appropriately-inappropriate:

date-a-jew-suggestions:

prismatic-bell:

date-a-jew-suggestions:

If you would report an undocumented immigrant to ICE you would have reported me to the Nazis and I don’t fucking trust you

A note:

I live in a state where you “have to” report anyone you suspect of being undocumented (that wonderful hellhole of Arizona). Now in practice this law has fallen far short, thank goodness. But if you live in such a place and they start enforcing it, here is how you get around it:

Assume everyone who doesn’t speak English is visiting.

Never ask about their job, because if they tell you they work here then you know they’re not visiting. You see them a lot for several weeks or months? Hm. Someone in the family must be ill. That’s terribly tough. They always dress in old, ratty laborers’ clothes? I feel you, my dude, I can’t afford new clothes either, and my dad has the fashion sense of an aardvark, so sometimes it’s not even about “affording” them. They say they’ve been here for years? You must have misunderstood. Spanish isn’t your first language, after all. First and last name? It never came up, or you don’t recall–you meet a lot of people.

And then, if you’re asked: no, you haven’t seen anyone residing illegally in the United States. Just people visiting.

Very good very important addition

Essentially, this is the civil society version of a work-to-rule strike.

Don’t do more than is expressly asked of you, and do what you are asked with such an intense attention to protocol that not asking you at all becomes more effective than even bothering.

In this case:

“Have you seen an illegal immigrant?”

“Could you describe an illegal immigrant, officer?”

*officer describes a person who is in the country without appropriate paperwork, or who has crossed the border illegally*

“No, sir, I haven’t seen any illegal immigrant.”

And this is correct. You have NOT seen an illegal immigrant, because you have no way of knowing if Jose Fulano is here legally or not. And since you can’t see his paperwork (or lack thereof), and did not personally see him cross the border illegally, you are only answering precisely the question asked.

yosoyleche:

yosoyleche:

FLORIDA IS GETTING A RECOUNT!!!!!!

IF YOU VOTED BY MAIL OR PROVISIONALLY, CALL SUPERVISOR OF ELECTION OFFICE TO MAKE SURE YOUR VOTE IS COUNTED!

YOUR PROVISIONAL BALLOT IS ONY COUNTED FOR RECOUNTS. IT HAS NOT BEEN RECORDED IN ELECTION RESULTS YET!

CALL 833-868-3352 FOR QUESTIONS!!!!

@reverseracism

artielu:

sambargestuff:

simonalkenmayer:

kyidyl:

systlin:

simonalkenmayer:

If you’re discouraged about the election results

Don’t be. You’re hearing media do what it does: harp on one person’s lack of enthusiasm and make it seem that that one opinion is held by thousands.

This race went precisely as I thought it would. Precisely.

And it was absolutely a massive success.

So let me tell you why, so that you feel better and can easily put down the annoying crowing that republicans are going to do, because they managed to cling to a few things.

If the votes fall as I believe they will, the democrats will have retaken the house by some 30 seats. This is impressive and somewhat unique in our country’s history. The GOP, upon taking the house originally, jerrimandered these districts in impressively screwball ways. Wherever that rigging has been overturned, the districts have gone blue. Which is, of course, why they did it. Democrats have the house now, 30ish flips in republican rugged districts. 15 of those being female candidates.

That is absolutely impressive.

A few key candidates to whom many people were paying close attention did not perform as people desired. Abrams, O’Rourke, Gillum. Well…I’m not surprised. Abrams faces absolute state wide fraud. Her opponent being the person also in charge of voter registration, withholding some 50k votes of which 70% were black. Voter intimidation. This is blatant corruption. And yet still…her race was very close. So too with Beto. Ted Crews was a presidential candidate! When he took Texas, he did so with a wide margin. Last night in Texas he was fighting tooth and nail. Gillum’s goobenatorial race for Florida was a figurative dead heat. 99% of the vote in—49% Gillum, 49.7% DeSantis. These are CLASSICALLY and FULLY republican regions in which Trump took the presidency by huge margins. That these races, with all those challenges, were as close as they were PROVES that something unprecedented happened.

