Source of video:https://twitter(dot)com/efjbgc2/status/1595104939495362561

On the 22nd of November, in the wake of the murderous anti-LGBTQ rampage at Club Q in Colorado Springs, an armed pro-LGBTQ march was held in the Austin, Texas “Gayborhood.” The Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club participated and posted several videos to their Twitter account. The first chant in the video below is “Bottoms, Tops, Fuck these cops.”

Many have made the point that the police do NOT protect the LGBTQ community, rather the community defends itself. That is exactly what happened at Club Q: cops arrived after the fact, with club patrons having subdued the shooter. The patron who snatched the gunman’s backup weapon (a pistol) and beat him in the head with it (instead of shooting the shooter) was actually arrested and held for over an hour before police finally realized he was not the shooter but rather a defender.

Who keeps us safe? NOT the police. In the wake of the violent terrorist attack and armed response, some say the expected civil war in the US is now underway.

The defenders of the Atlanta Forest from “Cop City” have gone on the offensive, with a successful operation to forcibly shut down the existing Atlanta Police Department shooting range in the forest. Trees down over access road, power lines pulled down by a tree, transformer blown, RANGE CLOSED!

From https://scenes.noblogs.org/post/2022/11/23/concerning-the-closure-of-apds-firing-range/

On the evening of Saturday, November 19, chainsaw-wielding militants took action to close down the Atlanta Police Department’s shooting range inside the Weelaunee Forest, where APD trains weekly to kill and maim the people of Atlanta. A few small trees were selectively felled in order to block the access road to the shooting range. One of the felled trees hit a power line which provides electricity to the shooting range, leading to a power surge which blew a transformer and disabled the cameras, which were then destroyed with fire and hammers. The power line only services the shooting range. No residential areas were impacted by the outage.

In the middle of the range is a yellow school bus. The windows are shattered from bullet holes, and spent munitions –flash grenades and tear gas – lie under the seats. Its purpose on the range is clear: the only ‘protection’ police offer is violence and death.

The decision to cut a living tree should never be taken lightly. The ongoing presence of the shooting range was an affront to the forest and all who live in or near it; the gunfire and explosions at all hours of day and night, the toxic lead ammunition poisoning the soil and leaching into the water, the way Black and brown people living nearby were forced to listen daily to the police training to murder them.

Weighed against these impacts and the Atlanta Police Foundation’s plan to destroy the entire forest, we understand the felling of these few trees as the forest defending itself. At a moment when the USA’s model of militarized policing is being actively exported around the world to facilitate the destruction of the Amazon and others of the last great forests and indigenous strongholds which stand between us and mass extinction, we know that if these trees could talk, they would say “fuck the police” and would happily volunteer to fall and crush them.

Since the closing of the shooting range, the Weelaunee forest has not been quiet – even the cold November woods are full of life and noise – but it has been more peaceful without the police filling it with the sounds of war. We hope that all the residents of the forest and the surrounding neighborhood can relax better in the relative silence, but we must be clear that we didn’t do this for their sake.

We took this action for the dead – for Rayshard Brooks and every person killed by the Atlanta Police, for every murdered revolutionary, for the Muskogee who were forced from this land, for every enslaved person who lived and died on the plantation here, for every prisoner killed by guards at the old prison farm and buried in unmarked graves in the forest. This forest is theirs and we will not allow the police to desecrate it with their presence.We will not allow the police to bulldoze over the history of their own crimes.

The land remembers. We remember. Cop city will never be built.

Submitted anonymously over email

On the 22nd of November, one of no doubt a great many vigils remembering Club Q was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico. One of the speakers warned the assembed crowd that over 300 anti-LGBTQ bills have been filed by (GOP) politicians in state houses nationwide. He warned listeners to “arm yourself with knowledge” etc, but the key words “arm yourself” carry another meaning. He also warned that “the shit’s gonna get real.”

On the 22nd of November, protesters again showed up at the home of Mitch McConnell. This time they were there to demand accountability for GOP promotion of anti-LGBTQ hate in the wake of the armed attack on Club Q in Colorado Springs. Protest chants included “DC Don’t like Fascists,” “2,4,6,8 fascist hate won’t make us straight 5,6,7,8 end the anti-trans hate” and many more.

The raging sewer of GOP and Christian Nationalist hate just killed five people and wounded dozens more. Had patrons not counterattacked and subdued the terrorist this could have been so much worse. Club Q is an LGBTQ venue and was attacked for that reason.

The 16th of November was just one night after Trump’s formal announcement that he is running for the White House again. On that night, protesters again returned to the home of “Justice” Amy Coney Barrett, Trump appointee to the court. She also formerly held the title of “handmaid” in the Christian extremist group People of Praise.

Mitch McConnell rammed through Amy’s 2020 nomination to the court as racial justice protests raged in the streets. He reversed his position from Obama’s 2016 SCOTUS nomination, consideration of which he blocked. This was an attempt to ensure Trump could steal the 2020 election but didn’t work. With all this in mind, the 2016-2020 era chant “No Trump, no KKK, no Fascist USA” was brought back for the protest at Amy Coney Barrett’s house on Nov 16.

Amy has been getting these protests back to the May 2022 leak of the Supreme Court’s notorious Dobbs decision. That case permitted many states to immediately ban abortion. It is expected that the next class of arrestees flooding jails in places like Texas will be from abortion cases. This comes as Texas, Tennesee, and other states are criminalizing parents of transgender youth under 18, and fears of a broad pogrom across the South targetting the entire LGBTQ community are growing.

