Oh, Canada! Oh, Sigh!

Take a few minutes and compare Trump and Trudeau.

While I know that Canadians actually criticize Trudeau over a variety of policies, I can’t believe there’s a single voter north of our border who’d swap leaders. They’re both building pipelines, so no advantage there. Maybe there’s some other issue where there’s no advantage. And it was encouraging to see Trump reading from a paper – maybe he can read after all. But really, truly, there’s just no comparison.

Meanwhile, I’ve added a few links to the resistance. Check them out.

By sharing information via email, we’ve learned that online petitions are nearly useless, but phone calls (and faxes when phone lines are shut down) to Congress can have an impact. We can do those calls from home with relatively little inconvenience, but is that enough? Do we need to meet up with others to have a greater impact?

Over the course of my 70+ years, I’ve linked up with like-minded individuals at different times, and I do think that groups with a strong focus and some minimal organization can have a real impact. Still, I’m often frustrated with groups and find the process of sifting through options and agreeing on a course of action tedious. I’m hesitant to join anything. I’ve occasionally been active in the Democratic Party, but never for long. Instead, I’ve worked with groups with a more narrow focus for a few years at a time in order to work on an issue that’s important to me.

This year is such a challenge. I don’t have the energy to really do a lot of work. Yet, I feel like we’re in the midst of an earthquake that won’t quit. The good news is that there are many younger people who are revved up and more able to respond to today’s challenges.

For those of you who have some time and energy and are not moving, yet again, please click through the links here to see which ones offer options that you can use to #RESIST. I’d love some feedback on what you find.

If you have a Twitter account, you can follow me at @anncantweet

Where do you go for “fair and balanced” news? Or do you even look for fair and balanced news?

Recently I found myself clicking around at Federalist.com, an interesting collection of opinions that I mostly don’t agree with. However, most of the articles I read were written in a somewhat civil tone with some sort of reasoning behind the opinions. I will come back to the Federalist because I need to read and think more first, but today I want to share an article from Vox about the court battle over the immigration ban Executive Order.

I turn to Vox for background on issues like this. It’s not a breaking news site, but I like their ability to pull together good background information quickly, and it’s liberal but not unwilling to challenge liberal thinking. They earn a star for “fair and balanced” in my list of sources. Bottom line: winning this battle is possible, but not guaranteed.

Legal Battle over Immigration Ban Explained