3-400% voter turnout increases for a midterm election. Mostly with the youth.

But let’s talk about what it means to have the house.

Now I know you’re probably concerned about the federal judgeships that are about to pop up for consideration, and it’s true that the Senate was needed to stop approvals of those candidates, but…

Control of the house means that Democrats now take hold of some critical committees. These committees are the very ones that will be overseeing corruption allegations. Ways and Means, energy and Commerce, Financial Services, Intelligence, appropriations, foreign affairs, armed services, judiciary, transportation and infrastructure, and…government reform.

How do you feel now?

The worst political fallout of a GOP controlled government, the worst sound bites that weren’t Trump’s, the worst slaps across the face? All came from footage of those very same committees. Those committees now belong to Democrats.

Massive policy shifts also occurred in many classically conservative states—legalizing marijuana votes, Florida giving the vote back to former criminals who’ve served their time thus giving the vote back to a HUGE portion of the African-American Community that has been held in check by a racist and classicist policing method, then there were upsets in many small ways too.

I promise you…this is all excellent and it will have truly important and forceful impact. In 2020, if we can keep that same enthusiasm and rage, the entire government will shift. But that can only happen if we keep moving forward, if the candidates who won keep their noses to the grindstone and push back hard, if you and I and everyone on the ground continues to talk about this and force out bigots and greed.

Do not be discouraged. I promise you…this was an amazing election. Don’t focus on a few bright stars and think that all is lost because they fell. There is a great deal happening here, and one thing I know from being at sea—when a wave is building, there is first a terrifying shift, as the water level begins to build. The ship will begin to dip and then of a sudden, the swell will begin. The ship raises and passengers suddenly realize that the were much higher than before, with an incredible view. Then the wave crests and destroys what’s in its path.

We didn’t see a wave crest tonight. So what. That means it’s a much larger wave than we realized. It will crest in the future. But only if that fluid pressure is maintained.

This is good. It is. So long as everyone keeps working. This is good.

Calm down. Have a glass of champagne. A cup of tea. When they Trumpet all their noise…say nothing. Nothing needs to be said. You’re higher than you were with an excellent view of the ending. So relax. Don’t fret.

Listen to Simon, y’all. Simon is wise. 

I was gonna write all of this, but it’s easier to reblog it. And in addition all that Simon said, the house is necessary for legislation. The ACA is safe, along with many other things. Plus the house and senate are both needed for budget approval. Also importantly, it is the HOUSE that initiates impeachment proceedings. Now, personally, I would prefer if Trump was voted out, but that’s secondary to two more years of damage. So it’s likely that his tax records will be subpoenaed and the results of the Mueller investigation can actually be acted on now. I’m not saying that this is like an immediate thing that’ll happen, I’m just saying it’s possible now whereas before it wasn’t. Conviction is another story, but you don’t need the senate to impeach.

PLUS! Voter turnout was the highest it’s ever been. People are piiiiissed, and the presidential election and time since then has obviously been a wake up for previously unengaged voters.

Yes. All that is true.

Absolutely true. The house has tremendous power. What you’re seeing as actually the best possible result short of every Dem winning. This means that power can now be consolidated and things done properly. It means that we have the ability to lay siege. Even better, they cannot stop it. They’re stuck with it.

So Trump will do his peacock dance and lie and lie and lie.

Good.

The more he lies the angrier people get.

Let your enemy do what they do best…be an intolerable asshole who will recruit your companions for you.

The worst men are only ever be undone by themselves. They build defenses, they gather resources, they become complacent and proud. Then they alienate and offend. And then they lie. That’s when the enemies they’ve made find tiny weak spots and begin to chip away. That’s when massive holes open. That’s how sieges are won.

Keep pushing.

Plus, Beto O’Rourke may not be a Senator but he’s still a Congressman.  A Democratic Congressman in a Democratic-controlled House.  He did brilliantly in the Senate race and he’s not out of the equation by a longshot.

