How to Prevent a Concentration Camp from Opening in Your Neighborhood
Tactics you can use to protect your neighborhood, your community, and your country from the Trump regime.
Pictured above and throughout: Photos from the February 5, 2026, Orange County legislative session were provided by a party who prefers to be identified as "The Auroral Alchemist." We thank them for their photos of the meeting.
Later in this article, we will share a statement our contributor prepared concerning ICE's presence in Orange County. Last night, the county’s resolution condemning, but not legally prohibiting, the concentration camp at 29 Elizabeth Drive in the Village of Chester was passed unanimously, 21-0.* (In order to legally prohibit for-profit concentration camps in Orange County, County Executive Steve Neuhaus has to be willing to cooperate and work with the legislature. So far, he has expressed no desire to do so. More on that later in this post.)
However, there is an asterisks to this vote. Poo Gas Peter — District 7 Legislator Peter Tuohy, whom we have written about extensively at The Monroe Gazette, is a known MAGA supporter. We believe he only voted in favor of the resolution, based on the statements he made prior to the vote, because the room was full and people were watching him.
If you take issue with Tuohy’s statements at 2:55:50, and I believe most people reading this will, you can call him at 845-281-4841 or email him at ptuohy@orangecountygov.com to let him know about all the ways he’s wrong.
Not only about his statement, but also about how he knew of a hazardous gas on a children’s playground, in the Village of Monroe, for five years, and did absolutely nothing about it. Not until The Monroe Gazette came along and broke the story.
[Reader note: If you are getting this post by email, please visit us at MonroeGazette.com to read the full story.]
I wasn't at this week’s meeting of the Orange County Legislature, but it was packed.
My car was totaled on Wednesday, and my brother and dad were almost killed in the accident. Thankfully, in large part due to the two feet of snow we received recently, everyone is OK.
I share this with you to explain why I wasn’t there to cover the meeting in Goshen. I also believe that Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) is important for people to know about.
OSINT is one of the most effective skills you can use to document the actions of fascists and weirdos.
We all need to get as good as we can at documenting them because they’re all over Orange County right now, kidnapping our most vulnerable residents in Monroe, Middletown, and Newburgh and sending them to concentration camps.
Here is the latest video from Indivisible explaining how to film ICE. Please take some time to watch it, and we have provided additional tips on how to film ICE and use Signal safely here.
The thing is, teaching OSINT can be challenging because it’s often boring and may feel creepy. Especially when you understand just how much information is accessible about you without a warrant.
For example, if ICE wants to know the exact location of everyone in the neighborhoods surrounding 29 Elizabeth Drive in the Village of Chester, they can access that data using software called Webloc. This does not require a warrant because the data is commercially available. Yet another reason why we need to pass the New York Privacy Act immediately.
Not only does all of that data out there leave you vulnerable to criminals and scammers, but it also lets ICE know exactly where you sleep at night. (That’s because most people leave their phones in their bedroom, and the data available can detail the exact location of your phone over a set period of time, which would include your bedroom. This is yet another reason not to keep your phone in your bedroom.)
So, I will try to use the OSINT tactics I know to catch the negligent pickup truck driver and bring them to justice.
As I do, I’ll teach and explain the tactics I’m using. If you’re interested in learning how to better document fascists and weirdos, you can follow that story over at our sister website, Stupid Sexy Privacy.
You can also watch the full Orange County government meeting from Thursday, January 5, 2026, here.
Now, I’ve been getting numerous questions about how local residents and fellow New Yorkers can help prevent ICE from establishing a concentration camp in the Village of Chester.
Today, due to my delay with the car accident coverage, I won’t discuss the events of the Orange County government meeting. That may be reserved for an upcoming post.
The same goes for the recent Village of Monroe Board meeting from February 3, 2026, which can only be described as “a fucking disaster.”
Things started off well while discussing the concentration camp next door in Chester, and then… well, you can watch from 24:00 to the end below.
For now, all I’ll say is this: I personally like Trustee John Karl, Mayor Neil Dwyer, and Trustee Andrew Ferraro. I believe they do have the best interests of the community in mind when they make decisions, and I found them to be open and communicative when we have questions about Village business.
Trustee Martin O’Connor barely says anything at most meetings, so I don’t have an opinion on him. I think he likes the Yankees. As a Mets fan, I’m obligated to give him shit about this, but if you know anything about the Mets right now, you know Mets Fans don’t have the right to talk shit to anyone. Ours will be a long and awkward 2026 campaign.
The Debbie Behringer who didn’t think it was reasonable for The Monroe Gazette to ask Sal Scancarello to comment on that time Sal’s son threatened to murder two Satmar men at the local Target, during a time of a rise in anti-semitic incidents across America?
That Debbie Behringer?
She should be booted out of office at the first opportunity.
Anyone who protects the political career of a former MAGA State Senate Candidate (Dorey Ghoul) ahead of the people they were elected to represent is not fit for public office.
Seriously, Debbie, how can you defend someone who so freely uses racist dog whistles like this?
All that said …
If more people had watched or attended this specific Monroe Village Board meeting, especially from 44:00 to the end, it would be fair to say that nobody on this Village Board would have a political career any longer.
They’d be done.
Everyone looked bad trying to explain why they could not, or would not, pass what basically amounts to a ceremonial resolution promoting the passage of NY4All and the MELT Act.
I’m not alone in thinking this. The Monroe Gazette spoke to recently elected Monroe Town Board member, Louis Rivera, about what he saw at this Village meeting. Rivera told us:
“As an elected councilman, my responsibility is to uphold the Constitution, the rule of law, and the safety and civil rights of everyone in our community. Recent village discussions have highlighted a troubling lack of local engagement when federal immigration enforcement activities affect residents.
Oversight is not obstruction, and it is not hostility toward law enforcement. It is a basic obligation of public office and a necessary safeguard for public trust. Federal agencies, including ICE, operate under legal authority, and they also operate under constitutional limits. Protections such as due process, transparency, and accountability are not optional, and they apply to all people, including U.S. citizens.
When enforcement actions generate fear, confusion, or uncertainty within a community, local leaders have a responsibility to seek clarity and ensure lawful conduct.
Local governments may not control federal operations, but they are not powerless observers. They have a duty to advocate for constitutional compliance, to ask questions on behalf of residents, and to ensure that civil liberties are respected. Silence or inaction should not be mistaken for neutrality. Public safety and constitutional rights are not competing values.
Strong law enforcement depends on public confidence, and that confidence is sustained only when enforcement is conducted transparently, lawfully, and with respect for fundamental rights. I will continue to support measured oversight, open dialogue, and adherence to constitutional principles so that our community can move forward with confidence and trust in its institutions.”
Maybe this Village Board will survive Scandal Plagued Blooming Grove Police Chief, Alex Melchiorre, and the Satmar faction supporting Melchiorre and his underwhelming friends: Former Monroe Mayor Joe Mancuso and Nancy Peiferr.
But seriously. How did this police car flip over, Alex?
