WILKES – BARRE, LUZERNE CO. (WOLF) \u2014 The last two “No Kings” protests in June and October saw millions flood the streets to show their disapproval of the current Trump administration, and make their voices heard. Saturday saw the third round of protests and organizers expect even more to show up around the country. In Scranton, hundreds came out to the Lackawanna County Courthouse Square.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you can see by the large crowd here today, there\u2019s a lot of people who are united in opposition to not only Donald Trump, but the MAGA movement in general, because we believe it\u2019s a movement that\u2019s built on hate and it\u2019s just built on distrust of our institutions in the United States, and we feel an obligation to speak out,” said Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan.<\/p>\n
Speakers addressed the crowd, voicing displeasure with the Trump administration\u2019s gutting of government agencies and programs, ICE\u2019s increased presence, the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the handling of the Epstein files and the US and Israel\u2019s war in Iran, which has killed thousands, including 13 US service members, since starting a month ago.<\/p>\n
In the slate of speakers was Commissioner Gaughan, who urged those that feel apathetic and disillusioned by current events to be hopeful about the future, and that it is time to stand against what he called a period of division, anger, and violence.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Gaughan said, \u201cWe\u2019re trying to do something different here, built on compassion and empathy and understanding and moral courage rather than, you know, the lies that have been spread by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement over the last couple years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later in the afternoon, hundreds convened on Wilkes Barre\u2019s public square for another No Kings protest. Many came from Scranton\u2019s, but new faces and signs were seen. One protestor’s face that was hard to see but impossible to miss was Sarah Balmer, who came to protest ICE and what she described as them working outside the law. She did this in a frog suit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese feel like very dark times, and I think whenever you can find a little levity it\u2019s so important, and when we saw the frogs in Portland, it was, I mean, it was so funny,” Balmer explained. “It was tragic and funny. And I just thought what better way to bring some levity and hope to the protest today.\u201d<\/p>\n
She has an adopted daughter from China, and she said she worries daily about her daughter being racially profiled and illegally detained, so she\u2019s been coming to the protests and doing whatever she can to fight back.<\/p>\n
In fact, the protestors in both cities are all doing whatever they can by showing up, coming together, and continuing to fight peacefully against the administration and for a brighter tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WILKES – BARRE, LUZERNE CO. (WOLF) \u2014 The last two “No Kings” protests in June and October saw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-152763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}