"We're surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland," President Trump said earlier this month, referring to the new detention camp in the Florida Everglades known as Alligator Alcatraz.
It isn't a detention center. I wish people would start calling it what it is. It's a concentration camp. It's Alligator Auschwitz. Right here in the US of A. Brought to us by trump, DeSantis and maga. I hope trump, DeSantis and maga, all get what they so rightfully deserve.
Is it possible to find out who the vendor is for the contaminated food being paid for by taxpayers, and given to the detainees? Also, who is responsible for providing medical care?
But they're "meeting all required standards" and in working order. Those standards seem like clear 8th amendment violations in addition to everything else. This is Trump's America and everyone seems powerless to do anything about it. This is an indelible stain, but the people generating it feel invincible, so they don't care.
I’m not sure what I’d call my country today but the treatment at the detention center in FL is barbaric. Who knows if they’re undocumented? Could some be legal residents? What is the government hiding?
There are definitely people being detained who have legal permission to be in the country, and they are also detaining natural-born citizens. Currently because they are Latino, but that won't remain the case.
Fascist regimes eventually go after all the vulnerable minorities: chronically ill/disabled people; homeless people; people of color; religious groups; political opponents.
Eventually even their own people who aren't sufficiently "loyal enough," and who lack the money to pay the bribes for release.
I figure what'll eventually start to happen is that people locked up there with skills will be rented out to corporations to be forced to work to fill labor shortages.
State-legalized slavery already effectively exists for convicted criminals--some of the worst wildfires in the last 15 years were brought under control by "volunteer" crews dropped into remote areas. Come to find out, some of those crews were incarcerated people who had committed non-violent offenses, and were promised to have their sentences shortened or commuted if they "volunteered." So there's already that precedent that's been going on for decades. And guardrails no longer exist. They don't have to abide by agreements anymore--not when one was grabbed illegally off the street to begin with and never charged, never had any consultation with legal counsel, no day in court, and thus no conviction.
Privately-owned prisons get contracts to hold people, and it's really just another step to use them as forced labor to ANY company that ponies up the rental fees for human beings. Make getting ANY food and water conditional on working, and a lot of people in those situations will comply. There's very little incentive to do anything to keep them safe, fed, adequately clothed, medically cared for, or even alive, when ICE essentially has a blank check to grab anybody at will.
With the type of pre-existing precedent for effectively forced labor for people who DID actually get due process, it's really only a matter of time until all kinds of labor shortages are filled the same way: incarcerate the people with the necessary skills, force them to do the work for free or nearly so, but simply don't release them. Just use them until they starve to death or die of preventable illness, or violence, or natural disasters like flooding, hurricanes, etc. Diseases like typhoid and mosquito-borne illnesses will take a lot of people who're already malnourished from "detention."
There are already instances of this happening, and I suspect that over the next months, as tariffs really cause genuine food shortages and the economy shrinks due to employment loss, that this will become an even more prevalent practice.
There's no other way to describe it: we are living in a fascist regime, and the architects of it and people helping it function are genuinely evil.
If the people who voted for this were the only ones being affected, I'd probably be somewhat less concerned (although I don't generally wish for people to be denied their constitutional rights), but for every RWNJ it impacts, there are probably at least twice that number who didn't vote for this and never have.
The cruelty is the point. People like Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, JD Vance, republican members of Congress, Trump's cabinet, the tech bros--they're all fundamentally anti-democratic and anti-constitutional.
They want all the power and wealth to flow to them, and they don't want any pesky laws or regulations getting in their way.
The majority of the American people are superfluous to their loony-bin delusional goals so we're expendable.
Outside of those concentration camps, watch for shortages, in the upcoming months, of things like imported medical supplies and the many, many medications that are no longer made in the United States. People will be sent home to die, and will die from otherwise entirely preventable things in emergency rooms as medical providers are forced to make choices as to who gets care and doesn't (the triage process), even when those ill people still have medical insurance, purely because of those shortages.
Trump will blame the medical facilities and the providers themselves, not his tariffs or the fact that other countries placing sanctions on us for our treatment of immigrants, tourists, people on student visas, simply being Islamic or appearing Latino or Black. Or because we quit providing funding to emerging democracies to prevent starvation and provide clean water, vaccinations, etc, that become totalitarian regimes instead, when they destabilize.
In this country, look for empty grocery store shelves, and sky-high prices on what's there. I'm not just talking toilet paper, either.
I'm talking what we'd consider pretty basic foods like pasta, rice, beans, meats, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy products, etc. Herbs and spices. Fresh fruits and vegetables. Canned foods, frozen pre-made meals.
We are really in A LOT of trouble, and the results of the last few months of Trump's increasingly authoritarian, unhinged policies haven't really hit as hard as they will further down the road--like this winter, when there aren't any crops growing domestically.
Thank you for making me feel less insane. I have had all these same thoughts and I'm surrounded by a lot of people who have succumbed to all the gaslighting so they think I'm just an alarmist. We've seen this movie before, several times. I swear, just about everyone in this country needs to go back and take middle school civics and high school comparative political systems.
