Jen Richards

Hey friends, I dusted off my brain and wrote an essay for the first time in many years. Here's a piece about my experience at the June 8th protests in LA, state violence, solidarity between communities, and bearing witness to the truth: www.them.us/story/lapd-i...

ICE Agent Fled From Angry Residents Outside New York School — and Got in a Car Crash Masked and unidentified ICE agents lurking near schools sparked fear, confusion, and a car crash in Latino-heavy New York suburbs.

NEW: 12 masked armed men try to enter a homeless shelter without saying who they are. ICE agents park outside an elementary school, sparking fear and a car accident. Local police respond to a call about a possible assault, only to find ICE.

Inside one day on LI:

theintercept.com/2025/06/13/i...

Children's Hospital Los Angeles halts transgender care under pressure from Trump Children's Hospital of Los Angeles will stop offering services related to transgender care, according to a message reviewed by The Times.

The countries largest gender clinic with 3000 patients is complying in advance and shutting down. They treat up to age 25 so trans adults will lose access as well.

www.latimes.com/california/s...

We are getting reports of clinics shutting down that provide care to trans youth over the latest CMS letter threat.

If your clinic has shut down or you work at one, or your child's clinic has shut down, please send us a DM - we are putting together a big story on this.

BREAKING: A few minutes ago, a vehicle of three people was rammed by a truck belonging to federal immigration authorities in Boyle Heights, CA. According to security footage shown to me, they deployed chemical munitions & detained the driver at gunpoint. All are US citizens according to the wife.

SEIU California | SEIU California President David Huerta Injured, Detained at ICE Raid in Los Angeles We are proud of President Huerta’s righteous participation as a community observer, in keeping with his long history of advocating for immigrant workers and with the highest values of our movement…

Let’s be clear: ICE injured and detained the president of SEIU California for peacefully observing.

ICE picked the wrong side. The wrong state. The wrong person. and the wrong union. David Huerta stood up. And now 750,000 SEIU workers are standing up behind him.

seiuca.org/press-releas...

I'm not a political scientist but if you're advice to the Democratic Party is pushing out unions, immigrants, and queers then I think there's already a party for that

Maksim tells me he has developed a kinship with the transgender detainees in particular, who he says face brutal harassment from both guards and fellow inmates. “I’ve befriended several,” he says. “But here, especially for trans people… just disappear. One day they’re here, the next day, no one knows. Were they deported? Released? No one tells us.” In that landscape of indifference, Maksim has found a kind of resistance in solidarity. He is part of a small community of queer detainees who take care of each other. “I’d be happy if America wants to deport me,” he says. “Just not to Russia. Mexico would be fine.”

Reading this interview with Maksim Borisov, a gay Russian dissident who sought asylum in the US last year only for ICE to arrest and detain him in February.

He's currently held in Eloy Detention Center in Arizona where he says "trans people… just disappear."

Exactly as predicted, now that DOGE has scraped all your personal data from government agencies, it's all being given to Peter Thiel's Palantir. It was always going to be Peter, who has dreamed of dictatorship for decades, patiently built his "political project". 1/
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/t...

Worth noting that this is also what the UK government review found, it just ignored all the evidence in its conclusions.

One of the Boys Audiobook on Libro.fm Grace Woodhouse has left a lot behind. She used to have a great friend group, an amazing girlfriend, and a right foot set to earn her a Division I football scholarship—before she came out as trans. As...

the audiobook edition of ONE OF THE BOYS is OUT NOW!!!

i am beyond honored to have the lovely and incomparable Jen Richards (@smartassjen.bsky.social) read my little book😭 please pick it up if you, like me, love reading books with your ears!!!

libro.fm/audiobooks/9...

This Hacks Andor crossover is hot.

And we already know that speaking out against slaughter of civilians is considered supportive of terrorism. They've laid the groundwork for trans people simply existing to be terrorism ("gender ideology"), or fighting for women's bodily autonomy, or resisting ICE, or collective organizing, or ...

