Thinking and Stuff

going through your children’s things (phone, journals, backpack)

talking badly aBout your kid to other people

insulting your kid both to their face and behind their back

“this is my house you have no privacy”

hitting your kid

that your life path was made worse

by having your kid.

Pay taxes. Maintain car insurance. Ensure the safety of our children even if it means invading their privacy.

“While the administration should be lauded for its efforts to provide children and families access to the court system, its failure to ensure legal representation has produced a massive due process crisis,” said Talia Inlender, Deputy Director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law. “It should be obvious that immigration court proceedings are far too complex for children to navigate without legal representation, especially when the consequences are so dire. The Biden administration must take swift action to ensure legal representation for all children in immigration court.”

The report’s key findings include:

In a five-month period in FY 2022 alone, almost one third of immigration court cases initiated by the Biden administration–more than 80,000 in all–were against children, over 30,000 of whom were under the age of 5, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

Studies show that unrepresented unaccompanied children are at least five times more likely to be ordered removed than children with access to counsel. 

By the government’s own account, 44% of unaccompanied children and 51% of families on the Dedicated Docket lack legal representation.

The vast majority of removal orders entered against children are for failure to appear: Approximately 72% of removal orders against families on the Los Angeles and Boston Dedicated Dockets were issued in absentia, with over 48% against children, many under the age of six. Worse yet, 86% of removal orders issued against unaccompanied children were for failure to appear.

Immigration courts under the Biden administration ordered more than 13,000 unaccompanied children removed in absentia between Fiscal Years 2022 and 2023.

In handwritten cursive, a Russian immigrant named Marina wrote out the story of the day U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents took away her 1-year-old baby while she was being held in a detention facility in southern California. “I cried and begged, kneeling, not to do this, that this was a mistake, not justice and not right,” she wrote. “She was so little that no one knew anything about her. I was very afraid for her and still am!” This didn’t happen during the Trump administration, which separated more than 4,000 migrant children from their families under its controversial “zero tolerance” policy. Marina was separated from her baby in April of this year. The 40-year-old former restaurant manager came to the U.S.-Mexico border with her husband, mother-in-law and child to seek asylum. More than eight months later, she and her mother-in-law remain in federal immigration custody in Louisiana. Her husband is detained at a different Louisiana immigration facility. And Aleksandra is over a thousand miles away, being cared for by strangers in foster care in California. Aleksandra is one of around 300 children the Biden administration has separated from their parents or legal guardians this year, according to two government sources who asked not to be identified because they hadn’t been authorized to speak about the separations. Most of the cases involved families crossing the southwestern border, the sources said. These numbers haven’t previously been reported. Similarly, 298 children were separated from their parents in 2023, according to a government report to Congress published on Tuesday, even as overall migrant crossings have declined. According to the report, the average amount of time children separated between April 2018 and October 2024 have spent in federal custody before being released to a sponsor is 75 days.

or even Barack Obama, actually

A member gets up and starts shouting: All get up and shout with him.

Don't walk out: MAKE them carry you all out, not shutting up the entire time. I'm serious, go limp, be dead weight.

Putin's Puppet says a provable lie: Everyone chant "LIE" in unison for a solid minute instead of holding pitiful little signs in front of a man who can't read above a 3rd grade level.

Have someone who knows ASL sitting with you, interpreting everything in full view.

If you're gonna hold signs, make them BIG like you're actually trying to do something. Have them in multiple languages.

Make other signs that say clever or cutting things that will make him rage for days. "DOESN'T OLD TRUMP LOOK TIRED?" or "PUPPET PRESIDENT" or "EVERYONE IS FACT-CHECKING THIS SPEECH TRUMP DIDN'T WRITE" or "THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES" or his current tanking approval rating next to a laughing emoji.

Make a stink every day in congress, throw as many bills as you can on the floor even if they go nowhere, look like you're trying.

Have someone, idk maybe someone you actually want to boost for President in 3 gd years, be your voice of opposition in the media, loudly complaining and telling the facts, every single day. Let the people know you're there!

How hard is this? There's probably better suggestions than mine if they actually hired seasoned protestors or behaviorists/psychologists or even the biggest teenage troll they can find on a messageboard.

So wrong.

This season of madness will end, as they all do.

Protest, but protest with dignity. Personal attacks, blatant disrespect for institutions, and general jackassery is not the way to accomplish anything of value.

To win you need to convince people to join your side. Alienating them and making a fool of yourself doesn't do it.

