You know, sometimes when I don’t write something right away, although is something on my mind. Such as the case with my writing this post a few days after receiving a thoroughly ugly comment.

This was in response to another post I had written. Specifically about the two West Whiteland 7th precinct Republican committeemen and their shall we say performance last week. It was those two gentlemen and one who did not identify himself other than being from Ship Road who referred to little brown men.

I am still at a loss for words for this performance at a public meeting. And I’m not saying people don’t have their right to address their government. They do and our Constitution allows it. Our forefathers fought blood and died for it, but it’s what they said. It’s how can so much hate be fomented into three minutes or less? How can they spew hatred like this?

So I discovered these two Republican committeemen seem to have education in their backgrounds as in being teachers. I’m not sure if one is still a teacher or not but the other one most assuredly is and parents are very, very concerned.

I will note we haven’t heard anything out of the Republican Party of West Whiteland about this incident have we?

Anyway, on Saturday, I received a very vile comment as mentioned:

In case you can’t read the screenshot of what the lovely Olivia said here it is:

The immigration is harming my quality of life. Legal immigration.

Why should I have to experience degraded quality of life for your vision of how the world should be?

Your position HARMS me and HARMS my family. If I object, you then label me with pejorative labels and personal attack, emotional blackmail, character assassination- I am ignorant, racist, a xenophobe.

Do you have any idea what it is like having people harm you, and act morally-superior, and attack you if you complain that you are being harmed? “Sit down, shut up, you are just racist, you will be harmed and you will LIKE it or say NOTHING. We are superior to you, we know best.”

I have no idea if this is a real or made up name. It doesn’t really matter it just kind of blows my mind. Like many of these comments, it was left late at night. I didn’t see it until Valentine’s Day morning. Immigration is personally harming her life? HOW? What kind of a nut bag is she? Never mind don’t answer it. I know what kind of a nut bag they are. My opinion harms nothing, their opinion destroys lives.

And then there are the people who leave these insane comments about how former administrations treated immigration enforcement in this way. They did?

Also also interesting to know I think immigrants should be legal. But what is different today than what has previously existed is the way things are enforced, correct? In my opinion it’s literally like watching 1930s Germany come to life on social media. And then we see these people that are just kind of being profiled and then surrounded and pounced on in the midst of our communities, leaving the rest of us at risk and terrified, and then what happens to them? Is there actual due process? Where are the warrants for these people?

What we see is terrifying chaos. It’s not orderly. Honestly, this is no law-enforcement we’ve ever known. And we’re a country founded by immigrants.

What have we become?

And the thing is this some of these people that are being targeted? They are people who are immigrants have been following the guidelines and working a green card program, etc.

Ask anyone that lived from World War II or had relatives who lived through World War II and they will tell you this is indeed like 1930s Germany with social media.

So it was like a gift when I discovered something this morning about a small town in Pennsylvania.

So well, some people like to say I am this elitist, horrible human being ruining their life like that woman who left a comment this weekend, I am just one of millions of literally immigrant stories of this country. And that’s how we all started no matter how many years ago some of our families came here more than two centuries ago.

The town’s name is Roseto. It is the very embodiment of the immigrant American dream. it was even featured on PBS’s The American Experience.

I never knew this town existed. And part of my DNA is very much Italian American. It’s really cool people from a similarly named area of Italy. So they immigrated here to escape poverty and re-created their village in Pennsylvania.

Here is the borough website:

With the founding of this borough, they became the first 100% Italian American borough in the United States. It was incorporated in 1912 and those who immigrated here did so to work in slate quarries. Apparently there were also mills and I guess sewing factories. The first immigrants arrived around 1882 according to what I’ve read. They were from Roseto Valfortore in the Apulia region of Italy.

It was described as this area became a self-sufficient And close knit enclave. The area was also studied in the 1960s because of its low rate of heart disease known as “the Roseto effect.”

Roseto incidentally means “rose garden.”

The most recent article I could find was from 2016 and it was about a resident who had passed away at 100.

https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/slate-belt/2016/01/roseto_effect_carmen_ruggiero.html

There was something in Huffington Post in 2008:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-mystery-of-the-roseta_b_73260

So imagine if immigrants like that had not come to this country? And Italians were totally discriminated against. My grandfather and his brothers had a factory in Philadelphia. They had to change the name during World War II because they didn’t want anti-Italian American sentiment to kill their business.

As a kid and I wasn’t particularly ethnic looking, I was occasionally called any number of derogatory names like Dago or Wop when we first moved to the Main Line. That was one of my early introductions to the Lower Merion School District. It was funny they never said much about my Irish ancestry or German. Just the Italian.

But I do remember the stories my maternal grandfather who was Irish American told me. He told me about the little signs in the shop windows of Philadelphia that said “Irish need not apply.” and his mother, an American citizen, was in service to the Cassatt family in Haverford. She was the summer housekeeper at the location we now know as Merion Cricket Club.

