annie

Proud of Mainers!

Maine in the top 10 most rallies, actions and events of 2025.
Substack columnist K. Starling, in collaboration with Harvard's Ash Center Crowd Counting Consortium documented progressive actions beginning in April last year. Maine scored in the top 10 with 1798 confirmed events.

“I’ve never protested before - but I just watched 4th & 5th grade kids run away from our own government.” 😕🇺🇸💔

(From @crindivisible.bsky.social )

Donald Trump has produced the lowest GDP growth of any President in the last 80 years.

Follow our friend Troy Jackson - experienced in government, labor union supported, always a friend of the people.

Will not stop keeping Ukraine in my heart.

#MEPolitics #DefundICE

Portland, Maine

www.pressherald.com/2026/01/30/l...

Martin Shuster sdSreptoon1hm9t97235g2u5796glgh0435l6iaf05it1l232lc20cllf4g0 · So apparently on Sunday Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, said in a press conference that "we have got children hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside ... many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank. Somebody’s gonna write that children’s story about Minnesota.” Then on Monday--one day before International Holocaust Remembrance Day--the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum tweeted in response that: "Anne Frank was targeted and murdered solely because she was Jewish. Leaders making false equivalencies to her experience for political purposes is never acceptable. Despite tensions in Minneapolis, exploiting the Holocaust is deeply offensive, especially as antisemitism surges." As someone who spent a year at the Museum as a fellow doing research, I feel embarrassed for the institution. First, it is very clear that Walz wasn't drawing an equivalence, he was drawing an analogy. So this kind of response reminds me of the atrocious positions that the ADL has started to carve out, and why it has become mostly a sycophantic joke, now seemingly mostly geared towards currying favor with MAGA.

Not unrelatedly, I am noticing that a lot of--oftentimes even well-intentioned--people are spending time trying to delineate exactly which historical referent best captures what's going on now, as if we have to pick only one. There is the now well-circulated meme that says: no, ICE isn't the Gestapo, it's actually American--it's slave catchers. But this is a kind of odd distinction: the Nazis were themselves influenced by the Americans (if you're curious read the excellent book by James Whitman, _Hitler's American Model_). Nazis came here and studied American legal systems and statutes ... and remarkably a group of "liberal" Nazis decided that they couldn't make German laws as *extreme* as American ones (and this "liberal" group in fact won the day; German laws weren't as extreme as many of ours). Equally, Nazi jurists and theorists like Carl Schmitt were deeply influenced by American notions of manifest destiny. So the Nazi and American contexts were already fused. The idea of foreign/domestic is already quite complex in this context. (And this is before we even speak of the many actual Nazis that existed here and the many people who materially supported Hitler and the regime). We can complicate this picture more by noting that Nazism itself, even apart from these American influences, wasn't something that sprouted up out of thin air: it, too, had a(n experimental) history. Many of its barbaric practices and aims were developed and tested on colonial and imperial victims (as I have written elsewhere: there is a direct line from Shark Island concentration camp [called frequently simply "Death Island" where the Germans committed genocide against the Herero and Nama people] to the entire Nazi camp system). Thinkers like Hannah Arendt and Aimé Césaire drew our attention to this already in the middle of the last century.

In noting this, let me be clear that this does not erase or make less relevant the centuries of European antisemitism that fed into the Nazi project. That's the whole point: these are all related phenomena. European antisemitism influenced the way in which European colonialism and imperialism operated against indigenous populations in the Americas. Strikingly, as innovations mounted in "administering" the Americas, antisemitic policies also evolved in Europe. Administrators (oppressors) would sometimes even move from one sphere to the other and back. They were all synergistic (a brilliant examination of some of this is María Elena Martínez's _Genealogical Fictions_). (And one could, btw, also tell an important story about the development of Islamophobia in this very same orbit, since policies stumbled on in the Americas came back to oppress both Jews and Muslims in Europe). This is all to say: Walz's analogy is not at all far fetched. The history of oppression doesn't move in any kind of neat or purely linear fashion. It is oftentimes recursive, shifting, necessarily granular. Neither is it a competitive history. It is, in the words of Michael Rothberg, a *multidirectional* history. Drawing these analogies in fact *helps* us understand all the involved phenomena better. At least this is what "Never Again" has meant and means to me: it does not mean only never again for me or other Jews. And it does not mean never again only something that looks exactly like the Nazi genocide. I think also, btw, that this is what it meant for Otto Frank, who spent time *editing* his daughter's diary so that it could be available to anyone, not only to Jews.

For ultimately the Nazi genocide--any genocide--is a highly mediated phenomenon: it consists of many diffuse events, marshals an immense amount of people and institutions, relies on sometimes conflicting or contradictory cross-sections of society, and, indeed, emerges out of a process that does not neatly, especially as its happening, have a clear beginning, middle, and end, but rather arranges for itself a kind of constellation that harnesses a range of actors, perspectives, and also histories (this is one way to understand how German colonial projects or anti-communism or ableism were no less crucial to Nazism than European antisemitism). The genocidal outcomes emerge from the structural forms society adopts. And all of this without in any way eliding the special role that Jews played in the apocalyptic Nazi worldview.

