Day To Be Living

I’ll admit I got a bit side tracked with the ICE building tax bill from other unrelated random thoughts on my mind I wanted to share.

First, and definitely MOST important, my wife is doing part one of her pipefitting apprenticeship turnout test today! So proud of her! It’s been a lot of on the job training, school, and it’s physically and mentally demanding. I’ve seen the improvement, and I look forward to hearing how it goes later. I know she’s got this! I’ll be sure to update more about it all as I hear more.

Today I went on a beautiful pre-dawn run with the dogs. I’ve been taking good care of myself, going to bed early, eating well, exercising, and sleeping well. Sometimes all of the boring bullshit really does make you feel better, as Stavros Halkias said in a podcast episode one time with Caleb Hearon. I love the Oura ring, and it’s synchronicity with Strava for running and Headspace for meditation, and seeing pretty accurate stress updates throughout the day. It’s been pretty cool so far, and I look forward to new stats, once I’ve worn the ring long enough. I’ve been doing 1, 3, or 5 min breathing meditations, and stretching, to reinvigorate blood flow rather than over-caffeinating. So far, so good. It’s like trying to get “back into shape” with meditation after being out of shape. Short guided meditations that I’m getting in the habit of.

Also, I ran out of dog food yesterday morning (which is what I meant to post about) and so Cici and Sage got un-seasoned scrambled eggs and white rice, along with half a can of wet cat food each. They both gobbled it up and loved it! AI has been pretty cool for giving me feedback on cooking problems, or what to give the dogs when I ran out of kibble before the pet store opened. I also made a healthy Kimchi, tofu, roasted tempeh, carrots, and potatoes dish that was kind of bland, and asked AI for some suggestions on making it better the other day.

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I want to continue my ICE rant, on some things I forgot to say last night because I was tired, but with just slightly more brevity today, although it’s still a bunch of word vomit. If you don’t want to hear more for now, you can stop here. Otherwise, proceed:

Check out the City of Portland trying to impose impact fees on the kidnapper building. It’s a creative, and I’d argue legally defensible approach to a very unfortunate U.S. Constitutional Supremacy problem. As I know as a Master’s degree graduate in Public Administration, Oregon is a one of many “home rule” states in the U.S., meaning that local jurisdictions are given wide latitude to make local policy, provided it doesn’t directly conflict with state law.

While it’s often simplest to voluntarily comply with local zoning law, ultimately the feds can do whatever they want and bulldoze local law if they want (historically that virtually never happens though). Fortunately, there’s still a legal tug of war between various interpretations of the Constitution and statute. Even when lawsuits lose, a zoning/development legal fight would severely gum up and slow down ICE facility construction, operation, or private detention center development. Legally it’s even more justifiable if private for-profit contractors run ICE operations, as contractors are not the federal government and shouldn’t get constitutional supremacy privileges, since regular for-profit businesses don’t.

Cities need to have every policy and enforcement tool on the books to create the most willfully hostile and unwelcoming operational environment to ICE as possible. Local jurisdictions must flood the zone with all the red tape and lawsuits conceptually feasible. This is the one context where I will praise red tape, bureaucracy, and blatant governmental inefficiency in the interest of civil rights. But after all, the huge irony of course, is that it’s pretty fucking inefficient from an immigration standpoint to arbitrarily enforce the law. If efficiency was the goal, we’d adjudicate immigration benefits, and have a working system. But of course, cruelty is the actual goal.

Don’t forget the last parts of the Bill of Rights, to the extent they still kind of/sort of still exist: the 10th Amendment adds to the 9th Amendment, by reserving powers to the States and People for what’s not enumerated in the Constitution. It has helped legally protect Sanctuary Law.

Okay, that’s all on these ICE fuckers and their accomplices for now.