Open Thread | It’s January….We Need to Start Spreading The Word About the USPS and Their Potential Sabotage of Mail Ballots for the November 2026 Elections

Posted on February 2, 2026 by rikyrah

I have strongly, for the past 5+ years, told anyone who has a Mail Ballot, that if they don’t have the option of dropping their Mail Ballot off at a Election Authority Drop Box and if they must send their Mail Ballot back by mail..
1. DO NOT put it in a USPS Mailbox
2. DO NOT give it to your local Mailman.

YOU SHOULD GO LITERALLY INTO THE POST OFFICE AND WATCH THE POSTAL EMPLOYEE HAND STAMP YOUR BALLOT.

It’s January. Democrats need to start getting the word out for Mail Ballots. They have months to get organized and start on the local level.

James Tate
@JamesTate121
Vote as soon as you can.

The USPS just changed how postmarks work—and it will affect mail-in voting while hitting Americans with late fees on everything from tax payments to rent checks.
Starting in 2026, your postmark date won’t reflect when you actually mailed something anymore. Instead of stamping mail with the date you dropped it in a mailbox or handed it to a postal worker, USPS will now mark it with whenever their sorting machine gets around to processing it—potentially days later.

Please note;
1. IF you have an option for an Election Jurisdiction MAIL DROP BOX, USE IT.
2. IF you have to use the USPS to return your Mail Ballot, please note the changes.

Posted in 2026 Elections, Democracy, Elections, Mail Ballots, Open Thread, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Weekend Open Thread

Posted on January 31, 2026 by rikyrah

Good Morning. I hope that you are enjoying this weekend, fully vaccinated and boosted, with family and friends. That new booster shot has been approved..be sure to get it. Call and see if your pharmacy has it.

Order your free COVID Tests., if you still can.

NBC News

‪@nbcnews.com‬

Follow
Bruce Springsteen’s protest song “Streets of Minneapolis,” a response to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, soars to the top of iTunes.
https://bsky.app/profile/nbcnews.com/post/3mdnrnvt3ef2f

Posted in Music, Weekend Open Thread | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Open Thread | More from Minnesota

Posted on January 30, 2026 by rikyrah

All In with Chris Hayes

‪@allinwithchris.bsky.social‬

Follow
WATCH– Tim Walz on his call with Trump officials: “Not once did they ever say Alex or Renee’s name. Not once did they ask how the people of Minnesota were doing. So look, I know who I’m dealing with, and I know the reason that he was calling me was he needed something from us.”
https://bsky.app/profile/allinwithchris.bsky.social/post/3mdjnfrebgc2j

The Atlantic

‪@theatlantic.com‬
Follow
Governor Tim Walz warns of a national unraveling in an interview with
@isaacstanleybecker.bsky.social
. “It’s worse than you think,” Walz says of the situation in Minnesota.
https://bsky.app/profile/theatlantic.com/post/3mdjr537qm72h

Tim Walz Fears a Fort Sumter Moment in Minneapolis
The Minnesota governor warns of a national unraveling.
By Isaac Stanley-Becker

… Walz bowed out of his reelection race earlier this month. The 2024 vice-presidential candidate said that he didn’t want politics to interfere with his work amid an intensifying federal probe into welfare fraud in his state. Two days later, his phone rang, and it was Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis. Renee Good had been shot and killed by an ICE officer, one of thousands of federal agents deployed to Minnesota as part of what the Trump administration declared the largest immigration-enforcement operation in history. “Get yourself prepared,” was the mayor’s message, Walz recalled to me. He had understood instantly that the kind of unrest not seen since the summer of 2020, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, could be returning to Minneapolis.

Barely two weeks later, federal agents shot and killed a second Minneapolis resident. Walz still doesn’t know the names of the agents who unloaded their firearms into Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse. State authorities were blocked from investigating both killings. Instead, the governor was placed under federal investigation along with other Democratic officials. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is demanding access to Minnesota’s voter rolls, couching the extraordinary election-year request as a quid pro quo for restoring “law and order.”…

President Trump called Walz “seriously retarded” in a Thanksgiving post on social media. Yet the president reported having a “very good call” with the governor on Monday, saying the two were “on a similar wavelength.”

