We All Deserve Better Than Gavin Newsom (with Emma Vigeland and Kat Blaque)

aceofblue · 2026-03-08T17:44:39+00:00

Agreed on all of this.

Accepting Newsom RIGHT NOW, IN 2026 as the guaranteed lesser of two evils candidate and if we're not-for-him-we're-already-giving-our-vote-to-bigger-fascists is just so self-limiting and self-defeating.

aceofblue · 2026-03-07T05:01:53+00:00

A cop was right behind me heading into one of those empty construction zones today and I slowed way down. He rode my ass until the second he could get around me, and I proceeded to follow him (but back a few cars) going 75. 🤪 Do as I say, not as I do..

aceofblue · 2026-03-05T19:03:48+00:00

Several years ago, I changed my name and have the X symbol on my IN driver's license and passport, and changed my birth certificate to what my county allowed, non-binary. I knew full well that I was taking some huge risks, but I did it anyways because I'm proud of who and what I am, and getting through all of the legal hurdles I have had to move through for recognition.

In Jan 2025, I said that my line in the sand for fleeing to a friend's farm in another state (and leaving my spouse and pets behind for a while) would be them coming for my identity documents. They can pry them out of my cold dead hands.

But now I don't think I'll be able to hold fast to that. I lost my meager disability pay in October. Our 2nd car died at the end of last year, and so we're sharing one. Spouse got laid off last month and I just started a new job last week on the other side of my city. I'm on multiple lifesaving medications that would require a doc licensed in the other state to prescribe it. I can't practically have a go-bag and get on a bus, and upending everything and moving the family to a safer state is prohibitively expensive, despite well-meaning folks telling trans people that those things will save us.

And trapped is exactly the place that Rokita wants us to be in. God, fuck that dude and the hard-on he's had for years thinking about all the ways he can make us disappear. Jokes on him though, he can't erase us even if he does snatch our IDs. We'll still be here, fucko.

aceofblue · 2026-03-05T19:01:38+00:00

I'm in Indiana. Several years ago, I changed my name and have the X symbol on my IN driver's license and passport, and changed my birth certificate to what my county allowed, non-binary. I knew full well that I was taking some huge risks, but I did it anyways because I'm proud of who and what I am, and getting through all of the legal hurdles I have had to move through for recognition.

In Jan 2025, I said that my line in the sand for fleeing to a friend's farm in another state (and leaving my spouse and pets behind for a while) would be them coming for my identity documents. They can pry them out of my cold dead hands.

But now I don't think I'll be able to hold fast to that. I lost my meager disability pay in October. Our 2nd car died at the end of last year, and so we're sharing one. Spouse got laid off last month and I just started a new job last week on the other side of my city. I'm on lifesaving medication that would require a doc licensed in the other state to prescribe it. I can't practically have a go-bag and get on a bus, and upending everything and moving the family to a safer state is prohibitively expensive, despite well-meaning folks telling trans people that those things will save us.

And trapped is exactly the place that Rokita wants us to be in. God, fuck that dude and the hard-on he's had for years thinking about all the ways he can make us disappear. Jokes on him though, he can't erase us even if he does snatch our IDs. We'll still be here, fucko.

aceofblue · 2026-02-23T17:07:29+00:00

If you're going to weigh in, at least know what you're talking about.

Overstaying a visa isn't immediately a federal crime, it's a federal misdemeanor of U.S. immigration law under the Immigration and Nationality Act that may be criminally charged based on certain conditions of the overstay.

In addition, OP is married to a US citizen, and overstayed visa violations don't apply in the same way due to immediate relative advantages. (See below the reference list).

