I am sending emails to all Republican Congresspeople expressing some alarm over the BBB. Since I am not a resident of any of these districts, I am using their office addresses. Is ICE going to look for me and arrest me? Doubtful, especially if a bunch of folks do this.
Here is my message: Please vote NO on Trump’s Big Beautiful [sic] Bill. You know perfectly well that most of the immigrants being arrested are not criminals. The ridiculously huge funding of ICE will end up with many good people being arrested without due process. You are giving tax breaks to billionaires at the expense of health care and food for America’s most needy. History is watching you.
The point I (and others smarter and more experienced than I) have repeatedly hammered is that these kinds of fascist profit-driven police states eventually come for EVERYONE.
We cannot base our decisions today on what they might do 6 months from now, or we are complicit cowards. (I get it. Many many many Americans are a-ok with being a complicit coward in exchange for being allowed to live the serf life in a police state instead of being concentration camped or tortured or dead.) What malignant tumor humans like Lisa Murkowski fail to understand about dictators is YOU WILL NEVER SELL ENOUGH OF YOUR SOUL TO STOP WHATEVER YOU ARE BEING THREATENED WITH FROM HAPPENING. NEVER EVER EVER. EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU ALREADY SOLD YOUR SOUL AND YOUR FAMILY’S SOUL AND EVERY OTHER SOUL YOU COULD HOOVER UP AND OFFER. They always require another tribute. Another pound of flesh. You will NEVER find bottom.
So everyone has to weigh how they feel about this and act according to their consciences.
I watched this video o 7/6/25, after the bill had passed. So the things you describe re ICE will be happening... and happening FAST. Glad to hear you talk about preparing for the next elections (this Nov in some places, and also Nov 2026/midterms). Unfortunately, those elections are ALREADY BEING RIGGED. For details, check out substack Lev Parnas | Lev Remembers, the 7-3-25 post entitled "Trump's Next Power Grab - Election Reform Is Here" .... Of course, in the past day or so, Trump alludes to this kind of activity but from behind a comment like "We're gonna ensure these are the cleanest elections ever." So we all need to find out what our local state election oversight orgs are doing to combat this, ASAP, although how they can manage in the time allotted is beyond me. I think it's the "SAVE" act that describes the regime's desire to "ensure only eligible people can vote".... by requiring that everyone bring records that document their citizenship (we can only guess the categories that fit the mold.... Sounds like you won't be on the voting rolls unless you've gone through this, no matter who you are, what proof you gave to register in the first place, etc. Can also only guess how organized and careful some states will be in terms of getting the word out in the first place. You get the picture. . smdh. Scary times.)
Valerie, I still haven't watched it. Men like him put me straight back in my Christian Nationalist church and school and usually trigger some kind of PTSD event. If I can find a transcript to read that doesn't mean paying the NYT, I'll do that.
But in general, I'll say he's like every other narcissist psychopath on today's world stage.
I wrote a note about the environmental conditions. I'm sure they won't have access to clean drinking water, either. People have already written about the sub-standard sanitary conditions.
Yes it does. This week in my political book club, we were discussing the DOJ memo discussing making taking away naturalized citizenship a normal policy. We were discussing our concerns, and I wrote a piece on this.
One really has to read it to understand that they are setting the situation up to deprive anyone of their citizenship, starting with this, to see how much pushback they get. They have been getting more pushback about immigrants than I think they expected, but still they are going ahead with next steps. I think they want to be fully operational before the next election, because this is a good way for them to remove so many pesky democrats from the rolls, by stripping us of citizenship. Not only will this strip us of our right to vote, but they will probably also take our stuff like the NAZIS in Germany did to the German Jews after they stripped them of their citizenship. The two actions go hand in hand. There is your police state for you.
There is no way this doesn't lead to a bloody civil-war-type situation. While it looks like the agencies rounding people up are largely complicit and eager to assault, kidnap, and traffic human beings, there will be patriotic Americans who won't stand for it. I doubt we'll find many of those within ICE/CBP/etc, but some current military service members and veterans will fight back. (I know, I know. Others will go along. They already are.) That will give them the ability to cancel elections.
In the short term, this may slow their roll on stripping people who voted against them of citizenship. Because why bother with that when they can just send thugs into American communities and murder "the bad people who were born here" as part of this war? It's cheaper than having to house them in concentration camps until they drop dead from torture, starvation, and exhaustion. This President didn't reference Night of the Long Knives for nothing.
So yeah. I'm in a grim mood today, but I'm also very clear-eyed about what lies ahead.