We've been preparing for supply shortages, outages, or ridiculous prices as best we can. There are things like rx drugs we can't stockpile though. We can stockpile things like basic medical supplies like bandages, OTC meds. Buying nonperishables in bulk from Costco or Sam's can help, but lots of people don't have the income to do that. Start thinking about what you could do if an item you need disappears. We're seniors and have some health needs as you would expect. Not sure what to do there.
Nonperishables like canned vegetables and other foods are still abundantly available. With the ag laborers being chased off and the summer weather depressing harvests, food prices may start rising even faster than they already are. Beef has jumped to eyewatering prices already.
I hate using the word "concerned" anymore since the DNC uses it so much for milquetoast responses to GOP outrages. I am about our future though, for ourselves, family, and all Americans. I've read my histories and I agree 100% with Elle. We could well see the return of literal poorhouses and labor camps as Elle suggests. The "volunteer" firefighters could be a precursor to that.
Find a summary of Project 2025. We're in FAR deeper trouble than many recognize, and I fear that we will start to see outright violence (civil war?) on the general population soon. They'll run out of their hated minorities at some point and will need fresh laborers/victims. Remember, there are more guns than people in this country. Americans may choose to fight rather than be sent to camps. Asymmetrical warfare would be one of the first signs of that. Who knows what our military might do if issued unconstitutional or immoral orders?
If you haven't read up on how dictatorships/fascism work, get going. Better you know so can try to prepare for what's coming. We would leave the country, but we have kids and grandkids. We're staying for them.
I remember being told that I was an "alarmist, hysterical, a doomer," and other things over the last fifteen years or so. You still have time to do what you can, but it's running short. Sorry to download on you all.
I think buying up food and other supplies isn’t going to do much except maybe save a few dollars. If something horrible were to come… being temporarily supplied … is temporary.
Yeah, prepping might buy some people some time from outright starving to death or dying from dehydration.
But there are a LOT of things that your average middle-class and less-than-middle-class Americans can't stock up on or prepare for.
You can see your death inexorably approaching, know there are a billion² ways to prevent it, and still not be able to do anything to prevent it: when your only choices left are HOW you die, and maybe WHEN you die, so there's a little more personal dignity.
But still not possess the monetary or political resources to prevent it from happening.
Peaceful protests are not going to fix this.
Voting in a midterm more than a year from now won't fix this. Even winning big all the way up- and down-ballot won't fix this.
And it definitely won't bring any of the people back who die between now and then who shouldn't have died in the first place.
Yeah, I'm in a similar situation. Medications I can't stockpile for health issues that won't ever be going away.
I had a pretty horrifying, extended preview of what "dying by triage" can look like back in October 2024.
Hurricane Helene knocked out the facility in North Carolina that manufactures most of the lactated ringers in the US. There's apparently STILL a nationwide shortage, even on 31 July 2025.
Lactated ringers (for the people who don't have any reason to know) are the pretty standard IV fluids that go in first on a lot of people who come through an ER to help rehydrate, or to prevent the patient from becoming dehydrated.
Also fairly standard if you're "NPO," (medical shorthand for "nil per os," or "nothing by mouth"), such as if they know you're going to need surgery or imaging that stomach contents would eff up; if you CAN'T keep anything down; or if you're at high risk of aspirating (there can be all kinds of reasons for that, too). There can be all kinds of reasons for hooking up a bag of lactated ringers.
Can even be as simple as it just being there to keep an IV port ready for medications that need to be delivered by IV and can't be given orally or injected intramuscularly, so that they don't have to do an IV port AND administer medication simultaneously.
Especially if something turns up where they realize that you need IV medication in a really big hurry.
Anyway, I'd lost 21 pounds in 28 days because I couldn't keep anything down except tiny, sporadic sips of water, not enough to stay hydrated, but I'd been mostly able to take my oral medications, and was trying to hang in there until my upcoming first visit with a GI specialist.
Couldn't, though. Hang in there that long, I mean.
I had finally become unable to even take my oral medications for managing OTHER medical diagnoses, so I needed to get admitted to the hospital to get stabilized. It hadn't been an issue before. It was pretty straightforward.
Until the first time at the ER where they just refused to believe me about my diagnosis, and then even refused to look at their own records about my diagnosis and previous hospitalizations for that precise diagnosis. And then on top of that, accused me of lying because I was asking for IV fluids and happened to remember the specific combination of medications (none of them controlled substances) that had finally worked to get me stabilized before. (Usual first-line anti-emetics like Zofran actually don't work for me, to the point that I've been advised multiple times to list them as allergies. That's a whole other story though.)
And then they did the same thing twice more, each time with a different ER physician.
Gastroparesis isn't a terribly *common* medical diagnosis, but it's not totally unknown, either, and I had not only been in-patient at that precise hospital numerous times for it, they were the ones who tested me for it and diagnosed me with it. I thought I was on pretty stable footing going to the place they'd competently managed it in-patient so many times previously.
The ER physicians flat-out refused to believe my word that I was there for another GP flare-up. They refused to reference their own hospital records regarding the treatment protocols, diagnosis, any of it.
On top of that, they ignored their own lab results telling them I'd also gone into starvation ketoacidosis, which if not treated in-patient, leads to organ failure and death. I was really badly dehydrated by then. Couldn't quit vomiting. And honestly, I have never been through such excruciating prolonged pain in my life. Short-term, yeah. But it was feeling like I had a hand wrapped around my spinal cord and trying to tear it out of my rib-cage every time I puked. It wasn't your ordinary unpleasant chronic vomiting, as bad as that is.