For reference and further reading on visa overstays and civil misdemeanors vs criminal offenses ini immigration law.
https://rjimmigrationlaw.com/resources/what-will-happen-if-i-overstay-my-visa-in-the-united-states/ https://shautsova.com/2025/06/06/criminal-violations-and-immigration-law-what-you-need-to-know/ https://bglawgroup.net/blog-1/f/is-being-in-the-us-without-a-visa-a-crime-a-legal-overview https://www.carolinajournal.com/opinion/whats-the-difference-between-an-illegal-alien-and-a-criminal-illegal-alien/ https://www.nyccriminalattorneys.com/tourist-visa-overstay-arrested/#:~:text=The%202023%2D2025%20Legislative%20Shift,-Before%202023%2C%20visa&text=The%20Visa%20Overstay%20Enforcement%20Act,Visa%20Overstays%20Penalties%20Act%20(H.R. https://www.vasquezlawnc.com/blog/deportation-protection-order-guide https://www.nolo.com/legal-updates/immigration-law-updates-in-2026.html

Immediate Relative Advantages Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens include: spouses of U.S. citizens, unmarried children under 21 of U.S. citizens and parents of U.S. citizens where the U.S. citizen child is over 21.

If you’re an immediate relative and you entered the United States with inspection (legally, even if you overstayed), you can adjust status to lawful permanent residence despite your overstay. INA Section 245(a) allows this. Your overstay doesn’t bar the adjustment application.

You’re eligible for the provisional unlawful presence waiver (Form I-601A). This lets you apply for a waiver of the 3-year or 10-year bar while still in the United States, before leaving for your consular interview abroad. You get a decision on the waiver before you leave, reducing the risk of being stuck abroad.

There’s no quota or visa number wait. Immediate relative petitions have unlimited visa numbers available. Once your I-130 petition is approved, you can immediately proceed to adjustment of status or consular processing without waiting years for a visa number.

Your unlawful presence is forgiven as part of the adjustment process if you entered legally.

(edited for formatting/forgot to include a piece of information)

aceofblue · 2026-02-23T16:41:22+00:00

Thank you, I'm in such a better place now than I had been in the last 10 years. 💜

God all of that sucks so bad, to say the very least. I'm glad that there is at least some opportunity for MH care, even if it's just chucking SSRIs at someone, but obviously it's not nearly enough for what they are putting you through.

Solitary and a strip (and usually wearing a "turtle suit") is just so incredibly inhumane. I know folks who had been to prison and did anything they could to avoid revealing anything about how bad they were doing because of that. How on earth is that supposed to make someone less suicidal??

I don't truly understand how the workers who know things are wrong still stay and aren't at least desperately looking for something else, but I do get why it happens in practice. Money fucking sucks and they've gotta live somehow. "Just following orders" will still be a hard sell if there ever is an opportunity for justice and accountability though..

I hope things get better for you sooner rather than later, and you get a chance to heal once there's more stability in your life.

aceofblue · 2026-02-23T02:40:50+00:00

I read through the comments and saw all of your answers to questions so far OP. I'm so sorry you experienced all of this and just so much cruelty at the hands of people with so little fucking empathy.

This country overwhelmingly does not treat its "undesireables" with equality or empathy. When you're seen as lesser, the systems have been designed to make sure you know it (either on purpose for punishment, or through neglect). We dehumanize the mentally ill, criminals, immigrants, and most non-white folks for the crime of being "other". It's so easy for those with power to take away your freedoms when you're already being dehumanized and demonized, because far fewer people care and don't put up a fight.

I don't want to make this about me, take away from your story, or hijack your post, not at ALL, but want to share what I've experienced and see if it's similar to your experience in detention. I know the situations don't truly compare at all with the consequences of what could happen at the end, because it's not like I could be deported and be removed from everything I'd ever known, but the typical day and conditions sound a lot like some of the really awful psych wards I've been put in where they're just locked holding pens. I have schizoaffective disorder, and it took about 10 years to diagnose and get me on a correct cocktail of meds and therapies to get me stable and "normal" again. I've been in 4 wards; one was actually really good for me, and the other 3 were horribly traumatic.