No comment, by the way, from Town of Blooming Grove Supervisor Robert Jeroloman about why the Town would hire Alex Melchiorre in August 2025 to be the Chief, despite the fact that the public, and Town of Blooming Grove Attorney Brian Nugent, were all aware of Alex Melchiorre’s intentions to run for Mayor of Monroe as far back as March of 2025. Jeroloman did not explain if anyone else applied for the position of Chief.
Mr. Jeroloman has also not commented on potential conflcits of interest concerning Alessio “Alex” Melchciorre’s campaign financials, as Melchiorre is clearly purchasing advertising, but at the time of this writing, not reporting any of his campaign contributions and expenditures.
Blooming Grove residents, especially in South Blooming Grove, have complained about a lack of police enforcement. Melchiorre, at the site of a recent fire at 33 Tanager Road, was also seen with one of the two men behind the white collar crime spree in South Blooming Grove, Yitzchok “Isaac” Ekstein.
Melchiorre was loudly telling everyone about what a great guy Isaac is and that the media should say more nice things about him.
(Yes. He did say this. We have witnesses.)
So, given that Mr. Ekstein is currently withholding the hardware needed to resolve the hazardous gas situation on the children’s playground in the Village of Monroe — because he wants Orange County to drop the lawsuit against South Blooming Grove in exchange — it’s hard to fathom Monroe Village voters electing Melchiorre mayor given his stanning of Isaac Ekstein
Pictured Above: Town of Blooming Grove Police Chief, Alessio “Alex” Melchiorre is spending money running advertisements for his mayoral campaign in the Village of Monroe; however, he has not reported any campaign contributions or expenditures at the time of this writing. Mr. Melchiorre is being supported by the majority political party in the Village of Kiryas Joel for his run for mayor, leading to accusations from Blooming Grove residents about lax police enforcement involving Satmar residents ine exchange for votes.
The Monroe Village election is coming up fast on Wednesday, March 18th, at Village Hall.
If the current Board does survive this challenge, it will only be because the election is a month away and the deadline to submit nominating petitions is this Tuesday, February 10. Leaving little time for alternatives to appear.
I hear a lot of talk from so-called “Do Something Democrats,” but as of this writing, not a single Democrat has submitted a petition to run for mayor in the Village of Monroe or for the Village Board.
Yet again, another disgraceful moment brought to you by the Monroe Democratic Committee, State Senator James G. Skoufis’s Monroe-based associates Anthony Jorge and David Rabbitts, and the Orange County Democratic Committee.
(Remember: Across America, Democrats ran wild on Election Night—everywhere except … Right here in Orange County.)
But after this upcoming Monroe Village election? I think this current Board could be done. Barring a major course correction concerning ICE.
You can’t play politics when 40% of your population is Latino and actively being kidnapped and placed into concentration camps. But that’s exactly what happened at this meeting.
Any local politician in Southern Orange County, trying to navigate this situation involving the Chester concentration camp, should pay attention and heed the following warning:
You are living through a crisis.
What you think you know about America, its dream, and the way our government is supposed to operate is gone.
The local government must now step in and provide leadership to guide the community in troubled times.
That means it’s time for something new, bold, and imaginative.
And what we saw at this Village of Monroe meeting?
That ain’t it.
So.
What I am going to do is provide you—yes, you reading this—with some tactics you can use at the local, county, state, and national levels to help stop not only our concentration camp from opening at 29 Elizabeth Drive, but all of them. These are only my suggestions. They are not orders. There are, and will continue to be, plenty of different and competing ideas. I’d like to only suggest we try all of them and let the best ideas and tactics stick.
I can only offer what I know as a legitimate—look it up—word-of-mouth marketing and public relations expert. That’s how I made money before COVID. Even though I’ve been a journalist most of my life, as anyone in the media industry will tell you, being a journalist is a noble profession that often leaves you broke and homeless.
All I can say is that, in the very specific instances of getting attention, building a cause, and successfully selling something—whether it’s an idea or a product—I am one of the few people on this Earth who can tell you with a high degree of confidence what works and what doesn’t. (My last marketing book was published in multiple international editions.)
The Basics You Must Master
Some of you may know this information; that’s okay. If you do, you should be teaching others who don’t.
That is your mission from this point forward: Those who know, teach.
An education is not something you get in order to get a job. An education is what you get to learn, and communicate, so that future generations won’t make the same mistakes we did.
And that is what this moment calls for Education. Specifically teaching, organizing, and preparing for the worst while hoping for the best.
Hope that there will be mid-term elections without interference and claims of cheating. Prepare for a mid-term election where voters will be harassed by MAGA and ICE, unless we commit to a one day national strike to ensure everyone votes in such overwhelming numbers that the final totals cannot be disputed.
But we can’t defeat MAGA without everyone knowing the basics.
And I can tell just by the numbers and conversations I’m having that not everyone is familiar with them.
Two examples:
Do you have your passport? If not, because of the SAVE Act and ICE harassment, you may encounter problems voting in the midterm elections this fall. Go get your passport. Keep the booklet at home and the card on you at all times. Do not assume ICE won’t bother you because you’re a US Citizen. We’ve already had many documented instances of US Citizens being asked for “their papers.” This includes members of actual law enforcement. Yes. Even our men and women in uniform are being harassed by ICE too.
Are you sending emails without using ProtonMail? Well, guess what: if DHS, ICE, or any other federal agency wants access to your email and all its contents—including your contacts—they can get it. Switch to ProtonMail as soon as you can. Encryption is your friend.
If you live in New York or Southern Orange County, we have a lot of work to do in teaching the basics.
For this reason, I hope you will forgive me with starting with this stuff and not diving right into tactics to block the concentration camp. What I need you to understand is that the best defense, as cliched as it is, is a good offense. That means you have to be prepared and doing everything correctly. And then it means joining your local institutions (School Boards, Library Boards, Town Boards, ect.) and putting your foot down with the full weight and authority of that institution against ICE.
If I ask you whether you know your neighbors, what will you say?
The answer should be yes.
If the answer is no and you’re feeling friendly, now is a good time to get to know each one that you can. Your goal should be to know at least ten of your neighbors and then invite them to join a neighborhood Signal group.
Once you’ve set up your ProtonMail account — it’s free — you can then coordinate with your neighbors using Proton Docs, which is easily accessible by anyone with a link and is also fully encrypted.
As ICE continues to invade — because that’s what this is, an invasion — we need to be able to quickly coordinate with our neighbors to protect one another. ICE is not law enforcement. Your local police, the sheriff’s department, and the state troopers are law enforcement. They are here to protect you. ICE is not.
There is nothing ICE is doing that can’t be done more effectively and safely for everyone by local law enforcement. ICE’s purpose is to terrorize communities and demonstrate to the MAGA crowd that they’re in charge now. It’s performative cruelty for a crowd that thinks it’s at war with “Blue States.” (Did you ever wonder why, two of the states with the most “illegal” residents, Florida and Texas, haven’t been visited by the National Guard and ICE? Yeah, it’s because ICE isn’t law enforcement. If it was, it’d be in Texas and Florida. Not Minnesota and Maine.
