Underneath my yellow skin

Typcasting my love

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Just for a change of pace, let’s talk about something more frivolous than the shitty state of the world. Which, quite honestly, could be anything. Literally anything. In this case, it’s romance sex,  and it’s still related to everything that’s going on.

I have a type. I noticed it decades ago. Alan Rickman.

I could leave it there, but I won’t.

Let’s add to him, Rachel Maddow.

Those were the gold standard for so long. I added to my list Erika Ishii because they are just my everything. That voice. That personality. That bod. That face. That hair! Just, they are the whole package.

Ever since the hell started in Minnesota, I’ve been watching way more news than I used to (and than is probably good for me). I glommed onto a local news anchor, Jana Shortal, who has short, curly hair, is acerbic, yet warm, has a lovely deep voice, and is a lesbian.

I mention the last because that’s been a theme, starting with Rachel Maddow. Dark short hair, wonky glasses (wonky as in wonk, not as in broken/weird), deep, warm voice (of course, these days, a reporter has to have a great voice), nerdy, and a sarcastic yet rousing sense of humor.

Next up was Kara Swisher. Pretty much rinse, lather, repeat. Yes, I know that it should be lather, rinse, repeat, but I’ve always said rinse, leather, repeat–and I won’t ever stop. It’s gotten to the point where I’ll send K a name and a bio with a wry, “So my type!”, and she’ll quip something back in return.

Side note: K and I are both pretty passionate about politics. We agree on most everything just to different degrees. I can count the number of times we’ve flat-out disagreed on something on one hand. We can tell each other things we would not share to the world at large. We’ve been friends for thirty years, and I still learn things about her that I didn’t know before.

We’ve discussed our love lives, sure. She’s been married the entire time we’ve been friends and had her child about ten years into our friendship. I told her that she got the first year free to talk about the baby as much as she wanted. This is the thing I say to all my friends when they have something momentous happen to them. After that, I expect them to return to a more balanced conversation.

K never needed that time. She and I kept on as we always were with her talk of her kid being an additive. I commented on it from time to time, and she said that she was glad to be talking about other things with me. What I inferred was that she wanted to retain her identity as K and not just as L’s mom. I could dig that, and I was happpy to be that person for her. Everyone needs the friend who will just let you be you. And, I love her (now young adult) child as if they were one of my niblings.

K has been my rock throughout my, well, rocky dating history. She’s been there for my heartbreaks and thrills, and she’s not judged me along the way. She’s not coddled me either, though. She’s a straight-shooter, which I appreciate. She’s also been my wingwoman when we went out dancing, back when she lived here. A best gal pal who will hype you up is to be treasured.


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There are no rails any longer

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So. Trump talked of deescalation. I kknew better, but I felt a glimmer of hope that maybe he would do something that appeared to be deescalating. While I personally was gleeful about Bovino leaving (because I loathe him so much), I knew it was not going to make that much of a difference.

I was not wrong. Homan came in talking the same shit, though he wrapped it up in slightly less grotesque language (though still awful). And yet, they are pushing hard, still. Not only were Don Lemon and another journalist, Georgia Forte arrested for reporting on a protest of a local church (and two others were arrested as well), but the ICE raids are still going strong.

Today was another general strike day accross the country. Content creators are fundraising for local immigration rapid response teams as well. The exhaustion is bone-deep. There are some white liberals who say that we cannot afford/that it’s a luxury to be exhausted/fearful. They are not wrong, but they are also not right.

We have to do what we can, yes, but for some of us, that takes more effort than others. And some of us are closer to the danger than others.

Here’s the thing. Is this different than anything we’ve seen before? The brazen lawlessness is. But. The acts of violence against US citizens? No, that is not new. It’s just that it’s been easy for most Americans to ignore because 1. the vast majority of the people being acted upon have been black and brown; and 2. they didn’t literally see it with their eyes.

I have written a ton about how the ease with which people can videotape on their phones these days makes it harder to lie about what the feds are doing.  Lord knows, they keep trying, but most people are not swayed by their lies.

And yet, for every inch of progress it looks like we’ve made gets immediately drowned out by the hundred other nasty, illegal things this federal administration has done and continues to do. In the video I included below, Ta-Nehisi Coates says (I’m paraphrasing a bit, and I think he was quoting Russ Feingold): Against someone who is just determined to become a tyrant….you can’t really design a system that is foolproof.

It’s something I’ve talked about ad nauseam with friends. Our system is far less than perfect, and we’ve had growing pains in our entire existence. However, at the very least, we could believe that the president wanted what was best for the country. No matter how inept and horrible that vision was; it was sincere.


