Karin Gitchel

Normal People Don’t Want This Shit is running away with the vote tonight

The whole Third Term Project isn’t actually about Trump. The people behind it know he will likely be dead or enfeebled by 2029. It is about them, the vastly unpopular group around Trump, wanting to grift us forever without elections.

Bob giving thumbs up seated in chair next to Rachel Smith, president of Washington Roundtable. Flags in background from Oregon, Canada, USA, Washington state

Today I announced an agreement between Washington state, Oregon, and British Columbia to renew and strengthen our partnership.

Together, the Cascadia region will address housing affordability, invest in clean energy, and create the conditions for long-term economic growth.

Scarlett Steps quilt draped to view binding and backing from Jelly Roll Quilts in a Weekend pattern book.

My sweet Bentley snuggled in the quilt as I start tearing the binding off.

The Scarlett Steps quilt with a new binding.

Scarlett Steps quilt draped to view the striped pattern from Jelly Roll Quilts in a Weekend pattern book.

Quilts are math and project management with perseverance! This Jelly Roll Quilt in a Weekend took a lot of weekends - I took it apart three times before the lines matched up. Then, I hated the binding so I took that apart and redid it. Now, it drapes on my chair and I love it so much.

A turquoise and white felt bag that has embroidered bee and flower with blue patterns lines.

A few weeks ago, I made this cute bag. 🐝 It is wonky, has flaws, but it was my first attempt at sewing different weights of felt. I need to practice creative stitches, buy better stabilizer, and keep trying!

Quilter author holding up the finished Kaffetastic Rainbow Star quilt. Diamond shapes in rows from red to purple alternating with black and white polka dot patterns.

The red, orange, yellow and green rows and corner of the Kaffetastic Rainbow quilt displayed over a couch.

The blue and purple corners of the Kaffetastic Rainbow Quilt draped over couch.

This was a two year process to finish this Kaffetastic Rainbow Star quilt. This quilt is pure joy! So many errors, so may crooked lines - so much learning for a first quilt. 🌈🩷

Small handmade quilted bag with rainbow stripes and a flower sewed on the side. Creative stitching around edges.

Tilted close up of a small handmade quilted bag with rainbow stripes and a flower sewed on the side. Creative stitching around edges.

Tilted close up of a small handmade quilted bag with rainbow stripes and a flower sewed on the side. Creative stitching around edges. Posed in front of Singer sewing machine.

I’m obsessed with quilted bags and rainbows. A fun, small bag that I made in summer 2023. Pattern from @thelittlegreenbean (her reels and videos are helpful!)

I need to make some of these! Thanks for the size tip! I’ll try it.

I know it’s too much to expect them to know their history, but if the American Revolution had a motto, it definitely would not have been “immigrants go home.”

It would have been “get your fucking soldiers out of our cities.”

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.

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.)

What a Bigger-Tent Democratic Party Could Look Like Elected officials and operatives are rethinking old litmus tests.

You're gonna need a bigger tent

"How bad slavery was" is worse. Much worse. Much worse than you think, much worse than you're taught, much worse than museums depict. Worse.

This is amongst the most impactful two minutes of broadcasting I’ve ever seen.

By Emma Murphy, International Editor, ITV News. #Gaza

As always, there is so much danger for women in “ Christian” fundamentalist communities . Excellent 🧵 on the mix of Vance, Thiel, project 2025 authors and the oppression of women.

How do you feel about having to practice the religion? You’re told to practice ?

A thoughtful post on such a painful loss, Dan. I’m so sorry. Thank you for writing and sharing.

Mark Butcher 1) Sandra used AI to write a report 2) Bill used AI to summarise the report 3) Bill used AI to write questions about the report 4) Sandra used AI to respond to the questions 5) Bill used AI to create a presentation about the report 6) Jane used AI to take notes from the presentation 7) Jane’s team used AI to summarise the notes she shared No one wrote the report, no one ever read the report, no one understood the questions or the answers. No business value was achieved But but but AI adds business value

Even linkedin gets it

Purple photo of quote: "Because farmworkers really, really are part oft he foundation of our nation. Our safety, health, and liberation, and that of our families and communities, is directly tied up with theirs." Sarah Mock via substack. sarahmock.substack.com

8/ "The only real solution for farmworkers, for farmers, and for all of us, is far more fundamental change in the American immigration system. It’s a pathway to citizenship for the people who feed us.

And until migrant farmworkers are free and safe to work with dignity, none of us ever will be."

7/ "make it more likely that workers are forced into more grueling work schedules, suffer more wage theft, work more while sick (for example, with H5N1, the deadly bird flu that’s been detected in dairy cows and dairy workers in the U.S.) and overall experience more dangerous and shitty conditions."

6/ "If this power to have and dispose of workers is suddenly in the hands of farmers in a more formal way than ever before, like a sword of Damocles hanging over workers’ heads– do you think I will ever say no to anything my boss asks of me?"

5/ "In short, literally nothing is achieved in all of this but terror. There are no benefits to American workers, farmers, or consumers created by this mess. It is nothing more than an expensive exercise in torturing the most vulnerable people in our communities."

4/ "The true victims here aren’t farmers who depend on and hire (and sometimes exploit) undocumented migrants, or consumers. It’s the workers themselves and their communities."

3/ "Not to mention that these are probably not the first raids these dairies have experienced. Dairies across the country have been getting periodically raided for years, so most know how to handle them and are not likely to go out of business as a result."

2/ "I do not think these business owners will become outspoken critics of the actions of the administration anytime soon. They’ll let ICE have their “win” and after a few weeks, things will go back to business as usual."

Oh my lands that was perfect!!🌈⚾

👇 Jenny is a must follow - each and every thread contains links to who, how & why we are here: names, background, and research.

Thank you for saying this, I had the exact same thought this morning.