They oh-so-snidely told me that my ongoing medical emergency wasn't really an emergency.
According to them, my situation was the equivalent to an "elective procedure," properly managed outpatient with a gastroenterologist.
They knew I'd been waiting for the specialist for five months, and still had another month to wait. Even so, I was triaged as "elective," when I wasn't going to survive for another week, much less for a full month.
The ER doctors and nurses were condescendingly telling me about "all their friends" who'd had to wait for elective procedures. Except they really were medically stable. Maybe those individuals weren't happy about it, but they weren't going to die. I was going to die if they didn't admit me, and they were all okay with that fact. All three of them.
And they knew it.
I finally decided to try another hospital ER that didn't have my medical history on file, and gamble on them believing me, because I really didn't want to die of dehydration while puking up bile and in excruciating pain.
Took me less than ten minutes to get the word from the attending physician that I would in fact be getting admitted. They admitted me even faster when the results of my labs came back. They actually brought in somebody to add a couple of larger-gauge needles to start getting fluids and other stuff in me faster. Used some kind of equipment to get access to deeper, larger veins.
I was sicker than even I'd known. They later added a fourth IV line for that initial 36 hours, with all the liquids and medication and stuff they were pouring into me to stabilize me.
I still have no idea why those three ER physicians at that hospital were so opposed to admitting me. Or even to telling me to go to another ER if they really were that hard up for lactated ringers. Because they didn't. They kept emphasizing to see my GI physician outpatient. As if I could make it happen any faster.
But I kept their names, because there's going to be a reckoning at some point for those three. I particularly didn't appreciate them accusing me of lying; I wasn't asking for controlled substances, just ordinary emergency care, for which I had insurance.
But they refused to even look at my past in-patient history at their own facility and made up diagnoses, treated me to those invented standards, and then sent me home to die. Three times.
My GI physician who I saw after all that looked over all the paperwork--including the in-patient history--and was horrified. She couldn't make any sense of it either. She said I should have been admitted the first time I showed up in the ER. Not told I was making things up. Especially given the lab results each time.
And this all happened before Trump got elected.
So yeah. I've had a close-up look at what death-by-triage looks like.
It can mean that you're relatively easy to stabilize and recover, but doctors can simply decide you're not sick enough to suit them, or that somebody else will benefit more from scarce resources, and unless another hospital ER disagrees, that's it--you're going to die.
I don't even have a malpractice case against the hospital because I didn't suffer any lasting harm. I guess medical PTSD doesn't count as "lasting harm." Or that they falsified medical records. Or that they accused me of lying, AND refused to check their own records about my prior hospitalizations.
So yeah, you can die from being inappropriately triaged long before the Trump regime specifically decides to target people with physical or mental illness/disability.
Or that's one of the ways they'd go about it.
Sort of like Adriana Smith showing up at the ER with a headache that they misdiagnosed until she was brain-dead, and then her dead-and-rotting body was used as an incubator for 16 weeks until they couldn't keep her body going anymore and then autopsied her son, Chance, out of her at 25 weeks.
That was not a Cesarean section, by the way. Despite the way it was reported in the news.
That was an autopsy conducted on a dead body that had been kept on life support for 16 weeks, that somehow managed to result in a live birth.
Nor was it a miracle.
That whole thing, from the misdiagnosis that resulted in Adriana's death to the autopsy resulting in a living fetus at 25 weeks was a cold-blooded, absolutely unethical medical experiment conducted without the consent of ANYBODY, but especially not Adriana Smith.
Welcome to medical care in the United States in the 21st century. Especially for women.
Show up for treatment of something pretty readily treatable, get turned away to die, and risk being used against your will to incubate a fetus.
In my case, I wasn't pregnant or at risk of it, but they were still just fine letting me die and calling me a liar when they did it.
Adriana Smith's body was used without her consent, after her death, for another 16 weeks.
Thanks. I think I have enough words. And those three ER physicians are permanently on my radar. They were willing to let me die by denying me valid emergency care, and calling me a liar while committing outright falsehoods in my medical chart to do it.
What I wonder is how many people have died and will die because of those three, or who've suffered irreparable harm because those other people lacked the resources or the knowledge of their medical condition to keep advocating for themselves.
This scenario sounds like five thousand years of human history save the Greeks for a couple of hundred years and what was American Democracy for the past couple of hundred years.
The worst in humanity is seeping through, once again.
Why does Donald John Trump feel such hatred for Hispanic people? His mention of them with vituperative vindictiveness goes back to his ride down the golden elevator with Melania to boast about his run to be President of the U. S. of America. In his perpetual ignorance Trump has no appreciation of how much these "brown" people have contributed to our country and our economy. Let's remember that all of his scathing criticism depicts projections of his personal moral lapses. Raping and murder has been provent to be fine with him--witness all of his pardons, and choice of friends.
