Anyway, here’s what you’re getting today:

By the last Sunday of the first month of 2026, the federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been directly responsible for 9 deaths. In one month. At that rate they will kill more than 100 people in a year. 32 deaths were ascribed to ICE in 2025. This is, of course, a direct result of the “big beautiful bill” that puts Americans further into debt in order to cut taxes even further for billionaires. And as our pockets are looted to make people already rich richer, we are told that the people who are actually stealing from us are our neighbors. The ones I see pulling out of their driveways the same time I am (5 am), while most of our community sleeps.

On Instagram I shared a video summarizing this great post by Kathryn Anne Edwards, aka @kedseconomist. In that video she shares that ICE now has 5 times the budget of all other federal law enforcement agencies in the United States combined. 80 cents of every dollar in the United States being spent by federal law enforcement is to pursue one violation, which is a misdemeanor. I started listing crimes that are getting 20 cents to pursue but then realized I don’t need to. Because it’s all of the rest of them. Bear in mind that even before this bill, immigration enforcement doubled the rest of the federal law enforcement budget (yes, even during the Obama years).

Even when you incorporate every state, county, and city law enforcement agency, we taxpayers are paying more than 50 cents on every single dollar on enforcing immigration laws. As Edwards puts it:

“Policing 330 million people in the US and enforcing nearly all laws that are on the books gets twice as much money as policing 14 million people in violation of one.”

14 million sounds like a lot of people, but it’s 4% of our population. Even if that fraction of our population committed crimes at a higher rate than documented US-born citizens did (which they don’t), that’s an obscene use of our resources. I struggled with math, but even I know that 4% is a lot less than half. Where was the Department of Government Efficiency on that one? Firing park rangers, of course. An agency that in 2024 turned 3.5 billion dollars into 55.6 billion dollars.

We are told that undocumented Americans use more than their fair share of infrastructure (some of which is built and maintained with their own hands), because they don’t pay income tax. That may be true, though there are a lot of people born here who also don’t pay income tax, or pay a tiny fraction based on their income. And in Utah, at least, income tax is a difficult revenue source to predict and budget from. Much more dependable is sales tax, which is paid by everyone. There are not a lot of resources available to undocumented people, but there’s one that seems to drive people crazy, and that’s that they can still get medical care. The only medical care available, though, are emergency room visits. Part of the big debate that shut down the government was to remove that. I don’t want to get bleak while describing an inevitable scenario where someone is refused service for emergency care, but the end result of this kind of rhetoric and law-making is that one of us could be waiting to be admitted to have a broken arm set while a family watches their child die–feet away from life-saving care.

There is another group of people whose purchases don’t benefit Utah in taxes, but whose activities create an outsized negative impact on our safety and natural resources: illegal fireworks. Is it weird that many of my law and order neighbors with thin blue line stickers also seem to blow off the most Wyoming-bought artillery? It is to me! Wildfire fighters could be risking their lives protecting houses and wildlife habitat threatened by a firework called “Unicorn Puke.”

Let’s say one of these “we live in a nation of laws” dads drives his teen son to Wyoming and purchases illegal fireworks for him, and that son when caught with the fireworks isn’t handed a fine and a court appearance. Instead he’s thrown into the back of a van and taken to an undisclosed prison 18 hours away without any way of contacting him. Of course this is a crappy analogy, because I can’t think of a single time that buying fireworks across the state border was necessary to escape torture and murder (though I really want to hear the story if there is one).

I don’t usually get angry responses to my posts anymore. I’ve probably winnowed out a lot of the people who would be angry, but reposting this video led to more annoyed responses than I’ve gotten in quite some time. It’s weird to me because it’s such a reasonable set of questions to ask, and done in a very non-confrontational way. One person wanted to let me know about the fraud in Minneapolis, which is none of my business, was investigated by our current administration already, and not something that needs to be enforced by roving gangs of masked gunmen. Another woman–who is a real person because her Facebook (and employer) were easily found on Facebook–said, and I wish I’d saved the screenshot, that I look like a “<f-slur> soyboy.” This person didn’t follow me, so the only reason I can assume she found herself in my Instagram stories is that she’s got a secret thing for well-dressed guys with low cholesterol. To which all I can say is “that’s very flattering but I’m married.”

I’ve also seen people who I’ve never seen speak up online about controversial topics share their consternation, and I see you and am proud of you. Because you haven’t been a constant annoyance, like I have, you still have a lot of people who most need to hear these kinds of things in your orbit. I imagine you probably got pushback, and if you’re new to that kind of thing, that’s really upsetting. I hope your conversations were fruitful, and if not, I hope you’re doing OK. If you need to talk about it, let me know.

If you want to argue, though, I’m not your guy. An ICU nurse was murdered by masked men who were defended by the most powerful people in our government. I don’t have time for that. I’ve got a Cooper’s hawk outside my office window enjoying a well-earned meal to watch.

Sunday wrap-up Records: Tyler Childers, Purgatory Neil Young, Harvest Jimmy Eat World, Bleed American Florence and the Machine, Everybody Scream Lord of the Rings Trilogy/The Hobbit selected tracks

Read: Wildfire Days, Kelly Ramsey

This week’s videos:

On my Monday hike I made two videos, one about mountain chickadees and one about why birds are important, even if they’re annoying sometimes.

We binged three seasons of the AMC show Dark Winds. We’re really loving it, especially the incredible casting and acting. I also really liked The Lowdown, starring Ethan Hawke. Both are noir crime dramas, with the Lowdown being more of a comedy-drama.

I am taking any and all submissions. Poems, art, essays. The only request is that the fit into the general vibe of what I do online, these include: ecology, domestic violence and sexual assault advocacy, books, recipes. If you’ve sent me something already and I haven’t posted it, I may have lost it. Unless you sent me the lemon vegetable soup, which I hope to make soon.

Also, if you make stuff that you sell online, I would love to feature your products as we try to limit consumption of corporate products that are destroying our environment, freedom, and health.

Feedback, chats, questions? Email [email protected]