You learned the wrong lesson from MAGA. Do you know why Trump won? Twice? Because he drew on the fear of conservatives and reactionaries who felt they were losing their place in the world. It wasn't because of his jackassery. It was because he made people feel seen and important. Included.

The jackassery was incidental, and actually caused him to lose in 2020.

But now you seem surprised that the data collected under Biden and accessed by his government is now being accessed by a new government.

It's almost as if an election took place. And you lost.

As for that "new government' - they are ignoring privacy and other federal laws in their Quixotic quest to access and control the info collected by our government - collected under all administrations.

Young kids under the control of a cringy, awkward, spoiled billionaire with an ax to grind... kids without training or understanding of privacy laws.. we would be amiss if we *weren't* concerned. Why aren't you?

Also, this isn't a parliamentary system where a prime minister forms a new government under the authority of a king. The fact that you use that kind of terminology is concerning.

"His government." "New government." Fuck that noise. This is the United States of America.

Say "administration" if you like. But we just have the one uninterrupted federal government.

Keep your messaging simple:

“Trump fired everyone in charge of airplane safety, and a week later planes started crashing into each other.”

you will not be surprised to learn that not only was the commercial spot in question not “about how we all need to stand with Israel”, but israel & palestine are not referenced or alluded to in any way whatsoever.

here’s the ad:

it’s not even an ad primarily about antisemitism. it’s a campaign called “Stand Up To All Hate” about standing up to racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, sexism, antisemitism, etc.—all hate, as the name suggests.

So we got Trump.

OOP either misread the headline (because surely the article was not read), or is intentionally spreading information either out of a misguided attempt to drum up anger or out of maliciousness.

1) PBS was *not* the only news organization to report it as such. Most major news organizations pussy-footed around it, true, but many smaller news organizations did not shy away from it.

2) PBS has not been defunded and neither the article nor the headline say it has been. There is only some social media outcry and a hashtag floating around. Now, Republicans always seem to want to defund PBS, and this president probably will manage it... But it hasn't happened yet!

He did not win the majority of the popular vote. The majority of Americans who voted for President did not vote for him.

His large electoral college victory was due to very narrow wins in swing states. The margins in six swing states were 3.2%, 3.1%, 2.2%, 1.7%, 1.4%, 0.9%.

A 1.6% swing in each of them would have given Harris a 308 to 230 win in the electoral college. A 0.9% swing in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan would have given Harris a 270 to 268 win. Less than a percent.

This election was not a landslide. His win was so so so narrow.

trump revoked executive order 11246, which prohibited discrimination.

trump put all dei employees on leave to be fired.

trump banned all lgbtq+ flags from being hung in government buildings.

trump rolled back biden’s executive order to lower prescription drug costs for people using medicare and medicaid.

trump rescinded the $35 cap on insulin, and prices are expected to rise to $1500 a month.

trump ordered the national institutes of health to cancel their review panels on cancer research.

when sean hannity asked trump about the economy, he said “i don’t care”, after campaigning with the economy as his main talking point.

trump has withdrawn the us from the world health organization.

trump is ordering health agencies to stop reporting on bird flu and halt publications of scientific reports.

trump has pardoned over 1500 people who stormed the capitol on january 6th.

trump changed mount denali back to mount mckinley.

trump signed an executive order to rename the gulf of mexico to gulf of america.

trump shut down cbp one, an app which granted legal entry to 1 million+ immigrants.

trump is allowing ice raids at churches and elementary schools.

trump announced plans to declare a national emergency at the us-mexico border.

trump signed an executive order to expand the use of the death penalty.

trump withdrew from the paris climate act.

trump revoked all protections for transgender troops in the us military.

trump rescinded executive orders made by biden that benefited and protected women, lgbtq+ people, black americans, hispanic americans, asian americans, native hawaiians, and pacific islanders.

trump is attempting to make it legal to refuse to hire or fire pregnant women.

trump pardoned 23 individuals convicted under the freedom of access to clinic entrances (FACE) act for their anti-abortion activism, including oftentimes violent protests at abortion clinics.

trump announced that the us government will from here on out only recognize male and female as sexes. intersex is not legally recognized anymore.

andy ogles drafted a constitutional amendment to allow trump to be president for a third term.

georgia republican congressman mike collins called for the deportation of new jersey born mariann budde, the bishop who urged trump to “have mercy” on the lgbtq+ community and immigrants during a service at the national cathedral.

amazon revoked protections for lgbtq+ and black employees.

every single republican told us we were overreacting. trump swore he had nothing to do with project 2025 yet continues implementing details outlined in it. not a single person has the right to tell us we’re being dramatic anymore.