Goes back further than that. Dump didn't begin with that elevator ride. If you can stomach it find a good truthful biography of him and his family: it has always been a disgusting entitlement mealy-mouthed family. Also, not for nothing, but if you watch the interview with Katie Johnson, alleged rape victim of the We Gotta Secret Boys (DJT and Dump), you will hear racial slurs against a Hispanic "maid" during an acted out rape fantasy by DJT with underage girls.
Lots of incel racist unemployed young men who would love to torture others. Great job opportunity for those who are too cruel and stupid to be prison guards.
Which attracts white supremacists and alpha males. Most police departments do psych testing before hire, to weed out the psychos and toxic males, but not ICE. All may apply.
The US is running concentration camps. This is inhumane and ungodly. Even IF some of these folks have committed actual crimes, this is inhumane treatment at the hands of our government, being paid for by our taxes. I am sick.
Imma going to say it: Florida is the fn sewer of the universe filled with horrible people AND IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN. This right here is evidence of its ability to defy American law, values and exceptionalism. What does this concentration camp make all of us? We are all culpable in this inhumanity. This must be stopped. How dare we treat people like this? In our country? With our laws? These actions are destroying the country and its Constitution. Down the toilet we go, and we all end up in Florida.
Lisa, my mom, grandparents and great, great-greats, all Floridians. I do not like to disparage my predecessors' home but from my experience and knowledge, that place got some bad bad karma.
Of course, this was constructed to be beyond the reach of the law. Horrific and shameful. We have no standing in the world community with concentration camps in our own country.
You can bet on this one. I'm a 7th gen native Southerner so I have some experiential knowledge here. There was a concerted effort in the 1960s-1980s in particular to front-load law enforcement and the military with young, angry white boys who were convinced that giving others civil rights was the cause of all their problems. Once the draft was eliminated, they made it VERY easy to qualify for entry to the armed forces and made it appealing to young, poor men with few job prospects. A large swath of those who would have been ineligible for the draft, or ranked very low, were now considered eligible for voluntary service. The reason we have a serious police brutality problem is by design, as is the lack of accountability and consequences when they're caught. Then it becomes generational with kids following in parents' footsteps because they have been radicalized at home. For context, I'm a former military wife, the daughter of a man who declined his deferments to serve during the Korean conflict, and have a lot of upstanding, moral friends in law enforcement...so, I'm not "anti" anything. These are known facts throughout the South.
Not to mention the arming of law enforcement like the military, complete with armored vehicles, body armor, and high powered weapons. I've looked at the equipment lists and it reminds me of Iraq. Urban warfare is brutal and they're equipped for it.
There are just so many things that one can say about this and none of them are good. I am beginning to think that when some politician says “this is not who we are” it is exactly who we are! We are all culpable and we are led by people who simply dont believe in the idea of America. I will always love my country but my government has failed me. “There but for the fortune…”
These are immigration lawyers, they are not used to dealing with civil rights violations so they are trying to fix the system and get relief within the system that is the wrong system. In a rational world that would make sense but they need to get civil rights attorneys on board. Contact the ACLU but more importantly one of the many fine and aggressive civil rights lawyers like Ben Crump . They need to file a suit against named FL officials, named federal officials, departments, wardens everyone who is involved or touching this awfulness The immigration judge is not going to solve this, he reports directly to the executive branch. His conflict of interest is too great to be a source of relief. There are constitutional violations of due process obviously, constitutional violations of cruel and unusual punishment, unlawful detention, so many torts it’s mind boggling and a whole host of other laws that could be used to not only gain freedom but to get the big damages awards that are needed to start some accountability. Right now Republicans do the risk v benefit, and a huge damages award and publicity from such a suit should change their calculations especially w public opinion shifting against these tactics. Judd, please facilitate that connection between your interview sources snd Mr. Crump. These well meaning immigration lawyers need to think outside the box. I’m a lawyer, and I can say without judgment it’s not unusual nor incompetent to work the lane your practice is in. But this needs bigger thinking. And strategic thinking. I googled the lawyer who is representing the Palestinian student who was retained, I don’t know if him but another lead Amir Makled but it’s easy to shop a case. This is where the GOP out plays us, they’d get one of their billionaire donors to pay for the suit (think Theil and Gawker to dig back a bunch of years)… now that would be fighting fire with fire. Hello Dem donors, time to do more than contribute to the DNC. These human beings need help and it’s not coming from the immigration court system or frankly from great reporting like this. We/they need and deserve more.
This isn't immigration detention. It's state-sanctioned torture.
This isn't immigration detention. It's a concentration camp for the undesirable. Ring any bells?
Exactly what I was going to write. Seems many of us can see this for what it is.
It isn't a detention center. I wish people would start calling it what it is. It's a concentration camp. It's Alligator Auschwitz. Right here in the US of A. Brought to us by trump, DeSantis and maga. I hope trump, DeSantis and maga, all get what they so rightfully deserve.
Is it possible to find out who the vendor is for the contaminated food being paid for by taxpayers, and given to the detainees? Also, who is responsible for providing medical care?
Yeah, this is not all one agency: ICE. There are vendors supplying this crap to this hellhole. Find them, Name them. Name their CEOs.
But they're "meeting all required standards" and in working order. Those standards seem like clear 8th amendment violations in addition to everything else. This is Trump's America and everyone seems powerless to do anything about it. This is an indelible stain, but the people generating it feel invincible, so they don't care.