Know the difference between ICE and your local law enforcement, and tell others about that difference. (Not to let law enforcement entirely off the hook …)
If you are in America “illegally” and commit a violent crime, virtually everyone — including those living here “illegally” — agrees that you should be deported.
That is something that can be facilitated by our local police and local district attorneys in conjunction with the federal immigration system, as it has been for many years.
It is a deceptive tactic to equate ICE with law enforcement. They are not the same.
It is a deceptive tactic to tell people that without ICE, no one will protect you from “the dangerous ones.” The people who protect you from those who are dangerous, regardless of citizenship status, are the police. If you mean to tell me we need some private army made up of White Supremacists to protect our communities, why the fuck are we paying taxes to fund the local police?
It is a deceptive tactic to say you cannot abolish ICE because that would lead to anarchy. No. You can simply abolish ICE and the Department of Homeland Security and bring back the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Was INS perfect? Hell no. But it’s misleading to say you can’t just abolish ICE. You absolutely can, and we must.
Germany didn’t keep the Gestapo around after Hitler shot himself, you know what I’m saying?
However, it is not enough to simply shout, “Abolish ICE.” As much as I agree, you have to tell people what will replace it.
What replaces ICE is a fair and equitable pathway to citizenship, funded by the federal government as generously as it funded Trump’s Gestapo (to the tune of almost $75 billion).
What replaces ICE is an immigration system that does not treat people here “illegally” as criminals. They are not criminals. You do not need $75 billion to stalk, harass, kidnap, torture, and kill people here “illegally.” You need $75 billion to properly staff our federal agencies charged with managing immigration and the court systems that process those matters so everyone gets a fair trial. This is what is guranteed to all residents and citizens of the United States under the 14th Amendment.
And I’ll remind you that, for nearly forty years now, both Republicans and Democrats intentionally destroyed our functional immigration system because having a broken border was literally the only thing most modern Republicans have to run on. Just ask Steve Neuhaus himself, who once took a trip to the US-Mexico border as part of a political stunt.
Sooner or later, because of the climate emergency and climate migration, we’re going to need to have a serious talk about the future of our borders in this hemisphere. But. Most people are not ready for that conversation.
Nor are they ready to discuss a North American Union, which would protect Canada, Greenland / Denmark, and Mexico from the abuses they’ve endured at our hands over the last two centuries and just recently.
Or an American Union uniting the hemisphere and forever putting an end to colonialism and frequent attempts at regieme change by the United States down there. I know it’s easy to forget given the newscycle, but we did just commit an act of “Regieme Change” in Venezeula.
These are conversations for our children and grandchildren to have, assuming they survive the impending environmental crisis ahead.
So instead, I’ll simply say this: Let’s make sure violent criminals are removed from our country, and everyone else can stay as long as they’re paying taxes, which they overwhelmingly do.
In fact, never forget that the far-right Cato Institute recently announced that immigrants in America over the last thirty years saved government taxpayers $14.5 trillion.
These are all things you must understand and be able to communicate.
Understand That You Are Not Safe
And if you think the Trump regime will stop with anyone who isn’t white, you don’t know your history.
Any fascist ideology, which includes MAGA*, rests on the total domination of anyone who isn’t part of it.
In this case: white, Christian — but the right kind of Christian — able-bodied, and male.
You may be white like I am, but as a disabled person and a Jew, I’m not safe. The odds are good that the same is true for many of you reading this. Although my disability is invisible (I suffer from frequent migraines), the fact that I have a disability also makes me a target because I’m not “able-bodied.”
As a Jew, my whiteness is also conditional. I am only “white” until someone decides I am not because of my religion.
Which, sounds silly, until you remember that the concept of “White people” only came about in the late 17th Century when the wealthy were trying to figure out how to divide and manage the poor.
Capitalism is great as long as it has guardrails, but the sin of capitalism is that, instead of giving us one King to deal with, it gave us thousands. Today we call them billionaires.
And if you think being “white” will protect you, I’ll point out that during World War 1, we rounded up, deported, and interned plenty of German Americans.
What do we mean when we say “MAGA?”
When we say MAGA, we do not mean Trump voters. This is important. Please remember this.
The difference between MAGA and Trump voters is that Trump voters have legitimate concerns with the Democratic Party—one that has abandoned them and the rest of the working class since Bobby Kennedy was murdered.
The Democrats never fully recovered from that murder, and became increasingly a party for the wealthy. Starting in 1968 with Hubert Humphrey and continuing to the present with Kamala Harris. Remember that, until John F. Kennedy, the Democrats were the party of the Confederacy. The South switched sides to the Republicans starting in the 1960 election between Nixon and Kennedy as part of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy.”
With the exception of Joe Biden and George McGovern, every single Democratic president and presidential nominee, since Bobby Kennedy was murdered, has actively been a shill for the wealthy. Biden was a shill for some of the wealthy, like AIPAC’s far-right Republican billionaire donors, but not all.
Had many of those presidential candidates proposed actual, specific policies that could help the working class—and presented them in concrete terms people could understand—not because they are dumb—they are not—but because they are busy—then, at minimum, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris would have all been president. We would have never been in this situation with Trump, and potentially never in the predicament we found ourselves in with George W. Bush. Of the two 21st Century Republican presidents, one of them cheated to win, and hilariously, it somehow wasn’t Donald Trump.
Biden’s fatal flaw was that he was terrible at explaining how his policies were helping people. The fact that he got sick half-way through his term, and his staff covered it up, just made things way, way worse. George McGovern self-sabotaged multiple times, and the active plotting against McGovern by the corporate media and the Democratic Party establishment finished him for good. As much as people love Shirley Chisholm these days, you should know she actively tried to sabotage McGovern’s campaign on behalf of the party establishment. Little things like that get lost to history when we turn our politicians into saints.
And as you now, the Electoral College is the only reason you got Trump in 2016. Bush legitamately stole the 2000 Election with the help of three people who are now on the Supreme Court: John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
This is a long, long way of saying that 70% of America is not MAGA. They are not a popular movement. They are a movement who needs to inflate its numbers online using bots, sock puppets, and other tactics. You’ll notice, just here in Southern Orange County, that the MAGA people for example are super loud on Facebook with their laughing emojis and long screeds about “illegals.” But when you go to a Town meeting, like in Monroe, you get maybe one of them. Two if you’re “lucky.” That was also the case at the Orange County legislative meeting. You had one MAGA in the crowd and 99% normal people. Do not be fooled by what you see online. Especially on Facebook.
In reality, MAGA represents the consistent 30-38% of Americans that you see in poll after poll, dating back to 2015 with Trump, that will support anything he wants to do.
This includes committing a terrorist attack on our nation’s capital on January 6, 2021. And I’m going to put some footage here because Poo Gas Peter once endorsed a MAGA January 6th truther for Congress.
Just a peaceful protest, right? And yet Alex Pretti is a “domestic terrorist” according to MAGA.