Record anti-LGBTQ+ bills in 2025 Proposed laws tracked targeting LGBTQ+ rights across all U.S. states 575 533 510 180 154 77 42 51 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2025 (as of May 2024 Source: ACLU,2025 . Chart: Enrique Anarte The tracker covers bills introduced, advancing, passed Context into law or defeated

Rahm/Newsom/Cuomo: Dems spend too much time talking about what bathroom people use or what sport team they play on

The GOP:

There are TWO vocally anti trans, anti intersex, executive producers on the show.

Trans people are certainly being not-hired / discriminated against behind the scenes.

Oppression doesn’t need to be on screen to be oppression.

One thing that Trump will not tolerate is the heads of agencies saying publicly that their agency should exist.

What Trump learned long ago as a private citizen is that you can easily ruin someone’s life with frivolous litigation even if you ultimately lose in court. And that was when he was spending his own money to harass and intimidate people. Now he’s spending yours.

The judges who looked at this case previously had to chastise the White House lawyers because the evidence they presented to prove that trans inclusion hurt military readiness showed the opposite. They hadn't even read their own evidence. It's ideology over evidence. Pure animus.

The world is maddening, but I just sipped rain water from the nasturtium leaves in my garden and for a moment I felt whole and human again.

This is a clear, true, & important distinction that many people refuse to make.

The same is true of "fancy city dwellers condescending to hard workin' ruralites."

The same is true of "wokesters forcing you to use pronouns."

These are RW bogie men. RW hysteria exceeds actual examples 1000/1.

7 1/2. Breaking Through the Opposition: Calling the Other Side Calling an elected official from the opposing party may seem futile, but it’s far from it. Persistent and respectful communication can influence their understanding of your concerns as a constituent. Communication keeps the issue on their radar and can sway them if enough constituents voice the same opinion. Remember, public pressure has historically led to bipartisan support on various issues. Also consider that if your MoC doesn’t hear from a diverse range of opinions within their district, they may (falsely) assume that their views are spot-on. Even the most confident elected official wants to win over swing voters and maintain their seat come election time. Speaking up accomplishes a lot.

The biggest mistake Dems in red states make is NOT CALLING THEIR REPUBLICAN reps.

Calling your rep - ESPECIALLY if they're Republican, is *critical*. Otherwise they just hear from supporters and think they're doing a great job.

americansofconscience.com/faq-calling-...

We're already living under authoritarianism. It's not "coming" or "approaching" - it is here now. Lots of vulnerable people need help. These are serious times.

I think the suggestion that any kind of human-to-human interaction should be replaced with human-to-chatbot interaction should be scrutinized as a kind of moral rot. It’s antisocial ideology and should be treated as such

Canada is expanding its dental plan!!

Mexico is giving free glasses to elementary school kids!

Donald Trump says, well maybe kids will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, because they'll be poorer because of China trade war

North America in three quotes by heads of state.

Trump says he's ending federal funding for NPR and PBS. They say he can't In an executive order, President Trump directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop funding NPR and PBS. They say he can't. PBS chief Paula Kerger calls it "blatantly unlawful".

It is not clear that the president has the authority to make such orders to CPB under the law.

From @davidfolkenflik.bsky.social

I'll repeat this till I'm blue in the face, we're facing a full on resegregation movement. This is a neo post reconstruction political project to reassert white men at the top of the sociopolitical hierarchy.

Notice how this works. A year ago, the subhead here would have said “which is expressly forbidden by the constitution.”

But Trump floats a crazy assertion and then WaPo retreats to saying “which most legal scholars say..”

Stop he said/she saiding truth. It is expressly forbidden. Period.

this has been mirrored in countless big cities across the country. counterproductive.

"Trump’s cognitive abilities and overall competence have always left a lot to be desired, but these interviews show a president who’s no longer capable of even the veneer of mental acuity. Meanwhile, his cabinet and even congressional Republicans behave like courtiers to a mad king."

The cops are defunding every major city.