The endearment you save for your bodega guy

The US right now feels like you’re trapped inside a building with every fire alarm going off. It keeps me up every night. Some people have been convinced that the sounds they hear are not real. You’re hearing things, lib! Some are upset at the mere mention of the blaring racket. The real problem is these people talking about the noise! Somehow, many of us have managed to live with it. The alarm is going off, but that’s not for us, right? The lights are flashing on and off all out of time with the wailing alarms. The microwaves are all beeping for some reason. Alarm clocks that weren’t even plugged in are going off. The fire alarm next door is going off too and spreading down the street. And there’s another. A Cybertruck driving by just imploded. Okay, that ruled. But everything is on fire. The fire is on fire. The “I’m fine” dog has burned to a crisp. RIP. But listen: you don’t hear sirens. The trucks aren’t coming, and many Americans are rooting for the flames, completely unaware that fires tend to keeps spreading, and anyone who may have been able to help put it out has been… well, fired. Gulp.

Let me just say it plainly: it is extremely risky to travel the United States right now, especially if there is anything in your possession that may lead a border patrol agent to believe you’re coming here to work in any capacity. Bands, think really hard before touring here. Two examples of that, plus the fucked up situation at Columbia, coming up next.

First, here are YouTube links to some rad new songs from: Perennial, Alien Boy, Blondshell, Deep Sea Diver, Graham Hunt, The Dreaded Laramie, Rodeo Boys, The Tubs, Birthday Dad covering A Place For Owls, and A Place For Owls covering Birthday Dad.

Playlist also available on Apple Music. Enjoy.
Tell me which one is your favorite. Send me a song you’re listening to.

I hope by now you’ve heard about the atrocity that took place at Columbia over the weekend. On Saturday night, Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by ICE, who claimed his student visa was revoked, even though he is a permanent resident with a green card and is not here on a student visa. Then they told him his green card was revoked too. ICE detained him anyway and ripped him away from his wife who is 8 months pregnant. Why? He helped lead pro-Palestine protests at the school. It took two days for his attorney to even find out where they took him. He asked for help from Columbia the day before his detainment. They obviously didn’t help. Also at Columbia, Trump canceled $400M in grants and contracts there over antisemitism allegations, which really just means that Trump is big mad that Columbia didn't strongly enough condemn and expel pro-Palestine speakers on campus. (Somehow that is antisemitism but all his Nazi friends and colleagues are fine.) He is waging an illegal and ideological war to destroy universities. Oh well, it’s just Columbia, you say. Why would he stop with Columbia, especially since the school isn’t even pushing back? Just this morning, they found out he was in an ICE facility in Louisiana. The President has now posted about the arrest, saying it’s the “first of many to come.” He still has not been charged with a crime.

To be very clear, this is the President of the United States saying he will have his thugs disappear students from college campuses just for saying things he doesn’t like. The free speech party! Every single university needs to be loudly speaking out against this. We’re literally doing the “first they came for…” and I don’t see enough people speaking out.

As I write this, his council has filed a motion to compel his return to New York and a federal judge in NY has blocked Trump from deporting him at this time. Pay attention to what happens next.

It’s beyond fucked. But it’s more than just Khalil.

A 28-year old British tourist has been detained by ICE since February 28. Her father is pleading for help on Facebook. That’s ten days. The short version: Becky was backpacking across North America. She was arrested in Tacoma, Washington. She’s being held in a facility with limited access to phone calls, and all her possessions have been confiscated. She was attempting to enter Canada from the US, but they were concerned she may try to work (she’s a cartoonist) illegally. She waited six hours as officials were “trying to determine if what I had been doing in America counted as work.” They decided she had “violated” her visa and denied her entry, even after she explained that she was “not paid at all.” When she attempted then to return to the US, she was put into custody. She remained in a dorm of 110 people that is maxed out, wearing the same jumper for a week, because the facility is “out of stuff, like blankets and extra clothes.”

ICE also detained a German tourist entering the US from Mexico and has been holding her since January 25. She has spent more than a month in a detention center, including eight days in solitary confinement. According to her friend, “CBP agents at the border accused her of planning to violate the terms of the visa waiver program by intending to work as a tattoo artist during her trip to LA… she says it was like a horror movie. There were people screaming from the rooms all around. They are feeding her through a little mailbox hole. She didn’t have a blanket, she didn’t have a pillow. It’s basically a yoga mat on the ground and a toilet on the corner.”

Are we great yet?

Let’s end on a high note. Some good news: Tesla stock keeps going down, down, down. We need to keep up the pressure and keep up the protests. It’s working. It might be the best option to bring Elon down. More info here. Get on board. Let’s sink it into the ground. And please, for the love of everything, get the fuck off Twitter.