subdee

[subdee]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[subdee]

PolSci majors, what does it mean when judges want their own security service because the official security services are more loyal to a felon rapist than they are to the rule of law?

[subdee]

About those US Christian nationalists who are OK with kneecapping clean energy, selling off public lands, kicking people off healthcare and food assistance, and making climate change worse if it means they can also end funding for women's healthcare and lock up immigrants (and soon, native-born political opponents).

Turns out, they're a pretty small minority of the country! Though concentrated in certain areas.

[subdee]

If any of these guys are your reps (and you can check if they are here,) harass the heck out of em.

[subdee]

[MEDIA: Baoke pen, alcohol markers, black paper, white and gold pen, acrylic markers, ibispaint X!]

I had the honor to illustrate a fanfic titled "TV taught me how to feel" for this year's @hxhbigbang25! I certainly enjoyed the fic thoroughly and I think you all should read it too because it is written through the lens of a character that most people don't really like.

I think my writer NAILED how Milluki would act and honestly? Ever since I illustrated Milluki for inktober I've developed a soft spot for him because I relate to him in some way.

Anyway, I'm so excited to see everyone's work!

(I'll link the fic later!!)

[subdee]

Here's my fic for the Hunter x Hunter Big Bang 2025!

Gon is a rising star in the world of Greed Island, an MMORPG where he shines as a streamer known for wild builds, genuine charm, and a fanbase that adores him. His first and most loyal follower, SilverBloom, is always in the chat: funny, supportive, and eerily in sync with him.

Killua, Gon's real-life best friend, pretends not to care. He says gaming's not his thing. He says he doesn't watch the streams. He says a lot of things.

Meanwhile, he’s secretly kind of, sort of, maybe head over heels for his best friend. And totally not hiding behind a carefully crafted online persona just to be close to him. Nope. Definitely not.

What could possibly go wrong?

[subdee]

It’s that time of year again… my piece(s) for @hxhbigbang25! I got to illustrate the fic "Crossed Wires" by the wonderful @nebulasaurus. Please go check it out on ao3 when you get a chance ♡♡♡

While you're at it, definitely also go check out @tutubola 's art for the same fic!!

[subdee]

Art for the beautiful and haunting fic "shining, shooting star, you are in my dreams" by @cyberflamingo, part of @hxhbigbang25!

Also check out the talented @dnsool for more art from this fic!

[subdee]

Gon is seven years old when he loses his way in the forest behind Aunt Mito’s house. After wandering for hours he stumbles upon a young man in a clearing: a fortune teller named Killua, who is neither kind nor polite but still offers to guide Gon home. Gon, intrigued by his new friend, continues to replay their encounter even when the summer is over.

The next summer, Gon returns to search for Killua’s company. He finds him. And he continues to seek him out the next year, and the next, and the next.

Soon, all Gon can think about is going to see Killua again. Yet some things about their meetings are decidedly strange. For one, Killua never seems to remember him. He’s always wearing the same clothes. And, now that Gon is old enough to see it, he always looks a little sad…

-------------

Welcome to my annual Killugon fic - very excited to post this one! Thank you to the mod team who organized the @hxhbigbang25, and to @chiis-art and @dnsool for their fantastic artistic contributions.

View the accompanying art masterpieces here and here!

[subdee]

🪷 🍊 .. i'll let you pick again

this illustration was made for @cyberflamingo's work ->

🔗 shining, shooting star, you are in my dreams

please check out @chiis-art 's amazing heartfelt piece for the fic !! and thank you dearly to @hxhbigbang25 for setting up this event.