Not sure if
https://www.geogroup.com/about-us/who-we-are/.
Is involved w/this or other facilities like this but here is the supposed vendor code of conduct??
https://www.geogroup.com/Portals/0/docs/The_GEO_Group_Vendor_Code_of_Conduct.pdf
I’m not sure what I’d call my country today but the treatment at the detention center in FL is barbaric. Who knows if they’re undocumented? Could some be legal residents? What is the government hiding?
There are definitely people being detained who have legal permission to be in the country, and they are also detaining natural-born citizens. Currently because they are Latino, but that won't remain the case.
Fascist regimes eventually go after all the vulnerable minorities: chronically ill/disabled people; homeless people; people of color; religious groups; political opponents.
Eventually even their own people who aren't sufficiently "loyal enough," and who lack the money to pay the bribes for release.
I figure what'll eventually start to happen is that people locked up there with skills will be rented out to corporations to be forced to work to fill labor shortages.
State-legalized slavery already effectively exists for convicted criminals--some of the worst wildfires in the last 15 years were brought under control by "volunteer" crews dropped into remote areas. Come to find out, some of those crews were incarcerated people who had committed non-violent offenses, and were promised to have their sentences shortened or commuted if they "volunteered." So there's already that precedent that's been going on for decades. And guardrails no longer exist. They don't have to abide by agreements anymore--not when one was grabbed illegally off the street to begin with and never charged, never had any consultation with legal counsel, no day in court, and thus no conviction.
Privately-owned prisons get contracts to hold people, and it's really just another step to use them as forced labor to ANY company that ponies up the rental fees for human beings. Make getting ANY food and water conditional on working, and a lot of people in those situations will comply. There's very little incentive to do anything to keep them safe, fed, adequately clothed, medically cared for, or even alive, when ICE essentially has a blank check to grab anybody at will.
With the type of pre-existing precedent for effectively forced labor for people who DID actually get due process, it's really only a matter of time until all kinds of labor shortages are filled the same way: incarcerate the people with the necessary skills, force them to do the work for free or nearly so, but simply don't release them. Just use them until they starve to death or die of preventable illness, or violence, or natural disasters like flooding, hurricanes, etc. Diseases like typhoid and mosquito-borne illnesses will take a lot of people who're already malnourished from "detention."
There are already instances of this happening, and I suspect that over the next months, as tariffs really cause genuine food shortages and the economy shrinks due to employment loss, that this will become an even more prevalent practice.
There's no other way to describe it: we are living in a fascist regime, and the architects of it and people helping it function are genuinely evil.
If the people who voted for this were the only ones being affected, I'd probably be somewhat less concerned (although I don't generally wish for people to be denied their constitutional rights), but for every RWNJ it impacts, there are probably at least twice that number who didn't vote for this and never have.
The cruelty is the point. People like Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, JD Vance, republican members of Congress, Trump's cabinet, the tech bros--they're all fundamentally anti-democratic and anti-constitutional.
They want all the power and wealth to flow to them, and they don't want any pesky laws or regulations getting in their way.
The majority of the American people are superfluous to their loony-bin delusional goals so we're expendable.
Outside of those concentration camps, watch for shortages, in the upcoming months, of things like imported medical supplies and the many, many medications that are no longer made in the United States. People will be sent home to die, and will die from otherwise entirely preventable things in emergency rooms as medical providers are forced to make choices as to who gets care and doesn't (the triage process), even when those ill people still have medical insurance, purely because of those shortages.
Trump will blame the medical facilities and the providers themselves, not his tariffs or the fact that other countries placing sanctions on us for our treatment of immigrants, tourists, people on student visas, simply being Islamic or appearing Latino or Black. Or because we quit providing funding to emerging democracies to prevent starvation and provide clean water, vaccinations, etc, that become totalitarian regimes instead, when they destabilize.
In this country, look for empty grocery store shelves, and sky-high prices on what's there. I'm not just talking toilet paper, either.
I'm talking what we'd consider pretty basic foods like pasta, rice, beans, meats, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy products, etc. Herbs and spices. Fresh fruits and vegetables. Canned foods, frozen pre-made meals.
We are really in A LOT of trouble, and the results of the last few months of Trump's increasingly authoritarian, unhinged policies haven't really hit as hard as they will further down the road--like this winter, when there aren't any crops growing domestically.
Thank you for making me feel less insane. I have had all these same thoughts and I'm surrounded by a lot of people who have succumbed to all the gaslighting so they think I'm just an alarmist. We've seen this movie before, several times. I swear, just about everyone in this country needs to go back and take middle school civics and high school comparative political systems.
We've been preparing for supply shortages, outages, or ridiculous prices as best we can. There are things like rx drugs we can't stockpile though. We can stockpile things like basic medical supplies like bandages, OTC meds. Buying nonperishables in bulk from Costco or Sam's can help, but lots of people don't have the income to do that. Start thinking about what you could do if an item you need disappears. We're seniors and have some health needs as you would expect. Not sure what to do there.
Nonperishables like canned vegetables and other foods are still abundantly available. With the ag laborers being chased off and the summer weather depressing harvests, food prices may start rising even faster than they already are. Beef has jumped to eyewatering prices already.