By the time of their conversation, senior advisers to the president had smeared Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin.” Trump declined to echo those characterizations in interviews and other comments this week. But in their phone call, Walz told me, the president didn’t say Pretti’s name, didn’t express condolences for his family, and didn’t ask how residents of the state were doing.

Continue reading →

Posted in Breaking News, Current Events, ICEgov, Open Thread, Politics | Tagged , , , , , | 37 Comments

Open Thread | Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong

Posted on January 28, 2026 by rikyrah

From The Atlantic:

Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong
The pushback against ICE exposed a series of mistaken assumptions.

By Adam Serwer
Photographs by Jack Califano

It took only a few minutes before everyone in the church knew that another person had been shot. I was sitting with Trygve Olsen, a big man in a wool hat and puffy vest, who lifted his phone to show me a text with the news. It was his 50th birthday, and one of the coldest days of the year. I asked him whether he was doing anything special to celebrate. “What should I be doing?” he replied. “Should I sit at home and open presents? This is where I’m supposed to be.”

He had come to Iglesia Cristiana La Viña Burnsville, about 15 miles south of the Twin Cities, to pick up food for families who are too afraid to go out—some have barely left home since federal immigration agents deployed to Minnesota two months ago. The church was filled with pallets of frozen meat and vegetables, diapers, fruit, and toilet paper. Outside, a man wearing a leather biker vest bearing the insignia of the Latin American Motorcycle Association, his blond beard flecked with ice crystals, directed a line of cars through the snow.

The man who had been shot—fatally, we later learned—was Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who had been recording agents outside a doughnut shop. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security claimed that he had threatened agents with a gun; videos of the shooting show him holding only his phone when he is pushed down by masked federal agents and beaten, his licensed sidearm removed from its holster by one agent before another unloads several shots into his back. Pretti’s death was a reminder—if anyone in Minnesota still needed one—that people had reason to be hiding, and that those trying to help them, protect them, or protest on their behalf had reason to be scared.

The church has a mostly Hispanic and working-class flock. Its pastor, Miguel Aviles, who goes by Pastor Miguel, told me that it had sent out about 2,000 packages of food since the federal agents had arrived. Many of the people in hiding, he said, “have asylum cases pending. They already have work permits and stuff, but some of them are legal residents and still they’re afraid to go out. Because of their skin color, they are afraid to go out.”

Federal agents have arrested about 3,000 people in the state, but they have released the names of only about 240 of those detained, leaving unclear how many of the larger number have committed any crimes. Many more thousands of people have been affected by the arrests and the fear they have instilled. Minnesota Public Radio estimates that in school districts “with widespread federal activity, as many as 20 to 40 percent of students have been absent in recent weeks.”

I don’t know what the feds expected when they surged into Minnesota. In late November, The New York Times reported on a public-benefit fraud scheme in the state that was executed mainly by people of Somali descent. Federal prosecutors under the Biden administration had already indicted dozens of people, but after the Times story broke, President Trump began ranting about Somalis, whom he referred to as “garbage”; declared that he didn’t want Somali immigrants in the country;and announced that he was sending thousands of armed federal immigration agents to Minneapolis. This weekend, he posted on social media that the agents were there because of “massive monetary fraud.” The real reason may be that a majority of Minnesotans did not vote for him. Trump has said that “I won Minnesota three times, and I didn’t get credit for it. That’s a crooked state.” He has never won Minnesota.

Perhaps the Trump-administration officials had hoped that a few rabble-rousers would get violent, justifying the kind of crackdown he seems to fantasize about. Maybe they had assumed that they would find only a caricature of “the resistance”—people who seethed about Trump online but would be unwilling to do anything to defend themselves against him.