[subdee]

According to the family's lawyer with Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Calderon was taken at gunpoint by two men in unmarked cars. During a phone call, she was able to share with her family that she was not taken to a detention center or processed. Instead, she said she was taken to the border at San Ysidro, where she was presented with self-deportation paperwork.  "But when Juli refused to sign the paperwork, when Juli demanded to see a judge, when Juli demanded to speak to an attorney, she was punished," the attorney said. "She was taken back to an unmarked van along with other travelers who were also insisting on their rights, and taken to a warehouse where she was only given water. A warehouse where she was not given food. A warehouse, where men and women were held together. A warehouse without any law enforcement employee, without any official there present," he added.  Calderon told her family she is being held at the warehouse until she agrees to sign the voluntary self-deportation paperwork.  Another attorney with IDLC said Calderon remains absent from the ICE locator. "We don't know where she is now, if she is in ICE custody or CBP custody, or in a warehouse held by vigilantes," he said. "But we do know that this is not how our country is supposed to function." The mother of three, who has lived in South Los Angeles for more than 20 years, is a member of the community organization Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. 

I'm not even going to comment on this... what is there to say?

Abolish ICE. Call your (republican) senators and tell them not to pass the budget bill that gives that government a 200 billion dollar slush fund to do more of this.

[subdee]

The Republican Senate knowingly killing 3 million construction jobs should be front page news educating and alerting the People.

[subdee]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[subdee]

Recently got in an argument with my husband's father, a Trump supporter, that ended with him saying, "Why do you even care? It doesn't affect you!"

Motherfucker, your son works as a union electrician - half the work for the last few years has been solar panel installations. Right now he's working to build a huge new biomedical research center and THAT project is getting scaled back too. Especially with the taiffs on building materials the construction trades are about to take a huge hit at the same time that we'll have two kids in daycare.

And I teach high school math at a school without ONE SINGLE white kid. What do you MEAN these destructive policies won't effect us??? Are you stupid??????????

It makes me angry, still, to think about it.

Anyway. A bunch of actions are happening tomorrow, I know there's an overnight vigil outside Nicole Milliosakis' office in Brooklyn for example. I wish I could do more, but with the baby at home all I can do is pass on the info and phonebank. Consider helping out if you can.

[subdee]

Leafleting campaign at home depots across the country tomorrow, July 1st organized by SEIU.

[subdee]

I’ve signed up to make calls against the GOP budget that increases money for immigration enforcement & ICE from 33 billion to 168 BILLION dollars on Tuesday, Jul 1, 2025. Are you free to join me? Use this link to sign up: https://mobilize.us/s/xlXkFT

Your scary charts of the day:

Currently, we spend about 2/3 of the total federal policing budget on immigration.

AFTER the Republican budget bill is passed, that spending looks like this:

By the end of Trump's term in 2029, EIGHTY PERCENT OF ALL FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT MONEY WILL BE SPENT ON IMMIGRATION.

And think about what ICE are like now: Masked men who claim to be ICE agents but refuse to show identification are grabbing people off the streets because they think those people look illegal.

That will be so much worse, unimaginably worse, when ICE has finished signing contracts to re-fill all those prisons we emptied by paying for school lunches and early education and expanding Medicaid and helping people with housing and energy costs, and start detaining 200,000 people a year - or more! - who mostly have no criminal record and are contributing positively to our economy.

Source - CATO institute.

PS Why are we doing this? White supremacy.

[subdee]

Your scary charts of the day:

Currently, we spend about 2/3 of the total federal policing budget on immigration.

AFTER the Republican budget bill is passed, that spending looks like this:

By the end of Trump's term in 2029, EIGHTY PERCENT OF ALL FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT MONEY WILL BE SPENT ON IMMIGRATION.

And think about what ICE are like now: Masked men who claim to be ICE agents but refuse to show identification are grabbing people off the streets because they think those people look illegal.

That will be so much worse, unimaginably worse, when ICE has finished signing contracts to re-fill all those prisons we emptied by paying for school lunches and early education and expanding Medicaid and helping people with housing and energy costs, and start detaining 200,000 people a year - or more! - who mostly have no criminal record and are contributing positively to our economy.

Source - CATO institute.

PS Why are we doing this? White supremacy.