I hate using the word "concerned" anymore since the DNC uses it so much for milquetoast responses to GOP outrages. I am about our future though, for ourselves, family, and all Americans. I've read my histories and I agree 100% with Elle. We could well see the return of literal poorhouses and labor camps as Elle suggests. The "volunteer" firefighters could be a precursor to that.
Find a summary of Project 2025. We're in FAR deeper trouble than many recognize, and I fear that we will start to see outright violence (civil war?) on the general population soon. They'll run out of their hated minorities at some point and will need fresh laborers/victims. Remember, there are more guns than people in this country. Americans may choose to fight rather than be sent to camps. Asymmetrical warfare would be one of the first signs of that. Who knows what our military might do if issued unconstitutional or immoral orders?
If you haven't read up on how dictatorships/fascism work, get going. Better you know so can try to prepare for what's coming. We would leave the country, but we have kids and grandkids. We're staying for them.
I remember being told that I was an "alarmist, hysterical, a doomer," and other things over the last fifteen years or so. You still have time to do what you can, but it's running short. Sorry to download on you all.
I think buying up food and other supplies isn’t going to do much except maybe save a few dollars. If something horrible were to come… being temporarily supplied … is temporary.
We need a permanent solution.
It's buying time for other options.
Yeah, prepping might buy some people some time from outright starving to death or dying from dehydration.
But there are a LOT of things that your average middle-class and less-than-middle-class Americans can't stock up on or prepare for.
You can see your death inexorably approaching, know there are a billion² ways to prevent it, and still not be able to do anything to prevent it: when your only choices left are HOW you die, and maybe WHEN you die, so there's a little more personal dignity.
But still not possess the monetary or political resources to prevent it from happening.
Peaceful protests are not going to fix this.
Voting in a midterm more than a year from now won't fix this. Even winning big all the way up- and down-ballot won't fix this.
And it definitely won't bring any of the people back who die between now and then who shouldn't have died in the first place.
Yeah, I'm in a similar situation. Medications I can't stockpile for health issues that won't ever be going away.
I had a pretty horrifying, extended preview of what "dying by triage" can look like back in October 2024.
Hurricane Helene knocked out the facility in North Carolina that manufactures most of the lactated ringers in the US. There's apparently STILL a nationwide shortage, even on 31 July 2025.
Lactated ringers (for the people who don't have any reason to know) are the pretty standard IV fluids that go in first on a lot of people who come through an ER to help rehydrate, or to prevent the patient from becoming dehydrated.
Also fairly standard if you're "NPO," (medical shorthand for "nil per os," or "nothing by mouth"), such as if they know you're going to need surgery or imaging that stomach contents would eff up; if you CAN'T keep anything down; or if you're at high risk of aspirating (there can be all kinds of reasons for that, too). There can be all kinds of reasons for hooking up a bag of lactated ringers.
Can even be as simple as it just being there to keep an IV port ready for medications that need to be delivered by IV and can't be given orally or injected intramuscularly, so that they don't have to do an IV port AND administer medication simultaneously.
Especially if something turns up where they realize that you need IV medication in a really big hurry.
Anyway, I'd lost 21 pounds in 28 days because I couldn't keep anything down except tiny, sporadic sips of water, not enough to stay hydrated, but I'd been mostly able to take my oral medications, and was trying to hang in there until my upcoming first visit with a GI specialist.
Couldn't, though. Hang in there that long, I mean.
I had finally become unable to even take my oral medications for managing OTHER medical diagnoses, so I needed to get admitted to the hospital to get stabilized. It hadn't been an issue before. It was pretty straightforward.
Until the first time at the ER where they just refused to believe me about my diagnosis, and then even refused to look at their own records about my diagnosis and previous hospitalizations for that precise diagnosis. And then on top of that, accused me of lying because I was asking for IV fluids and happened to remember the specific combination of medications (none of them controlled substances) that had finally worked to get me stabilized before. (Usual first-line anti-emetics like Zofran actually don't work for me, to the point that I've been advised multiple times to list them as allergies. That's a whole other story though.)
And then they did the same thing twice more, each time with a different ER physician.
Gastroparesis isn't a terribly *common* medical diagnosis, but it's not totally unknown, either, and I had not only been in-patient at that precise hospital numerous times for it, they were the ones who tested me for it and diagnosed me with it. I thought I was on pretty stable footing going to the place they'd competently managed it in-patient so many times previously.
The ER physicians flat-out refused to believe my word that I was there for another GP flare-up. They refused to reference their own hospital records regarding the treatment protocols, diagnosis, any of it.
On top of that, they ignored their own lab results telling them I'd also gone into starvation ketoacidosis, which if not treated in-patient, leads to organ failure and death. I was really badly dehydrated by then. Couldn't quit vomiting. And honestly, I have never been through such excruciating prolonged pain in my life. Short-term, yeah. But it was feeling like I had a hand wrapped around my spinal cord and trying to tear it out of my rib-cage every time I puked. It wasn't your ordinary unpleasant chronic vomiting, as bad as that is.
They oh-so-snidely told me that my ongoing medical emergency wasn't really an emergency.
According to them, my situation was the equivalent to an "elective procedure," properly managed outpatient with a gastroenterologist.