The difference between someone who voted for Trump and someone who identifies as MAGA is that MAGA are the people who stormed the Capitol. Trump voters may have attended the Stop the Steal rally for whatever reason but did not go inside.
You see the difference?
This is a very, very important point, and you need to be able to disconnect the two when talking to people.
Otherwise, when you say MAGA, a lot of people who voted for Trump will think you’re talking about them. You’re not. You’re only talking about that 30% or so of the country that, since at least 1850, has been complicit in bigotry and terror. Starting with the Know Nothings and continuing today to MAGA.
Those Know Nothings, by the way, hated Irish Catholics. Again demonstrating that if someone thinks being “white” will keep them safe from MAGA, they don’t know American history.
All of this is important for you to understand that you need to provide Trump voters, not MAGA, with a safe place to land.
If you voted for Trump, and you’re not MAGA? You are forgiven. Let’s now specifically address the reasons you voted for Trump — see below — and work together to build a better future.
Telling these people “I told you so” doesn’t accomplish anything beyond making you feel good in that moment.
Telling these people “Fuck around and find out” does the same.
Beleive me, I’ve thought “Fuck around and find out” A LOT since November of 2024.
But I also know there are millions of Trump voters in so called “Blue States” — Over a million people in New York City voted for Trump in 2024 — So telling these people to go fuck themselves now means you have over a million people in New York City, for example, that you’re going to have to work around in order to get anything done.
It’s much harder to forgive and build a coalition, which is what Zohran Mamdani did.
If you want to destroy American fascism in our lifetime, Mamdani showed us what we must do.
How to Engage With MAGA In Public
Get yourself two things. Three if you’re nasty.
The first is a pocket constitution. I have one that’s long out of print. So now I recommend getting a pack of them from the ACLU and handing them out to your friends and neighbors.
Second, at every event you attend between now and when this crisis is over — and it will come to an end with us victorious — bring your American flags. Lots of them. Everyone should have an American flag. Show everyone what actual patriotism looks like.
Wear American flag pins and lapels, too.
This is our country. We love our country.
MAGA and the conservative movement do not have a monopoly on America and its iconography. They do not have a monopoly on what it means to be a patriot. They do not have a monopoly on our flag. Take it all back.
Fuck them.
Third, for any movement to be successful, it requires a symbol. My recommendation is that we adopt the costumes and symbology of the Revolutionary War: tri-corner hats and dark blue colors (like those of the Continental Army).
Yes, I’m serious. It’s no different from wearing a frog costume at a protest. Something I also highly recommend.
The point is to make the fascists look foolish while the rest of us enjoy loving our country. You have to play to the cameras, and costumes do that.
This too, is why if there are cameras rolling, and a wild MAGA appears at public comment like one did at the Orange County legislative meeting, you do not shout at them.
Instead you sit silently, or if you’re standing, turn your back on them. The corporate media wants you to yell at them, because then they can continue carrying this Pro-Trump rhetoric of “divisiveness” and how “fractured” we are as a country. As I just explained to you, we are not divided. It is the same stupid 30-35% that’s been here in America since 1850 stirring shit up. So let them hang themselves when they speak in a public forum.
These people want your attention. They want your anger. Do not give it to them.
If you want to do something productive, wait for them to finish speaking, and then fart as loudly as you can.
Or better still, take out your phone, go to this website, turn the volume way up on your phone, and play any of these sounds.
It’ll get people to laugh and break the tension.
In terms of imagery and building a movement, this is how you do it: by adopting symbols and colors so others can join in, using those same symbols and colors in whatever ways they can. It’s how we’re going to unify all these disparate groups and ideas out there.
Remember: It’s incredibly difficult to take an authoritarian army’s claims of “domestic terrorism” seriously when you’re dressed up like George Washington and they’re dressed up like Nazis.
Finally, how do you handle former military members who are MAGA supporters?
You remind them simply that they swore an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Don’t argue with them.
Don’t fight with them.
Just hand them a copy of an extra pocket Constitution you have, and continue with your business.
If you find yourself on the opposite side of a line against the National Guard one day, get a megaphone and recite the Constitution. Pass the megaphone to the next person and have them do the same. Rinse and repeat.
The second you give a MAGA veteran that Constitution, you’re forcing them to make a decision: Either they are serious about that oath they took, or they’re a white supremacist.
You cannot be both.
Being MAGA and a white supremacist is fundamentally at odds with the oath they took to protect and defend the Constitution. The 14th Amendment guarantees that all people, regardless of citizenship, are treated equally under the law.
If they are a white supremacist, nothing you say or do will matter. They will believe what they choose to believe.
But if they’re not, they’re going to take a look at what you just gave them.
If you feel comfortable doing so, you can follow up and say, “If you have any questions, I’m happy to talk.” Your job is not to answer those questions; it’s to listen. Many people in the MAGA movement have been brainwashed. They are victims.
As hard as it is, the difference between our movement and theirs is that all are welcome in our movement.
That’s how you know who the “good guys” are. You can’t both sides fascism. One side is saying they want peace and equality, the other side is saying to destroy anyone who isn’t them.
Fascism is constantly talking about their enemies. You must do the opposite because our movement is about recognizing the fundamental humanity of everyone around you, regardless of how they got here.
I know there’s a double standard here. Why do we have to go to them? Why are we the ones who must be on our best behavior when they’re factually violent and aggressive? Because you’re fighting an information war first and foremost, and the only way to help those who have been brainwashed is to listen and give them a safe place to land.
If someone is truly violent and aggressive, you should not engage with them at all. Use common sense.
Those dangerous ones are the individuals you want to flag for the police and your respective safety teams to handle at your protest event or gathering.
I’m not saying to engage with dangerous individuals. I am saying to engage with the MAGA people who have questions because, I promise you, the majority of people you will encounter are going to have questions.
And, of course, although this is a peaceful and non-violent movement, if someone attacks you, you must defend yourself and protect the people around you. I’d prefer everyone smile and hand out Constitutions, but I know every situation is determined on a case-by-case basis. So use your head, and it probably doesn’t hurt to be taking self-defense classes if you can afford it.
Don’t bother carrying a gun. As we saw with Alex Pretti, ICE will murder you whether you are armed or not. Guns are the weapon of the enemy. Never carry a gun.
Are The Democrats Going to Save Us?
No.
The Democrats don’t like Trump, but they don’t want to change the conditions that gave rise to him.
Want proof? Look no further than Governor Kathy Hochul, State Senator James G. Skoufis, and Assemblymember Chris Eachus all refusing to vote for the New York For All Act, the MELT Act, the Privacy Act, the Dignity Not Detention Act, or the NY Health Act.
If the New York Democrats cared about you, these bills would have all been signed on the first day of the 2026 legislative session back in January.
It’s now a full month later, and Skoufis is sending people emails that Democrats always do. They say they feel your pain, but they don’t provide specific details of what they will do to ease that pain.
The Monroe Gazette had multiple local constitutents call Skoufis’s office this week asking for his specific position on all of the above named bills. Most people did not receive a call back from his office. Some received the same copy and pasted email that said the following. Notice what’s missig?
