@elowerbasch
Free agent policy wonk, expert on access to public benefits. GrayCatPolicy.com Happy to provide pro-bono support to grassroots groups. Democracy defender, spouse, friend, mom to adult children. Rivers are my happy place. Fairfax, VA. She/her.
Trump called affordability "a con job." What do you call cutting SNAP assistance while grocery prices soar? Stripping health coverage while premiums spike? Slashing housing support while rents climb? All to fund tax breaks for billionaires?
This is fine. Everything's fine.
#Trumpflation has made grocery prices higher, healthcare prices higher, childcare higher, and costs are rising for families as he’s taken funding from healthcare to pay for terrifying children, families, and hard-working immigrants. Not okay. #TrumpsStateOfDelusion #SOTU
President Trump just said, “We lifted 2.4 million Americans off of food stamps.”
A reminder of what happened to those 2.4 million Americans:
The president, who drones on about protecting women’s sports, publicly mocked the women’s gold-medal hockey team. A reminder this was never about protecting women’s sports and it was always about transphobia and misogyny.
The SAVE Act would require all voter rolls to go to DHS so Kristi Noem would determine who can and can’t vote.
🧊🚨🧊🚨🧊🚨🧊🚨🧊🚨🧊🚨
Call your senators! #NoOnSAVE
(202) 224-3121
Prior to the start of the #TeslaTakedown, we finished shoveling the sidewalk in front of the Tesla showroom. Tesla hadn’t done anything about it in over two weeks, so we took care of it.
Go, @susanfdouglas.bsky.social! Go, @beezus67.bsky.social!
#TalesofTeslaTakedown (Arlington, VA - Feb 14, 2026)
Facebook plans to put facial recognition in its glasses and they think we’re too stupid to fight back.
Their internal memo: “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.”
The current regime took a week to abolish USAID, which is three times as old and was not in the news every day for brutalizing children
Retweeting this again, because I cannot overemphasize HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS.
And how many MORE people signed up after each murder.
I can't remember who around here said that they had learned something new in 2026, which was that it turns out there is something they are willing to die for.
That.
just used @matthodges.bsky.social FEC Claude agent and here's what i learned... just another kinda small PAC to enrich the folks running it.
NEW: Abigail Spanberger this afternoon ordered that all state agencies leave ICE's 287(g) program.
This means that the state police (and some other agencies) will no longer be empowered to detain and arrest people for ICE.
Big, big move by the governor within weeks of coming into office.
The number of children in ICE detention on a given day has skyrocketed, jumping more than sixfold since the start of the second Trump administration. The Marshall Project analyzed data obtained by the Deportation Data Project and found that ICE held around 170 children on an average day under Trump.
"The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children. This Court and others regularly send undocumented people to prison and orders them deported but do so by proper legal procedures." https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172886492/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172886492.9.0.pdf
"The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children. This Court and others regularly send undocumented people to prison and orders them deported but do so by proper legal procedures." "Apparent also is the government's ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence. Thirty-three-year-old ThomasJefferson enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation. " "Civics lesson to the government: Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster. That is called the fox guarding the henhouse. The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer" "Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned." https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172886492/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172886492.9.0.pdf
"Well, Dr. Franklin, what do we have?" "A republic, if you can keep it." https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172886492/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172886492.9.0.pdf
"Apparent also is the government's ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence. Thirty-three-year-old ThomasJefferson enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation. " bluevirginia.us/2026/01/satu...
JD Vance @JDVance X.com Remember when we learned that our wealthiest and most powerful people were connected to a guy who ran a literal child sex trafficking ring? And then that guy died mysteriously in a jail? And now we just don't talk about it. 8:28 AM • 9/4/21
JD Vance in 2021:
I wrote this yesterday about the hero city of Minneapolis
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKOW...
I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
Stay free
"But the independent court monitor who reviewed her death said he had heard general concerns from Border Patrol officials about the operational "drain" involved in transferring migrants to hospitals."
www.cbsnews.com/news/anadith...
pretty wild statement re: Republican Chris Madel drop from race for MN governor:
"Saying he cannot support the national GOP's 'stated retribution on citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so."
Statement from Michael and Susan Pretti Parents of Alex Jeffrey Pretti “We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.
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."
A video of Alex Pretti reading out the final salute of an unnamed veteran he cared for until the end of his life in the ICU, posted to Facebook by his son.
Gov. Tim Walz: "Thank God we have video, because according to DHS, these seven heroic guys took an onslaught of a battalion against them or something. It's nonsense, people. It's nonsense and it is lies."
Screenshot of Virginia's U.S. House delegation vote on the DHS funding bill this week
Reminder: Reps. Rob Wittman (R-VA01), Jen Kiggans (R-VA02), John McGuire (R-VA05), Ben Cline (R-VA06) and Morgan Griffith (R-VA09) all just voted to fund DHS and ICE... bluevirginia.us/2026/01/virg...
ICE is now responsible for 66% of the homicides in Minneapolis this year.
I watched the video so you don't have to. An observer was tackled to the ground by 5-6 ICE agents, he struggled on the ground but was pinned arms and legs by agents when another agent unloaded at least 5 rounds in his chest. It was murder. #ICEOUT. Abolish ICE
"Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial 'outside agitator' idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."
www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen...
Walz: "What's happening in MN defies belief. News reports simply don't do justice to the level of chaos & disruption & trauma the federal govt is raining down... This long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. Instead, it's a campaign of organized brutality against the people of MN"
Trump admits that this is nothing but political retribution. Minnesota voted against him three times and now he’s punishing us – putting lives at risk and wasting enormous resources in the process.
Reminder that these kind of door-to-door “general warrants” are both explicitly illegal and also a major trigger for the American Revolution.
