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Expatriot

@expatriot.bsky.social

5.9K followers 1.1K following 15K posts

A refugee from a torn and broken land suffering under the iron fist of a mad despot.

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Expatriot @expatriot.bsky.social · 1d

So just to recap. ICE can legally grab any minority. Or, sorry, anyone who "looks unamerican" and then throw them into a GEO group prison for however the fuck long they want, where they will be FORCED LABOR to the tune of 60 hours a week for $10. Not an hour. Not a day. Ten dollars.

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CAKE @thebandcake.bsky.social · 18h

The phone number for the U.S. Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121. #epstein

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Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 19h

“I’m a cop. I am not supposed to feel dread. He’s a brown person. HE’S supposed to feel dread!”

Bari nods sympathetically.

Mark Misoshnik 🏴 @misoshnik.bsky.social · 1d

Lmao is this supposed to be a bad thing?

A tweet from Bari Weiss that says “"It's shaken me to my core," a lieutenant said of Mamdani's unexpected victory in June. "The absolute dread I feel is palpable.
"
Today in @TheFP our @Olivia_Reingold talks to the cops who say they will walk if Zohran Mamdani is elected in November:”

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Carl Beijer @carlbeijer.bsky.social · 17h

"If you are worried how to pay the bills you are a selfish little pig with no inner life"

Friends, this man is right-wing

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George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 @gtconway.bsky.social · 19h

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 9h

Border Patrol “attempted to arrest a plumber working inside a Logan Heights home but left empty-handed after the homeowner refused them entry.

The homeowner told agents she would not allow them inside because the warrant they presented did not include her address and lacked a judge's signature.”

Federal immigration operations target San Diego neighborhoods, sparking community resistance

Federal immigration agents conducted operations in Logan Heights and Southeast San Diego on Friday, with community members capturing footage of the enforcement actions.

www.10news.com

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 18h

🤡

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Nedal Al-Amari @nedalalamari.bsky.social · 4h

Margaret Brennan: This wasn’t a mistake; it was a deliberate target.

President Ahmad Al-Shar’a: Of course. These targets were intentional and served one purpose, to force people out of these areas.

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UAE Exotic Falconry & Finance𓅃 @falconryfinance.bsky.social · 8h

The burbs is a perfect movie

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omgisme @omgisme.bsky.social · 12h

No, Christopher Columbus did not discover America; the land had been populated by Indigenous peoples for thousands of years before his arrival in 1492. Furthermore, Norse explorer Leif Erikson is believed to have reached North America centuries earlier.

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Mira of Kyiv 🇺🇦 @reshetz.bsky.social · 10h

An air raid starts while you’re at the railway station at 5am and you just think “but what if WE are their preferred war crime for today”

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onion person @junlper.beer · 9h

just found out that about a week ago, while george santos has been in solitary confinement, that he wrote that due to the inhuman conditions he is facing he is now pro prison reform. just unreal stuff honestly

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, I paced in circles like a restless ghost.
The windows were frosted, allowing only a faint suggestion of daylight and nightfall, enough to remind me that time was passing, though I had little sense of how.
The shower water was always cold, and my only amenities were the steel toilet and sink fused together in the corner. It was a miserable existence. Yet, as I soon learned, misery can always be deepened
On September 7th, the warden's office saw fit to move me into something far worse, an even smaller cell, no more than seven by nine feet, coated in filth, reeking of neglect, and utterly devoid of natural light or ventilation.
In that suffocating shoebox, there is no room to walk, no hint of the sun, no trace of humanity. The silence is crushing.
The air feels stale. The walls themselves seem to close in. I keep asking myself: will this barbaric confinement ever end? Is this legal under our Constitution, or have I simply been erased from the protections of due process?
Most haunting of all, will I survive it? With no access to my family, no calls, no emails, and with letters that may never leave this building, I live in total darkness, cut off from the world I once fought to serve.
Let me be blunt: I find Warden Kelly's so-called "protection" not only unpalatable, but cruel and unjustifiable. My time here has opened my eyes to a truth far too many ignore: America desperately needs prison reform.

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George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 @gtconway.bsky.social · 7h

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 11h

Translation: they gave him a plane and filled his family’s pockets

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onion person @junlper.beer · 10h

everything rightwingers eat somehow looks like poop

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George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 @gtconway.bsky.social · 9h

There is absolutely zero chance that a man who took $50,000 in cash in a paper bag from an FBI agent on camera would have been appointed to any position by any other president.

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 13h

The 400 richest Americans are now worth a record $6.6 trillion.

The entire bottom 50% of America is worth just $4.2 trillion.

Read that back.

When 400 people control more wealth than half a country’s population, we have a very serious problem.

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Republicans Against Trumpism @rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social · 10h

Nothing to see here

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Robin Of Broccoli @robinofbroccoli.bsky.social · 8h

We should rescind the peace prize awarded to Obama for disarming. He never disarmed and instead he started 5 more foreign wars.

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Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · 1d

Pope Leo at Jubilee Mass: “Let us take care to avoid any exploitation of the faith that could lead to labelling those who are different — often the poor — as enemies, ‘lepers’ to be avoided and rejected.” www.vatican.va/content/leo-...

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 15h

Ultimately, the death of US manufacturing is about this attitude. It's easy to say "buy american or stfu" because virtue signaling is free. But it's hard to actually sustain a business because many Americans simply don't want to pay what it costs to produce things ethically in this country

Someone on Twitter replies to me: "meh. buy american or stfu."