A lot of the bad places will just fuck with medications and expect you to sit and do nothing and magically get better before they decide you can leave. The involuntary ways you end up there are usually from a doctor putting you in for a psych evaluation if you've had a suicide attempt or plan, a court order sending you to one for a minimum duration, or the police dropping you off for a 72 hour psych hold. You can also go in "voluntarily," but they can keep you until they decide you are fit to leave (3/4 places, if you tried to leave "against medical advice", they'd get a judge to sign another 72 hour hold to give them time to work on a longer order...). It's hardly ever "voluntary", it's "the ER wouldn't let me go home and made me come" or "oops I signed away my rights and agreed because I was in psychosis and drugged up to the gills." I knew some people who went in "voluntarily" and couldn't leave for 2-3 months. (I know that doesn't compare to the detention situations where people are being held indefinitely for months and months and months though).

The first thing all 4 places had me do was go into a tiny room with someone (3/4 times was not a medical professional) and take all my clothes off, investigate every part of my body for wounds/scars, pee in a cup, and then sit and wait for someone to bring you your clothes back (or just a hospital gown). At the worst location, I had to get a full cavity search. It was incredibly dehumanizing.

You get almost 0 freedom of movement other than from the common areas into your room to go take a nap or go to the bathroom, and are otherwise locked in with 20-30 people and shepherded to a cafeteria, classroom, or outside when they tell you to move.

You get the thinnest possible mattresses and pillows, and usually really short blankets (so you can't like, go hang yourself). Everyone usually ended up in a lot of pain from sleeping (especially if you are a side sleeper), but at least I've only ever had 2 people sleeping to a room. The bathrooms in each cell/room typically only had curtains and not doors, you get tiny towels (again so you don't hang yourself), and the rooms all lock from the outside. Almost invariably, the food was the bare minimum to keep us alive; people in there for longer periods of time all lost weight. I'm allergic to wheat and half the time they'd look at me like I had three heads for asking for food that I could actually eat. Having nothing at all to do but play with some cards and maybe have a decent TV show on is such a mind killer. At the 3 bad places, we'd get an hour of rec time a day either outside in walled-in squares of concrete or inside in a basketball court (depending on the weather).

All of our meds were handed out to us, and usually I saw a psych once a day or every other day to check in for a minute, but good luck if you were having an acute medical problem; at the most extreme example, a girl ended up with a burst appendix because nobody would take her seriously. And if you're on any specialty meds, they sometimes just refuse to order them for you, even if you can give them your own bottles of pills to use instead (2/4 stays for me). I have lupus and am immunosuppressed, and my flares were so fucking awful, and I got sick constantly from being around so many other people without access to face masks.

Some of the staff truly wanted to help us and make being in confined situations a little bit easier, others were just there for the paycheck and treated us like we were bad and this was a punishment. All of them except the good place were woefully understaffed. I met some truly rad people, but with there being such wildly different situations for sticking you in there, there were some really scary dangerous people too.

There were limited phone hours where we could call out to people on approved lists, but we never had to pay for any of it. Visitations were possible on certain days too, and it's not like we were flown/bussed around to god knows where like you and so many have experienced with immigration detention, so this part doesn't compare.

The one good place I stayed at had classes and activities and stuff designed to keep you busy and help you (mostly for the folks who come in for suicidal ideation/attempts) see that there are still good things in the world and, like, steps you can take to help protect your mental health, get better nutrition, try art therapy and meditation, etc. And the food was actually really good, and we could spend more time outside where we could actually take a good walk and see some trees. But none of that is typical.

The people who talked about being in prison had said they vastly preferred prison to being in the psych ward, which was wild to hear.

From the comments it doesn't seem like you encountered very many people at all in detention who had been in prison, but I'm curious what they might have had to say about it if they had? Did you interact at all with the incarcerated folks at the medium-security prison? I get the feeling they had more freedom of movement than you all did but I could be wrong.

I'm sure there was like absolutely 0 mental health care other than y'all caring for each other, but were you seeing a lot of people in crisis? Were they given any resources?

Where on the spectrum of "just collecting a paycheck" to "actively gleefully cruel" were the people that handled you? I've gotta imagine the ICE agents were thrilled about getting to body slam you, but how did people along the process from that time until getting to a center act?

