For 2 yrs my band has met up weekly to jam out our COVID anxieties with a view to what we're scheduled for in 17 days: a paid gig in a prime time slot at a venue we love for an enthusiastic crowd. Hoping we'll actually get to do this more than I've hoped for anything in awhile.
Can 5 middle-aged fully boosted guys make it 2 weeks through this surge without even one positive among us? Will live music even be a thing by then? Will I ever be able to solo over Freddie King's "Goin' Down"? In a just world I would only be stressing over one of these things
Details soon, but if you're in greater Boston and not unreasonably attached to your face we're ready to rock it all the way off on 1/7! Here's just a little taste (I'm on keys)
doubling down on a cruel, lawless Trump program while proudly pointing to a memo which ensures that the federal government doesn't call the people we are condeming to deprivation & death "illegal aliens"
A Massachusetts driver's license costs $50. The immigration plan now before the Senate which is apparently just too radical to live would make the work permit required for non-citizens to obtain that license cost EIGHTEEN TIMES more than the license itself. For the right to WORK
Nine hundred and ten dollars for a piece of plastic with your name and photo on it which gives you the right to have your labor stolen
Nine hundred and ten dollars
Registering and regulating everyone who uses an extremely dangerous mode of personal transportation is considered a public good for all; states eat the cost
Yet working legally in jobs without which the US would collapse is a *privilege* for which immigrants must bear every cent
There are so many other things wrong with this that i should start with but the music catapults the whole thing from a bad joke to a surreal journey into incipient madness
This is not something that needs to "improve." Fortunately there's such an easy answer to all of this though: #FreeThemAll and end all U. S. immigration detention
1/ FINALLY: #TPSElSalvador#TPSNepal#TPSNicaragua & other #TPS designations extended from current expiration of 10/4/21 to 12/31/22. Welcome news, but far short of what needs to happen for hundreds of thousands of ppl living on the edges of lawful status
2/ The most imminent problem is documentation of the lawful status of #TPS beneficiaries. Bc it has been on life support via judicial orders after Trump canceled it, recipients were never issued new ID & have only had them extended by law. Try explaining that to DMVs & employers
3/ USCIS is encouraging them to file for new work permits, but this is an additional 495 in filing fees. It should not be. It's not their fault. Waive this.