Maureen Johnson
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maureenjohnsonbooks.com
Maureen Johnson
@maureenjohnsonbooks.com
she/her
Author. Not the one from Rent.

https://maureenjohnsonbooks.com
Pinned
I can’t stress this enough to foreign friends: don’t come to the US now. Whatever rights we boast of having, those are off the table. Masked goons kidnap and kill people. However bad you think it is from the news, it’s worse and falling fast. You don’t want to sightsee in a falling empire.
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This is essentially the premise of the book I'm working on
Think of ICE's masked thugs -- committing murder in public, with impunity -- as members of a revived KKK. Trump's KKK goons carry federal badges.

ICE is a clear, present, and escalating danger to everyone.
January 13, 2026 at 2:41 AM
2026 is trying to win us back but doesn't know how.
January 12, 2026 at 11:36 PM
Good for them.
Students at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis are walking out to protest ICE days after a clash between U.S. Border Patrol agents and protesters at the school.

📸: Jerry Holt
January 12, 2026 at 9:53 PM
Now this is an idea I can get behind.
Dreamt @maureenjohnsonbooks.com ran a chain of dignified diners where you paid what you could and those who needed it always ate free. It was called MJ’s Place. It was the way things should be. The menu was simple and high class. Pets always ate free. Every Friday was a murder mystery dinner theater
January 12, 2026 at 5:42 PM
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LOGGING ON
January 12, 2026 at 1:59 PM
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This whole list is good but this is the key: they are coming to your town too, the time to organize is now not once they touch down.
5. Start getting your own community ready.

Meet your neighbors. Form Signal groups. Distribute whistles and organize trainings on how to be a legal observer. (There's probably an organization close to you that does stuff like this.)
January 12, 2026 at 2:10 PM
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We evacuated our kids out of Minneapolis this weekend and my spouse reports that as she drove them out of town she saw "multiple freeway exits where people are being pulled over." It feels like the Twin Cities is being subjugated by a hostile occupying force.
January 10, 2026 at 1:47 AM
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A woman recording an ICE agent tells him "Shame on you."

The agent responds, "Have you all not learned from the past couple of days?"

"Learned what?" she asks

Then he knocks her phone out of her hand
January 10, 2026 at 2:52 PM
As someone who has written YA for over 20 years this is something I’ve seen over and over: kids get it when dumb-ass adults do not. Trans and non-binary lives are not the fucking Large Hadron Collider.
Lmao apparently people near me are freaking out about a non binary teacher

And I am watching the entire community come together to dunk on the much smaller group of transphobic dipshits and it is DELICIOUS

The local newspaper even snarkily wrote about them and I am CRYING
January 10, 2026 at 4:00 AM
What can we all do? Make it known that ICE agents should have terrible days, every day. Just every day worse than the last and that we’re keeping score and the bill will come due. If they leave ICE, they get a little discount.
January 10, 2026 at 3:57 AM
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Anti-ICE protesters are having a rolling noise demo and protest in downtown Minneapolis targeting hotels where federal agents are reportedly staying -- starting at the Canopy by Hilton and going to the Renaissance Minneapolis Hotel. Police have just arrived as we are posting this.
January 10, 2026 at 3:17 AM
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at some point we're gonna have to have a real conversation about why we're still paying federal taxes to a regime that isn't using them to help anyone, but instead is using them to brutalize us
January 9, 2026 at 11:22 PM
This is actually the kind of thing we wanted.
New York City is the cultural capital of the world and art shouldn’t be a luxury only some of us can afford. I’m grateful for Under the Radar Theater Festival’s generosity and partnership towards that vision as they announce 1,500 free tickets for New Yorkers.
January 9, 2026 at 10:55 PM
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domestic terrorism
January 9, 2026 at 1:51 AM
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wow really helpful, thank you new york times
October 24, 2025 at 2:57 PM
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ICE/CBP just shot two people in Portland.
January 8, 2026 at 11:19 PM
I went offline to work for two more hours and it seems Iran has gone dark and is in revolt, because that is how 2026 is going. It is somehow even faster than 2025.
January 8, 2026 at 9:47 PM
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It would not surprise me in the least to learn Kristi Noem drinks blood
January 8, 2026 at 6:51 PM
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Um, you're not allowed to go door-to-door hoping to randomly find someone violating the law. You need a warrant. That's is basic Constitutional shit.
JD Vance: "It was a legitimate law enforcement operation. We were going door to door to try to find criminal illegal aliens and deport them from the United States ... say a prayer for that agent ... he deserves a debt of gratitude."
January 8, 2026 at 7:08 PM
Have something to turn in by 5pm today. Gotta put my rage in a bag. I'll open the bag later. Gotta find a bag. Gotta find a really strong bag.
January 8, 2026 at 5:00 PM
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via Minneapolis photographer Chris Juhn on Facebook
January 8, 2026 at 3:53 PM
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This is the other reason I can’t be bothered with the “discursive snark”

You’re asking snarky questions about Elon and having all white convos

This lady put on her mittens and went to talk to these boys

THE DAY AFTER A WOMAN GOT SHOT IN THE FACE
“Emerson does not have a mother today because one of you murdered a woman in cold blood yesterday.”
January 8, 2026 at 4:40 PM
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I reshared @siembranc.bsky.social's excellent toolkit "How We Dealt with Border Patrol" in NC just this morning in my newsletter before this horrible killing. It's worth people reading and then acting on: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Toolkit: how we dealt with Border Patrol
In November 2025, Border Patrol announced it would be coming to Charlotte, North Carolina. We only had a few days’ notice. Just like in Chicago and Los Angeles, they weren’t coming to “keep the peace....
docs.google.com
January 8, 2026 at 2:07 AM
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There are more of us than there will ever be of them.
January 8, 2026 at 1:29 AM
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A Black man named Keith Porter was shot and killed by an ICE officer on New Year’s Eve.

Marimar Martinez was shot five times by an ICE officer in Chicago who went on to brag about leaving seven holes in her body.

This is not new but it is expanding.
Your reminder that what happened to Renee Nicole Good is something that happens regularly in America. This is not new, but it is an expanded version of militarized people targeting Black people in particular.

From ICE detention to murder with impunity, we've been doing it. Now it's broadened.
January 8, 2026 at 12:21 AM