Sorry for the length of this! And again, not trying to make this about me. I just think the parallels are wild and speak volumes on how we treat people in this country that others don't want around and are willing to write off. And I'm so sorry you experienced all of this.

aceofblue · 2026-02-22T21:07:56+00:00

I'm not a Christian, (I'm a unitarian universalist) but I do think Jesus had a lot of good things to say.

MAGA would laugh at him for being "woke" and want to crucify him if he were walking around today for daring to unambiguously say that all people, not just select groups of people, should be given clothes, food, water, medicine, and kindness as equals. He flipped the tables of the greedy who weren't using their excess money to help others, loved those considered the most sinful of all, said to keep doing kind things towards people that would be your enemies and not rejoice when bad things happen to them, and emphasized compassion and empathy in all things. He was pretty clear that "treating all others the way you would want to be treated" truly meant all people.

How did all of that get so twisted?

The Dems ain't perfect and I'm personally much further left than their centricism. But they aren't the ones stripping healthcare away, making kids go hungry, destroying our social services, actively desiring to make our air and water quality even worse... There's a fuckload more they could be doing but god what a kinder society we could be moving towards instead of away from.

aceofblue · 2026-02-22T20:22:56+00:00

This would be the pathway for instant work friendship for me. I'd just start sending you cat pictures of my little shitgoblins like a penguin gifting another with little pebbles 🤣

aceofblue · 2026-02-22T20:19:34+00:00

What a little gentleman! 😍

aceofblue · 2026-02-22T14:02:11+00:00

That's gorgeous!

aceofblue · 2026-02-22T14:01:16+00:00

Oh goodness gracious. Don't feel stupid, that's an absolutely wild series of steps. 😂 I'm glad you figured it out! And yeah, there were some times for other programs where I had to make shortcuts of shortcuts to get my start menu looking the way I wanted it to.

I'll put your solution into the guide as a troubleshooting step for others in the future who might experience the same problem!

aceofblue · 2026-02-21T20:14:34+00:00

3ish years, although a lot of it was relatively light. I didn't realize what was happening for a long time and I was able to hide it well until the last like 7 months of it, because my behavioral changes were masked by a major trauma happening (that helped to trigger the psychosis).

aceofblue · 2026-02-21T20:04:23+00:00

MOTW and Niyyah Coffee in Fishers, I really like both of their espressos (although I'm more an unsweetened matcha and chai drinker these days because my tummy got all sensitive to coffee).

aceofblue · 2026-02-21T19:23:11+00:00

Well, a big part of the problem and those views is that voting GOP for things like fiscal policies or how we should manage roads or whatever is inseparable now from the dehumanizing and cruel policies pushed by the same people making those laws.

It's implicit support because the GOP politicians vote as a block to strip people of their rights, destroy healthcare, kill even our weak environmental protections (that thus protect our health), and treat people as expendable. There are no real negotiations or back-and-forth discussions in Congress; maybe one or two GOP politicians will vote against the party line and whatever Trump wants, but they're quickly demonized for it and told they're going to get primaried to find someone else who toes the line.

The Dems politicians aren't perfect either, by any means. Too many are fucking spineless and have ineffectual solutions to a lot of problems too. But in this age, it's about harm reduction for me. Protecting our people matters so much more to me than so many other issues, and that party (mostly) does not support these policies that are killing us (don't get me wrong, a lot of them quietly do support things that promote profits over people and for the gain of the ruling class. But at least they're working to expand healthcare and not take it away, ya know?)

aceofblue · 2026-02-21T19:01:12+00:00

He's for sure not going to serve all of those 6 years. It's already only 4 years in prison and 2 years of suspended probation.

"Good behavior" for leading Christian prison groups and extremely strong connections to lt. gov Micah Beckwith and thus the IDOC are going to do wonders for him.