Instead, what they discovered in the frozen North was something different: a real resistance, broad and organized and overwhelmingly nonviolent, the kind of movement that emerges only under sustained attacks by an oppressive state. Tens of thousands of volunteers—at the very least—are risking their safety to defend their neighbors and their freedom. They aren’t looking for attention or likes on social media. Unless they are killed by federal agents, as Pretti and Renee Good were, other activists do not even necessarily know their names. Many use a handle or code name out of fear of government retaliation. Their concerns are justified: A number of people working as volunteers or observers told me that they had been trailed home by ICE agents, and some of their communications have already been infiltrated, screenshotted, and posted online, forcing them to use new text chains and code names. One urgent question among observers, as the videos of Pretti’s killing spread, was what his handle might have been.

Olsen had originally used the handle “Redbear” in communicating with me, but later said I could name him. He had agreed to let me ride along while he did his deliveries. As he loaded up his truck with supplies, he wore just a long-sleeved red shirt and vest, apparently unfazed by the Minnesota cold.

“This is my first occupation,” Olsen said as I climbed into the truck. “Welcome to the underground, I guess.”

Read the rest of the story at the link above.

They thought they would overwhelm Minnesota and bully them into submission. They were wrong.

Posted in Breaking News, ICEgov, Open Thread, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Open Thread | ICE Has Killed Another Person in Minnesota

Posted on January 26, 2026 by rikyrah

Christian Petersen
‪@iwantyoustudio.bsky.social‬

Follow
A VA nurse who dedicated his life to helping others, murdered by a man who has dedicated his life to hurting others.
https://bsky.app/profile/iwantyoustudio.bsky.social/post/3md7bzzcuss2h

‪Democratic Activists‬
‪@democratswin.bsky.social‬
· 5h
You, sir, are our hero. One man at St. Francois County Courthouse. Little does he probably know, he will need to add another name to his sign….

Hope ☄️ (NO DMS!)
‪@xtrahope1515.bsky.social‬

Follow
Updated.

His name was Alex Pretti, a 37 year old white male; a registered nurse.

These are the last words of some Antifa or terrorists in Minnesota:

Pretti: “Are you OK?” To the woman next to him who ICE also pepper sprayed in the face.🤬 RIP 💔

Renee Nicole Good: “I’m not mad at you.” RIP 💔

3:06 PM · Jan 24, 2026

Jeff Rueter

‪@jeffrueter.bsky.social‬

Follow
Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti.

“Please get the truth out about our son.”
https://bsky.app/profile/jeffrueter.bsky.social/post/3md7iqqr5622i

Acyn

‪@acyn.bsky.social‬

Follow
Walz: Minnesotans are witnessing, and we’re creating a log of evidence for the future prosecution of ice agents and officials responsible for this.
https://bsky.app/profile/acyn.bsky.social/post/3md6xto34e424

Eric Michael Garcia

‪@ericmgarcia.bsky.social‬

Follow
Alex Pretti grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he played football, baseball and ran track for Preble High School. He was a Boy Scout and sang in the Green Bay Boy Choir.

apnews.com/article/immi…
https://bsky.app/profile/ericmgarcia.bsky.social/post/3md7jjycjxs2s

VBL-Commish
‪@vblcommish.bsky.social‬

Follow
Logically we all know these ICE state raids are meant to terrorize blue states. And they are. But they also are not doing this in red states because the only way they can convince MAGA voters to not believe their own eyes is by keeping everything on social media and FOX, and off their own streets.
https://bsky.app/profile/vblcommish.bsky.social/post/3md6xxmt5vk25

Continue reading →

Posted in Breaking News, ICEgov, Open Thread, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 16 Comments

Weekend Open Thread

Posted on January 24, 2026 by rikyrah

Good Morning. I hope that you are enjoying this weekend, fully vaccinated and boosted, with family and friends. That new booster shot has been approved..be sure to get it. Call and see if your pharmacy has it.

Order your free COVID Tests., if you still can.