Yesterday my daughter was discussing her Fourth of July Outfit, something more forward thinking than me, or maybe just less worried. I was saying that I have mixed feelings about celebrating because I am no longer able to celebrate our democracy. I said we are celebrating that we have won this, and come far, and will do it again. However, I agree with Paul Krugman that the US will never be what it was if it is able to overthrow the yoke of fascism.
I think Trump will bother because he does not want to share this country, and he is just about to get a huge war chest with which he can pay other countries to house people he does not want. Trump clearly intends to kill people in his concentration camps. The conditions described in Florida alone sound like they would kill me. Heat, humidity, tents, alligators, snakes, overcrowding, no medications, probably no toilets because humiliation and discomfort is part of it. How much will be such misery that it leads to suicide? There is not one horrid thing from Hitler's playbook that I put past Trump. Not a one. Americans need to realize this.
I think people in congress are going to be targets, and other people with power first. Where this will lead and how long the American people who have not had the draft and not been to war and want a peaceful existence are going to be able to keep that is not clear to me. I don't know how long I can keep this in Europe either. Trump is doing a lot of things like removing sanctions from Putin and stopping support of Ukraine that might bring things to a head here.
I understand your grimness, and I feel it too. I am also just exhausted from the task I have this summer of getting my mom better support for her dementia while trying to pack up, get rid of and sell a house in the US too. I also have remodeling going on here.
The US as a country is over. Many Americans may think it still looks the same, but it will NEVER be the same. Even if we manage to fight this off before it gets as bad as I and many others have imagined, our worldwide reputation is destroyed.
Countries are still working with us while they figure out how to form other alliances. But as soon as those alliances are working and they don't need us, they won't have a problem cutting us off. So many countries put up with the US because of how much money we spend on crap we don't need.
But as I said in my article on Jeff Bezos last July, Americans who are being terrorized by fascists (in the form of militarized federal police forces with unlimited funds who don't have to follow any law - I sometimes scare myself with my Cassandra-like prescience) won't have money or time to buy things they don't need; they won't even be able to get many things they desperately need. We're a few months away from major food shortages. Anne Applebaum has pointed out that regimes like this always cause a famine. I agree with Paul Krugman (and you.)
The EU is not handling this as well as they could. While Putin will likely die before Russia can steamroll all of Europe, the man behind him is even more insane. And they're working so hard to fuel far-right fever and topple countries from within (like they did the US.) It's one reason we've made some of our recent decisions.
I'm pulling for you to sell your house. Please let me know when it happens so we can celebrate together.
Andra, Thanks. I will let you know once it is sold, I will be able to sleep better at night. I will want to celebrate.
I am encouraging my niece and nephew to leave the US. My niece will have a bachelors in Biology in a year. My one nephew has a BA in cooking and business from the Culinary institute of NY. His brother is getting his PhD in sustainable aviation engineering. They all have skills that should get them work elsewhere. I am suggesting Canada because they don't speak German. They have the right to German citizenship, so I will get them to pursue it while their grandmother is still around to help them with the paperwork. Still, Canada would be the best fit for them. At least they are all used to cold winters.
I hope I am wrong and my friends who have adopted children from Guatemala and China and Mexico don't need to worry about them losing their citizenship. Even people who have been adopted and don't have any information on their birth parents are feeling unsure of whether they will be stripped of citizenship if they cannot prove that their birth parents were US born, because they know but have no documentation.
Yes there is a lot to be concerned about. We need to support each other. I am grateful that you are doing the work you do, and I got to know you.
I have been applying for jobs but I have a home equity loan here. I could see if I could live with family for free in another state but I have to pay bills.
KK, plan, plan, plan. I wrote this piece in November and it seems more relevant than it did then, because more is happening. It is called "A 'Plan B' for Catastrophe."
Now I am working on one for people who are retired so that will be the next piece I publish. I am writing these pieces because some people want to resist away from the line of fire.
I'll join you bitches and carry the name
I love that Lisa did this. :)
I am sending emails to all Republican Congresspeople expressing some alarm over the BBB. Since I am not a resident of any of these districts, I am using their office addresses. Is ICE going to look for me and arrest me? Doubtful, especially if a bunch of folks do this.
Here is my message: Please vote NO on Trump’s Big Beautiful [sic] Bill. You know perfectly well that most of the immigrants being arrested are not criminals. The ridiculously huge funding of ICE will end up with many good people being arrested without due process. You are giving tax breaks to billionaires at the expense of health care and food for America’s most needy. History is watching you.
