Friday, June 27, 2025

“Kill the Bill Before It Kills Us!!!”:CD June 25th, No Medicaid cuts action in DC with @popdemocaction and @housingworks

 

CD for Medicaid by Ken Schles


“Kill the Bill Before It Kills Us!!!”:CD June 25th, No Medicaid cuts action in DC with @popdemocaction and @housingworks


“Dear June 25th Participants, From the Popular Democracy team, we want to express our excitement to see you this week in Washington D.C on a moment where the Senate is debating the last pieces of the Big Ugly Bill.  You will come on a week where the Senate will try to push the bill through in order to comply with the President's deadline of having it done by July 4th recess, which means that your presence and our ability to slow it down, will help it make it harder for it to pass. 

We left at 420 AM, Yana arriving at my house, picking up Ken, Jennie and Kate.

Drove to DC to take on the monster. Healthcare is a right. The whole drive I agonized over which demo to go to, the Popular Democracy Action or the Healthgap Housing Works action, disrupting a senate hearing over PEPFAR.

Back and forth we talked. 

Kate was joining Housing Works. 

Ken, Jennie, Yana and myself, Pop Democracy. 

We arrived by 1030 AM in  time for the press conference. The @popdemocaction press conference was just starting, with constituents and reps from around the country sharing stories about the bill and its damages.  “Kill the bill before it kills us,” said health care and trade union groups, Planned Parenthood and ADAPT.  The struggles are connected, story after story. Sitting in a wheel chair, ADAPT's Dononique Howell told me why she was in DC to fight the budget bill. “I’m here with ADAPT sisters to fight the medicaid cuts in the bill. People like me who use home health care services paid for by medicaid will be put in harm's way. I work. These cuts will put me in a shelter. I won’t be able to take care of my kids.”

Welcome movement community, said a labor activist. We must wake congress. My family depends upon good affordable healthcare. I join other Americans saying kill the bill... 

Gutting medicare will kill people.

I'm Mike with ADAPT. “We are stronger together. We've gotta fight back. ADAPT is  led by people with disabilities. We had to do it ourselves. We have been fighting for programs we created ourselves. We had to create it... no one else would...we are the others ... It's us. About all of us. We've been doing this for 50 years... ready to fight for our lives...

“This is a democracy. People are in charge. This is the message. This is the biggest transfer of wealth in US history... 15 million will lose their healthcare. We've got to make sure this bill does not pass.,” said another observer.

“They know what they are doing. That they are packing the pockets of the billionaires.

We have power. Nothing is over till it's over. Medicaid is worth saving.

“Corruption is a core part of authoritarian rule. Our stories inform our populace... a key lever to uphold our democracy. This bill is a violent attack on the poor. It's a pillaging.

“Millions to lose healthcare and snap. Every one dollar cut to snap will cost us 20 dollars in econ impact... this will remove care. It adds barriers to care. The bill is gonna mean people take out credit cards. This system is designed to steal and exact resources. Bleeding our portfolio to deepen to portfolio of billionaires.

Zip codes should not determine if you can enroll in higher ed.

Senator Wyden followed, “here's where we are. This battle this week determines the future of our healthcare. Caviar or kids. The bill is the biggest cut in healthcare in US history. Why give tax cuts to the rich?”

Finishing the press conference, we were given two warnings by the police, who said we were being too rowdy.

One more and the arrests would start. 

The CD plan for June 25th:  

“Preparation

  • CD participants will be identified and prepped on the Monday night call and Wednesday orientation at the church

  • There will be two groups - Red Team and Green Team

  • We will need 4 Red Team Captains and 3 Green Captains 


CADENCE

  • We arrive the building 

  • First in line should be those with the floor banners, they enter the building and get in position

  • Then Floor Participants come in 

  • We drop dead, put in the long banner and then drop the ones from the 7th floor

  • Once we do that, we start doing Mic Check of people’s stories

  • Warnings

    • 1st warning we all go quite except CD participants

    • 2nd Warning we leave the building…”


The police walked with us to the Rotunda, lined with senate aids and pages, a few senators, ready to gut the safety net. 