GEEDEE
@GEEDEEzNutz
NO ONE is talking about Tiktok’s latest update on their terms and services

-tracks your citizenship/immigration status
-Religious beliefs
-mental and physical health diagnosis
-your race
-if you’re TRANS or NONBINARY
-sexual preferences and orientation

Posted in Weekend Open Thread | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Open Thread | What the Democrats Got In Terms of ICE and the Rest of the Budget

Posted on January 22, 2026 by rikyrah

Eric Michael Garcia

‪@ericmgarcia.bsky.social‬

Follow
Minibus is out. Democrats were able to include some guardrails in about ICE:
-restricts ICE to spending $3.8 billion of its annual budget
on detention as opposed to being able to spend $10 billion
-$20 million that must be used for body cameras 1/
http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/do…

Click to access fy26_homeland_security_conference_bill_summary.pdf

http://www.appropriations.senate.gov
7:55 AM · Jan 20, 2026

Eric Michael Garcia

‪@ericmgarcia.bsky.social‬

Follow
Other aspects:
-de-escalation training for ICE and CBP officers
-training all law officers and agents, on Americans’ right to record any interactions.
-Provides line-item funding ($20 million) for mandated, independent oversight of detention facilities
http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/do…

Click to access fy26_homeland_security_conference_bill_summary.pdf

http://www.appropriations.senate.gov
7:58 AM · Jan 20, 2026

Other aspects:-de-escalation training for ICE and CBP officers-training all law officers and agents, on Americans’ right to record any interactions.-Provides line-item funding ($20 million) for mandated, independent oversight of detention facilities http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/do…

— Eric Michael Garcia (@ericmgarcia.bsky.social) 2026-01-20T13:58:19.545Z

Eric Michael Garcia

‪@ericmgarcia.bsky.social‬

Follow
Another big one “Cuts funding for CBP by nearly $1.3 billion.”
8:05 AM · Jan 20, 2026

GOLIKEHELLMACHINE
‪@golikehellmachine.com‬

Follow
the choice isn’t “shut down the government or fund ICE”, ICE is getting funded no matter what, the choice is “try to enforce oversight and spending or don’t participate at all”
10:01 AM · Jan 20, 2026
https://bsky.app/profile/golikehellmachine.com/post/3mcujpyvkss2v

Erin Reed

‪@erininthemorning.com‬

Follow
1. In a major victory, Democrats have managed to get all anti-trans riders stripped from the final appropriations bills.

This includes HHS and Ed, which had the worst provisions in congressional history.

If it passes, it will be a big win for 2026.

2. Early Tuesday morning, final appropriations bills for the Departments of Labor, HHS, and Education—and related agencies—were released, marking the last major potentially anti-trans funding measures to be negotiated in the aftermath of the record-breaking government shutdown fight in 2025.

3. Now, with the final bills released, it is clear that no anti-transgender riders were included—meaning transgender people will largely be spared new congressional attacks through most of 2026 should they pass as-is.

4. As the government shut down on Oct. 1, the state of appropriations bills needed to reopen the federal government for any extended period was extraordinarily dire for transgender people. Dozens of anti-transgender riders were embedded across House appropriations bills.

5. Those fears eased somewhat. In the months that followed, Democrats notched a series of incremental victories for transgender people, advancing multiple appropriations “minibus” packages that stripped out anti-trans riders.

6. Now, with this release, the final HHS and Education bills contain no anti-transgender provisions: no ban on hospitals providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth, no threats to strip funding from schools that support transgender students or allow them to use the bathroom.

7. When asked about the successful stripping of anti-trans provisions, a staffer for Representative Sarah McBride tells Erin In The Morning, “Rep. McBride works closely with her colleagues every day to defend the rights of all her constituents, including LGBTQ people across Delaware.”

8. “It takes strong allies in leadership and on committees to rein in the worst excesses of this Republican trifecta, Rep. McBride remains grateful to Ranking Members DeLauro, Murray, and Democratic leadership for prioritizing the removal of these harmful riders.”

9. This does not mean that transgender people will not be targeted with policies and rules that affect them in all areas of life. Trump will still use federal powers to do so. However, the lack of passage means that these attacks will only last for as long as we have Trump in the White House
https://bsky.app/profile/erininthemorning.com/post/3mcv3jikxwd2d

Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Economy, Federal Budget, Open Thread, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments

Open Thread | Making Clear The Continued Assault Against Women

Posted on January 20, 2026 by rikyrah

They are making it plain. But, those of us who read Project 2025 been knew.