The point I (and others smarter and more experienced than I) have repeatedly hammered is that these kinds of fascist profit-driven police states eventually come for EVERYONE.
We cannot base our decisions today on what they might do 6 months from now, or we are complicit cowards. (I get it. Many many many Americans are a-ok with being a complicit coward in exchange for being allowed to live the serf life in a police state instead of being concentration camped or tortured or dead.) What malignant tumor humans like Lisa Murkowski fail to understand about dictators is YOU WILL NEVER SELL ENOUGH OF YOUR SOUL TO STOP WHATEVER YOU ARE BEING THREATENED WITH FROM HAPPENING. NEVER EVER EVER. EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU ALREADY SOLD YOUR SOUL AND YOUR FAMILY’S SOUL AND EVERY OTHER SOUL YOU COULD HOOVER UP AND OFFER. They always require another tribute. Another pound of flesh. You will NEVER find bottom.
So everyone has to weigh how they feel about this and act according to their consciences.
Love love love that.. to thine own self be true!!!
I watched this video o 7/6/25, after the bill had passed. So the things you describe re ICE will be happening... and happening FAST. Glad to hear you talk about preparing for the next elections (this Nov in some places, and also Nov 2026/midterms). Unfortunately, those elections are ALREADY BEING RIGGED. For details, check out substack Lev Parnas | Lev Remembers, the 7-3-25 post entitled "Trump's Next Power Grab - Election Reform Is Here" .... Of course, in the past day or so, Trump alludes to this kind of activity but from behind a comment like "We're gonna ensure these are the cleanest elections ever." So we all need to find out what our local state election oversight orgs are doing to combat this, ASAP, although how they can manage in the time allotted is beyond me. I think it's the "SAVE" act that describes the regime's desire to "ensure only eligible people can vote".... by requiring that everyone bring records that document their citizenship (we can only guess the categories that fit the mold.... Sounds like you won't be on the voting rolls unless you've gone through this, no matter who you are, what proof you gave to register in the first place, etc. Can also only guess how organized and careful some states will be in terms of getting the word out in the first place. You get the picture. . smdh. Scary times.)
Great discussion. I would love to hear your take on the recent Peter Thiel interview with the New York Times.
Valerie, I still haven't watched it. Men like him put me straight back in my Christian Nationalist church and school and usually trigger some kind of PTSD event. If I can find a transcript to read that doesn't mean paying the NYT, I'll do that.
But in general, I'll say he's like every other narcissist psychopath on today's world stage.
He is a narcissist psychopath with access to our data.
I know.
Not only that.. they will die from exposure. 100 degrees 100 per cent humidity living in crowded tents.
So glad I rebelled and left the church in my 20s.. I experienced life and I am tore up by the cruelty of people. I CAN NOT COMPREHEND
I wrote a note about the environmental conditions. I'm sure they won't have access to clean drinking water, either. People have already written about the sub-standard sanitary conditions.
My family is ruthless.. I'm a survivor and always have had to be... So here we are
As many have seen, so is mine. I'm glad you're here.
It's political WARFARE
It looks like a police state
Yes it does. This week in my political book club, we were discussing the DOJ memo discussing making taking away naturalized citizenship a normal policy. We were discussing our concerns, and I wrote a piece on this.
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/losing-your-us-citizenship?r=f0qfn
One really has to read it to understand that they are setting the situation up to deprive anyone of their citizenship, starting with this, to see how much pushback they get. They have been getting more pushback about immigrants than I think they expected, but still they are going ahead with next steps. I think they want to be fully operational before the next election, because this is a good way for them to remove so many pesky democrats from the rolls, by stripping us of citizenship. Not only will this strip us of our right to vote, but they will probably also take our stuff like the NAZIS in Germany did to the German Jews after they stripped them of their citizenship. The two actions go hand in hand. There is your police state for you.
There is no way this doesn't lead to a bloody civil-war-type situation. While it looks like the agencies rounding people up are largely complicit and eager to assault, kidnap, and traffic human beings, there will be patriotic Americans who won't stand for it. I doubt we'll find many of those within ICE/CBP/etc, but some current military service members and veterans will fight back. (I know, I know. Others will go along. They already are.) That will give them the ability to cancel elections.
In the short term, this may slow their roll on stripping people who voted against them of citizenship. Because why bother with that when they can just send thugs into American communities and murder "the bad people who were born here" as part of this war? It's cheaper than having to house them in concentration camps until they drop dead from torture, starvation, and exhaustion. This President didn't reference Night of the Long Knives for nothing.
So yeah. I'm in a grim mood today, but I'm also very clear-eyed about what lies ahead.
