Basic Glitch @ AcidicBasicGlitch @lemm.ee

I write a blog that focuses on public information, public health, and polic

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4 mo. ago

Trump manipulating the stock market???!!!! Say it ain't so!

Well I am shocked, I tell ya, absolutely shocked! 😧😣

Just throwing this out here to remind people that the Department of Homeland Security, DOJ, and DOD have all made some very alarming threats to employees they believe are speaking to the press. They also seem very eager to remove or weaken civil rights protections for everyone, including American citizens.

DHS Secretary Noem has complained that offices of civil rights within DHS interfere with the DHS mission on immigration. However, only two of the three offices Noem has attacked, deal with immigration

The third office is the office of civil rights and liberties within the DHS, and applies to all civil rights issues regardless of immigration or citizenship status.

Noem's attacks against Civil Rights Offices within DHS were made following statements that she plans to use polygraphs on ICE employees

You should be aware that many current ICE employees are federal employees who were removed from previous positions and have been diverted to ICE.

Diversion of federal employees is seen by many as a highly politicized move that first began in early February and seemed to be a blatant act of retaliation for January 6th investigations. Like a punishment for federal employees that they couldn't force to quit or legally fire.

Despite the fact that polygraphs are known to have high false positives rates, Noem said she plans to use polygraphs to root out individuals leaking information to the press. Noem's threat was followed by similar threats made against employees of the Dept. of Justice and Dept. of Defense.

Basically they are trying to crack down on dissent. Federal employees are witnessing them violate the law from the inside, and trying to warn the country what they are doing. If anyone should be charged with treason it should be the people actively dismantling democracy. Unfortunately, those are also the people who run the same country they are trying to destroy.

I don't think it's snarky. I agree with you, but I also really have no faith in elected representatives doing what they're supposed to.

Specifically, this election and the Senate confirmation hearings are what make me say I wish we could have more say in cabinet positions.

I'm in Louisiana and one of my senators was literally the deciding vote for RFK's fitness. It sounds naive now but I actually had faith he would do the right thing. Even though he's a Republican, he's also a doctor. He's spoken out in the past about supporting vaccines and stood up to Republicans on the issue.

I watched the hearings and heard RFK say things I know my senator disagrees with. Many people in Louisiana, including myself, wrote him an email saying we were glad to have someone like him in the position to make such an important decision. Yet, he decided to fall in line with his party even though he had every reason not to.

Since we can't trust elected officials to be the safeguard they're supposed to be, I think we should have more say in who actually gets selected for cabinet positions.

I don't think it's a good idea to let a president pick his cabinet. I feel like allowing people to vote and create a list of candidates for the president to select a cabinet member from would be an ok compromise vs either letting votes decide or keeping the current nominee/fitness BS that is purely theatre at this point.

If this country actually survives this apocalyptic BS which is a giant fucking question mark, whoever the next president is, will need to be willing to actually fight for this country without giving a fuck about re-election or pleasing donors.

I don't know if the answer is to pack the court or to just pressure the shit out of the judges to do the right thing, but we all should have revolted when citizens United happened. I don't think anyone really understood a group of billionaires that have been thirsting for power for decades could take advantage the way they have, but that's on us and now we are definitely paying the consequences.

If they can overturn Roe V. Wade when so many Americans were actually against the decision, they can overturn citizens United, and we should be raising hell until they do.

I think that's most people's view, but if you honestly think it stops with control of the U.S. you're in for a surprise. The only way to stop this is through uniting against oligarchy.

The Heritage Foundation has affiliates established in all 50 states and world wide. They've been planning this shit for decades. Similar to how everyone knows Putin would never stop with Ukraine, he will take and take until he has control of all of Europe and eventually global control if he has his way. These people will never be satisfied with control of the U.S., their ultimate goal is global domination.

Idk if you've heard of Deloitte and all the shady shit tied to their "consulting group" and the CIA/FBI?

This administration is trying to get rid of Deloitte, but not to "drain any swamps." It's to replace them with their own group.

Not sure what country you're in, but word of advice, be on the lookout for Guidehouse consulting. These fuckers are everywhere, and trying to offer their consulting services to all levels of government. I literally just learned while typing this, that despite the fact the economy is in the toilet, on top of the billions in contracts the U.S. govt already has with Guidehouse, the Army announced yet another multi million dollar contract yesterday. Wonder what that's all about?

