On the 13th of February, Palestinians and their allies gathered at Mills and E Colonial Dr (interesting name here…) for an emergency march for Rafah in Gaza. Twice when the march passed a Starbucks, Starbucks was called out for supporting genocide in Gaza. Chants against Genocide Joe and chants supporting Yemen’s direct action solidarity with Gaza were also used.

Late in the march, a motorist attempted to ram their way through multiple marchers but was brought to a stop by them. This took place well behind me, I was unable to get the camera up fast enough to capture the initial attack, so this is not in the video report. All present were able to return to action, and the march continued unabated.

Background: Two days earlier, Netanyahu bombed residential houses in Rafah, Gaza killing between 50 and 100 people as a DIVERSION! This to protect a raid that recovered only two hostages at such a horrific price paid by uninvolved civilians. Threats of an all-out assault on Rafeh are considered imminent, and five times Rafeh’s normal population is now present there, forced out of the rest of Gaza under a storm of terror bombing by Israel.

On the 12th of February, furious protesters gathered in Tampa, FL a few blocks away from Univ of S Florida. The protesters were there to support Gaza, to support Yemen, to oppose the bombing, and oppose US support for Israeli war crimes. Biden was called out as “Genocide Joe” for arming genocidal murderers.

On the 11th of February, Israeli troops began bombing Rafah while the Super Bowl kept US TV watching audiences busy with something else. The bombing was also a diversion: to protect a raid that rescued only TWO hostages at the price of blowing up many homes and killing 50-100 civilians.

Yemen is being bombed for daring to stop multinational shipping corporations from using the Red Sea given that some of those shipments are arms to Israel and others are Amazon warehouse shipments for among others customers in Israel.

Video clips provided by Women’s Voices of South West Florida (WVSWFL)

On the 9th of February, transgender activists and their allies descended on Florida Department of Motor Vehicles offices throughout the state. One of these protests was at the Tampa office. Protesters were there to oppose the administrative ban on driver’s licenses with gender markers disagreeing with gender assigned at birth.

Protesters staged a die-in inside the DMV office in front of all the customers, plus a second die-in outside

This administrative ban deems to be the DeathSantis administration’s answer to a FL House bill to do the same thing being stopped by the clock after no companion Senate bill was filed in time.

Under this policy, licenses with PREVIOUSLY revised gender are now considered invalid and will be suspended, and it has been declared a criminal offense as well as grounds for revocation to attempt to change gender markers now.

For a trans person to present a license listing a gender disagreeing with their physical appearance is just as dangerous as defying this: any bigoted, Southern Baptist cop could use this as an excuse to arrest them for “confirmation of identity” or worse. Given the sprawl in FL that makes not driving at all impossible for too many people, this is a life threatening decision by the government and is probably intended as one.

DeSantis has all but promised his Christian nationalist base that he will carry out a genocide against transgender Floridians. This is starting the same way the Nazi Holocaust started: with administrative restrictions. Whether this proceeds to a wipeout is up to you and me. If trans folks are rounded up, murdered, or driven from the state, don’t think for one minute that Desantis will stop there. He will simply pick another part of the LGBTQ community to assault, probably “cruising” Gay/Queer/Bi men such as myself.

(video made in the tradition of DC’s WSQT Guerrilla Radio’s pirate radio broadcast coverage of similar protests circa 2006-2007)

When a Gaza ceasefire resolution came before the Orlando City Council, Mayor Buddy Dyer refused to support it. One protester asked him “how do you sleep at night?!” Later, he sent a message that he sleeps at night just fine.

Infuriated by this response, pro-Palestine protesters marched on the Mayor’s ritzy gated community, demanding he endorse a Gaza ceasefire as many other cities have. They also called out his language so callously dismissing activists seeking to stop the brutal genocide of Gaza.

Anti-Trump protesters got the space seemingly unopposed, as all the MAGA meatheads seem to be busy in Texas at Eagle Pass

Photos by Our Rights DC.

On the 5th of February, University of S Florida’s Tampa campus SDS chapter held a protest demanding the university divest from Israeli genocide. Protesters also demanded the US stop bombing Yemen and stop sending military aid to Israel.

The protest was small but USF-Tampa has become notorious for police violence against protesters. Notably, this was where the Tampa 5 case originated in a storm of police brutality. It takes courage to sail into the teeth of such a storm, to stand forth against real risk to say NO to genocide. This goes doubly so with all of the proposals for charging out of state tuition, reporting students to Homeland Security, and possibly more spewing from the sewer that is DeathSantis’s mouth and pen.

Also note that this is just one of a great many protests being held nationally by SDS as part of a Feb 5-11 week of action for Palestine. National demands are “Stand with Palestine, Hands off Yemen, End US Aid to Israel.” This is but the first of many such protests

On the 1st of February, protesters supporting the defense of Gaza from Israel’s genocidal war held a car caravan to Orlando International Airport.

As always, Critical Mass Orlando was a beautiful festival of hundreds of riders on bikes, e-bikes, scooters, and more taking the streets as is their right every day. This is a social ride as much as anything, riding the last Friday of every month from Orlando Loch Haven Park.

I sooo hope this is not our last peacetime ride, given the ugly mess in Texas. As I left the ride, I passed a lit-up “crystals” art exhibit that had been in DC for the Dec 2016 DC Bike Party, then as now having been a time of great menace. Major deja vu with that.

Allison Bailey shot this photo of the New Columbia Movement (Christian nationalists) at the big forced-birth march I prefer to call the “March4Death” on Jan 19 in Washington DC. Didn’t see it on the day of because I am not on Instagram, someone sent it to me directy.

Here they are attacking contraception, having as predicted moved on from abortion. One trench is taken, the next trench comes under fire.

On the 20th of January, the annual Women’s March events took to the streets again. This time, the main event was out West but many cities including DC had events as well. In DC the event was bottomlined by the community activists of Harriet’s Wildest Dreams.

A bit past halfway through the startup rally on Freedom Plaza, fetus-stealing PAAU (so-called “Progessive Anti-Abortion Uprising”) tried to steal the show. They invaded the Plaza with bullhorns but didn’t have the numbers to seriously challenge Harriet’s Wildest Dreams.

Notably, PAAU (best known for stealing fetuses from clinics to baptize and bury) was calling abortion “murder,” which is tantamount to a call for executing women who get underground abortions. One of the speakers from Harriet’s Wildest Dreams recounted having had a miscarriage and pointed out that Black women are already being sent to jail and prison over miscarriages under a variety of racist and misogynistic laws.

PAAU attempted to hassle the front of the march all the way to the White House, but their bullhorns lacked the sound power for that job. On 15th st, a second group of counterprotesters had been lying in wait like infantry in an ambush. On seeing the march they opened up with bagpipes, in the process insulting and fouling rather nice musical instruments. Both groups followed the march into the White House but were heavily outnumbered.

Both at Freedom Plaza and at the White House, the counterprotesters were in turn counter-counter protested.

One of the counterprotesters (at end of video) turned out to be a known J6 (Capitol Insurrection) participant. The men among them were called out as being men trying to tell women what do with their bodies.