Jesus Freakin Congress
@TheJFreakinC
🚨 If you’re confused why the Trump administration is suddenly claiming there’s “massive fraud” in daycares… without evidence… here’s the reality:

It’s not about fraud.
It’s about defunding childcare.
And it’s laid out plainly in Project 2025.

Project 2025 argues that the federal government should stop supporting large-scale childcare systems and instead “support parents directly” so one parent can stay home.

Sounds benign… until you look closer.

👉 There is no plan to replace a real income.
👉 No wage replacement.
👉 No guarantee families can survive on one paycheck.

“Paying parents to stay home” in Project 2025 does not come anywhere close to replacing what a parent earns in the workforce. It’s not a living wage. It’s not sustainable. It doesn’t cover rent, healthcare, groceries, student loans, or childcare for other kids.

So what’s actually happening?

👉 They want to defund daycare
👉 While not offering a real financial alternative
👉 While cutting programs like Head Start
👉 While rolling back access to birth control and abortion

That’s not support. That’s coercion.

When childcare disappears and reproductive autonomy disappears, women don’t “choose” to leave the workforce… they’re forced out.

This is the pipeline:
• Undermine abortion access
• Restrict contraception
• Defund childcare
• Offer symbolic “parent support” that doesn’t cover lost income
• Push women back into financial dependence

Project 2025 isn’t subtle about its worldview. It prioritizes a single-income, male-breadwinner household… without building an economy where that’s actually possible.

So when you hear panic about “daycare fraud,” understand what’s really being set up:

No childcare.
No reproductive choice.
No real economic alternative.

That’s not family values.
That’s economic and government control.

The more financial desperate families get, the more the rich can exploit the working class.
5:58 PM · Jan 5, 2026
https://x.com/TheJFreakinC/status/2008327251981463774?s=20

Jesus Freakin Congress
@TheJFreakinC
And notice how “fraud” is only happening in blue states, when red states receive the most federal assistance?
6:53 AM · Jan 6, 2026
https://x.com/TheJFreakinC/status/2008522199989383601?s=20

Morgan J. Freeman
@mjfree
The Republican SAVE Act forces women to jump through expensive, bureaucratic hoops. Changed your name? That’s $150+ for a new document, plus time off work, just to register. This is targeted financial disenfranchisement. Call your Senators NOW: 202-224-3121 #StopTheSaveAct
https://x.com/mjfree/status/2013704659127390548?s=20

Posted in Assault Against Women, Open Thread, Politics, Women's Rights | Tagged , , , , | 32 Comments

Happy Birthday, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted on January 19, 2026 by rikyrah

Today is the official celebration of the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A Look Back-1965 Selma March

This is my favorite section from

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]”

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an “I it” relationship for an “I thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Continue reading →

Posted in Black Excellence, Black History, Civil Rights, Open Thread, Politics, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Weekend Open Thread

Posted on January 17, 2026 by rikyrah

Good Morning. I hope that you are enjoying this weekend, fully vaccinated and boosted, with family and friends. That new booster shot has been approved..be sure to get it. Call and see if your pharmacy has it.

Order your free COVID Tests., if you still can.

MAGA Cult Slayer🦅🇺🇸
@MAGACult2
ANONYMOUS LETTER FROM A MINNESOTA EDUCATOR ON THE GROUND

I am a lifelong resident of Minneapolis and an educator who teaches at both a high school and a college here in the city. I have friends, family, colleagues, and students across the political spectrum. I am writing as an American citizen who loves this country and is deeply frightened by what I am witnessing in my city.

Before becoming an educator, I worked with Homeland Security in the early 2000s as a theft and fraud investigator for a major insurance company. I had direct exposure to federal law enforcement at that time. What is happening now does not resemble the agencies or officers I knew then. The ICE agents operating here appear poorly trained, are acting with little oversight, and are being encouraged to treat residents as enemies. They are operating with total impunity. That should concern everyone.