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Jerking that cirrcle harder, part two

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We’re in a holding pattern right now. The border ‘czar’ (god, I hate the use of that term in government. We’re not supposed to have kings of any sort, and that smacks of kingdom to me. It also amuses me in a sardonic way that his name in Homan. Like he misspelled human. RKG (a YouTube content creator I watch) has a longstanding joke for when they play Resi games. They make the spiders say, “I aM hOomAn” in a robotic voice, and that’s what Tom Homan’s name reminds me of.

Anyway. The border guy is here and talking about how the agents have been in ‘theater’ for eight months. Uh, that’s war talk. Is he admitting that the ICE agents and Border Patrol are at war with Minnesotans?

As joyous as I am that Bovino is out, I know it’s just a cosmetic change. This new guy may placate the locals for a few days, but then it’s going to be business as usual. Or they may be quieter and less egregious in their thuggery, but it’ll still continue.

I have to say that the rightwing pundits are running on fumes right now, though. They’re using their tired old lines about how everyone in Mnnieapolis is a paid agitator. They cite the well-written signs and how organized everyone was.

I mean, yes and yes? The former is just sad. They’re shocked at how literate Minnesotans are! As for the latter, well, we’ve had a lot of practice. After the George Floyd murder at the beginning of the pandemic, Minneapolis people organized hard. And they kept it up because there were other issues in South Minneapolis.

Chris Hayes pointed out that as a parent, he had several text groups for various parent groups that had texts such as, “Who’s bringing the snacks?” He implied they had to be highly effecient and organized in orderr for them to get shit done. He made the connection that it would be easy to use a  group such as that to organize protesters.

If there’s one thing Minnesotans can do well, it’s organize. We can do a potluck like no one else’s business. Also, we’re used to our winters. We arre not deterred by the blistering cold, snow, or actual ice. We know how to deal with all that whereas people coming in with no training do not.

I’ve talked in previous posts about how Minnesotans are made of stern stuff and how this federal administrration underestimated their enemy (and I do not use that last word lightly).

I firmly believe that Trump is laying siege to cities that voted against him. He’s even mentioned it several times that he ‘won’ Minnesota three times (he lost all three times he ran0. Whether or not he truly believes that he won Mninnesota, it doesn’t matter. It he does, then he thinks he’s takking back what is truly his. If he dosen’t (and to be clear, I leaned this way), then he’s getting revenged. In the case of Minnesota, there’s the added injustice (in his mind) that our governor was the Democratic candidate for VP. And is pretty outspoken on the issues with the Trump presidency.

As with many things about this president, it comes down to petty revenge. If you’re not 100% for him, then you’re against him. If you’re against him, then he’s going to try to take you out.

I want to reiterate that I kknew he was going to be awful this time around because he had nothing to lose, because he had a revenge list and was determined to go through it, and because he was not restrrained by normal human morality.


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The circle is jerking

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The tide is changing, at least a little. I am darkly amused how quickly the members of this administration are throwing each other under the bus. Noem is now saying the talking points she vomited out after Pretti was killed (that the victim (paraphrased) was locked and loaded, and that he was looking to commit an act of domestic terrorism. She said this within minutes of the killing. She said sometihing similar soon after Good was killed three weeks ago. In fact, domestic terrorism seems to be her signature calling card these days. That includes going out in public in your own city, apparently. Several officers in the federal administration repeated these lies. And, yes, they were lies.

By the way, another thing that darkly amuses me is how quickly theMAGAtts have turned on the second amendment. They went from pushing guns 24/7 for all occasions, and now, they’re saying that Pretti deserved to be killed for legally conceal carying.

Side note to the by the way: I am deeply conflicted. I am anti-gun, and I hate that we have this on our legal books. However. It is the law here, and Alex Pretti was legally carrying his weapon when he was murdered. He had it holstered, and the only weapon he had in hand when he was gunned down–was his phone.

A note to the side note to the by the way: I still can’t get over the rightwing asshole pundit who tried to make it seem like a phone could be taken for a gun (if pulled out from the pocket quickly and jerked in front of you, pointed sideways like a gun,  and you don’t look very closely at it). It made me wince at how desparate he was to paint Pretti as a threat*.

That’s not the point, though. The point is that now that this administration is rrealizing that they got this so very deeply wrong. As I wrote about in my last post, they deeply miscalculated what they would find when they came to Minnesota (either in expecting Minnesotans to roll over and/or riot).