Today me, tomorrow you.

It definitely would be nice to have more voter involvement in VP and cabinet picks.

I feel like even if people couldn't be motivated to vote against Trump in the election, it would have been a lot easier to unify people to vote against someone like RFK Jr. for health secretary.

If we can never have any choice other than a 2 party system of Republican and Democrat, maybe we could at least start having something like a mixed cabinet, so that the policies and mandates being created are more representative of different ideas on different issues instead of any single ideology.

I agree we need more checks and balances to power grabs, but the people in charge want less bc they claim it only prevents them from doing what needs to be done to help Americans.

"Your life would be so much better off if we could just cut through all this red tape. It's not the tariffs that are destroying the economy, it's the regulations that are keeping change from happening."

Soon it will be "You're starving and your children are dying, because of red tape. These judges blocking my orders are screwing everything up. If you want things to get better, we must remove the corrupt judges that are hindering progress."

If he needed to be elected, I agree 100%. But since he's VP, he assumes the presidency if Trump is no longer president. His lack of charisma doesn't really stop him from doing anything.

A few months ago when he was arguing that judges shouldn't be able to interfere with the president's executive power, he was arguing what right wing Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule has been arguing for a long time.

Vance and Vermeule believe that the constitution should be interpreted to enforce law and order rather than to protect liberty. Vermeule has written extensively about the legal architect of the Nazi agenda, Carl Schmitt. Schmitt used legal means to grant Hitler unchecked executive power. He argued that it is the job of the leader to protect the law, and because of this. Führerprinzip essentially allowed the German constitution to remain in name only and placed Hitler's will above all written law. So, because it was Hitler's will, when he began proposing genocide as necessary for the good of Germany, there were no legal means to stop him from carrying it out.

This is why Vance argues against federal judges. It's not that he doesn't understand checks and balances, it's that he wants to destroy them. He wants an Americanized Führerprinzip, that will allow the executive power legal authority over all written law.

He hopes that if he normalizes that idea and pushes it enough, eventually others will accept it as common knowledge. Vermeule and supreme court justice Alito are also Catholic integralists, and believe that medieval inspired Catholic faith should be the basis of public law. Alito flew a flag in support of the Jan 6 insurrection attempt. His judicial decisions and most of the right leaning members of the SC almost always side with Trump. He would definitely sell this country and argue the constitution allows for something like American Führerprinzip if it also meant Catholic integralism would be adopted by those in power. There are also several powerful Catholic integralists involved in the Heritage Foundation and project 2025.

I really think Vance converted to Catholicism so recently bc he knew that it would make him more attractive to the Catholic integralists. It seems like Peter Theil may have been the main reason he did.

Sorry to ramble, but the T.L.D.R. if you want to see the scariest aspects of project 2025 come true (like the IRL handmaid's tale) without any legal means to stop them from happening, then Vance is your man to get the job done.

I'll say, it wouldn't fix anything. Vance is way more psychotic and calculated. He's actually waaaay more dangerous than Trump.

Vance combines the philosophy of a Nazi legal theory loving ivy league elite like Adrian Vermeule, with Curtis Yarvin, and Peter Theil. In a lot of ways I think Trump buffoonery keeps people distracted from a lot of their evil shit, but I also honestly feel like Trump's ego demanding he always be the focus of attention, is acting as a chaotic buffer to keep their plans from working out as smoothly as they would like. I think Musk was even probably more of a distraction than we realized, and the only reason he's becoming less involved is because Kratsios is able to do just as much awful shit that nobody wants but look normal by comparison to the chainsaw wielding maniac that was proudly getting like 7 hours of sleep a week. I'm honestly not sure if Theil set him up once again like he did with PayPal. Or did Musk know he was just the face that would take the blame for holding the country hostage while robbing us of money that will now be sunk into an absurd number of AI projects with Thiel's protege at the helm as Science Advisor?

I wish we could just get the entire dishonest administration removed from office, but we can't even get most members of the House and Senate to acknowledge they're actively trying to destroy the United States because they seriously believe their loyalty will be rewarded. Bc the fuckers that plan to replace everything with shitty AI would definitely never be able to replace them.

