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Joe McCarthy's avatar

One of the best summaries I've seen regarding the implications of the BBB and the challenges ahead.

Seeing references to the ICE budget and Mamdani in close proximity prompts me to wonder what kind of ICE presence we'll see in NYC in the coming months leading up to the election.

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Alex Jacks's avatar

Thanks for this timely and pitch-perfect review of an historic moment in our country. Happy Independence Day, and many more to come!

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Bill Flarsheim's avatar

Well done. The fact that they are scared gives me some hope. Unfortunately, frightened animals are very dangerous.

I'll miss this month's AMA. I play bridge on Wednesday nights. But looking forward to the recording.

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Ron Braithwaite's avatar

It is your last three paragraphs that scare me the most. If we cannot find a way out of this mess without resorting to violence, the United States will no longer exist except in name. Remember what happened in France when the guilletines ran out of heads of the royalty and oligarchs.

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Laura Jedeed's avatar

If the Trump administration begins to arrest and deport political enemies, they will have introduced violence into the equation and the United States will no longer exist except in name. I hope that does not happen. If it does, I'm not going to stand by quietly

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Ron Braithwaite's avatar

Laura, I promise that I will continue to resist as/more than I am resisting now. But I will not resort to violence because I have personally seen where that inevitably leads.

At the same time, I will honor you for your resistance, even if I disagree with your tactics in that hopefully unnecessary case.

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Pix Jackson's avatar

Is the previous AMA available to non-Patrons?

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Laura Jedeed's avatar

The AMAs are a premium subscriber perk -- I understand not everyone can do the premium subscriber thing, which is why the articles themselves are free for the first two weeks (and can be found on archive.org afterwards if people want to go to that kind of trouble). But I also want to incentivize people signing up for paid subscriptions because the more paid subscribers I get, the more time I can devote to the Substack and the more reporting trips I can go on.

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