Winning Wednesday: War, What Is It Good For?

Your top five wins this week.

Five. Business Organizes To Fight For Immigrants

 

Businesses across the country who depend on immigrant labor and customers are feeling the pain from Trump’s immigration crackdown.  Finally, a response.  It’s limited, but it’s a start!

The Texas Restaurant Association and business leaders across the country have started a coalition, called Seat the Table, demanding that Congress and the White House create work permits for “long-term, law-abiding immigrants playing critical roles.”  They want to influence decisions that affect “our restaurants, hotels, vineyards, farms, and bars.”  The New York Times has the story.

Seat the Table is gathering signatures on a letter, and they’re taking them from the general public, so please sign on at the Seat the Table website.  Lead sponsors include the James Beard Foundation, the Independent Restaurant Association, NYC Hospitality Alliance, CA Farm Bureau, several city and statewide restaurant associations, and American Business Immigration Coalition Action. 

The latter’s board includes representatives from Tyson Foods and Crate and Barrel.  ABIC was involved in the successful effort to save TPS for Haitians.  They also work to support the Dignity Act, a bipartisan immigration proposal in Congress.  They noted that all the GOP House members who support the Dignity Act have (so far) won their primaries, despite challenging Trump on it.

Four.  Women in Congress Fight For One Of Their Own

Credit: Shuran Huang

You may have heard about how Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver – a freshman rep from Newark, NJ, first in her family to go to college, who’d won a special election – was charged with federal crimes—including assault on an officer—over a confrontation with ICE agents during a congressional oversight visit to a detention facility in her district back in May 2025.  She’s the one in the pinstripe suit.

We can thank Marie Claire magazine for an important aspect of this story:  the network of Democratic women in Congress who came together immediately to have McIver’s back.  She’s heard nothing from the DNC or the DCCC. No surprise there.  It’s disappointing that no GOP women, even those who have been loud on Jeffrey Epstein, or even any moderate Democrats, say from the New Dems, have supported McIver.  So far.   Quite a few Dems have been arrested trying to inspect immigration centers, and not been prosecuted like this.

But it’s so heartening to see how the progressive and Black women have organized to support her.  I’m sure the GOP thought it would be easy to take her down and make an example of her.  Not so much. 

According to Marie Claire, McIver’s case is now before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral arguments are set for June 23—the last chance to get the charges dismissed before a trial, barring an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Three. A Democratic Group Organizing Rural America

Barn Raiser, a must read publication, recently highlighted this work organizing in rural areas.  They said: “With 2,500 chapters nationwide in large cities and rural areas, Indivisible is one of the largest, most effective networks of grassroots resistance in the Trump era, touching every state and 99% of congressional districts.”  Indivisible got their start at the beginning of Trump’s first term, and was instrumental in saving Obamacare and winning the House for Democrats in 2018.

As you may know, Indivisible coordinates and leads national actions like No Kings Day, while their local chapters pursue their own local direct-action projects and electoral campaigns.  National provides a lot of support and tools for locals, who may be new to politics, to  help them build their chapters.

Barn Raiser talks about several rural Indivisible chapters in places like Clarion, PA, a borough of about 4,100 people about 80 miles north of Pittsburgh.  In 2019, national Indivisible staff worked with the chapter to organize a rural summit connecting other small town chapters across the region.

The pandemic, and Biden replacing Trump, was really hard on many local groups, including Indivisible’s.  But they pivoted into more electoral work and issue advocacy.  These chapters provide a home for moderate and progressive Democrats, urban, suburban and rural alike, hungry to get more involved and make a difference.

Small town and rural chapters also provide, as Barn Raiser says, “a welcoming place for people who become disillusioned with Trump and MAGA, such as [an activist’s] neighbor who pulled down their long-flying Trump flag when the war in Iran started…They build community, stand up for what they believe in, provide mutual aid, or push back on proposals to build data centers and detention centers… This is what practicing true democracy looks like in America.”

Two.  House Passes Bill to Give SNAP Users Rotisserie Chicken

Is there anything better, when you need a quick and satisfying meal for you and yours, than a nice, hot rotisserie chicken?  No. There is not. And now, Congresswoman Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan got a bill passed on May 1 to let SNAP families buy hot rotisserie chicken.  Rivet is a mom of six.  At present, you can’t use SNAP benefits to buy hot ready-to-eat food.

Support for the bill was bipartisan.  The bill's sponsors say this grocery store favorite is a cheap and nutritious source of protein for families on the go, and the move is common sense.  The rotisserie chickenhas been attached to the Farm Bill, currently being considered in the Senate. 

One.  After eight tries, Senate finds balls, moves to advance War Powers Act

On May 19^th, newly lame-duck GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy joined Democrats and the usual GOP suspects – Murkowski, Collins, and Rand Paul – to vote to advance the War Powers Act resolution to stop the war in Iran, allowing it to be debated and receive a vote in the coming weeks.  The vote was 50 to 47.  The GOP’s Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas were absent.

The bill went down in the House last week on a tie vote, and Democrats will bring it up again there soon.