Don't take it personally, China. He feels the same way about the majority of Americans including his own family. He's got a chip on his shoulder bc he grew up among the peasant class, made it to the Ivy Leagues and has desperately been trying to claw his way into a social level he'll never be accepted to bc he wasn't born into it.

From his POV you're either a peasant, or you're an elitist. Unless you're part of the 1% of billionaires and generational wealth. Somehow that makes you an average Joe, and that's why you benefit the most from Vance's policies and "beliefs" (whatever he may need them to be in the moment).

Vance is not dumb, but he certainly acts like a useful idiot.

True, but not sure what the alternative is. Pretend it's not happening until that's all that's left in the world, and everything is destroyed? Or try to make as much noise as you can to warn other people until they silence you?

Honestly, talking to people about this stuff helps me kind of think about a lot of things. Really, thinking about it, that's all the Heritage Foundation really did except all the warnings were false and made up.

They just kept sqwauking and convinced people of their BS. If they could write their crazy ass manifesto why not just try to present as many people as possible with facts countering that argument. It will definitely take decades to reverse this shit, but it also took them decades to finally gain the power they have now.

Sorry, don't mean to rant like a crazy person, but these fuckers have just about driven me to that point.

I don't plan to leave if I can avoid it. I love New Orleans and most of the people here for better or worse. When I moved here, even the conservative Catholics seemed laid back compared to the southern Baptist bullshit I grew up with in TN.

Honestly at this point I blame the Heritage Foundation for just about every fucking problem in this country. It basically began with their mandate for leadership they delivered to Ronald Reagan. Instead of saying wtf is this horse shit, he said, sounds great. Let's make it happen. Now here we are and they are finally in a position to make their dreams come true with project 2025. They want the entire world to look like what I grew up in and what I couldn't get away from fast enough. They don't give a shit about any of the ideology. It's about control and power.

Keep people divided, make shit so bad in places like Louisiana it drives away anyone that votes against them or stands in their way. It leaves only the extremely wealthy controlling all the resources and the extremely poor completely relying on them. The poor will keep voting them into power based on whatever they can use to in-group (race baiting) or whatever scraps of hope they dangle in front of them (jobs and the economy) with no intention of ever allowing social mobility or fixing anything. There's a reason they're destroying the economy. They do much better when it's broken.

I also feel at this point there's really nowhere to run where they won't also eventually take over. These state policy networks exist in all 50 states and Europe. They have way too much power and it's no different than any dictator. They use Heritage Foundation money to push for the same policies they've already purchased at a federal level, and disguise it as representing the people of the state. They will take and take until there's nothing left.

We can run until there's nowhere left to hide, or we can try to push back. I know not everyone agrees, but even if we lose, why make it easy on them? If they didn't care about shit being exposed at this point, there'd be no reason for them to try to keep the information suppressed and hidden, so fuck them.

In Louisiana, our current Governor snuck in a new section to a recent renewal of the former Governor's executive order declaring a state of emergency to handle cyber security.

The new section granted the director of the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) authority to act as he sees fit to handle the emergency.

What makes that especially concerning is that the same day, he placed all of GHOSEP under the command of the Louisiana National Guard, gave the director of GHOSEP a new title, and named a member of the guard interim director.

I think we might have TX beat, but our state's Heritage Foundation/SPN affiliate think tank is actually trying to argue we should be trying to be more like TX. Fun times. It's like every day I learn some outrageous new bullshit that makes me more angry than the day before.

Here is a video they made describing their brilliant idea

The CEO/president of GNO Inc that speaks throughout the video was also chosen by our Governor to be the official "Superbowl Czar" which has got to be the dumbest fucking title you could ever waste money on.

But I guess I can't complain too much bc Landry might have me shot by the National Guard things could always be worse I guess.

You should, it's a really interesting post. Still available here:

https://apnews.com/article/leaks-pentagon-polygraph-trump-investigation-685b08e14d813050a722cec89eb5c323

Sorry wrong link, here is the reddit post https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1jsp8d5/us_active_duty_or_reserve_military_have_you_given/

You can still read the original post here

He was saying many Russian soldiers that have been captured have said they weren't aware they were actually supposed to be fighting in a war, and had been told what they were doing was a military exercise. So it's possible in some cases that even if a soldier is given an order, they may not realize the extent of consequences of following it.