There is widespread disinformation about what is happening in Minnesota. I am asking people, regardless of politics, to stop relying on national pundits and political talking points and instead look to local reporting and firsthand accounts from people who live here. What is happening is real, ongoing, and deeply disturbing.

I am not a protester. I have not attended demonstrations. I am in classrooms and on campuses every day. What follows is what I have personally witnessed, along with what has been consistently reported to me by colleagues, students, parents, and neighbors with a wide range of political beliefs.

Here is what I have seen and experienced:
– Female friends who are U.S. citizens aggressively restrained, choked, forced into vehicles, and detained.
– Native American individuals detained, including citizens and members of sovereign tribal nations.
– ICE agents staking out high school and college campuses, then denying their presence to administrators and local law enforcement.
– I have been followed for miles after leaving a school parking lot by an ICE agent who only turned away after prolonged tailing.
– Emergency sirens at levels I have never experienced living here, including during 9/11, the 2008 Republican National Convention, and the George Floyd uprising.
– ICE agents running residential license plates, pulling personal data, and approaching people already knowing their names and addresses.
– Agents positioned outside churches, schools, and grocery stores, blocking traffic, yelling at residents, and intimidating EVERYONE, including people who are not protesting.
– White residents being offered money or “protection” in exchange for informing on neighbors labeled as non-citizens or “leftist protesters.”
– Door-to-door activity in Minneapolis and St. Paul, with local news now running nightly segments on what to do if ICE comes to your door.
– School buses rerouted to pick up students at individual homes because children are too afraid to walk.
– Parents emailing me asking what will happen to their children if they are detained.
– School administrators stated that local police will not intervene if ICE violates rights on private school property without a warrant.
– Reports from detainees of no bathroom privacy, including officers watching women use the restroom.
– Arrests occurring on highways, with abandoned vehicles left behind, causing multiple accidents.
– There are thousands of ICE agents operating here. It feels like an occupation.
– Residents have also documented aerial surveillance during enforcement activity, including drones over neighborhoods and public spaces. Community-recorded video shows drones hovering while individuals on the ground are followed or detained. Regardless of stated purpose, the effect is widespread fear, self-censorship, and the feeling of being monitored simply for existing in public.

What makes this even more frightening is the complete failure of political leadership.

Republican lawmakers from rural Minnesota openly cheer this enforcement without concern for the harm it is causing to Minnesota families, children, and communities. Democratic leaders speak about stopping it in press conferences but are not on the ground and are not backing their words with action. They return to their homes each night while families here live in fear.

Politicians and Government officials are playing with people’s lives.

I have never been this scared living in Minnesota. Not during past protests. Not during moments of national crisis. The fear now is constant and destabilizing because it is happening in everyday places: churches, schools, grocery stores, neighborhoods, and homes.

I do not care what your politics are. This is wrong and should not be happening in America.

This is not about border security or state fraud. This is about retribution for being a “blue state,” intimidation, surveillance, and the erosion of basic civil rights in a major American city, carried out openly and without accountability. We are being made an example.

We need help. If the government, law enforcement, and politicians will not protect people, then it is up to us to protect each other.

Ways to Help:
Legal Support
Immigrant Defense Network (COPAL) https://copalmn.org
Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota https://ilcm.org
National Lawyers Guild

Home


MIRAC
https://miracmn.org
ICE Watch & Community Defense
Defend 612 https://defend612.com
Minnesota 50501

Home

Food & Mutual Aid
HelpMe Connect https://helpmeconnect.web.health.state.mn.us
Twin Cities Mutual Aid Project https://tcmutualaid.org
La Viña Church
https://lavinachurch.org
People Helping People https://peoplehelpingpeople.org
DHH Church Food Support https://dhhchurch.org

Please rely on local Minnesota news outlets, not national commentary, for accurate reporting. Please share this widely.

People are being harmed. Minnesota residents regardless of their politics are terrified and angry. Misinformation only allows this to continue.

— Sincerely,
An Anonymous Minnesota Educator
https://x.com/MAGACult2/status/2011434172498231640

Continue reading →

Posted in Weekend Open Thread | Tagged , , | 3 Comments