The police told us we’d be arrested if we stayed, many holding plastic cuffs, ready to start arrests. 


Activist photographer Ken Schles posted a note after the action along with a few pics, featured here. 

“Some without legs crawled out of wheelchairs to lay on the ground. I watched Capitol Police aggressively zip-tie disabled already immobilized in their wheelchairs. A blind man had his walking stick confiscated and was zip-tied from behind.

What kind of madness is this?

We were given 2 warnings by police as we vocalized outrage over the coming storm of death and suffering during a press conference held earlier in the Dirksen bldg. We were told further “outbursts” would get us evicted and/or arrested—regardless that this presser was in a conf. room expressly reserved for these sorts of events.

16M people could lose healthcare within 10 years. Many losing heart or diabetes meds would be at immediate risk of death. Pulling $1T Medicaid funding out of the budget will implode the US healthcare system, whether you’re on Medicaid or not: Hospitals will close, everyone’s life endangered.

Sen. Wyden (D-OR), “…it’s the most important fight I’ve ever been in, because this battle this week is going to determine the future of American healthcare.”

Sen. Murphy (D-CT) “This isn’t about impacting someone’s life. This is about ending lives.”

McGill Johnson, CEO and Pres. of Planned Parenthood, shared, 50% of US births are financed through Medicaid. PP patients would lose not only reproductive and prenatal services, but cancer screenings and STD treatment. The bill could close 1/3 of their clinics, 90% of them in blue states—a de facto backdoor nationwide abortion ban.

Others anxiously revealed they or loved ones will die if cuts go through.

The protest, organized by Popular Democracy Action along with the Debt Collective and disability civil rights group ADAPT - American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, did not deploy easily. Police dogged attendees after the Dirksen presser for over an hour into the Russell Sen. Off. Bldg. Police massed in large numbers confining throngs of protesters to side hallways while 60+ of us were quickly arrested. Protesters unfurled a banner stating “Senate Republicans don’t kill us” on one of the staircases.

We chanted “No cuts to Medicaid” and “kill the bill” loudly as we were hauled away into the 98F heat.

I spent nearly 4 hours in that heat handcuffed awaiting processing.”

I watched our friends' arrests, the health activists dying in, the police grabbing their banner. 

Members of ADAPT in wheel chairs zipped their chairs away, eluding police, who chased them.
Clown cars, congress like the Benny Hill show. 

I lay on the ground and screamed, “No cuts to Medicaid!” over and over. 

Media took pics. 

Said one observer:

"If you’re zip-tying grandmas protesting losing health care maybe you’re not the good guys in the story?"  

Kate Barnhart disrupted the senate hearing on PEPFAR.

“Rough arrest interrupting the despicable Russell Vaught, Director of the Office of Management and Budget and one of the authors of Project 2025 as he was about to lie to the Appropriations Committee about global AIDS treatment among other things. Capitol police handled us with uncharacteristic force and also handcuffed us too tightly, but we are just sore and bruised, no major injuries. Once arrested, we were united with our comrades in front the Center for Popular Democracy and Allies who had been arrested earlier protesting Medicaid cuts.

Charles King noted:

“The Capitol Police were definitely testy. But our message got thru. Vaught is killing people with HIV by denying prevention, treatment and care.”


I hope you are feeling better, I replied. Thanks for always being there. And Charles King the police were sick of the ADAPT people who make a stink about their right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness the day before us. Democracy is such a tedious affair.

We spent five hours in custody, Housing Works joining us in jail after their action. 

