Weekly Member Update - November 24, 2025

Happy Thanksgiving Week, Indivisibles! As we all gather with friends and family this coming week, we ask that everyone keep the most vulnerable members of our communities near the front of your minds. Now that the federal government shutdown has ended and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments have resumed, its tempting to conclude that the food insecurity crisis has somewhat abated. Nothing could be further from the truth, unfortunately. On top of stagnating wages and escalating grocery prices for everyone, SNAP recipients also face a host of benefit challenges courtesy of Republican legislation in this past summer’s Big Beautiful Bill. For one, the GOP unilaterally cut billions in funding for SNAP, potentially eliminating 6 to 9 billion meals previously provided by the Program and requiring the charitable food assistance network — including Food Banks — to fill in the gaps. On top of cuts to SNAP funding, Trump and his Republican friends have also made SNAP less accessible to those in need, imposing stricter work requirements on parents and older New Yorkers, eliminating eligibility altogether for thousands of lawful immigrants and, to top it off, making noise that every single SNAP recipient would need to reapply to maintain their eligibility. Simply put, the federal government is becoming an increasingly unreliable (if not outwardly hostile) source of resources for those in need, and it therefore falls upon us to try and make up for the shortfall wherever we can. So please consider donating to our SNAP Back campaign; every penny you contribute goes straight to the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, where they can work their magic and provide four meals for every dollar raised to help feed vulnerable communities throughout the 518 and beyond.

In addition to using your hard-earned money in way that helps the most people, we also ask that you NOT spend your money in ways that assist the Trump Administration and the oligarchs that help prop up the regime. As Target can attest, boycotts work. So we continue to ask that you not spend your hard-earned money on companies like T-Mobile, Avelo Airlines, Spotify, Amazon and Home Depot. And, be sure to get your coffee somewhere other than Starbucks; this past week, some Capital Region stores joined the nationwide strike by Starbucks baristas in their fight for a living wage, and you can join us in solidarity with Capital Region DSA for Starbucks Workers United Pickets outside of Starbucks stores in Albany and Clifton Park for the whole of Thanksgiving week. We also think that every day this particular Holiday Season should be Small Business Saturday, so we encourage everyone to join with all of the blackout efforts — whether it be the People’s Sick Day movement, Blackout the System, or The Mass Blackout — taking place over the next week. Stop feeding the corporate beasts and spend your money where it makes the most impact, on small independent businesses in your own local communities!

This coming Sunday, November 30, is the busiest air travel day of the year, and we’re celebrating the occasion by continuing to spread the word against Avelo Airlines, the bargain-basement air carrier that tears families apart. For seven months running, we’ve been calling for something to be done about the presence of Avelo in our community, despite the fact that Avelo conducts deportation flights on behalf of ICE and assists in the deprivation of people’s constitutional rights. In case you missed it, Gillian Brockell published a deep dive on Avelo and its business model in The American Prospect last week, and it paints a picture of chaos, cruelty and dysfunction in Avelo’s operations. As it turns out, Avelo is not only partnering with ICE in its terror campaign against our communities, but Avelo is also routinely flouting FAA safety regulations and putting its flight attendants at risk in doing so. To top it off, Avelo also exhibits callous disregard for both the collective bargaining rights of its employees and for the widespread public outcry its contract with ICE has inspired, with an Avelo spokesman claiming that “the outrage mob” is just “shouting at the sky or whomever will listen.” Well, for what its worth, we can confirm for Avelo that we are indeed outraged; outraged at Avelo’s willingness to pad their profit margin by kidnapping lawful American residents and shipping them off in chains, and outraged at the vast majority of our local public officials who offer nothing but impotent silence at the presence of Avelo in our community. So we’re not going anywhere, and look forward to seeing you on the streets outside Albany International this coming Sunday, where we hope to have our largest demonstration to date. We won’t be alone either, as there will be dozens of Thanksgiving week protests against Avelo across the country, with about a third of the communities where Avelo flies from involved, including a simultaneous protest by our friends in Raleigh/Durham. And remember too to get your anti-Avelo gear and mark your calendars for December 8, when we’ll be taking our battle against Avelo inside, to the Chambers of the Albany County Legislature, to seek accountability from our elected County officials and demand that they take meaningful action to remove Avelo Airlines from our community.

We would be remiss to not at least comment on this past Friday’s meeting between our Mad Orange King and NYC Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani. We’ve never seen anything like it, to be honest, and encourage everyone to watch the full Oval Office press event; it’s truly remarkable. We were expecting the Mayor-Elect to get the Zelenskyy treatment but, instead, Zohran’s charm and remarkable message discipline seemed to get buy in from Trump on at least some of Mamdani’s policy proposals; we’re still agog at the part where Trump agrees, seemingly unsolicited, to pressure ConEd to lower NYC utility rates. Now, don’t get us wrong, we know that Trump is a binary and transactional animal who changes his mind with the weather, so we don’t hold any aspersions about the longevity of Trump’s affection for Mamdani and his agenda for New York City. That said, it really says something that Donald F’ing Trump seems to have recognized Mamdani’s remarkable political talents and the fundamental reasonableness and allure of Zohran’s policy proposals before Mamdani’s putative political allies like Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have done so. And, if nothing else, Mamdani’s meeting with Trump effectively eviscerated the main message of Elusive Elise Stefanik’s nascent gubernatorial campaign, caused Fox News to throw out half its programming and gave us all some videos to scramble the brains of our tipsy MAGA relatives at Thanksgiving this Thursday.

One final note; perhaps you’ve heard of the special election being held next Tuesday, December 2, for the open seat in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District? Self-described “pissed-off social worker” Aftyn Behn has a real chance to flip the traditionally red Nashville seat blue next week, and you can help by participating in the All In for Aftyn: Special Election Phonebank being held tomorrow night at 6:00. Anything we can do to make the lives of Trump and little Mike Johnson more difficult is certainly worth the time and effort, and Aftyn Behn has a shot to make their jobs particularly troublesome. So get to it!