For the second time in a month, an ICE agent has shot and killed a U.S. citizen in cold blood. As confirmed by local police, today’s victim possessed a legally-obtained open carry firearm permit; his only prior engagement with law enforcement involved traffic tickets.
I support the deportation of criminally violent undocumented individuals. What we have seen from some ICE agents, however, is an indisputable abuse of power that bears no resemblance to their stated mission.
Whether one is a conservative Republican or liberal Democrat, what we witnessed today must be viewed as unacceptable in a civilized, free society: an ICE agent gunning down a fellow human for recording activity with an iPhone and checking on the well-being of another individual. Our federal leaders must act or be harshly judged.
Here in New York, while our jurisdiction over ICE is very limited, there are steps we can and must take to protect law-abiding residents. I have been extremely engaged with colleagues in recent weeks on many proposals and will continue partnering towards solutions that rein in horrific abuses like the one we saw today, all while protecting public safety
First, he couldn’t be bothered to mention Alex Pretti by name. He didn’t mention Renee Good. And he didn’t mention Marimar Martinez, whom ICE attempted to murder twice. First by shooting her and claiming, falsely, she was a threat to them, and then taking her out of the hospital she was in with gun shot wounds and detaining her.
Second, you notice how he didn’t mention ANY specific steps? Yeah. That’s classic Democrat bullshit. “I feel your pain but I’m not going to solve your problem.”
The Democrats also won’t pass legislation to create state-run grocery stores, which would immediately lower prices for everyone.
They also refuse to expand and pass the Hudson Valley Power Authority Act, which would allow the state to purchase Orange & Rockland and convert it into a public utility, thereby reducing everyone’s energy costs.
These two things will, once operational, provide financial relief to all New Yorkers currently getting price gouged at the grocery store and every month when the electric bill comes.
And yet, here we are, talking about “affordability” but not doing anything to make things actually affordable.
These are things they can do for you right now. But they choose not to because, again, the Democrats don’t care about the working class.
You should pressure them. Call and email Eachus, Skoufis, Brabenec and Maher (despite them both being Republicans, they are not NPCs here. They’re still elected Assemblymen and they have a job to do in representing YOU, not what their party wants.) Call Speaker Carl Heastie. Call Senator Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins. Call Governor Kathy Hochul. Call once a week. Make sure each of your neighbors calls them too once a week. Send them emails. Volume is what makes the difference. They should receive so many calls and emails that no other work is possible for them to do.
You can call Skoufis’s office in Cornwall at this number and demand he pass the Fab 5 (New York For All, New York MELT, New York Privacy Act, New York Health Act, Dignity Not Detention): (845) 567-1270. The email is skoufis@nysenate.gov.
Given that Mr. Skoufis seems incapable of doing anything unless someone primaries him, it’s not too late to find someone to run against him.
His district office in Cornwall — Note, this is the one that counts because he lives in Cornwall — is the one you want to protest. It’s located at 45 Quaker Avenue Suites 202 & 207 in Cornwall, NY 12518-2146.
Wear your Revolutionary War costumes, frog costumes, film yourself asking to see the Senator, and hold up signs outside of his office that says, “Skoufis Kills.”
This would be a true statement, because failure to prevent New Yorkers from being kidnapped by ICE may result in their death inside a concentration camp.
Do the same to Eachus. His Chief of Staff, David Rabbitts, is a piece of garbage who willfully lied to Monroe residents during his brief campaign for Town Supervisor, all while threatning anyone who would listen that Skoufis would cut off all state funding to Monroe if people didn’t support Rabbitts. This is the man who answers phones for Eachus. 845-469-6929 is the number to call. The email is eachusc@nyassembly.gov.
Demand he pass the Fab 5. 34 Smith Clove Road Central Valley, NY 10917 is his Woodbury offices. Stand outside with signs that say, “Eachus Kills.”
If you have different State Assemblymembers or State Senators, rinse and repease. The process is the same. Volume is what counts. Put it on your calendar once a week for each member of your group or for your neighbors to call and email until the Fab 5 is passed and signed into law.
Speaking generally about Democrats: You should vote for them if no other choice is available, but the liberal wing of the Democratic Party needs to follow the example of the Whigs and split.
It’s time for a new party.
Do not count on the Democrats to save you from the Trump regime and then prosecute every single one of the regime’s criminals.
Make them say that they will like Congressman Pat Ryan recently did.
And then hold them accountable every day until they do.
As you can see nationally with the shutdown discussions, the Democrats are great at snatching defeat from the Jaws of Victory. Here they have an opportunity to take back all $75B provided to ICE and demand actual reforms, and instead they’re talking about body cameras.
Hey, guess who had body cameras and still murdered American citizens? The men who shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Asking for body cameras is bullshit.
I promise you, if you take your eyes off them for even a second, the Democrats who say they will prosecutre the Trump Regieme will not do so when they get the chance.
Everyone who committed a crime on behalf of the Trump regime — from the moment he stepped down that escalator in 2015 to the present — must be prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law. This is non-negotiable.
We cannot repeat the same mistake that Gerald Ford made when he pardoned Richard Nixon, which paved the way for Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump to get away with criminal acts.
And we cannot make the same mistake Andrew Johnson did when he let Reconstruction fail. America will need a Marshall Plan of its own to defeat MAGA, and it will need the full weight and force of the federal government to ensure that the money and resouces go where it’s supposed to go.
The Democrats will not save you. Continuing to wait for them to “grow a spine” is a recipe for failure and the continued survival of MAGA.
Ok. So What Do We Say Our Goals Are?
The only way to defeat fascism is to tell people a better story of what the future looks like. Read to the end for what that is.
Do You Have Your Whistle?
Now would also be a good time to get some whistles and download the Signal app to your phone. If you can’t use Signal on your phone, I’m sorry, but you need to get a second phone.
We can’t mess around here.
SMS (the technology used for sending text messages) makes everyone you text vulnerable to data collection tactics employed by ICE and DHS.
By continuing to send text messages, you place yourself and others in danger.
You can get an inexpensive Moto G or Samsung Galaxy to install Signal on. Either will run less than $200
(If you want to know more about how to turn that new Android phone into a burner phone or a “protest phone,” come listen to Stupid Sexy Privacy.)
I know this is an expense; so do this only when you can, but please encourage everyone you know to stop using SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and anything else that isn’t Signal for messaging.
A lot of groups are still using WhatsApp, and I need you to know it is not safe and secure. Meta / Facebook cannot be trusted. Ever.
Whistle Tips
It’s a series of three short bursts if ICE is nearby.
It’s a sustained, long whistle blow to signal if someone is being detained.
You can buy whistles, like this one, in bulk here from Walmart. Purchase them and hand them out to your neighbors. Notice the bright color? This is important. Bright colors—and anything that can’t be confused as a weapon—are your friends. If you don’t like the Revolutionary War color suggestion, I encourage you to utilize as much bright color as possible to contrast against the black of ICE.