And drove home, sharing stories about the 24 hours fighting for democracy together, roses and thorns, listening to Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Arriving home, we heard the Senate Parliamentarian later reported that the bill cannot move as reconciliation, delaying things. Talking Points Memo notes: “The wildly unpopular “Big Beautiful” reconciliation package has encountered possibly existential challenges, though Senate Republicans still hope to bring it to the floor by this weekend. Senate Republicans are rewriting key provisions of it after Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough rejected many of Republicans’ proposed Medicaid cuts, forcing their hand. Given that, Senate leadership has said a vote is unlikely before Saturday. But that can only happen if everything goes according to plan (and so far that has not been the case). The revised reconciliation text will have to come out on Friday, goes through the parliamentarian without a hitch and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has a favorable whip count to pass Trump’s megabill. The whip count will be the challenging part as several senators are still worried about the bill’s deep Medicaid cuts, specifically a proposal that would curtail provider taxes. Other senators, like Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), continue to push back against the bill for not going far enough, claiming it does not cut nearly enough in spending.”

Democracy is not a spectator sport. 

Hopefully disruption works.








CD for Medicaid by Ken Schles











CD against Medicaid cuts by Ken Schles

As well as a few of my shots:
 









And after jail:




 









A few hours earlier:







Wednesday, June 18, 2025

“listening to the dream”: Fire and Teargas, Graduation and Light: LA Journal









“listening to the dream”: Fire and Teargas, Graduation and Light: LA Journal


Next stop Los Angeles. 

I remember the riots in LA when I graduated from college, the fire flowing into the sky from downtown that May of 1992 as the riots started. History felt alive, then as now, alive, ever flowing. 

Riots past as prologue, may the circle be unbroken.

“ICE is bullshit,” says the graffiti on the boarded up building near Pershing Square. 

“Free them!!!”

“ICE = Trash.”

“ICE melts in my buttcrack”

I follow the sound of police sirens and cops to the demo. 

The sound of helicopters reminds me. 

Golden light in our faces. 

Some guys sell Mexican flags telling me about their brother arrested the night before. 

National Guard stand about, protesters in their masks jeering them. 

At the CO Op free books bin, I pick up a book about the Balkans, the conflicts, wars in ourselves, reading it all break long, careening through the city, listening, watching. 

A driverless food delivery robot crosses my path.

June 12

LA really is a city of light. Birds fly about the old buildings, along the waterfront. Geese run about the lake in Echo Park. People cook blue corn tortillas in Mcarthur Park. We woke up in Venice, greeted the day, the morning light. Careened down Venice Boulevard from Westwood to the 10 East, down Alvarado, where it looks like  Mexico City, down to Filipinotown, to Echo Park for sticky rice and mangos, to Silver Lake, to a German beer hall where they were singing old Marlene Deitrich songs. Warnings about a curfew filled the phones, national protests against the deportations. Our cities are made of, shaped by immigrants. Of course in L A's case, it was Mexico long before the gringos came along. As Cher says in Clueless, it does not say RSVP on the statue of liberty. Ahh, Los Angeles.

June 13

LA is popping. You can't walk a block in downtown without finding boarded up buildings, 'fuck ice' graffiti, people with flags, many mexico flags. This was Mexico a lot longer than its been the US. Curfew is about to start. Cops lined up about the Fed Building. People tell stories of the cops randomly arresting people, detaining people, throwing their stuff out. There's a lot of cops out there. But how to get them to join us, instead of detain people? I've seen both in my life. LA City of Angels, showing us a lot.

June 14

LA is full of wildly imaginative people, funky coffee shops. We talked about Tompkins Square Park, looked at the skaters, jumped in the water and told old stories. Greetings from.Venice, the most fun neighborhood in the USA.

June 15

A crazy day in la. No kings protests everywhere in the streets, everywhere in Berlin New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, peaceful rally after rally. News from rallies across the country, graduation events at the university for the humanities. Talking with a Medievalist with my kid, she said, you must be the granddaughter of Dorothy Shepard. She's a great scholar, she said to us. We talked about her influence on us. The trips to Italy and the cloisters with her. Strange days she said. I know. She mentioned events in Minnesota. What happened I asked. Democratic State Rep and her husband were killed, second state rep and his wife were wounded 1.5 hours later. A manifesto found. Very Weimar. Earlier in the day, a friend said he thought someone would be killed.  I guess he was right. We met the kids profs and friends. 

