I had a medical issue that needed to be rectified with a bit of surgery.
Ok… let’s talk about the state of the United States…
We are in full authoritarian mode. A Canadian citizen, from Quebec, was arrested by the US Coast Guard for illegally crossing into US waters from Canada. The man in question states he was fishing near Venise-en-Québec, which is well north (by several kilometers) of the US/Canadian border, on Lake Champlain.
The man also reported that the Coast Guard vessel attempted to push is boat towards US territorial waters causing it to capsize, which resulted in him almost drowning. After going under several times, members of the Coast Guard crew finally pulled him from the water and then sailed him to US land and turned him over to Customs and Border agents.
He was handcuffed, put in a cell still wearing his wet clothing, and given a “dirty” blanket, per his report. He was fingerprinted, held for +/- 2 hours, and, finally, released to his wife.
The boater wants other Canadians to beware going anywhere near the US/Canadian border.
In other news, in California, a Republican candidate for the governorship of the state, Kyle Langford, posted a photo in front of the Auschwitz-Stammlager Nazi concentration camp on Twitter (since the GOP is dead set on the idea that they will only use birth names, I will continue to use the birth name of the social media platform, and not its chosen name, out of respect to their viewpoint). The caption of the photo read, “My 0% Unemployment Plan.”
His response to criticism of the post was to double down. Langford insisted “I wasn’t joking, I think it is exactly what is needed…” The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum condemned Langford’s post. Their response post called it a “profound moral failure” and “an affront to the dignity of the victims” of the camp.
Langford responded again stating, “I wasn’t joking, I think it is exactly what is needed to stabilize California and keep people safe.” A candidate for the highest office in the state of California honestly believes that the way to keep people (read: white Christians) safe is to put other people in forced labor camps. I would take this time to remind readers that Auschwitz-Birkenau was a death camp, not just a forced labor concentration camp.
This is the United States of America in 2025. We cannot silently stand by while fascism continues to take root in the fiber of our society. It is time to show our morality.