The first goal here should be to establish a neighborhood Signal chat and use the whistles if ICE or other potential dangers appear.
The second goal should be to make sure each person takes time, once a week, to call and email their Assembly person, State Senator, the Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the Assembly, and the Governor. In reality, this won’t take you more than 20 minutes to both call and email, once a week.
Just ensure that you limit who can be in that Signal chat to people you can actually verify live in the neighborhood and whom you have met. (Obviously, if they’re a foaming-at-the-mouth white supremacist, a.k.a. MAGA, don’t invite them.) Also, don’t invite anyone into the group whom you haven’t met and vetted in person.
The third goal is to start getting together as a community for local resistance events.
If you’re shy like I am and need a “reason” to interact with your fellow humans, then events like this in Newburgh on February 10 and this in Beacon on February 20 are great opportunities to attend. Events like this are beneficial because you’re doing something productive, like knitting the now-famous Melt the Ice Hat that we’ve seen in Minnesota.
If you don’t have a community event like this, reserve a room at the local library and invite your neighbors to attend.
For example:
If you live in Monroe, you can reserve a meeting room here.
If you live in Chester, use the link to reserve a room in Monroe because they currently do not have the space to accommodate meetings (this may change later due to some issues with their basement).
If you live in Woodbury, do not use or work with the Woodbury Public Library for all these reasons.
You can email the Town Supervisor, Jacqueline Hernandez, to respectfully request that the New York State Comptroller’s office audit the Woodbury Public Library. I recommend boycotting the Woodbury Public Library until that audit is confirmed and Mrs. Cathy Schmidt is compelled to resign from her position as Board President of the Woodbury Public Library.
The email to do this is: supervisor@woodburyny.us
The subject line should be: Request for Comptroller’s Audit
The body of the email can simply say:
Dear Mrs. Hernandez,
I know your Board is well aware of the issues surrounding the Woodbury Public Library, from the documented misbehavior of WPL President Cathy Schmidt to the lack of fiscal transparency regarding the use of taxpayer funding. I am requesting that the Town of Woodbury, which funds the library, ask the New York State Comptroller to perform an audit of the Woodbury Public Library, dating back to when Cathy Schmidt became president of the Board. If any wrongdoing is found, I ask that you consider taking disciplinary actions and removing Mrs. Schmidt from her position.
Thank you.
(Your name here.)
Fourth, and finally, you want to make sure your local Signal group is distributing flyers. Flyers work.
Whether it be Know Your Rights Cards.
Or just letting people know when your next meeting is.
Any information you can print and distribute to your neighbors offline is a good way to keep everyone connected and also actively avoids the poisonous, pro-Trump social media environment that presently exists because of the bots and sock puppets.
What do you do if someone comes and wants to cause trouble at my meeting?
Make sure you serve food at your meeting. This is a must.
If someone comes to cause trouble, invite them to come eat with you. This is not a fight.
MAGA thinks it’s in a war against “The Left.”
There is no war.
This is not a fight.
This is a fundamental disagreement about what the role of the federal government should have in our lives.
MAGA wants the federal government to function as a tool to inflict their bigotry on the world.
We want the federal government to function as it was intended: To treat all of the people of our nation as equals under the law.
If someone wants to start trouble, prepare and train your safety officers and alert the local police to your meeting day and time. You can and should also document their behavior on your phone and post it. There are consequences for acting the fool in public.
That said, you should have someone at the door to greet everyone who comes to the meeting, and someone to pair with each new person that attends as their buddy. The greeter can potentially diffuse any potential for conflict, while ensuring everyone who attends feels seen and acknowledged.
If you have someone who comes to your group meetings regularly who doesn’t feel acknowledged, and isn’t given an action item to do before the next meeting, you have failed your job for that meeting.
Public Comment & Social Strikes
“Right now, women and men are being dragged from their homes, rammed by ICE vehicles, shot in their cars, and hog-tied .
Many of them legal residents and U.S. citizens.And even if they are undocumented, LETS BE CLEAR:
THEY have human rights TOO, and are protected by the United States Constitution.
Infants, children, and even pets are being abandoned in cars, in the streets, and inside homes after their caregivers are taken. I learned of a dog trapped in a car for an entire month after its owner was disappeared.
Teenagers are being tackled in their own neighborhoods, while walking to school, AND suffering injuries, so severe they end up in intensive care units.
Hospitals, grocery stores, schools, and churches are being raided by ICE agents. Legal documents are ignored or stolen. People are transported as if they are disposable.
Adults are beaten so severely, suffering skull fractures AND THEN left by agents outside in freezing conditions without clothing or medical care.
This is a death sentence. Our neighbors are being murdered for the public to see and behind closed doors.
This IS American history.
This has long been the lived reality of Native American communities, this includes MEXICAN and Black AMERICANS!
Now that the horrors of white supremacy are visible – undeniably, unmistakably…
What are we willing to tolerate?
If we do not stand united in solidarity now, then who?
if not now, when?
I urge you to pass this resolution! Thank you””- The Aural Alchemist
If Abraham Lincoln can help change the course of American History in 288 words, so can you. Remember that.
Now. Have you been to a local Town or Village Board meeting? As you can see with the Village of Monroe, clearly not enough people are going.
So the Village Board can afford to play games, because they know only 400 people are going to come out and vote in the Village Election in March, and they don’t want to upset anyone.
If you’re not able to attend, because you’re like me and your car was totaled, do you know who your Village or Town Clerk is? If not, you should.
Because you can send that person a submission for Public Comment. In the Village of Monroe, the Village Clerk is Kim Zahra and her email is clerk@villageofmonroe.org.
If you are upset at what you saw in that Village Board meeting video this week, you can and should email Mrs. Zahra and politely ask that your public comment submission be read at the next meeting, or at the very least submitted with the minutes so that there is a record of its existence.
In New York State, because our Open Meetings Laws and FOIL laws, among many others, are weak, the Clerk doesn’t have to do this. But if enough people start sending emails to the Monroe Village Board about ICE? It’s going to be really hard to ignore everyone and get away with it.
Again, volume is what matters. Please write this down somewhere. You want to make so many calls and emails that all other work becomes impossible.
So, go in person if you can to your local meetings. Send emails if you can’t. But if you can, make sure you are a frequent attendee at these meetings. Every single local Town, City, and Village meeting between now and election day should be packed. Every opportunity for public comment should be used to demand that each of your local representaties loudly and clearly state their position on ICE’s presence in Orange County. If they choose to say nothing — Like MAGA Sal Scancarello at the last Monroe Town Board meeting, where all four other members of the Board discussed ICE and the situation in Chester, start making plans to vote them out. This is something you can and should discuss with your neighbors in your Signal groups.
FWIW The next Monroe Village Board meeting is Tuesday, February 17th, at 7pm at Monroe Village Hall (7 Stage Road, Monroe, NY, 10950.)
And if you can’t speak, and I know some cannot because of the fear of ICE, find people who can come and speak for you. Many of your friends and neighbors will be happy to represent you.
