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Hi, all, and happy Thursday.

We’re almost through the week, all! Phew. It’s been a lot.

Some days, when it comes to writing this opening, I don’t know where to start. On days like that I like to turn to my favorite stoic, Marcus Aurelius, for inspiration. So instead of talking about the news today I’ll provide, instead, a few lines I think especially relevant for this moment:

First this, from Aurelius’s Meditations:

Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not ‘This is misfortune,’ but ‘To bear this worthily is good fortune.’

We are living through deeply trying times. Instead of ruing my fate, however, I try to remember that my job is to “bear this worthily.” We don’t get to choose the moment in history in which we live, in other words, but we do get to choose how we respond to that moment. Remember that your work here is part of that response. It’s the right one. It matters. You have stepped up. Barvo.

Here’s another Aurelius quote I like, and about which I’ve thought a great deal lately:

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

This is a great reminder that we should do our best to stay in the day and fight the battles immediately before us, not the ones imagined down the line. We don’t know what the future will bring. Will Trump try to nationalize the elections? Will he declare martial law? Will he try to “cancel” the midterms? He may, but he also may not. And, whatever the case, none of that has happened yet. If and when it does—and that’s a big if—we will deal with it with the same cleverness, determination, and ingenuity with which we have dealt with every other challenge so far.

To quote my good friend Robert Hubbell, “we are not potted plants!” We have agency, power, and force. But only over what’s happening now. We can prepare for eventualities, but we can’t tackle them until they are here. So let’s not burn up too much energy living in the wreckage of a future we can’t even know for sure will come.

I leave you with one last line that is wholly relevant to the moment:

What we do now echoes in eternity.

Absolutely. Every action we take, every word of encouragement we utter, every breath of courage we draw, every immigrant we help, every dollar we give, every call we make will impact the future in ways too innumerable to express. The future is up to us. We can help mold it. We are writing it as we speak.

And none of this can happen without you. So thank you for being here. Marcus Aurelius would be proud. So would the giants upon whose shoulders we stand.

And so am I.

Now let’s get to work.

Call Your Senators (find yours here) 📲

Hi, I’m a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is ______.

I’m calling to urge the Senator to refuse to vote for any DHS appropriations bill that fails to meaningfully rein in ICE. Democrats’ list of demands, released by Senator Schumer and Rep. Jeffries last night, is the bare minimum we should accept. Not one item less. I think ICE needs to be dismantled and rebuilt as a new, entirely reimagined agency, but until then I want every single thing Democrats have asked for, and I want ironclad guarantees that ICE will have to comply or else. Thanks.

[If GOP add:] Any Senator who doesn’t help meaningfully rein in ICE at this moment is betraying their constituents, violating their oath of office, and trampling on the Constitution. History will not be kind, and neither will voters come Election Day.

[If Democrat add:] Democrats have the leverage. Do not cave. Americans are behind you. Stay strong. Thanks.

Call Your House Rep (find yours here) 📲

Hi, I’m a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is _______.

I’m calling to urge Representative [Name] to refuse to vote for any appropriations bill funding the Department of Homeland Security that fails to rein in ICE.

We can’t wait around while ICE harms more people. Please ask Rep. [NAME] to demand ironclad restrictions on ICE and Border Patrol, including getting ICE and Border Patrol out of our communities, ending the blank check for their brutality, and creating clear guardrails to stop warrantless arrests, profiling, and enforcement at sensitive locations like schools or hospitals. Thanks. [H/T Indivisible]

Extra Credit ✅

Target has officially sent the police to clear peaceful protestors out of its stores in MN. These protestors were doing sit-ins to demand that Target stop being complicit with ICE. Let’s contact them and tell them how disappointed we are with them.

Call 800-440-0680 or email them at guest.service@target.com. I said simply:

To Whom It May Concern at Target Coporate,

I’m writing to say how angry I am that Target managers in Minnesota are calling the police on peaceful protestors. These good citizens are simply demanding that Target stop cooperating with ICE, which is terrorizing communities, separating families, and throwing children into concentration camps. Yet Target’s managers are siding with them, not its customers?

I have been boycotting Target for a year over its cancellation of DEI policies. I hoped some day to return. But Target’s current actions almost guarantee that I will not. New CEO Michael Fiddelke had better reverse course immediately or Target’s already sagging prospects will get significantly worse.