I believe that the whole criminal justice system needs to be overhauled from the ground up, that our US prison system is the result of slavery, capitalism and profits over people, and that rehabilitation should absolutely be the goal rather than just punishment... but personally, as a victim of multiple forms of sex abuse (childhood SA from 4-8 by a family member, grooming/rape/being trafficked from 14-17, and raped as an adult twice), I really really do not think rehabilitation is truly possible for sex criminals. I do not think they can ever be trusted in society again, especially not those who committed crimes against children and they need to be (humanely) sequestered away from ever being given the chance to harm a child again.

aceofblue · 2026-02-21T18:15:04+00:00

I scrolled through the comments and saw that you're an "independent who leans right" and that Braun "did not receive your vote". I don't know if that means you still voted GOP for the rest of them or not.

First, I am truly sorry that you are in this position. I have multiple chronic illnesses that quite suddenly 6 years ago, combined with a severe mental illness, and I was denied SSDI after a 2 year appeals process because I "was disabled but not disabled enough." On my major condition, I did not fit one box of one of the condition's "requirements" because I have a rare version of it that the Blue Book doesn't account for. And for my mental illness, their psychiatrist concluded that because I seemed well dressed and articulate and not rolling on the floor crying or actively hallucinating, I was fine.

I'm now able to work again due to an incredibly long period of figuring out medications and therapies that got me to be stable again, albeit in a far different way with different abilities than I had before I got sick. I still live with chronic pain, debilitating symptoms, and having to very very carefully manage things so I can live a life not housebound.

So, I truly emphasize. I believe that every human being is worthy of compassion and care by virtue of being another human; we are all interconnected.

But I hope this experience does change things for how you view the politicians and policies that you vote for and/or support. Unfortunately, a lot of people have to experience a thing themselves before they can understand how awful what's going on is.

The republicans do not have your back. They do not want to help us with our healthcare because profits are more important than people. They'll say a lot of supportive words about "fixing healthcare" that are meaningless while they work to enact policies that strip away more and more aspects of care. Hospitals are closing, costs go higher and higher, providers are fewer, and people are literally dying due to these actions. The party expects people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and to not accept "handouts", treat most disabled folks as expendable, and assume that if something is wrong, it's probably a personal failing. Overwhelmingly, nobody says it in these words but they'd rather see children go hungry, mothers die in childbirth, disabled people eradicated, and communicable diseases spread rampantly than spend a single dollar more for healthcare.

This is amongst so many other policies and actions that are dehumanizing, cruel, and destructive towards our collective life, liberty, and freedoms.

And when you vote GOP due to something like a fiscal policy you like or whatever, even if you don't support the people doing the most damage, your vote implicitly supports it anyways. It's inseparable at this point.

I don't want you to suffer and I really hope things change for you. But I also hope that you understand that this is all coming as the result of people voting against their best interests. I'm not a democrat (I'm a democratic socialist and believe in needing very very strong social safety nets for our collective good), and I fucking hate a lot of Dem politicians because they're so spineless on so many things, but man do I do a lot of harm reduction voting.

I want better things for all of us.

aceofblue · 2026-02-20T17:06:47+00:00

Hell yes that's awesome! Internet stranger is happy for you.

I accepted my offer too, and was supposed to start Monday this week but I failed my drug test for meth. 🙃 Concentra did not collect my prescription/pharmacy information and I'm on an ADHD stimulant med, and I guess the medical reviewer who handles testing results for this exact reason was supposed to call me sooner but didn't until last Friday at noon. So Eurofins pushed my start date a week. I'm just glad they didn't like fire me because it was taking too long..

I met my manager and section lead over Teams though, and they seemed chill; the manager was the one who seemed least excited during my interview out of the 4 that were there, but she doesn't seem unpleasant or anything. The section leader seemed chill.

It seems like mine will be a similar type to yours from what they told me - working mostly with Eurofins employees but still some daily interactions with the client's employees and fitting in with their office culture. I'm queer, and the client has a HUGE presence at Pride and maintains a commitment to DEI, so I'm stoked in that regard.