They knew I'd been waiting for the specialist for five months, and still had another month to wait. Even so, I was triaged as "elective," when I wasn't going to survive for another week, much less for a full month.
The ER doctors and nurses were condescendingly telling me about "all their friends" who'd had to wait for elective procedures. Except they really were medically stable. Maybe those individuals weren't happy about it, but they weren't going to die. I was going to die if they didn't admit me, and they were all okay with that fact. All three of them.
And they knew it.
I finally decided to try another hospital ER that didn't have my medical history on file, and gamble on them believing me, because I really didn't want to die of dehydration while puking up bile and in excruciating pain.
Took me less than ten minutes to get the word from the attending physician that I would in fact be getting admitted. They admitted me even faster when the results of my labs came back. They actually brought in somebody to add a couple of larger-gauge needles to start getting fluids and other stuff in me faster. Used some kind of equipment to get access to deeper, larger veins.
I was sicker than even I'd known. They later added a fourth IV line for that initial 36 hours, with all the liquids and medication and stuff they were pouring into me to stabilize me.
I still have no idea why those three ER physicians at that hospital were so opposed to admitting me. Or even to telling me to go to another ER if they really were that hard up for lactated ringers. Because they didn't. They kept emphasizing to see my GI physician outpatient. As if I could make it happen any faster.
But I kept their names, because there's going to be a reckoning at some point for those three. I particularly didn't appreciate them accusing me of lying; I wasn't asking for controlled substances, just ordinary emergency care, for which I had insurance.
But they refused to even look at my past in-patient history at their own facility and made up diagnoses, treated me to those invented standards, and then sent me home to die. Three times.
My GI physician who I saw after all that looked over all the paperwork--including the in-patient history--and was horrified. She couldn't make any sense of it either. She said I should have been admitted the first time I showed up in the ER. Not told I was making things up. Especially given the lab results each time.
And this all happened before Trump got elected.
So yeah. I've had a close-up look at what death-by-triage looks like.
It can mean that you're relatively easy to stabilize and recover, but doctors can simply decide you're not sick enough to suit them, or that somebody else will benefit more from scarce resources, and unless another hospital ER disagrees, that's it--you're going to die.
I don't even have a malpractice case against the hospital because I didn't suffer any lasting harm. I guess medical PTSD doesn't count as "lasting harm." Or that they falsified medical records. Or that they accused me of lying, AND refused to check their own records about my prior hospitalizations.
So yeah, you can die from being inappropriately triaged long before the Trump regime specifically decides to target people with physical or mental illness/disability.
Or that's one of the ways they'd go about it.
Sort of like Adriana Smith showing up at the ER with a headache that they misdiagnosed until she was brain-dead, and then her dead-and-rotting body was used as an incubator for 16 weeks until they couldn't keep her body going anymore and then autopsied her son, Chance, out of her at 25 weeks.
That was not a Cesarean section, by the way. Despite the way it was reported in the news.
That was an autopsy conducted on a dead body that had been kept on life support for 16 weeks, that somehow managed to result in a live birth.
Nor was it a miracle.
That whole thing, from the misdiagnosis that resulted in Adriana's death to the autopsy resulting in a living fetus at 25 weeks was a cold-blooded, absolutely unethical medical experiment conducted without the consent of ANYBODY, but especially not Adriana Smith.
Welcome to medical care in the United States in the 21st century. Especially for women.
Show up for treatment of something pretty readily treatable, get turned away to die, and risk being used against your will to incubate a fetus.
In my case, I wasn't pregnant or at risk of it, but they were still just fine letting me die and calling me a liar when they did it.
Adriana Smith's body was used without her consent, after her death, for another 16 weeks.
I'm beyond words. 🫂 😔
Thanks. I think I have enough words. And those three ER physicians are permanently on my radar. They were willing to let me die by denying me valid emergency care, and calling me a liar while committing outright falsehoods in my medical chart to do it.
What I wonder is how many people have died and will die because of those three, or who've suffered irreparable harm because those other people lacked the resources or the knowledge of their medical condition to keep advocating for themselves.
This scenario sounds like five thousand years of human history save the Greeks for a couple of hundred years and what was American Democracy for the past couple of hundred years.
The worst in humanity is seeping through, once again.
With this Republican administration “undocumented” merely means POC and not a US citizen, and then thats not always true either.
What is the “government” hiding? Ron DiSgusting is 100% bearing the stinking historic legacy of the vile place and the raping of the laws.
Why does Donald John Trump feel such hatred for Hispanic people? His mention of them with vituperative vindictiveness goes back to his ride down the golden elevator with Melania to boast about his run to be President of the U. S. of America. In his perpetual ignorance Trump has no appreciation of how much these "brown" people have contributed to our country and our economy. Let's remember that all of his scathing criticism depicts projections of his personal moral lapses. Raping and murder has been provent to be fine with him--witness all of his pardons, and choice of friends.
Goes back further than that. Dump didn't begin with that elevator ride. If you can stomach it find a good truthful biography of him and his family: it has always been a disgusting entitlement mealy-mouthed family. Also, not for nothing, but if you watch the interview with Katie Johnson, alleged rape victim of the We Gotta Secret Boys (DJT and Dump), you will hear racial slurs against a Hispanic "maid" during an acted out rape fantasy by DJT with underage girls.