There’s one other tool you can deploy as well: A Social Strike
There’s a difference between a general strike and a social strike. A general strike is when EVERYTHING shuts down.
A Social Strike is when some things shut down, and that shut down is joined by related shut downs of community groups and organizations. This is what you saw in Minnesota. It wasn’t quite a general strike, but it was close enough where it’s fine if people want to call it that. But it’s important to know the difference because there are going to be at least three days where a general strike is needed: Election Day 2026. Election Day 2028. January 6th, 2029 or whenever the results are certified for the 2028 Presidential Election.
A General Strike is the Super Bowl. You only get one shot at it, and it requires the coordination of everyone to be effective. Because General Strikes are not supposed to end until you get what you want, and that means people could go without things they need. Without mutual support being established by your local groups, there is no way to do a sustained general strike for more than a day in America. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck. So asking people to do more than one day of a general strike is a non-starter. But you can absolutely plan for these one day general strikes, and I just gave you three dates to mark on your calendar.
So what you have between now and those three dates as an option is a Social Strike. Where some things are temporarily shut down and that shut down is joined by let’s say a local school, and then it re-opens. The kids in Newburgh just gave us a wonderful example of what this looks like:
Pictured Above: On Friday, February 6th, 2026, students in Newburgh participated in a walkout to protest the proposed concentration camp in Chester and ICE’s presence in Orange County. Photos provided by The Aural Alchemist.
A Social Strike is something that can be planned and coordinated locally or county-wide or even state-wide through Signal and your group meetings.
But first thing’s first, you gotta make sure you understand the basics. So put this at the end of your agenda after everything else we discussed so far in this post.
Assuming you’ve did everything else in this post, to organize a Social Strike, begin by coordinating the local neighborhood Signal chats. Then begin outreach to local institutions such as churches, schools, and popular business locations. Select a date once you have found willing partners, and begin to flyer and promote the social strike. They do not need to last more than a day. They do need lots of eyeballs, so make sure someone is taking pictures and video, and sharing those pictures and video with the local media and independent journalits like me.
It’s important on the day of the strike that people communicate outside of any closes businesses or institutions to explain to those who aren’t aware of what’s going on, what’s going on and why. That’s why I spent so much time in this article describing the things I did. You need to know so you can pass it on.
County Level Action & Economic Boycotts
If a Concentration Camp opens in your neighborhood, there are no laws against driving real slow to help gum up the works.
If a Concentration Camp opens in your neighborhood, and a DHS / ICE agent wants your business to serve them, you can refuse to do so. (If people can refuse to make cakes for gay couples, they can refuse to make cakes for straight Nazis.)
If a Concentration Camp opens in your neighborhood, you can put signs in your store window protesting it, and the people on these Signal groups will patrionize your business.
There are other things you can do with quesitonable legality. I can’t recommend you break any laws. All I can say is that I noticed there’s really only two ways in and out of the Chester Industrial Park where the concentration camp would go, and it’d be a shame if someone decided to obstruct those entrances and exists with dumpsters. (Again, I am not telling you to do this. I know a bunch of OC sheriff’s department employees read this newsletter. Don’t come looking my way. Due to my disability, I can’t really lift anything heavy. So moving a dumpster to obstruct an entrance to an industrial park is not something I can do.)
Something you could do, that’s well within your legal right, is to let the people at Cushman & Wakefield Inc. and the Pyramid Brokerage Company know that you really don’t want them selling or leasing properties, like 29 Elizabeth Drive, to the federal government for us as a concentration camp. The following was getting passed around at the recent Orange County legislative meeting:
Pictured Above: You should know that The Monroe Gazette called Stan Danzig (he’s in charge of the other two for Cushman & Wakefield) and he said, “I don’t want to answer any of your questions” when we asked for comment about 29 Elizabeth Drive. James Desimone, when called by The Monroe Gazette, stated that 29 Elizabeth Drive was still available for sale or lease as of Thursday, February 5th. (There were some reports that the property had already been sold or leased to DHS, but we have been unable to confirm that. Nobody from DHS / ICE will return requests for comment. We have placed three FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests concerning purchase agreements, RFPs, and all other records in posession of DHS concerning 29 Elizabeth Drive.
The Monroe Gazette recently sent a list of corporations known to do business with DHS and ICE to the New York State Comptroller’s office. Cushman & Wakefield was not on the list, but we’ll follow-up about them.
The list is as follows:
Dell ($18.8 million contract with ICE for Microsoft software licenses, expiring March 2026)
UPS ($90,500 small-package delivery contract with ICE, expiring March 2026)
FedEx ($1 million delivery services contract with ICE, expiring March 2026)
Motorola Solutions ($15.6 million tactical communication infrastructure contract with ICE, expiring May 2026)
Comcast ($24,600 Internet services contract for ICE Seattle office, expiring May 2026. This could be a great fight for newly elected Mayor Katie Wilson to take on.)
AT&T ($83 million IT and network contract with ICE, with a potential end date of July 2032)
LexisNexis ($21 million data-brokerage contract with ICE. This company is particularly vulnerable to pressure from university students and professor unions, since much of its revenue comes from colleges.)
Home Depot and Lowe’s are using AI-powered license plate readers and feeding this data into law enforcement surveillance systems accessible to ICE. Their parking lots are also regular sites of ICE raids targeting day laborers.
Amazon provides ICE with the digital backbone for its data and surveillance operations through Amazon Web Services. Amazon’s Whole Foods stores are a rich potential target for nonviolent disruption on big days of action.
Palantir provides ICE with core data platforms that integrate and analyze information from many databases so agents can search, link, and manage deportation operations.
The following are companies connected to Carl Icahn and his holding company. Icahn owns 29 Elizabeth Drive through an LLC that is owned by the holding company:
CVR - petroleum refining and nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing
Ferrous Resources (77.2%) - owns mining rights in Brazil
Viskase (74.6%) - produces cellulosic, fibrous and plastic casings for the processed meat and poultry industry
Bayswater Development - a real estate development company
WestPoint Home - bed and bath fashion productions
Vivus - pharmaceutical company
We asked the Comptroller’s office if they would divest from any of Icahn’s companies, as well as the other companies, should ICE open a concentration camp in Chester. At this time, the Comptroller’s office has not responded, but did acknowledge receipt of our questions.
Reguardless of their response, UPS, FedEx, Comcast (Cancel your Peacock subscription here), AT&T, Amazon, Lowes, and Home Depot are all companies you can boycott. More on Lowes and Home Depot in a moment …
If you live in Southern Orange County, and want to participate in the Signs for Solidarity program, you can email us at HandsOffHudsonValley@gmail.com. (Disclosure: I am a steering committee member for Hands Off Hudson Valley.)
This is a program from Indivisible where local businesses are asked to put flyers saying they welcome immigrant families. Our goal is to find and identify stores across Southern Orange County (Warwick, Tuxedo, Monroe, Chester, Blooming Grove, Woodbury, and Palm Tree) that are willing to put the sign in their window. We will then make sure people are aware of who has the sign, and who does not. If a store refuses to put up a sign because they are MAGA, we will boycott them.