The speeches to the graduates recalled those days.  I'm George Baker, the head of the art history dept. I want to acknowledge the many challenges the students went through the years, from the pandemic, to an assasination threat. Congratulations again.

At UCLA alum and writer Carribean Fragoza spoke:

“...its impossible to be here and not mention what is happening in LA,” she began, “when undocumented are disappeared, where the earthquakes, the fire has been speaking to us on these indigenous lands, above the artificial border,  when we are being extinguished, incarcerated, the fire is speaking through people, through the activists.  Free Palestine is not difficult to understand, liberation for all, from Gaza to LA.  This city has been tested many times, the Watts Riot of 65, the Riots in 1992.  I craved something, to be free, the fire seemed like a promise, I saw it in 1994 in the prop 187 protests, the uprisings, we are seeing fires that took over la in January, realize who the helpers are, who helps, who swoops in and profits, a fire when we can fight back...we can have a home within us. I learned to find something here.  We need to find something in each other. The strategies for survival are there, building community is a tool for survival.”

Our kid found a community here in between it all. I remember those fires after the riots in 1992. And walking her through the snow, dropping her off at JFK airport in January, when she arrived into the fires. And found a community of support.

We left the graduation, went to Canters deli on Fairfax, for a snack, and up into the hills, across Sunset and Mohalland Drive, to a party in Laurel Canyon at the house designed by an Italian futurist with a pool that looked like a David Hockney painting. Hung out for a stretch. We talked about the city and immigrants who make it. It's disgusting what's happening, said one.  Now my farmers market is empty. Said goodbye.  Brought the teenager to Florence and Normandie, in the old South Central, back through the protests, through the curfew zone, cops and Mexican flags everywhere. Traffic. Through the city of quartz. Back to Venice.


June 16

Woke up early, scrolled through the majestic pictures of No Kings demonstrations across the world, made our way to Silverlake, to the flea, where the L Word vibe is everywhere, 'girls don't block girls' says the poster, and Hold On Holy Ghost is playing, techno filling the air, back to echo park, out to Jet Rag, best vintage around, out to Cactus Taqueria on Vine, for a dip at Venice Beach meeting up with old high school buddies, Judy and Adrienne, swimming, along the threes company stroll, bodies and bikes, colors on the waterfront, meeting Ade’s cool kid, out to a drum circle as the sun went down, dancing bodies on the beach,  talking about it all, comparing notes on the world, Ade and Judy... friends4ever... Guyana Punch ... WHAM rap... thousands of bad lyrics later, we’re all still standing, talking it out. magic light, magic Los Angeles.


June 16

JOAN DIDION says...

“It's hostile in that you're trying to make somebody see something the way you see it, trying to impose your idea, your picture. It's hostile to try to wrench around someone else's mind that way. Quite often you want to tell somebody your dream, your nightmare. Well, nobody wants to hear about someone else's dream, good or bad; nobody wants to walk around with it. The writer is always tricking the reader into listening to the dream.”


June 17

Crazy week careening around the city, cheering the protesters, supporting the college kid, out to the abyss of adulthood, going to the beach, our to Maxine's, a loopy cafe on Washington for huevos rancheros every morning, catching up with friends, everyone making due. Some are documenting; others disrupting deportations, the national guard out on the streets, ominous arrests, disappearances, everyday life goes on. The brown shirts arrived. The kid is staying. The rest of us are making our way back home. Others are not so lucky.

Looking up, a driverless Waymo's vehicle was crossing the street, on the way back.