Please read this extremely thoughtful & careful post on Tim Walz, Anne Frank, & the US Holocaust Memorial Museum from Martin Shuster, philosopher, Isaac Swift Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies, former Holocaust Memorial Museum Fellow, & scholar of genocide, the Holocaust, & authoritarianism:

Let us know if ICE or other federal agents violated your rights >> ACLUMaine.org/ReportRightsViolations

The beautiful Tibetan rug in my living room is a direct result of Mayor Guiliani telling all to go south of 14th Street and buy stuff.

This is what we have seen one hundred percent in our community outreach from our little Indivisible group. Ask people to help, outline what needs doing, make sure you have stuff for all levels of commitment and ability. Totally works.

He has never been to a protest.

MAINERS, HEADS UP:
Expect this here, too. Be on the lookout.
They're gonna look like I do in winter, tbh.

They may start dressing more and more like us and pretend to be delivery drivers, health care (as they did in Portland already).
Please give a listen, share, & be careful.

#Maine #MEpolitics

“I just checked—it turns out that Art. II, Sec. 1 of the Constitution of the United States does *not* say ‘The executive Power shall be vested in a bunch of sociopaths who think they can do whatever the f*ck they want and make sh*t up as they go along.’” — George Conway

Kind of like being a woman, I guess.

the moment the second person comes into the frame to stand with his neighbor is so incredibly beautiful

Impeach Noem. DEFUND ICE.

Minnesota’s justice system will have the last word.

Are you okay?

This is a reminder that if you’ve just seen something traumatic, playing 15 min of a visually demanding game (Tetris is the go-to here, but maybe Set? Mah-jongg?) can impede memory formation and help stop it from developing into a trauma.

(This doesn’t work for complex trauma but discrete events)

Mainers form immigrant support networks as ICE raids expand - Maine Beacon As more ICE agents descend upon Maine, residents are forming support networks to show their immigrant neighbors they are not alone. Volunteers are driving children with immigrant parents to school, de...

ICE activity is increasing across Maine, and residents are responding by organizing support networks for immigrant neighbors who are afraid to leave their homes. Volunteers are delivering food, driving children to school, and raising money for families who can’t get to work.

ICE is using intimidation, harassment, and fear tactics against peaceful observers and protesters.

It is NOT illegal to record or observe ICE activity. Period.

Showing up at observers’ homes, calling their cell phones, and putting people on a “domestic terrorism” list are gross abuses of power.

via @pabloreports.bsky.social

Over 100 priests arrested in Minneapolis for protesting ICE in Minnesota where today it's -21 degrees outside MSP Airport.

The clergy gathered in prayerful solidarity to demand airlines cease contracting deportation flights to DHS.

To all my Maine organizer friends, this is heartening. We can do this.

There is an area in the ICE detention center in Minneapolis designated specifically for American citizens. Contemplate that for a minute.

Portland Public Schools prepared & empowered Jan 16, 2026 Dear Portland Public Schools Community: As we begin a long weekend that will conclude with the Monday, Jan 19 holiday to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., many in our community may find it hard to feel celebratory due to stress and fear about upcoming anticipated actions in Maine by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). I want you to know that we at The Portland Public Schools are doing all we can to be responsive to concerns raised by community members and to keep our students and staff safe. While we still don't know any specifics, the latest information indicates that there will be increased ICE presence in the state in the near term. As I have shared previously, we don't have any indication that schools will be a focus of these upcoming actions. WE have, however, reviewed our protocols with all staff and shared them with our after-school and community partners. At this point, we will hold school ad extracurricular activities as usual. If there are any changes to that plan, we will be sure to inform you as soon as possible. We are also developing plans in case events make a remote learning option necessary for some students. This will include making school meals available. Please know remote learning is a last resort, because being in school in person is the best and most effective way fr students to learn. Students rely on schools for a consistent structure and routine, essential services, support from trusted adults, and continued access to instruction and extracurricular programming. I'll also remind members of our community of important resources.: - PPS Procedures on Non-Local Law Enforcement Actions: https://www.portlandschools.org/pps-procedures-on-non-local-law-enforcement-actions - Immigration Enforcement in Maine: https://www.aclumaine.org/preparingforice/ - Know Your Rights: https://www.aclumaine.org/know-your-rights/ - Families, you may also find this resour...

#Portland, #Maine parents, students, community members:
This letter regarding anticipated ICE activity was sent out yesterday, presumably to parents of enrolled students and associated entities. It addresses how school may be affected and what plans are being made.

Share as necessary, please. #ICE

Trump has sent 13.6% of all ICE agents to Minneapolis, a city that represents .13% of the population of the United States.

Miller asserts that Denmark can’t defend Greenland.

Yeah, genius, that’s why they’re a member of an alliance pledged to defend each other. One we founded and led, which has worked to deter aggression for over 75 years.

Today I was Kidnapped By ICE - Dawokefarmer

Are window-breaking tools standard equipment for law enforcement? Does standard change by type of force?