Hold firm. Keep pushing. Stay angry. Get more voters. Change is coming if we make it happen. And we can.

Also, give money to the ACLU Foundation because we need to sue Kemp for corruption.

avidbeader:

moonriver130:

Okay I’m done

All y’all on here throwing a tantrum because you had apparently not done your own research about what was possible in this midterm can shut the hell up. Sleep on it and grow. You’re an adult. This was never going to be some fantasy where dems take the house and the senate. NO ONE PROMISED YOU THAT. A fuckton of harm has been done while people sat by ignoring the issue and one night isn’t going to be able to fix it. We have to chip away at the decay and we’ve done it in a huge way today.

Yet again, you deciding to give up on the system does nothing but ensure that it goes back to being worse after this. If you want things to change, keep voting, volunteer, help counter rigged districts, make phone calls etc. it was never going to be as easy as one time voting. We have to fight to matter in a world where power is only distributed willingly to the 1%. Don’t give up, get mad and regroup for the next round!!!

One of the best comments I saw on my dash in the last couple of days: this is not a sprint, it’s a relay marathon.

This was the first step. A step in the right direction, but only a step. Time to take the next one.

kropotkhristian:

With the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez victory in New York and the pretty much mainstreaming of the DSA that has happened in the past couple of weeks, I have noticed something from the pundit class that needs to be addressed.

If you notice, almost all the official reactions from people in power has been some version of “don’t demand too much, or you will lose moderate voters, and Trump and the Republicans will win again.” This is ostensibly played as a negotiation in political strategy – but it is actually a threat. These people are basically saying “don’t demand full liberation, or we will give you more concentration camps.”

Don’t listen to this bullshit. Besides the obvious threatening overtones, it is actually atrocious political strategy. Politics is a game of power and narrative. The right-wing figured out during the Reagan years that to compromise is actually to lose, and so they never ever moderate their most extreme positions. This has forced the left to “compromise” with absolutely egregious policy decisions in order to appease the right-wing, which is never satisfied. This is a large reason why the hard right has been able to rule from the minority all of this time.

Don’t be afraid to demand things that people consider “impossible.” Control the narrative. Force everybody to compromise from YOUR position to placate YOU – never compromise from theirs.

We demand an abolition of prisons, ICE, borders, the whole thing. We demand full liberation and the end of capitalism. Our demands, most modest are, we only want the world.

bigmammallama5:

However, here is some very good news.

The Democrats won back the House, gained subpoena power, and can now serve as an actual check on 45. This is very very good.

So even if it wasn’t the “blue wave” a lot of people were hoping for, I want you to remember that the GOP no longer will hold as much power as they did. Lots of women were voted into office, LGBT+ candidates were voted into office, more POC were voted into office, two more Muslim women were voted into office, Florida voted to restore voting rights to over one million felons who have completed their terms of sentence, and Massachusetts voted to protect transgender rights. I know there was more but this is what stood out to me.

And right after I finished writing that I learned the GOP supermajority in NC is over and our Governor’s veto powers can now be sustained. And the Dems now hold a 5-2 majority on the state supreme court which means something might actually get done about our horrific gerrymandering and I totally just started crying. I think my anxiety just dropped about sixty pegs.

Despite the gerrymandering and very blatant voter suppression (i see you, Kemp), we did take steps in the right direction today. So take some deep breaths, take the next few days to yourself and get re-centered, and then keep going. Lean on your friends, treat yourself to something nice, come back with a vengeance. We’re in for a long fight.

spacehussy:

for a quick change of pace–i know we’ve all seen a thousand posts about voting, but what i haven’t seen (not yet) is one saying thank you. 

thank you for those who made it out in the rain and the cold, who organized and canvassed and took on the onerous task of working with non-voting & conservative friends/family to change their stance if at least just this once. thank you for those who stood in line for hours, who had to travel because your voting place was moved, who had to jump through ridiculous fucking hoops to register, who weren’t inspired but showed up anyway for the disenfranchised and the greater good. thank you as well to everyone who voted early, absentee, and provisional. 

it mattered.