Now, they are doing what they do best–pointing fingers at each other. Noem, the head of DHS who is perpetually cosplaying as a cowgal and puts camo on her podium (*eye roll*) is now saying it’s the White House who fed her the lines about ‘domestic terrorism’ and others of that ilk. Stephen Miller is saying that he got his info from Noem. As for Trum himself, well, who knows what exactly he’s saying or thinking? But he, too, seems to incidacte that Noem was the one who misspoke.


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We won’t back down

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Here is my post from yesterday about why I’m feeling the barest glimmer of hope. I am experiencing a deep sense of schadenfreude (again) because Greg Bovino, the duster coat wearing, swaggering macho asshole with a Napolean complex and a filthy mouth (filthy as in nasty to humans not like him, not filthy as in swear words), the man who had relentlessly mocked others as he pumped himself up is on his way on.

That’s not the reason I’m snickering to myself, though. I have included a video below of Chris Hayes from MS NOW who is here. He included a snippet of Trump saying (timestapmp 2:50):

You know, Bovino’s very good, but he’s, uh, a pretty out there kind of a guy, and in some cases that’s good maybe it wasn’t good here, and, uh, that’s all working out….

Hahahhahahhah! Hey, Bovino. how do you like the view from under the bus?

For all his scrapping and bowing, for all his muscling and bravado, for all that he’s become the face of Border Patrol (and to a lesser extent, ICE, because people blend the two together. For example, Alex Pretti was murdered by Border Patrol, but everyone says he was murderd by ICE.Personally, it’s a diference without distinction, and if people want to think it’s ICE, I have no qualms with that), for all that he’s relished swinging his dick around, it’s gotta hurt how quickly and easily he got thrown in the trash like yesterday’s garbage.

I know that this isn’t the end of anything, by far. but I’m allowed my moment of pure happiness that Bovino has been humiliated in this fashion. Yes, he was allowed to ‘retire’ (read,  demoted/fired), but he knows as we all know that heh was fired. And it has to hurt. It has to sting his oversized ego. And I am relishing every fucking moment.

I am not the better person when I reach the end of my compassion, so it seems. I just can’t at this moment. Let me rephrase that. I have so much compassion for my fellow Minnesotans, especially people in Minneapolis. I have compassion for others who are suffering. But for this administration or their former supporters? Hell, nah. I just can’t do it. And I’m fine with it.

I have to admit that Iw as wrong about something–kind of . As per usual, it’s not that simple because ideas are complicated. But, here goes. I was mostly wrong to be frustrated with the peaceful protests. I’m going to get into that along with my many caveats.

The peaceful protests are a powerful thing because they contrast the unhinged response from those on the right, ranging from the federal officers to the rest of the federal administration to the pundits to the MAGA supporters. They want to call Minnesotan protestors hateful and angry, and they haven’t been able to do it.


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A small sliver of hope

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Throughout this horror shitshow, I have had been almost overwhelmed by anger, depression, futility, fear, and a whole host of other negative feelings.

Once again, before I get into it, I have to give thanks that people are videotaping what is happening on the daily because it’s so much easier to refute the lies coming out of this federal administration on a regular basis.

Because of this, Gregory Bovino, is being pulled out of Minnesota. Rumors are that he’s being demoted or ‘allowed’ to retired (read, forced to retire). If this happens, I will be dancing in the streets because rightly or wrongly (probbaly wrongly), he has become the focus of my ire. Why? Because he’s here. He’s actively hurting my state. Like, physically. Because he dresses like he’s part of SEAL or some elite military squad like that.

He so desperately wants to be John Wayne, it’s pathetic. Also, I did not realize/remember that border ppatrol and ICE are not actually law enforcement. They want people to think they are, but they are not. Despite what the leaked memo says, they don’t have the legal right to go into the home of a legal citizen without a federal warrant. That’s not going to stop them, but I needed to remember that, for my own sanity.

He lies without hesitation and without remorse. He did it so relentlessly to a judge, she said that she could not take anything he said as truth (paraphrasing). I’ll post a video below of Jana Shortal, a local news anchor (and my local crush) and a colleague talking about this very topic. I have to give reporters credit for trying to hold his feet to the fire, but he just blusters, gets angry, talks over them, or the interview gets cut short.

I hope he steps on a Lego ever three to seven minutes at varying intervasls. I hope he never finds the cool part of his pillow as he tries to sleep. I hope his pants are always just a bit too tight and I hope that he never sleeps well again. Also, if he’s ‘allowed’ to retire, I hope that his every minute in of retirement is empty and painful.