Yesterday my daughter was discussing her Fourth of July Outfit, something more forward thinking than me, or maybe just less worried. I was saying that I have mixed feelings about celebrating because I am no longer able to celebrate our democracy. I said we are celebrating that we have won this, and come far, and will do it again. However, I agree with Paul Krugman that the US will never be what it was if it is able to overthrow the yoke of fascism.
I think Trump will bother because he does not want to share this country, and he is just about to get a huge war chest with which he can pay other countries to house people he does not want. Trump clearly intends to kill people in his concentration camps. The conditions described in Florida alone sound like they would kill me. Heat, humidity, tents, alligators, snakes, overcrowding, no medications, probably no toilets because humiliation and discomfort is part of it. How much will be such misery that it leads to suicide? There is not one horrid thing from Hitler's playbook that I put past Trump. Not a one. Americans need to realize this.
I think people in congress are going to be targets, and other people with power first. Where this will lead and how long the American people who have not had the draft and not been to war and want a peaceful existence are going to be able to keep that is not clear to me. I don't know how long I can keep this in Europe either. Trump is doing a lot of things like removing sanctions from Putin and stopping support of Ukraine that might bring things to a head here.
I understand your grimness, and I feel it too. I am also just exhausted from the task I have this summer of getting my mom better support for her dementia while trying to pack up, get rid of and sell a house in the US too. I also have remodeling going on here.
The US as a country is over. Many Americans may think it still looks the same, but it will NEVER be the same. Even if we manage to fight this off before it gets as bad as I and many others have imagined, our worldwide reputation is destroyed.
Countries are still working with us while they figure out how to form other alliances. But as soon as those alliances are working and they don't need us, they won't have a problem cutting us off. So many countries put up with the US because of how much money we spend on crap we don't need.
But as I said in my article on Jeff Bezos last July, Americans who are being terrorized by fascists (in the form of militarized federal police forces with unlimited funds who don't have to follow any law - I sometimes scare myself with my Cassandra-like prescience) won't have money or time to buy things they don't need; they won't even be able to get many things they desperately need. We're a few months away from major food shortages. Anne Applebaum has pointed out that regimes like this always cause a famine. I agree with Paul Krugman (and you.)
The EU is not handling this as well as they could. While Putin will likely die before Russia can steamroll all of Europe, the man behind him is even more insane. And they're working so hard to fuel far-right fever and topple countries from within (like they did the US.) It's one reason we've made some of our recent decisions.
I'm pulling for you to sell your house. Please let me know when it happens so we can celebrate together.
Andra, Thanks. I will let you know once it is sold, I will be able to sleep better at night. I will want to celebrate.
I am encouraging my niece and nephew to leave the US. My niece will have a bachelors in Biology in a year. My one nephew has a BA in cooking and business from the Culinary institute of NY. His brother is getting his PhD in sustainable aviation engineering. They all have skills that should get them work elsewhere. I am suggesting Canada because they don't speak German. They have the right to German citizenship, so I will get them to pursue it while their grandmother is still around to help them with the paperwork. Still, Canada would be the best fit for them. At least they are all used to cold winters.
I hope I am wrong and my friends who have adopted children from Guatemala and China and Mexico don't need to worry about them losing their citizenship. Even people who have been adopted and don't have any information on their birth parents are feeling unsure of whether they will be stripped of citizenship if they cannot prove that their birth parents were US born, because they know but have no documentation.
Yes there is a lot to be concerned about. We need to support each other. I am grateful that you are doing the work you do, and I got to know you.
In Solidarity! ✌🏽
It is.
Would love to zoom call you!
Please help
I have been applying for jobs but I have a home equity loan here. I could see if I could live with family for free in another state but I have to pay bills.
I live in rural Montana and work for the Forest Service????
I am terrified! What do I do?
KK, plan, plan, plan. I wrote this piece in November and it seems more relevant than it did then, because more is happening. It is called "A 'Plan B' for Catastrophe."
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/a-plan-b-for-catastrophe?r=f0qfn
For people who are or about to go to college I just wrote a piece today, it is called American Youth Can Be Ambassadors: Just Go to University Abroad.
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/american-youth-can-be-ambassadors?r=f0qfn
Now I am working on one for people who are retired so that will be the next piece I publish. I am writing these pieces because some people want to resist away from the line of fire.
I'm sharing a video I found on YouTube that's both interesting and alarming. https://youtu.be/pddZJAq-hCU?si=YKjQE30bwl8upJi0
Lisa, I am a Federal employee looking for work. Please contact me!