I think it’s almost bizarre at times how this country is founded on immigrants can be so horrible to subsequent generations of immigrants.

I read this amazing, albeit brief, essay this weekend.

https://immigrantlypod.com/blog/the-immigrant-experience-why-we-need-to-tell-it-all

The “Immigrant Experience:” Why We Need to Tell it All.

We live in an extremely complex world that attempts to make sense of itself by generalizing issues, experiences, and people. It happens everywhere. We hear these generalizations from our world leaders to the people in our communities. What happens, instead, is we inhibit our ability to properly understand each other. …..This is why we need to tell each and every story. When you elevate the individual narratives of immigrants, you’re not only made aware of the rich complexities and differences, but the ways in which we all share common ground.

It’s not a very long essay, but I felt it was a powerful one. I only left an excerpt here. I suggest you read the whole thing.

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2026/0130/europe-ice-immigration-alex-pretti-foreign-relations-us

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2026/01/11/the-us-born-unemployment-rate-rose-after-trump-reduced-immigration/

These people that want to say immigrants are the reason for misfortune. I have to ask them are they really? I mean we’re all responsible for our own lives aren’t we?

And how can people, even some I am related to who are literally descended from immigrants be so horrible about immigrants? I just don’t understand it.

I am not advocating for immigrants who are here illegally per se. But often their story is very different than we imagine or very different than just being not here legally.

We all are descended from immigrants. So why are we so ugly about them?

America is literally a melting pot.

But I suppose someone will think it’s a bad position that I’m asking these questions or thinking these thoughts. But hey, it’s also afforded to me under the United States Constitution is it not? These people think that theirs should be the only voice. To them I pose a simple question. How would you feel if you no longer had the ability to have that voice?

If we don’t change the trajectory of this country, that could be something we face for real.

I still say it’s pretty goddamn sad that people that included at least one teacher spouted this hatred at a public meeting, don’t you agree?

That’s all. Happy Presidents’ Day.

I don’t know how to begin other than diving right in. Two West Whiteland Republican Committee members named Mike Winterode and Chris Ousey spoke at public comment along with a 3rd guy who did not identify himself other than he lived on Ship Road. It was like the whackadoodle twilight zone.

Seriously. Start around the 45 minute mark on what I am sharing.

Now did the two gentlemen who identified themselves also have to also identify themselves at the meeting as West Whiteland Republican Committee People? Don’t honestly know the answer to that, but since they are the West Whiteland Precinct 7 guys were they also there representing the West Whiteland Republican Committee? I can actually ask that. Does Chair Beverly Pancott know about this? Does she have a comment?

Look I know people have different opinions about those frozen feds visiting our communities like storm troopers. BUT please listen to what they said. Some standout things include:

“Performative politics.”

“Illegal aliens unvetted.”

“Your resolution will attract more illegal aliens.”

“Little brown men with carpenter belts.”

“Chinese nationals…and fentanyl deaths.”

Mr. Winterode is a regular with things that make him uncomfortable. He shows up in articles about transgender stuff in WCASD in 2022 for example:

Parent Michael Winterode of West Whiteland Township offered to bring two women who went through the transgender transition, and regretted it, to speak at a school assembly.

He was also part of the ban book craziness. I think he was a teacher? Is he still? Now Mr. Ousey? He is currently a teacher in the WCASD is he not?

I just can’t with their comments. It’s ok to have an opposing point of view. The way those three men behaved was not ok. It’s that simple.

And the West Whiteland Republican Committee should look into quality not phoning it in candidates if they are so upset, but they don’t. They should be embarrassed, but they won’t be.

This hubbub was over the West Whiteland resolution over frozen feds. They stated plainly they cooperate with criminal warrants if asked, not civil. They also stated that the frozen feds don’t notify locals. They just show up, which of course is part of the problem. How they show up over civil enforcement is the problem and one would think grown ass men would get that. But no….they had to go all MAGA because if you aren’t exactly like them, you are bad. Bulltwaddle and grow up.

Essentially no matter what their issue was last night, their behavior was unacceptable. That is the bottom line.

In the 1930s, Germany transformed from a crisis-stricken democracy into a totalitarian Nazi dictatorship. That is not conjecture or exaggeration, those are historical facts. Facts.

As a nation of immigrants, it’s pretty hard not to know someone whose family went through World War II in Europe. And these aren’t merely the stories of the Jewish people who were hunted down and put in concentration camps, there are certainly enough similar stories of people who were not Jewish, and either were in an occupied country, a bombed country like the UK, and in some cases, their families had people who were actually resistance fighters in these various countries.

We have had those frosty masked folks who shall not be named in our own communities. I point you to the two examples most recently in Phoenixville and Malvern.

This isn’t drama, this isn’t conjecture. This is happening, just like we are Minnesota, or Detroit, or Chicago, or pick a city in area in California.

We are watching people being rounded up by armed individuals fully masked most of the time, and never seeming to have the kind of identification you expect from law-enforcement. It’s terrifying.