I saw that. The pretender in cheese threatened her with deportation if she didn't deliver an "amazing blow job." What a disgusting pig he is.
It may be a legal black hole, but it is for sure a human hell hole.
Is this article available in Spanish? I don’t think enough people are aware that this is happening.
To make matters worse, $50,000 signing bonus, to be an ICE-hole agent. They want 10,000 more ICE-holes.
Lots of incel racist unemployed young men who would love to torture others. Great job opportunity for those who are too cruel and stupid to be prison guards.
And MAGA makes this not only acceptable but desirable.
Which attracts white supremacists and alpha males. Most police departments do psych testing before hire, to weed out the psychos and toxic males, but not ICE. All may apply.
Every single ICE deplorable should be identified, named and shamed
The US is running concentration camps. This is inhumane and ungodly. Even IF some of these folks have committed actual crimes, this is inhumane treatment at the hands of our government, being paid for by our taxes. I am sick.
It’ll be in the history books.
Imma going to say it: Florida is the fn sewer of the universe filled with horrible people AND IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN. This right here is evidence of its ability to defy American law, values and exceptionalism. What does this concentration camp make all of us? We are all culpable in this inhumanity. This must be stopped. How dare we treat people like this? In our country? With our laws? These actions are destroying the country and its Constitution. Down the toilet we go, and we all end up in Florida.
As a 5th generation native Floridian, I concur with your assessment. That's why I left when I was 18.
Lisa, my mom, grandparents and great, great-greats, all Floridians. I do not like to disparage my predecessors' home but from my experience and knowledge, that place got some bad bad karma.
Why did that judge deny jurisdiction? He's an immigration judge. Who does have authority?
Why? Because they have no respect for the law or humans. They are playing games with human lives. Cruel and sadly today, NOT unusual punishment
Of course, this was constructed to be beyond the reach of the law. Horrific and shameful. We have no standing in the world community with concentration camps in our own country.
I would not be surprised to find out that ice is hiring anyone with an affiliation to a white nationalist group
You can bet on this one. I'm a 7th gen native Southerner so I have some experiential knowledge here. There was a concerted effort in the 1960s-1980s in particular to front-load law enforcement and the military with young, angry white boys who were convinced that giving others civil rights was the cause of all their problems. Once the draft was eliminated, they made it VERY easy to qualify for entry to the armed forces and made it appealing to young, poor men with few job prospects. A large swath of those who would have been ineligible for the draft, or ranked very low, were now considered eligible for voluntary service. The reason we have a serious police brutality problem is by design, as is the lack of accountability and consequences when they're caught. Then it becomes generational with kids following in parents' footsteps because they have been radicalized at home. For context, I'm a former military wife, the daughter of a man who declined his deferments to serve during the Korean conflict, and have a lot of upstanding, moral friends in law enforcement...so, I'm not "anti" anything. These are known facts throughout the South.
Not to mention the arming of law enforcement like the military, complete with armored vehicles, body armor, and high powered weapons. I've looked at the equipment lists and it reminds me of Iraq. Urban warfare is brutal and they're equipped for it.
It’s time to impeach, remove, INDICT, CONVICT, IMPRISON and FIGHT these evil grifting posers!!
A concentration camp with no rights for detainees.
When I see information like this....it truly makes me sad to be an American. And a bit of afraid of..... who's next?
There are just so many things that one can say about this and none of them are good. I am beginning to think that when some politician says “this is not who we are” it is exactly who we are! We are all culpable and we are led by people who simply dont believe in the idea of America. I will always love my country but my government has failed me. “There but for the fortune…”
These are immigration lawyers, they are not used to dealing with civil rights violations so they are trying to fix the system and get relief within the system that is the wrong system. In a rational world that would make sense but they need to get civil rights attorneys on board. Contact the ACLU but more importantly one of the many fine and aggressive civil rights lawyers like Ben Crump . They need to file a suit against named FL officials, named federal officials, departments, wardens everyone who is involved or touching this awfulness The immigration judge is not going to solve this, he reports directly to the executive branch. His conflict of interest is too great to be a source of relief. There are constitutional violations of due process obviously, constitutional violations of cruel and unusual punishment, unlawful detention, so many torts it’s mind boggling and a whole host of other laws that could be used to not only gain freedom but to get the big damages awards that are needed to start some accountability. Right now Republicans do the risk v benefit, and a huge damages award and publicity from such a suit should change their calculations especially w public opinion shifting against these tactics. Judd, please facilitate that connection between your interview sources snd Mr. Crump. These well meaning immigration lawyers need to think outside the box. I’m a lawyer, and I can say without judgment it’s not unusual nor incompetent to work the lane your practice is in. But this needs bigger thinking. And strategic thinking. I googled the lawyer who is representing the Palestinian student who was retained, I don’t know if him but another lead Amir Makled but it’s easy to shop a case. This is where the GOP out plays us, they’d get one of their billionaire donors to pay for the suit (think Theil and Gawker to dig back a bunch of years)… now that would be fighting fire with fire. Hello Dem donors, time to do more than contribute to the DNC. These human beings need help and it’s not coming from the immigration court system or frankly from great reporting like this. We/they need and deserve more.