By Karen Rubin, [email protected], news-photos-features.com
On Saturday, April 5, Long Island will host its Hands Off! Mass Mobilization Rally protesting the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE actions to dismantle government services, civil rights, public health and environmental protections. It will be one of more than 1,200 Hands Off! Day of Action protests being held throughout the country and the world, with major ones being held in Washington DC and New York City (Bryant Park,1 pm).
More than 1,400 community members from across Long Island are expected at the rally, taking place at the Nassau County Courthouse, 262 Old Country Road, Mineola, at 1 pm, “to protest and join in this national mass day of action to express our deep concerns about the course this country is taking.”
“Trump and Musk are illegally decimating our federal workforce and gutting the many services we rely on to keep us safe,” stated Dr. Eve Meltzer Krief, Legislative Chair NY Chapter 2 American Academy of Pediatrics, one of the organizers. “They are barreling toward dismantling social security while Congressional Republicans are planning to significantly slash the Medicaid funding so many Long Islanders rely on- all to fund tax cuts for billionaires. Trump is making us less safe and is threatening our health and well being. Whether it’s the maligning of our NATO allies, defunding NOAA and the National weather service, slashing jobs at the VA- impacting the employment and health of Veterans who fought for this country, cuts to the EPA along with clean water and air initiatives or the cuts to the HHS which will cripple our local health departments’ ability to fight disease and cut substance abuse and mental health programs right here on Long Island – the list goes on and on. Everybody knows somebody being impacted by the instability Trump is bringing to our daily lives. It’s a national crisis and it’s time to stand up to it.”
The protesters are demanding:
•An end to the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration.
•An end to slashing federal funds for Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs working people rely on.
The Long Island protest is being organized by concerned community members from across Long Island including members of Engage Long Island, Show Up Long Island, 1199SEIU.
Speakers at the Long Island rally include: Jeffrey L. Reynolds, Ph.D, President/CEO Family & Children’s Association; Dr. Eve Meltzer Krief, Legislative Chair NY Chapter 2 American Academy of Pediatrics; Mary Anne Trasciatti, labor activist and educator; Greg Perles, teacher and unionist and Fred Harrison, Food and Water Watch.
From the handsoff2025.com website:
“Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them, and they’re taking everything they can get their hands on. On Saturday, April 5, we’ll take to the streets nationwide in a non-violent action with a clear message: Hands OFF! our democracy!
“This mass mobilization day is our message to the world that we do not consent to the destruction of our government and our economy for the benefit of Trump and his billionaire allies. Across the country, we’ll be marching, rallying, and protesting to demand a stop to the chaos, and to continue building a non-violent movement dedicated to ending the looting of our country.”
On a national organizing call for Hands Off! Held by Moveon.org, Randy Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers spoke out against the assault on public education and labor, with the actions to shut down the Department of Education and pull back on billions in funding supporting school lunch, programs for disabled children, support for rural and schools in impoverished areas, and the clear policy shift to put tax payer money into private, parochial and for-profit charter schools.
“Why are they going after public education, why labor? Because public education is the foundationstone of democracy, the foundation of opportunity, and democracy and pluralism, brings communities together instead of separating, brings people who are different together instead of otherizing. And the labor movement is about agency – decent wages, health care, the fight for social security. If you take the labor movement away, the right to collective bargaining away, how do we fight together? They are taking away foundation stones of opportunity.
We must fight back – in the courts, in the court of public opinion, in commerce –that’s how we move Congress.
If you care about critical thinking, safe and welcoming environment, that all our kids have access to the funding we’ve been trying to get for 40 years- Title 1, IDA, funding for poor kids, going to college, kids with disabilities, we have to be out on the streets on April 5, together, as community. The more we are together, the more they can’t otherize people. We must work together to fight for all, for opportunity, for public education for every child, a labor movement for anyone. To say ‘No, this is what we want in our government, this is not not who we are, not what we voted for.”
Jonah Minkoff-Zern of Public Citizen, said “We are angry, scared, fired up. Could have had speakers for hours talking about all the ways Trump and Musk and their people – incompetent and malicious – are devastating our nation, services, freedoms, democracy. Signalgate shows their incompetence, just how little they care about their impacts of going to war. Firing 10,000 healthcare workers today is not even top of the news because it goes on and on. But we have power. Our voices, our mobilization will pushback and ultimately win.
The dismantling of government services, the threats to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the brain drain that is underway as Trump shuts down research and threatens universities, the assault on freedoms, the Rule of Law and due process evident in the cruel and malicious and unconstitutional deportation of immigrants, the attacks on judges and lawyers, the assumption of war powers without an actual war, the attacks on voting rights and barriers to voting has already shattered the pillars holding up our democracy as it is clear, while antagonizing and threatening allies and cozying up to every tyrant on the planet. Trump is assuming powers of an autocrat (even not joking about a third term), and a power structure based on oligarchy and kleptocracy, following Putin’s example.
The Hands Off! Day of Action is endorsed and supported by Indivisible, Common Cause, Third Act (and Third Act NYC), MoveOn, the SEIU, and many others.
Check out handsoff2025.com for more information, events and to sign up.
See also:
Long Islanders Bring Anti-Trump, Anti-Musk Messages to Tesla Takedown Protest
Trump’s Latest Unconstitutional Power Grab: Signs EO Eviscerating Voting Rights
To Cement One-Party Control, MAGA Republicans Pushing Through SAVE Act
Trump Anti-Voting Order Draws Furious Pushback
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