I’m worried they are going to mess with social security. As a senior on a fixed income, I depend on my social security to pay my bills and buy groceries. I’d be lost with out it.

I am here because after a good run of 250 years our democracy, our country, is on the brink of disaster, being taken away from us by Musk and Trump. We, you and I, need to stop that from happening. We need to act now. John Lewis told us to make good trouble. Let's follow his word.

I am a Viet Nam vet, and like all vets, I was willing to act and sacrifice for our country. We need to act now. We need to take back our government--and our flag. We need to talk to people on the other side. If we don't talk to them, they have changed us. So we need to stand up, to do something. Desmond Tutu said, "Do your little bit of good where you are." It's those little bits of good together that overwhelm the world, so please, do something. Do anything to dismantle this evil regime. Start now!

Since the beginning of the Trump Administration, more than 150,000 government websites have been taken down.

I've had a career in information science, archives and museums; I have a Ph.D. in history and have worked as a professor at the University of Michigan. Here's what I see happening now: One chapter in the TrumpMusk playbook is to go after small agencies that are not on everyone’s radar screen. Today I’ll talk about one such agency, the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) that via executive order is slated to be eliminated “to the extent possible”.

IMLS was created under 1986 and reauthorized in 2018. Its budget last year was $290 million or 4/1000s of a percent of the federal budget.Its largest program distributes funds to every state and territory for services such as interlibrary loans among public libraries and school libraries statewide. These services are especially important to small and rural communities like ours, because they are the backbone for resource sharing that provides more equitable access to information for all the public via their public and school libraries.

The state of Minnesota received $3.18 million dollars from IMLS last year. With the elimination of federal funding, where will support for these services come from? In the wealthiest country in the world it does not need to be this way, so the ultrarich can impoverish us with their self-serving tax cuts.

Our veterans deserve better. I'm sharing this thought from my friend Thor, who writes: “I’m a disabled war veteran who served as a ship navigator and diver in the U.S. Navy. I participated in multiple conflicts around the world, and when I retired was in need of help as I suffered from PTSD and physical injuries

I sought help from the Veteran’s Administration. Despite being understaffed, the counselors I worked with were helpful and caring. I was eventually accepted into a new program to help veterans suffering from PTSD called the Veterans Resiliency Program and allowed 20 visits with a therapist. This is a healing program and I am grateful.

I fear this program and others will be cut and the VA will not be able to help our veterans, who certainly paid their dues properly, and many suffer as a result. Our veterans deserve better.

The suffering of all those who are not straight white people grows each day in the new regime. Hate is normalized, along with acceptance–and even encouragement–of violence toward "others", meaning those not within the privileged group of straight white people. People with disabilities and non-binary gender identities are especially at risk. Biases that exist are only getting worse and more dangerous for those of us that are "the other." A decent society cannot let this happen.