 At LAX, the missing pieces were many, thinking about the people I saw, kids and friends growing up, one had a surgery on his pancreas, still struggling with happiness, another had a kid, who suffers from dyslexia, struggling with reading, another’s hip broke, so he was in the hospital. I couldn’t come see him. I had to come home early. The college kid is finding their LA sealegs. I remember when they got to LA, I had no idea where to go. They jumped on the bus and explored, riding down the 405 South to Long Beach, to Hollywood, exploring the City of Quartz, its lights, its drum circles, its junk shops, punk spots, where a guy named Puerto Rico sells T shirts, finding something here, sometimes in the lost spaces, the abandoned carnivals, cheap sushi spots, roller rinks, and music venues on the East Side. Off to lunch at Canters, for sticky rice in Echo Park, to the flea in Melrose, in Silverlake, to protests and teargas downtown, where another friend learned what it tastes like fresh from the riot police canisters, strolling along the walking path at Venice Beach, where the sun went down and a city that was Mexico reminded us to keep it funky.  Another contemplated a reboot, wondering what's the best dose, for a new perspective. A mother screams at her son after he graduates. I’m going to kill myself, she tells him. Another student faces probation after taking part in protests; she cuts herself. The harms are many. It's a complicated city,  few subways, even less buses, even more cars and car culture, strip malls and chain stores, fossil fuels burning in the city of quartz, cars in motion, even as New York passed its Heat Act, moving our city forward. 

“I didn't come here to fight. I came here to cover a story,” wrote Ryan. 

“You are missed every day, every way,” says the mural. 

Sascha re arranged his books and went swimming with me, jumping deep into the water, telling me about the fractals, a metaphor in Los Angeles, with complex systems, urban sprawl, inequality, on and on. 

And the New Yorker looked back on the week that was when we navigated a graduation and a set of fires, tear gas, those condemning and those celebrating a hot immigration mix.

Antonia Hitchens wrote in the New Yorker:

“Around the capital before Saturday, people mused about whether Donald Trump’s long-desired Army-anniversary parade—which cost $45 million and coincided with the President’s 79th birthday—would be something like Tiananmen Square. In other cities, a series of “No Kings” protests were scheduled for the same day. Laura Loomer, a MAGA influencer, had cautioned her followers to “stay strapped when you’re in public this weekend.” On the day of the parade, in what appeared to be an act of political violence, in Minnesota, two Democratic lawmakers were shot by a gunman impersonating a police officer, according to officials.

But as Antonia Hitchens stood in the crowd with teen-agers in period garb, in D.C., the city had the “eerie, abandoned feel it gets before big staged events,” she writes. The occasional pedicab driver rode down the empty downtown streets, cordoned off from traffic by D.C. trash trucks. Tanks that had arrived from around the country had been sitting idly on the Mall for a few days; a summer thunderstorm was now threatening to rain out the President’s parade. An ad on Craigslist circulated, offering a “flat fee of $1,000 paid in cryptocurrency” to seat fillers in red hats and gold accessories “for space maximization and attendance.”

A friend of Hitchens, who grew up in East Germany, said that the scariest thing she saw was a robot dog, at an Army fair that had at an Army fair that had taken place earlier in the day. “This was nothing like the military parade that I experienced every year until the fall of the wall, in 1989,” she said. The sparse crowds for Trump’s parade were charming to her—you can offer to pay people on Craigslist, but, in the U.S., you can’t force them to attend. Even most Republican lawmakers sat the event out. Read more: https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/PedqEh 


As Randolfe Wicker wrote:

“Lately, public political life has been very depressing. Today, marching in a cold drizzle down 5th Avenue in NYC with thousands of diverse "NO KINGS" demonstrators, I found new hope for this country. It was exactly like the 1960s when more and more people were discovering that the Vietnam War was pure folly & they were determined to do something about it! But, today's marchers were not just mostly young.  These were not hippies trying to wake up the world.  They were people of every age, every race, every social class. Today, I found hope in the rebirth of the country I thought was both ignorant and dying.  The "melting pot" of America had congealed into one solid cannon-ball of steel. The small numbers of young people reminded me of the price we pay for not including "civics" in schools today.  The "free education" of my youth in the 1950s has been replaced by a commercialized industry -- one that instead of opening doors for the young, leaves them burdened with debt. A society that doesn't invest in it's young is doomed to a slow and ugly suicide. The crowds today, with their energy and compassion, give me hope that instead of returning to the past MAGA-style, we will restore only the few good things we have lost: free education, opportunity for self-employment, the USA waking up to the lack of true equality for all races.”