First, a question…do you think it is a good thing or a bad thing that when I type the letters “em” into my search engine, it defaults to the link to the Email Me page of my senior US Senator?

I had such a juxtaposition this Saturday. I was basking in the glow of watching the Venerable Monks on the Walk for Peace heading towards Dorothea Dix and later the State Capitol building and writing my blog post on what an incredible experience it was to have been with them this week (see that post at: https://blissfullu.com/2026/01/24/the-walk-for-peace-came-to-the-triangle-area-of-nc-and-i-was-there/). In between, I was watching my favorite historical commenter on poltical events, Heather Cox Richardson, on her live weekly YouTube “What the Heck Just Happened,” discussing the week’s events with fellow historian Joanne Freeman. During that event, Heather said she saw in the comments that something bad had happened but she wasn’t going to look into it until after their live session was done.

I went to my favorite news source (for news only, no longer for editorial content), my hometown newspaper The Washington Post. They had breaking news about another shooting by Homeland Security officers in Minneapolis. I went back to my monks and my happy place. However, I knew more bad news was coming.

It came in drips and drabs, following the pattern of the killing of Renee Good. Alex Pretti, an American citizen who was an Intensive Care nurse at a veterans medical facility, had been shot 10 times? by Border Control agents. Kristi Noem labeled him a “violent protester” who threatened law enforcement with a gun and so had been shot by an agent in “self defense.” But multiple vidoes showed that his only crimes were holding up a cell phone, trying to help a woman who had been shoved to the ground by an agent, and legally owning a gun tucked into his waistband. If trying to lift your head off the ground in frigid weather while 7 or 8 Homeland Security are pushing you down consistutes “resisting arrest,” then perhaps he is guilty of that. But despite multiple agents holding him down, and one agent removing his gun from his body, one or more agents found it necessary to shoot him up to 10 times. They then, according to reports, refused to allow medical personnel to provide him care or for Minnesota law enforcement investigators WITH A WARRANT FROM A JUDGE to have access to the crime scene.

Like Renee Good, this is a very sad and seemingly unnecessary death of someone who appears to have been a good person–clearly not a dangerous “domestic terrorist” who threatens American lives. People in Minneapolis are turning out in droves for vigils remembering the victim and in protests against their occupation by ICE and Border Patrol. But what are we in the rest of the country supposed to do about this?

Personally, I took Sunday to pray and reflect and educate myself about this entire situation.

This morning, I took political action.

In the next few days, the Senate will be voting on a bill to fund the federal government. (To those who ask, Again? Yes, again. The vote that reopened the government last year just delayed the bill to January 2026.) Included in that bill is another $10 BILLION DOLLARS for Homeland Security, on top of the $170 BILLION DOLLARS they got in the so-called “big beautiful bill.” This funding bill passed the US House of Representative last week and will be voted on by the Senate this week.

So RIGHT NOW is the time to contact your US Senators to urge them NOT to vote to give Homeland Security even more money without some significant reforms in their operations, and perhaps their leadership.

There are a few tidbits for those of us who are concerned about Homeland Security’s operations. There is $20 million for body cameras (which are clearly needed) and for training (ditto). There is also $20 million for independent oversight of the detention centers housing immigrants being investigated or deported. But that is less than 5% of the total funding. There are no other restriction on ICE and co…you know, like actually abiding by the Constitution.

So this is the time to let your Senators, ESPECIALLY your Republican Senators, know that Homeland Security is out of control and you expect them to withhold additional funding until the rights and safety of Americans, guaranteed by the US Constitution, have been secured.

If you don’t know how to contact your US Senators, here are some resources.

The easiest way is to use the website https://5calls.org. It helps you identify your Senators and gives you the numbers to call them. They even give you a script of what to say to them on various issues. You can find the script for this issue at: https://5calls.org/issue/dhs-budget-ice-defund/

The only issue with this is that the Congressional phone lines will probably be overwhelmed because lots of us are terribly upset over what we saw this weekend. So you may get a busy signal and have to keep on calling. Fortunately? maybe? many of us are stuck at home due to Winter Storm Fern. Just put on a movie or read and book and just keep hitting redial until you get through. You can call both their federal offices and their local/state offices. Just keep calling.

The other thing you can do is to email your US Senators. Obviously, that’s my preference. Action Network has a function set up to identify your representatives by your address and supplies a script to abolish ICE at: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-to-abolish-ice. However, that script is about abolishing ICE, not refusing to fund it without more protections for us. But you could copy the 5calls script and replace the Action Network script with that text.

Or you can do it the old fashioned way like me…actually writing your own original email to your Senators. You can find the contact information for your Senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm. That includes phone numbers, email addresses, and even physical addresses if you want to write them a physical letter. (Note: I wrote a bunch of postcards last week as part of Free America Walkout. See my post at: https://blissfullu.com/2026/01/21/fight-back-with-fierce-joy-fbwfj-2/.)

I’ve heard different things about which of these is the most effective way to contact your congressional representatives. I say the most effective one is the one you will actually do.

If you are feeling bad about Minnesota, I encourage you to do one of them. TODAY. Like the monks, this opportunity to make a difference won’t be around for long. I know that I, at least, feel better when I do something instead of just sitting around and worrying about the loss of my Constitutional rights…because that is what Homeland Security has been doing lately. Who knows how the vote will go. But I would rather be in action and know that I at least used my rights as a citizen to ask my representatives to use their power to protect me than to sit around feeling helpless.

And if your Bliss is supporting ICE and Homeland Security as it has been showing up, then I say the same thing. Let your opinion be known to your Senators as well. Democracy thrives when we can express and work through our differences. So I say practice your democratic right to state your opinion to your representatives, even if it is different from mine. I know that I got complacent about our American Democracy. So I love anyone engaging in our democratic process, even on the other side. I would rather we disagree via the democratic process than allow the democratic process to disintegrate from nonuse.