On the 13th of November, the final leg of the Leonard Peltier walk to justice, with stops at the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument before finishing the over 1,100 mile walk at the US Capitol. Marchers demanded that Leonard Peltier be released unconditionally from the US prison system, where he has been held hostage for decades for a “crime” he did not commit, for supposedly shooting two FBI agents with rounds ballistics proved his weapon could not have fired. Leonard is a political prisoner.

Peltier’s original codefendents were acquitted in a different trial-and jurors later reported they feared US Marshalls would SHOOT them for refusing to convict Indigenous fighters for an act clearly none of them were “guilty” of. Peltier was convicted in a later trial for supposedly shooting the two FBI agents who had invaded the Lakota reservation at Pine Ridge. There is evidence FBI agents lied on the stand, starting with supposedly entering the reservation pursuing a red truck, when Leonard did not have a red truck all red trucks anywhere near Pine Ridge had been stopped for weeks. Peltier’s SUV was orange and white, it was neither red nor a pickup truck. All of the Indigenous witnesses who testified against Leonard later said they only claimed he had shot the agents because they were personally threatened by the FBI. A ballistics report proved the cartridges from which the bullets striking FBI agents came did NOT match the firing pin in Leonard’s weapon. This was intentionally concealed at trial. The ballistics report proves whatever happened on Pine Ridge that day, no bullet striking any FBI agent emerged from Leonard Peltier’s weapon. Thus he cannot be “guilty” of killing any of them.

On top of all else, under international law, the only crimes committed by anyone at Pine Ridge that day were committed by the FBI. The Indigenous warriors who stood up to the FBI that day are not even accused of doing anything that would not also be done by say, Ukrainian soldiers on seeing Russian soldiers cross their borders armed for war. Whoever did shoot those FBI invaders was a soldier defending their country, nothing less. The “Indian” wars are NOT over.

freeleonard(dot)org/case/

On the 7th of November, infamous anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen showed up in DC as part of her nationwide tour. Things got UGLY in DC. Park Police first demanded pro-trans activists move to a nearby spot, then attacked them and arrested one of them anyway for unknown reasons.

The arrest and the charges filed were so spurious that the entire case was no-papered. This is another example of blatantly unlawful, “you can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride” policing. One of the cops running to the scene PUT HIS HAND ON HIS GUN.

He dared not pull it out. One of the most aggressive cops other than this one was Ofc Williams, badge number 647. Just getting him to comply with his legal obligation to produce his badge number required pursuit and active engagement by protesters.

The basic tactic applied by pro-transgender activsts to disrupting the hate speeches at the Lincoln Memorial was the same as that used at a June 23, when “Christian” speakers having no connection to athletics held an event at Pershing Park demanding trans women be excluded from sports. Activists got as close as cops would tolerate them, running bullhorns in siren mode and other noisemakers as loud as possible.

Kellie-Jay Keen has been widely called a TERF (“Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist”) but not much radical feminist in her as she appeared in Miami two days earlier along with three Proud Boys and two hired security guards. She has a history of working with far-right elements, Proud Boys included. Her Miami appearance was an epic fail, with a turnout of just 15 people including herself, the three Proud Boys, two hired security guards, and nine others. S Fl antifascist activists quietly monitored that situation.

Her “USA Speaker’s Corner Tour” not over, if matters continue to escalate as they did from what happened in Miami to what happened in DC, this could get even uglier. There have already been Proud Boys in Miami, and a DC Park Cop unlawfully brandishing a firearm by putting his hand on it while engaged in a conflict. Something about TERF events seems ironically enough to bring out bigoted, testosterone-overdosed meatheads with more brawn than brains on the side of the anti-trans activists.

This tour ends Monday in New York City: let them know they are not welcome ANYWHERE!

On the 4th of November, the Florida Board of Medicine and Florida Board of Osteopathic medicine held a joint hearing to pass an almost total ban on gender-affirming care for teens. Only 8 speaking slots were allocated for pro and anti ban speakers, and a bunch of out of state detransitioners spoke in favor. Those opposing warned the proposal would trigger suicides-and several were physically removed, in one case for calling DeSantis the Nazi he is. The proposal passed, and power to mics was cut off and the hearing ended early.

A number of speakers called out the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars “donated” to DeSantis by many of the Board members. The hearing was so ugly even Fl State Legislature member Anna Eskamani was forcibly removed. This is Fascism in action, and DeSantis has made it plain that he is willing to kill transgender kids to please theocrats. Theocrats globally are known for killing LGBTQ folks anytime they take power, and this is no exception.

There was only one thing actually debated: the Florida Board of Medicine and Florida Board of Osteopathic medicine disagreed on whether to allow gender-affirming care for teens withing very limited university-funded studies. They passed different resolutions, one with and one without the “study” exception. For now, teens already receiving care can still get it,but no doctor can take new under-18 patients for anything but “conversion therapy” without risking their license.

This was not the first time a hearing was cut off early and opponents harassed. The Aug 5th hearing in Ft Lauderdale was cut off after one hour, and multiple opponents were arrested. Almost all public hearings of this type are fakes everywhere, as the usual policy is to make decisions FIRST, then present a “done deal” as though any public input would be listened to.

Photo by Planned Parenthood