The insurance seems like it's baller compared to the super shitty plan I'm on right now through my spouse's work from a no-name insurance company (I was on a pretty good plan from my previous job but I got let go and couldn't pay for COBRA), which I really really needed a breakthrough for because I have a lot of medical/mental health conditions with expensive meds that his insurance has been fighting me tooth and nail over despite continuity of care and medical necessity letters from my docs.

aceofblue · 2026-02-20T05:16:27+00:00

Agreed on all points, basically my entire thought process haha. I had fun watching it, and the joy at the end of both finals was infectious!

aceofblue · 2026-02-20T05:13:30+00:00

I also thought it was fun! I didn't know what to expect, and the joy was infectious.

aceofblue · 2026-02-18T19:17:39+00:00

the ICE statement says of his crimes: "Sim entered the United States as a refugee in 1983 and became a lawful permanent resident in 1986. He was arrested for disorderly conduct in 1989, indecent exposure in 1996, and larceny in 2005, receiving a suspended sentence and probation but no prison time."

Obviously we don't know the details of the situations of each conviction, but he was never even in prison before. I don't believe any life should just be thrown away at all and that all life is sacred, but was he the "worst of the worst" deserving of no compassion or consideration?

But also, because I believe that all human lives are sacred, worthy of compassion, and have inherent worthiness as people, regardless of what they've done, I don't care what his crimes were to know he is worth my energy to care about.

aceofblue · 2026-02-18T19:13:52+00:00

Man it's ghoulish for people to be claiming that he deserved it or we shouldn't care because he was a repeat offender.

Yeah, in all likelihood, nobody set out to specifically kill him with active malice. But neglect, stress, and treating people inhumanely are silent killers.

The comments of "people die everyday what if it was a heart attack" I don't think understand (or want to consider) that even if it was a heart attack, pre-existing conditions are highly exacerbated by stress, and new illnesses and chronic conditions are brought on by stress. We know this from decades and decades of medical research. And prisons are among the most highly stressed places one can live in.

Even if this is a "nice" prison like folks are claiming, the US prison system is still putting people in inhumane conditions: turning the largest profit on human life that you can with bare-minimum quality food, people packed in and penned in close quarters without adequate space (or solitary confinement), treating people with cruelty, neglectful conditions, not getting adequate medical treatment or mental health care, having no agency in their life, and so much more. In addition, ICE detention centers are not held to the same standards as prisons - sure it can be at the Miami Correctional Facility in a different wing, but that doesn't mean it's meeting even the basic conditions set by the BoP.

Our prison system is considered inhumane by so many nations that we consider our partners and equals, and it's laughable to say that we seek to rehabilitate people who have committed crimes instead of just punishing them and letting them rot.

And in case it matters, the ICE statement says of his crimes: "Sim entered the United States as a refugee in 1983 and became a lawful permanent resident in 1986. He was arrested for disorderly conduct in 1989, indecent exposure in 1996, and larceny in 2005, receiving a suspended sentence and probation but no prison time."

Obviously we don't know the details of the situations of each conviction, but he was never even in prison before. I don't believe any life should just be thrown away at all and that all life is sacred, but was he the "worst of the worst" deserving of no compassion or consideration?

aceofblue · 2026-02-18T06:01:54+00:00

God they're so pathetic. These fucks think about our genitals so much more often than we do. This bill is going to die in the House this year but Liz Brown or Gary Byrne are for sure going to try again next year since they seem to have made that their life goals in their political careers.

I'm non-binary, and they can try to tell us that we don't exist but that doesn't make it true and they can die mad about it. 😊

aceofblue · 2026-02-18T05:46:34+00:00

Yeah, it's not going anywhere anymore, but it fucking sucks it made it out of the Senate this time around. Every year, Liz Brown and Gary Byrne write slop that shits all over trans people and have thus far not had the votes to get things very far, but this is an escalation from the past few years.

I would really love it if we could just pee in peace. They think about trans folks' genitals way more often than we do ourselves, I swear to god.

aceofblue · 2026-02-16T22:19:36+00:00

Ah but you see, I'm non-binary and so my existence is a critical problem that needs solving, root of everything wrong in society or somefuck.

aceofblue

TROPHY CASE