Two hours later, in a separate thread, the write: "$30 for a single button-up is ridiculous unless it is decent quality silk."

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 15h

But after not getting enough orders, the company closed. Managing partner Kenneth Ragland said: “Lots of people talk about Made in the USA as being so necessary, but when the rubber meets the road, most Americans want cheap goods, which do not make it easy for US firms to survive.”

Excerpt reads: Garland Apparel Group is working to find the next occupant for the town’s long-standing Garland Shirt Company after a lack of orders to meet basic costs necessitate furloughs — and ultimately the closure — of the factory.

“The factory was placed on furlough in November. It was our intention to return to work, however, orders needed to keep the factory open and functional, did not materialize,” Kenneth Ragland, managing partner for Garland Apparel Group, told The Independent. “The factory required a minimum number of orders to meet basic costs and wages. The aggregate total of orders we had were simply far too low to support day-to day operations.”

During the period of November through today, company leaders have been working with several parties “who have a desire to acquire the factory,” Ragland noted.

“One transaction is now close to completion. I cannot opine on the buyer nor their plans, but I know they are North Carolina based and they have need for factory capacity, which Garland can provide,” Ragland stated.

Excerpt reads: Despite bringing back a majority of the workforce, and enjoying success for a couple years, the factory was fighting an uphill battle in the long run.

“The factory suffered from Brooks Brothers owning it too long, from Brooks not investing in basic upkeep or in better systems, and ultimately, the lack of interest in Made in the USA,” Ragland stated bluntly. “Lots of people talk about Made in the USA as being so necessary, but when the rubber meets the road, most Americans want cheap goods which does not make it easy for U.S. firms to survive.”

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 15h

The Garland Shirt Factory plugged along for a few years, making again for Brooks Brothers, Raleigh Denim, and customers in Korea and Japan. They even made hall-of-fame coats for Ultimate Fighting Championships and opened a new facility to produce uniforms for US Navy.

Excerpt says: “We are ecstatic about the recent sale of the former Brooks Brothers plant. This is a boost for all the citizens of Garland, the many employees who have been out of work for the past year, and for the continued economic growth of our hometown,” said Garland Mayor Winifred Hill Murphy. “We are so thankful that Mr. Ragland has invested in Garland, Sampson County, and our people. We appreciate Sampson County and the State of North Carolina for helping to facilitate this sale. After the pandemic and the many gloomy challenges that the town has faced, we finally feel a ray of sunshine and see a beautiful rainbow.”

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 15h

But a year later, hope emerged. The Garland Apparel Group acquired the company in 2021 and brought back 100 of its former 150 workers. Garland's mayor said: "After the pandemic and the many gloomy challenges that the town has faced, we finally feel a ray of sunshine and see a beautiful rainbow."

A screencap of a TV news segment. It shows the factory. Text at the bottom reads: Garland Shirt Factory to Reopen.

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 15h

When Brooks Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020, it shuttered its US factories. Among them was the Garland Shirt Factory in Garland, North Carolina. Brooks Brothers acquired them in 1982, making it the center for their USA shirt production. For a while, it seemed all was lost.

Outside the Garland Shirt Company factory. There's a wall with the company name.

A shelf full of button-up Brooks Brothers shirts.

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Expatriot @expatriot.bsky.social · 8h

Oh, of course this dynamic changes if you're a prison company, say Geo group, and you use slave labor, and some org with a 300 billion dollar budget starts enslaving entire races. That drives the initial costs way down

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 15h

I interviewed one of these factory workers in Los Angeles. She gets paid three cents to sew a zipper, five cents for a collar, and seven cents to prepare the top part of a skirt.

This is how fast fashion brands like Fashion Nova can put "Made in USA" tags on dress shirts that retail for only $25

"Every day at 6 am, Bilma boards a bus that shuttles her to downtown Los Angeles’s Fashion District. When she reaches the garment factory an hour later, she starts working immediately, without punching in. Like thousands of other garment workers in the United States, Bilma’s wages aren’t tethered to the clock but rather to the quantity of operations she executes. Three cents for a zipper or sleeve, five cents for a collar, and seven cents to prepare the top part of a skirt before she passes it onto the next sewing operator in line. Assembling an entire dress earns her a mere 15 cents. Bilma toils away on garments primarily for fast-fashion labels such as Fashion Nova, Lulus, and Lucy in the Sky, who prioritize quickly stocking on-trend items over the quality of materials. These companies peddle things like $80 maxi dresses, $25 poplin dress shirts, and $5 crop tops, all modeled by beautiful people and bedecked with the tantalizing promise of low-cost glamor."

"This worker payment system, known as “piecework” in the garment industry, is how US-based manufacturers can sidestep labor laws that require companies to pay at least the minimum wage. Rather than compensating Bilma for the exhausting 12-hour shifts—a regimen that, according to LA County’s minimum wage requirement, should yield $202.80—her pay is determined by the individual tasks she performs, which can fluctuate daily. Despite her adept handling of hundreds of garments a day, Bilma’s earnings typically linger around $50 per day. That’s $300 weekly for the standard six-day grind and $350 if she opts for Sunday labor. Doing what she can with this modest income, Bilma spends $400 a month to live in a two-bedroom apartment with six other people, some of whom are day laborers. In this crowded arrangement, two occupants squeeze into each bedroom, while two more lay claim to the living room. Bilma sleeps in the corner of the bustling kitchen."