These unpleasant individuals who shall not be named, surely they can find jobs doing something else? And who are they? They’re not normal law-enforcement are they? They’re not even necessarily former military are they? They are people who want to be all of those people aren’t they? And how are they being trained? Is it to do a job or is it to foment more hate and terror upon the American people?

Because as we have seen, God forbid, you are a normal American person and you get caught up in the middle of one of these scenes. You know like a certain nurse and mom?

From coast to coast, we see these scenes unfold where these cars kind of swoop in and they surround people and other vehicles, I have seen things on Instagram where they’re ramming cars and then accusing people of hitting them and how is it? This craziness just persists?

And then you see them, breaking windows and breaking into homes and dragging people out and flinging them to the ground. You see knees, being jabbed, dangerously hard into people’s spines and you wonder did they really have to subdue them like that?

It doesn’t matter what your immigration status is in this country, every American is being terrorized. My husband has asked me what is wrong with me the past few days, and honestly? Part of it is all of this. We can’t do anything and elected officials in Washington are allowing this, and then we have to wonder who in Harrisburg is enabling this as well?

I will share a video from my Senator Senator Katie Muth’s page that I took this morning off of her social media because she speaks out for her constituents. She’s taking a stand on many things which is more than I can say for a lot of elected officials. This of course puts her at risk making her a target.

If you speak out about this, even as an ordinary person, you’re a target. Here we are at America’s 250th birthday and truly do we still have our inalienable rights? are these storm troopers going to come for us because we can’t believe we’re seeing what we’re seeing in our lifetimes? Here we thought World War II was bad enough, and I guess it had faded from memory enough that it’s like history repeating itself because no one wants to talk about that?

Like many others, I find myself pulling in and staying home. Because if you’re going out, are we gonna find ourselves in a parking lot where people are being thrown to the ground and having their windows, broken and tossed into vans and cars by masked individuals?

And let me be clear if this was lawfully being done with proper paperwork, and the people doing it were more clearly identifiable as who they worked for, would it hit us the same with that feeling of is this World War II or 1930s Germany with social media? If law-enforcement is picking up an actual criminal that is a different scenario.

But this isn’t normal and you have to wonder given what happened in Malvern a couple of weeks ago and then Phoenixville and Montgomery County Pa re they just targeting in part people that they think look different? That of course prompted questions from my friends who are other ethnicities and nationalities, but US citizens . Literally I’ve had them say to me are they going to take me off the street because of the color of my skin?

How do you respond to that and it’s not just people whose skin tone is different from ours. There’s the Irish man in Texas and he’s been there for a few months now in detention.

Then there was the incredible story of an Irish woman living in this country legally with a green card who was detained coming back to the US via Chicago from a funeral in Ireland. Literally a grandmother from Missouri she was finally released just before Christmas.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp390jex3ppo.amp

And then there are the ordinary people that face arrests because they’re standing there bearing witness to what those frosty jerks are doing to people.

I don’t care what the political persuasion is of elected officials in Washington DC, they have the power to stop this. They are choosing not to some of them talk a good game, but for what? Platitudes? Cute little sound bytes for their reelection campaigns?

I’m wondering what it’s like being an American at the Olympics this time? These young athletes have enough pressure on them without the added pressure that the US government has added essentially without their consent.

Now the most recent thing we have learned is how these frosty not so friends employed by the federal government are acquiring office space including in places like Berwyn PA.

Now, also probably having to do with us. I know at least one person who got a call from the GSA saying they were looking for people to work their new office and how insane is that considering they aren’t signed up for anything like this? So are they just looking at phone directories in the area and calling random people? Incidentally, the GSA stands for General Services Administration.

https://www.wired.com/story/ice-expansion-across-us-at-heres-where-its-going-next/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Now I couldn’t find any specific jobs that said Berwyn thus far, but I did find these that I wondered if they were related:

I’ll know how that says Department of Defense and I thought they were calling it Department of War or whatever?

Shakespeare’s Richard III character said famously all those centuries ago:

“Now is the winter of our discontent.”

Yes, I would feel safe to say we’re here. And my friend said would the photos that we see splashed across social media and our televisions have more of an impact if people saw them in black-and-white like 1930s Germany? So I don’t know I just took some screenshots here and converted them to black-and-white and how did they make people feel? Well, here are some of my screenshots convert it to black-and-white. How did they make you feel?

I will close with SAVVY Main Line publishing an article about the new neighbors coming to Berwyn supposedly.

Again, now is the winter of our discontent…. but what happens next?

According to SAVVY :

Presumably, the Berwyn location was chosen for its easy access to major roadways including Route 202, Route 30, Route 252 and the PA Turnpike….Tredyffrin Board of Supervisors Chair David Miller had no comment while Tredyffrin Police Chief Mike Beaty referred SAVVY to the February 5 joint statement issued by the Chester County Police Chiefs Association and the Chester County DA.