Why did you delete it? You're allowed to have a different opinion on things. This isn't reddit 😉

I think we should all be thinking about this stuff and having honest discussions about it. Even if I don't agree with you, the disagreement is not meant as an attack on you or your beliefs. It's just an explanation for why I may have a different point of view.

Thanks for posting that. I appreciate what she's saying and I would like to think that is what would happen, however, chaotic situations lead to very unpredictable outcomes. When you have chaos, an angry mob of people, and armed soldiers being told their job is to keep things under control, you're putting a lot of faith in the individual good vs group think mentality that tends to be a sad aspect of human nature.

1. Especially given that you have corrupt governors pushing federal policy at the state level, there is a very good chance you will have the national guard called in to handle dissent. I'm watching my own governor abuse his power and grant some very questionable authority to the guard already. Kent State is a really good example of why this should be very scary. It's not "fear mongering" to make sure people are aware of overlaps between fairly recent U.S. history and the current reality.
2. I do know there are soldiers who truly would refuse an illegal order, but I think it's naive to rely on that when it comes to what we're seeing now. Especially considering the goal of this administration is to deconstruct and tear down everything they dislike about the current U.S. system.

As someone pointed out, Hegseth is now in charge of the military and seems to be doing everything he can to root out opposition to the administration. He's setting a tone for what is to be expected of anyone not following orders. Apparently ignoring the whole incident where he ended up texting war plans in a group chat on signal where a journalist somehow got added, the Pentagon has also started threatening department of defense employees with polygraphs in order to determine who is leaking information to the press. They actually sent this memo out threatening employees late on Friday night and news of Hegseth accidentally leaking sensitive information broke on Monday.

Soldiers get issued an RoE card. The card specifies the procedure for Escalation of Force. Usually it’s “Verbal Warning, Show of Force, Warning Shot, Lethal Force” with the option to skip steps in case of self-defence.

However, soldiers sometimes still do illegal and immoral thing time while deployed in other countries. Sometimes because they've been ordered to, and sometimes because they choose to. Is that representative of the entire U.S. or the military? No, but it definitely happens way too frequently.

3. There are a lot of comments from military members in the original post. A retired member of the army commented this. It's in the 3rd screenshot of the pictures, and the original post is gone from the subreddit but still available to view here if you want to look over it:

by the time "effect martial law on [insert US city] and summarily execute anyone who does not comply" makes it's way to the commander of a maneuver company, it is formatted in an operations order in a way that is devoid of any subjectivity. orders are distilled to a rigidly-formatted set of instructions that almost anyone in the formation are able to understand and carry out.

the reason for this is so the people who carry out the orders don't hesitate and don't contemplate the wider meaning. an infantry platoon''s task won't be to effect martial law; it will be "seize and hold objective [whatever] (could be a street intersection, train station, etc) by 1700 hrs"

Again, I believe at the individual level, most people would choose to do the right thing, but we've seen over and over again, that especially in times of panic and chaos, frontal lobes go offline, lizard brain takes over, and herd mentality kicks in as a defense mechanism.

Maybe elected officials that keep defending this moron out of some kind of false sense of protection can take hint?

I think it's a bit more complex than that, because it still depends on the conviction.

Clearly he is not getting off from some kind of murder charge. I don't know much about the trial, but I would assume his lawyers are arguing a state of physical and emotional distress which would have kept him from being in his right mind when he allegedly shot the guy.

It would be a pretty bold move for a "free country" to execute someone like that. Not saying it wouldn't happen, but I know we're already being monitored for human rights violations by other countries. It would seem to be a weak hand to play, but then again strongmen usually play pretty weak hands when they want to prove how powerful they are. We have entire histories worth of atrocities to prove it.

For a second I was going to say it's like they're trying to make us hate them more somehow. Then I realized, yeah, that's probably exactly what they're trying to do. Antagonizing people into violence is the goal.

I'm not sure if it's to use it as an excuse to declare martial law, or kick off a civil war, or both? Idk I guess I've just been around enough passive aggressive pieces of shit in the past to recognize it when I see it.