American consumers stand with Minnesota protestors. We will never, ever support stores that stand with ICE.

Thanks.

Get Smart! 📚

Join We Build Progress, Take Action Minnesota, Minnesota AFL-CIO, People’s Action, Faith in Action, Faith in Minnesota, and Indivisible for “Resist and Reimagine: Lessons from MN on Fighting Authoritarianism.”

On February 12th at 7 PM ET/4 PM PT. We’ll discuss how we can all stand in solidarity with Minnesota and what each of us can build in our own communities.

RSVP here.

Messaging! Messaging! Messaging! 📣

If you are even a little interested in messaging I’m going to once more recommend that you read . Three times a week it delivers posts to amplify, good news to highlight, abuses to share, and a messaging framing to filter it all through. Right now that framing is:

The same billionaires that are robbing us and enabling fascism have raped and tortured little girls.

ICE is terrorizing our neighbors in our streets and in concentration camps.

Americans are escalating their defiance of the fascist Trump regime.

Trump is desperately trying to stay in power by seizing control of elections, blocking people from voting, and stopping votes from being counted. But we won’t let him.

Read the whole post and please consider subscribing—it’s free! The author, Jiggy Geronimo, whom some of you may remember from the Defeat Fascism webinar I hosted a few months ago, has stellar instincts for how we should frame this moment in order to win, and her newsletters make it really easy to do that work.

Give 💰!

From subscriber Mia T.:

Our spiritual community, Nefesh, has created a fund with CLUE to secure the release of Los Angeles community members from immigration detention. This campaign is an opportunity to unite families and free innocent people from ICE detention facilities in the LA area. You can donate any amount here—from $25 to $100 to $1000— every donation helps. Your contribution to Nefesh is tax deductible.

CLUE’s Immigrant Detention Bond Fund is the largest fund of its kind in the country. They have been able to get over 100 people released in the past six months. Please join us in our efforts to release more detained individuals from incarceration.

One hundred percent of donations go directly to bonds (minus credit card fees if that’s how you choose to give). Even better, after each case is resolved, the bond money is returned to CLUE’s fund. That means your donation will go on helping more detained individuals.

We currently have a donor who is matching all contributions up to $10K. We are seeking to raise a total of $40,000, please help by making a contribution.

Resistbot Letter (new to Resistbot? Go here! And then here.) 💻

[To: all 3 reps] [H/T Rogan’s List] [Text SIGN PBYCBG to 50409, or to @Resistbot on Apple Messages, Messenger, Instagram, or Telegram]

(Note that for the most effective RESISTBOT it’s best to personalize this text. More about how to do this here. But if you’re short on time just send it as is using the above code.)

Even with this administration doing its best to keep their abuses out of the public eye, we learn every day of new horrors in the detention camp archipelago. They’re overcrowded and unsanitary, the folks they’ve snatched off the street aren’t getting adequate food or water, they can’t get health care. Now, there’s even measles outbreaks. This is what we’re subjecting little children to. 35 people that we know of have died in immigration detention since Trump took office again, including at least one alleged to have been murdered by guards. These places are becoming black holes for basic rights and basic human decency.

And in many cases, private companies are running these camps and making bank off of us to do it. CoreCivic has inked contracts to run detention facilities worth over $680 million in taxpayer dollars since last January. They reported $538 million in revenue in the second quarter last year, an almost 10 percent increase. Over the same period, GEO Group leapt 5% to make $632 million. They’ve been awarded more than $1 billion of our money for detention centers and services, all while we’re being told the government can’t afford to make health care and child care affordable. It’s obscene.

While it is a challenge for state governments to effectively take on the deportation machine, there is one power that is clearly available to them: the ability to tax corporations doing business within our borders. We must make use of it

Innovative lawmakers and activists have proposed legislation, California’s AB1633, to aggressively tax the profits of privately-run detention centers and redirect those revenues to immigration-related services. This is a legally sound path towards holding companies accountable for what they’re doing in these camps, and it will help us get our money back to cover the costs of repairing the damage to our communities.

Please support and help pass into law a detention camp profits tax in our state. CEOs and shareholders can’t be allowed to get rich off the taxpayers by locking up our friends and neighbors.

OK, you did it again! You’re helping to save democracy! You’re amazing.

Talk tomorrow.

Jess

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