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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 12h

How could they miss:

KAVANAUGH:
STOP!

Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 14h

Like an ICE goon cares about "certified" papers.

They've got a quota to meet. And when this all blows up, they'll all have been out of town whenever a Kavanaugh Stop happened.

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 20h

As if all the erstwhile Proud Boys and other new hires would be able, much less willing, to recognize a certificate of citizenship or certificate of naturalization.

Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 20h

The INS attorney who gave me my certificate *strongly* urged me to get a passport, which he said would be far earlier to replace than the citizenship papers. I had the passport within three weeks.

Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 20h

I did *have* my green card, though usually at home in a drawer. I'm not sure that at, say, 27, a card issued two decades before, with a photo from slightly earlier, would have convinced an INS agent who wasn't inclined to be convinced.

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 20h

When I was 22 and living in a rural county, I went to the courthouse to register to vote. An employee at the clerk's office looked at my application.

"It says you were born in Canada."
"Yes, I was."
"Huh. Are you a U.S. citizen?"
"Yes, I am."
"All right. Raise your right hand..."

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 20h

At no time in that 30-year period, and certainly not in the 21 years I was an adult in that period, did I once have to *document* my claim to citizenship.

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 20h

But either my parents never *applied* for my certificate of citizenship, or it got lost along the way. I only ever traveled to Canada until my 30s. Then I decided I should get one, so I could get a passport.

Issued when I was 32, the certificate confirms I became a citizen when I was 11.

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 20h

For .30 years, that was my only documentation.

Living in Detroit, I crossed the border a lot, with my parents and on my own--sometimes just to go out to eat.

.I became a US citizen when my mother was naturalized; I was eleven at the time, and remember her fretting about the test.

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 20h

On the "never enforced" front:

I came to the US a month before my third birthday, along with my mom, an older sibling, and a younger one. My dad had been working in the US for about a year.

My brothers and I eventually received green cards, which included the date of entry to the US...

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 1d

To be fair, he’s no different from any of the next 20 in line.

Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 1d

Well, unless you make your own inflatable frog costume, you HAVE to pay someone for it.

Isn’t that what he means?

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 1d

Or, require them to have all their healthcare pre-approved by RFK Jr.

Or Don Jr.

Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 1d

I often say a serving size of potato chips is one bag.

One ounce? One serving.
Two? Four? Eight? Twelve?

If the bag doesn’t come with its own set of wheels, it’s one serving.

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 1d

My last job (in earthquake territory): every desk had a dust mask and a whistle under it, in a bag. Conference rooms had multiple bags.

The whistle as a call for help (or attention): takes less breath than shouting, carries farther, can be kept up much longer.

And says nothing "bad."

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 1d

“Well, we haven’t. The first week a Democrat somehow becomes president, we are going to stare decisis his executive ass all the way back to the Articles of Confederation.”

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 2d

Learning styles explain everything.

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 2d

Hi, Sarah!

It was great to meet, wasn't it? Not everyone is as lucky as you.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 2d

This was part of a comment about institutional memory and ICE, but slightly relevant. (You might know this story already.)

bsky.app/profile/dave...

Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 2d

It’s only been five years since the last child of a Civil War veteran passed away and the Pentagon could stop paying her benefit.

www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/l...

The Last Person to Receive a Civil War Pension Dies at Age 90

Irene Triplett, whose father defected from the Confederate Army and enlisted with the Union, collected $73.13 a month

www.smithsonianmag.com

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 2d

This is how you know that Trump, Vought, and Miller:

-- Have never been in the military
-- Have never worried about a pension (or Social Security)

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 2d

Add to that: “…veterans benefits and services, on which the federal government spent $326 billion in 2024.”

That’s not the Pentagon; it’s Veterans Affairs. See under “The competition of defense spending” about halfway down:

www.pgpf.org/article/budg...

Budget Basics: National Defense

The national defense budget funds a wide range of activities and represents a significant share of overall federal spending.

www.pgpf.org

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 2d

"Has worked" is a pretty generous take.

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 2d

The principle that so-called originalists most adhere to comes from Benjamin Franklin:

“So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.”

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 2d

The most telling line in the article:

"...elevating the power of the Republican presidency..."

Because no one would believe for five seconds that Roberts would have ruled along the same lines if these same questions had come up during the term of a Democratic president.

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Dave Ferguson @daveferguson.bsky.social · 2d

Some so-called ethnic parishes (e.g., mostly Italian, mostly Polish, one I recall that was mostly Chaldean) might have done that, like for the patron saint's feast or something. It was not part of life at St. Brigid's.

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