This is a program that can be deployed anywhere nationwide.
Now. If you made it this far, you might say, “OK BJ. I’m doing all this. What’s next?”
There’s always more to say, but I think I’ve said enough here. For now. So I’ll close with this. There is a No Kings Event coming up on on March 28th.
The Monroe Gazette, for months, has requested media access to Orange County Jail. Orange County has ignored all of our requests.
You know what they can’t ignore though?
A No Kings event scheduled as close to OCJ as legally permissible.
So, my recommendation is that on March 28th, all of the local indivisible groups, and interested parties, select a location as close to the jail as they can get legally, and that’s where we all gather.
Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus has the power to terminate the contract with ICE and DHS to house ICE’s victims at Orange County Jail. He refuses to exercise this power.
Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus has the power to work with the legislature and ban all for profit prisons and detention centers from operating in Orange County. He refuses to do that too.
On March 28th, our goal should be to send a loud and clear message to Steve Neuhaus to tell ICE to get the fuck out of Orange County.
But March is a long way off.
So between now and then, there’s something you can do. Two things, actually.
You can go to Home Depot in Harriman or the Lowes in Chester and purchase the least expensive ice scraper you can find.
You can then return it immediately, and tell the cashier you’re doing so to protest Home Depot / Lowes colloborations, or at the very least their permissive nature towards DHS and ICE using their parking lots to terrorize people.
Take that receipt, make sure there’s no personally identifiable information on it — I don’t think County Executive Neuhaus is going to steal your identity, but one doesn’t know what evil lurks in the hearts of men — and write “Fuck ICE” on it.
Then put that receipt in the mail and send it to Steve Neuhaus at Orange County Government Center, c/o County Executive Neuhaus, 255 Main Street, Goshen, New York 10924
(You don’t have to say “Fuck ICE.” It’s funnier if you did though.)
You can and should, because the man swears he doesn’t look at his email, call Neuhaus’s office at 845-291-2700 and demand he: 1. Terminate the contract with ICE for OCJ and 2. Work with the legislature to ban all for profit prisons and detention centers from operating in Orange County. I know I’m a broken record here, but again, volume matters. For the record, his email is SNeuhaus@orangecountygov.com. If you email him, make sure to copy us at BJ@Monroegazette.com. Every time we put in a FOIL request for Neuhaus’s emails, he claims they don’t exist. So if you copy us, and we put in a FOIL, we can catch him in a lie and sue to have him release all the related records concerning his communications with ICE and DHS.
The Second Bill of Rights
Have you made it this far?
Ah. If you did, bravo.
Let me close out with this. If you want to defeat MAGA, you have to destroy the conditions that made fascist movements like MAGA viable in the first place. These movements usually gain ground when the system has failed and left people behind. That anger and resentment is how fascist movements recruit new members.
Thankfully, way back in 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed a solution that he hoped would prevent fascism like the kind we were fighting around the world from taking root here at home. The Second Bill of Rights never got off the ground, and here we are almost a century later fighting fascism at home.
I believe we should correct this error and pass the Second Bill of Rights. I also believe there needs to be a couple of tweaks to address some recent Supreme Court decisions, which further entrenched fascist rule in the States we used to call the Confederacy.
The Second Bill of Rights represents the vision of the future represented by whatever third party comes along and takes up its mantle. That is the party deserving of your support. Not the Democrats. Primary people like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer every chance you get. Call for Schumer to resign as Senator Minority Leader. Vote for them when you have to. But begin building that new political party that will eventually take the Democrats place.
So. Below is a slightly revised Second Bill of Rights. This is what I believe should be our North Star. The thing we fight for. The new and bold and imaginative vision of the future. One that can inspire millions of Americans to come together. And one that will destroy the infrastructure utilized by MAGA to takeover America.
They are, in a simplified format:
The Right to an Adequate Income (provided through a Universal Basic Income in the form of expanding Social Security payments to every American age 18 and over.)
The Right to Adequate Medical care (provided in the form of expanding Medicaid to all Children under 18, and providing the option for anyone to buy into Medicare once they turn 18. Vaccinations meant to prevent pandemics are mandatory. No exceptions. If you have a problem with this, take it up with the 1.1 million Americans who died from COVID-19 that we can confirm, and countless more whom we can’t.)
The Right to Live Without Tyrrany (overturns Trump V. United States, Trump V. Anderson. Places other limits of presidential power such as elimanation of presidential pardons for anyone not on Death Row.)
The Right to Vote (provided through univeral mail ballot voting in all elections, managed and operated by USPS. The overturning of Citizens United and prohibition against all private financing of any election. Elections and candidates must be funded through public dollars only. The outlawing of gerrymandering. And the removal of Congress’s Speech and Debate Clause. This is the clause that currently allows people to testify under Oath before Congress, but for Congress members to lie to those people, and the American people, on camera whenever they want. Complete ban on untruthful political advertising.)
The Right to Decent Housing (provided through a commitment of the federal government to build high density housing in the least environmentally invasive way possible on federally owned land.)
The Right to an Education (If you agree to four years of paid public service, the federal government will give you four years of free college. No more funding for private schools of any sort, for any reason, no exceptions. All federal dollars must only go to public schools. If you wish to attend a trade school, the federal government will pay for that too. Civics, Government, and Media Literacy courses are required to graduate from any school receiving federal dollars.)
The Right to Work (Provided by a commitment from the federal government to properly staff, fund, and grow federal agencies, a commitment to invest in nationwide infrastructure projects that will provide clean water to all Americans and mass transit to spur jobs, and a transition to 100% renewable energy. All these things create jobs. FedEx, UPS, Amazon, and others will no longer be allowed to deliver the Mail. USPS will be expanded and also provide banking services.)
The Right to Privacy (The federal government cannot surveil or collect data on its citizens beyond routine law enforcement activity. The federal government cannot tell anyone what they can and cannot do with their body except for the matter of vaccinations in the interest of protecting the larger public from future pandemics. No party may collect data on anyone, for any reason, without their expressed written consent, and that data must be deleted routinely, and deleted upon request of the person who it belongs to.)
The Right to Freedom from Monopolies and Unfair Business Practices (All monopolies and oligopolies in industries that can demonstrate harm to consumers will be broken up by the FTC and DOJ. The IRS will allow people to instantly get their taxes done by sending post cards showing people what they owe, and dedicate their resources and attentions to capturing the over $1T that is lost every year from the wealthy and corporations hiding their money.)
The Right to Justice and Entry (The United States will join the International Court so that Trump, Hegseth, Miller, and others can face War Crimes at the Hague. People currently living in the United States can become citizens by consistently paying their taxes. People wishing to enter the United States must be provided with simple, easy to follow directions and readily accessible systems that can process their claims for asylum in an orderly and speedy fashion.)
Join me and call for the passage of the Second Bill of Rights. This will end the threat of MAGA and American fascism in our lifetime.