contact: www.nexstar.tv/contact/

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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

Drop Site @dropsitenews.com · 24d

Legendary British musician Brian Eno, who helped organize and produce the Together for Palestine benefit concert, performs the poem “Oh Rascal Children of Gaza.”

Written by Palestinian poet Khaled Juma during Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, the poem mourns the 550 children killed that summer...

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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

The IMEU @theimeu.bsky.social · 24d

Tune in now to Together For Palestine, a benefit concert raising funds for Palestinian-led organizations helping Palestinians survive Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWBV...

Together for Palestine

YouTube video by Brian Eno

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

ɴɪᴊɪɴ @niijin.bsky.social · 24d

Superb from Salah 😮‍💨👑

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Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

Corellianjedi2 @corellianjedi2.com · 24d

One of my favourite features of GAMILY is that you can connect your Twitch account and show off clips and highlights! Plus, as someone just beginning their TTRPG journey, finding new tabletop gaming friends has been much easier with GAMILY!

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Elisa G. Schneider @elisagschneider.bsky.social · 24d

I've been really enjoying GAMILY! Please download from the link to help me out! :) Love y'all! #sponsored

Corellianjedi2 @corellianjedi2.com · 24d

Looking for new gaming friends? Many of mine have moved away or gotten much busier; I'm so excited I found an app that's helped me find gamers like me, local & around the country! GAMILY matchmakes you w/ other gamers in a safe, inclusive enviroment! #sponsored partners.gamilyapp.com/oJDo/corelli...

Reposted by Elisa G. Schneider

ACLU @aclu.org · 25d

Robert Roberson is facing an execution despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence.

Medical evidence shows that his daughter died due to natural and accidental causes, yet Texas is pushing forward with his execution anyway. Add your name to this petition to save Robert.

Stop the Oct. 16 Execution of Robert Roberson

Add to your name to stop Texas from executing an innocent person.

innocenceproject.org

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