As for Noem, the call for her impeachment grows louder. 140 signatures so far, and it’s only growing. There are also calls to remove Stephen Miller. Let’s throw the whole lot out and try again. Can we have a do-over on the 2024 election?


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I’m just so tired

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I found the video that I mentioned in yesterday’s post–the one in which Rachel Maddow gave me a sliver of hope that we might be turning the corner. I’ll post it down below. Added note: The video has been taken down and the account that posted it terminated. So it was probably uploaded illegally. I don’nt think it was political, though; just a DMCA strike. Instead, here is another Rachel Maddow video. Just because.

As I told my K, though, it’s going to get way worse before it gets better. But, it does seem like the Democrats are finally putting their foot down. And a few Republicans are at least making quiet noises of discomfort.

But, my god. The boldfaced lying continues to astound me. I mean, it shouldn’t. That’s their M.O. Lie, deflect, and attack. But, as Rachel (gah, I have the hugest political crush on her) said in the video, when people can see that you are lying, it’s much harder to pull the wool over their eyes. And, again, yeah, the dedicated base will eat whatever Trump vomits up in their mouths without question. And they will ask for more. They’re beyond reach. forget about them. But again, there’s that vast swathe of the middle people who can be won over.

By the way, I have two things I must say.

The first is that while I personally am very uneasy about the proliferation of guns in America, we have an agreement that people are allowed to conceal and carry if they have a license. Alex Pretti had a license and was lawfully carrying his gun. The feds are claiming that he pulled his gun and that’s why they fired at him. But video has shown that 1. a federal agent took a gun, probably from him, and then walk away. 2. His hands were up. He had his cell in one to recorrd them and nothing in the other. 3. His last words were apparently to the woman he was trying to help up. It was shared that he shouted, “Don’t touch her!” and then asked , “Are you ok?” to the woman.

My point is that my personal feelings about guns aside, one of the biggest golden calves for the far right is the 2nd Amendment. Now, however, they (and the feds) are trying to spin it so that Alex Pretti carrying a gun was the impetus for a federal agent killing him.

Oh, hell no. Hell to the fuck no. They are the ones who worship at the feet of the god of guns, so fuck that noise .I mean, we all knew it was only for them because that’s how they treat everything, but it’s interesting how quickly the second amendment righters turn on a  dime when it suits them.

The second is the repeated emphasis on how both Rachel Macklin Good and Alex Pretti were natural-born American citizens.I know whey they are doing it (politicians and journalists, I mean), but it doesn’t make me feel good. Like, would it have been ok if they were immigrants? I know that’s not what anyone means by it, but that’s what it sounds like to me.


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Rise up; stand up; don’t back down

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I woke up to the news that there’s been another local shooting by ICE. Oh wait. It might not be ICE. It might be Border Patrol. At any rate, it’s federal assholes. This time, it was K messaging me. which meant I had to be angry, upset, depressed, enraged, heartbroken, and a whole mess of other complicated emotions upon waking. Once again, I’ve spent all day in a daze, avoiding the video and the pictures, but reading what happened to the young man. I’m numb, yes, but there’s a rage burning in my heart, and it’s only growing stronger. There was a sliver of hope after the peaceful economic blackout yesterday–and now? We’re back in the terribleness we were in two weeks ago.

Before I continue on my rant, I want to say yet again that while I’m not happy with the increase of filming in public in general, I’m beyond grateful that it’s a staple in all the protests. Because without the video footage from ordinary people, ICE, DHS, and all the other presidential shills would be able to spin the narrative much more readily. Lord knows they’re doing their best to do it, anyway, but with all the video footage of what actually happened, it’s a much harder task for them.

Oh, I know MAGA will believe whatever their dear leader tells them, no matter what he says. Even when he changes his mind two minutes later, they agree unthinkingly.

Side note to the side note: This is a drum I’ve been banging for decades to the Democrats. Fuck that group. No, serious. Fuck them. Write them off. You will never ever ever win them over. I’m talking about that thirty percent of the population (roughly twenty percent, that’s an ass number, of the voters) who are just gonna be the way they are.

Stop ppandering to them. Stop trying to lure them to the dark side. Just. Fucking. Let. Them. Go. The ones you want to try to win over are the moderates and the independents. Oh, and by the way, you’re losing me as well because I’m tired of being put dead last every year. And not even consciously–but just by omission. That’s more insulting than being deliberately ignored.

Here’s the thing. The Democrats are shitty at messaging. And, for decades, they’ve tried to define themselves as the ‘not-Republicans’. The Dems were always reacting and never being proactive. They’re too nerdy and wonky for the gen pop. one of the big reasons Obama won was beacuse he had a simple message that connected with a vast swathe of people. He saved his wonkiness for when he got elected, which was a smart move. Oh, and he mobilized the online youth like none other. He internet savvy, and he used that to his advantage.

Back to my post.


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Minnesotans continue to stand up

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We’ve had a cold streak here in Minnesota. It reached -19F, “feels like” -35F last night. It’s -16F, “feels like” -16F right now. This is too cold, even for me. It’s brutal. People are urged to stay inside. Frostbite can happen in about five minutes. That’s not much time at all.

Simultaneously, we had an economic blackout date in order to protest ICE. It was called, “ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth of Freedom”. Several businesses shut down for the days. Others stayed open and donated a portion or all of their daily profit to charity. Thousands of people braved the cold to protest, which makes me really proud.

We’re made of stern stuff here in Minnesota. To put it bluntly, the federal administration did not know who  they were fucking with when they came into Minnesota. People on the coasts like to joke about flyover states, but if they were ever to visit Minnesota, they would see that Minnesotans don’t back down.

I would be remiss if I did not point out that at the airport where they’re protesting airlines that are running deportation flights (to Texas where there is a deportation detainment/internment, the frontline of people kneeling and singing hyms was made up of mostly faith leaders. There have been a call to prayer, as it were, by several prominent faith leaders. They have recognized that what is happening is something they must take a stand on, and many of them have done just that. So I give full props to them for matching their actions to their words.

I’m so tired. Ever y time we think that this administration can’t go any lower, they do. It’s disconcerting to realize that we can’t trust anybody in the federal government right now. Anyone in this administration is inept, incompetent, aa lying asshole, or any combination of all three. I watch clips of them lying right to my face, and it fillls me with incandescent rage.

I hate being lied to. I especially hate it when someone does it ineptly or is doing it without the intent to really convince the listener. That’s just adding insult to injruy, quite frankly.

I hate what those assholes are doing to my state and to this country. I hate what they’re doing to me psychologically.

Whenever I see the head of Border Patrol strutting around, acting all high and mighty or saying indefensible bullshit, I just want to punch him in the face. Same with the VP. He came to Minnesota to give his support to ICe. Whining about whatever the fuck his whiny ass was going to whine about.


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Sometimes, it snows in January

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There is a cold snap making its way across the Midwest. We are currently at -22F, ‘feels like’ -34F. I had stuck out one hand to see if it was really that cold–it was. Some time ago, I don’t know when, they changed the way they measured windchill to be more accurate. That means we’ll never have a windchill of -100 again. We had that when I was a kid, by the way. And, yes, they closed school for it.

I’m someone who loves the cold. L-O-V-E-S it. WHen I was younger, I used to play the (to me) fun game of seeing how far I could go into winter without closing my car windows. I could make it until it dipped below zero, and then I would roll up the windows.

Even then, I would keep the heat off. This was part two of the game–how long would it take for me to begrudgingly turn on the heat. Usually, it was around ten below, and then the game was over fror the year.

I use to have the thermometer in my house set at 62 during the day and 60 at night. As I said, I like it cold. Here’s a weird thing, though. The older I get, the less cold I’m able to tolerate.  It’s not a huge difference, but it’s there. I think it’s partly menopause, honestly. They talk about heat flashes, but I was getting cold flashes instead. It was interesting to get the cold shakes; it was almost an out-of-body experience.

Back to today. It’s cold. It’s really cold. It’s “stay the fuck in the house” cold. It would have been cold for me before I hit menopause, and it’s still cold now. I’m ready to hunker down the whole weekend and not step a foot outside.

Here’s the weird thing. The last four or five winters (the ones since my medical crisis)have been all over the place. More snow in general (save one year), not as cold, and just all over the map. Probably because of climate change, sadly. I love the more snow personally, but I don’t like what it says about our weather patterns. Also, I’m aware that other people don’t like snow and/or cold as much as I do, so I feel bad for them. I don’t have to drive in it, either, which helps.

I bring it up because one of the things that makes me happy is watching the ICE fall  on ice. I have included a SNL skit that has a St. Paul-born comedian ragging on ICE falling on ice. It’s easy to tell that they are not Minnesotans because they are not prepared for Minnesota winters. Wactching them flail their arms as they vainly attempt to stay upright has given me much joy.


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