Basic Glitch
Researcher in the U.S. trying to stay informed and help others stay informed. I write a blog that focuses on public information, public health, and policy: https://pimento-mori.ghost.io/
I only recently began using ghost, and am slowly figuring things out. Apologies for any formatting issues.
- 18 Posts
- 37 Comments
Bc last time I just posted the link it got removed for not being a screenshot. Only screenshots are allowed to be posted here
Funny thing is there are plenty of Republicans in Louisiana who never felt that way.
“Now, let’s be political. I’m a Republican. I represent the amazing state of Louisiana and as a patriotic American, I want President Trump’s policies to succeed in making America and Americans more secure, more prosperous, healthier,” Cassidy said Thursday while leading Kennedy’s confirmation hearing.
“But if there is someone that is not vaccinated because of policies or attitudes you bring to the department and there is another 18-year-old who dies of a vaccine-preventable disease, helicoptered away, God forbid dies, it’ll be blown up in the press.”
Cassidy was one of several senators who was skeptical about Kennedy’s stance on vaccinations, also noting Kennedy has changed his tune on the subject during the hearing.
“You are telling us in the Senate this week that you support vaccines. What are you going to tell them?” Cassidy said. “Now, your past of undermining vaccine confidence with unfounded or misleading arguments is concerning to me.”
Cassidy, a medical doctor, shared a story of an 18-year-old patient brought to his hospital with hepatitis B who had to undergo an “invasive, quarter-of-a-million-dollar surgery” that would continue to cost $50,000 in hospital bills annually.
“As I saw her take off, I was so depressed, a $50 vaccine could have prevented this all,” Cassidy said. “Ever since, I have tried to do everything I can so that I do not ever have to see another parent lose their child due to a vaccine-preventable illness.”
There has always been plenty I disagreed with Cassidy on, but Medicaid and vaccines he always made decisions informed by his background as a doctor. I always had a lot of respect for him for that reason. I was glad he was on the Senate committee deciding RFKs fitness.
I watched the hearings. I heard RFK say things that I know Cassidy doesn’t agree with. I wrote Cassidy a letter saying I know you understand how dangerous this is and I am glad to have someone like you in the position to make such an important decision.
He was the deciding vote. All he had to do was say what he already knew and believed. He didn’t, and I lost the respect I had for him.
Not because he’s a Republican. Not because of everything else we disagree on. Because I know for a fact he knew how dangerous RFK would be, and yet his vote is the only reason his fitness was approved.
The only social media I used was reddit and I eventually got shadow banned for trying to warn people about shit like this.
I’ve tried using bluesky and Mastodon but it never gets much if any traction. I share stuff online hoping people that use other forms of social media will share it too though, so please feel free to share it everywhere you can.
Pretty positive there is no actual plan to improve cybersecurity, it’s a facade to quietly hand over power and control to the national guard to keep people in line.
The same day the emergency order was signed by the governor, he announced he was restructuring GOHSEP (governors office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness) under the National guard as part of his state DOGE plan to cut waste and save money.
The emergency order grants the director of GOHSEP authority to act however they seem fit to handle cybersecurity. But on the same day the director of GOHSEP was given a new title, and is no longer director.
The “acting director” is now Louisiana National Guard Brig. Gen. Jason P. Mahfouz
Yep, that is their schtick. The level of shadowy corporate money involved in this giant network hiding behind a facade of small government is insane. These are the people buying America and funding a war against democracy.
They have infiltrated at every state to push policy that promotes their own self interest, and to create their own corporate government all while screaming “I <3 transparency and small government!” at the top of their lungs.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=State_Policy_Network
SPN groups operate as the policy, communications, and litigation arm of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), giving the cookie-cutter ALEC agenda a sheen of academic legitimacy and state-based support.
Many SPN groups are and often write ALEC “model bills.”
In the states, SPN groups increasingly peddle cookie-cutter “studies” to back the cookie-cutter ALEC agenda, spinning that agenda as indigenous to the state and giving it the aura of academic legitimacy. Many SPN groups, such as the Mackinac Center in Michigan, have been accused of lobbying in their states, in violation of IRS rules for non-profit “charitable” organizations.
Some SPN groups, like the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, also contain litigation centers funded by national foundations to defend or pursue the SPN/ALEC agenda.
SPN shares many of same sources of funding as ALEC, including Koch institutions.
The Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity provides the “grassroots” boots on the ground for this agenda.
Although many SPN groups claim to be independent and non-partisan, they promote a policy agenda – including union-busting, attacks on the tort bar, and voter suppression – that is highly-partisan and electoral in nature. SPN President Tracie Sharp told the Wall Street Journal that she had always felt Wisconsin and Michigan were only “thinly blue,” and that the GOP has been put on better footing by the unions’ slide. “When you chip away at one of the power sources that also does a lot of get-out-the-vote,” she says, “I think that helps – for sure.”[4]
Here is a summary of everything: https://lemm.ee/post/59671562
But tldr for even that: One day last week the governor just declared he was suddenly moving the entire office that handles state emergencies (Governor’s office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness-GOHSEP) under the control of the state’s national guard.
On the same day he also suddenly announced he was Renewing a previous state of emergency that was created by the previous governor to address a cyber attack.
For some unknown reason that nobody has addressed, he added a new section to the renewed executive order that essentially says the director of GOHSEP has authority to do whatever he deems necessary to handle cybersecurity.
Except when he moved GOHSEP to be controlled by the National Guard, he also removed the director of the office and gave him a new title. So there is no actual director.
A member of the National Guard is acting director, so it would appear that the governor basically handed very broad control of cybersecurity to the national guard in a very underhandeded way hoping nobody would notice
Clearly. Wasting stuff that’s already been paid for bc it no longer “fits the mission” is probably the smartest way to save money. Thank God we have these elite minds guiding our way.
Comic books that didn’t fit the mission
EV charging stations removed from every federal building
Clinical trials and experiments that were halted midway so they could be investigated for DEI
The only thing smarter than that would be wasting money on something other countries had already agreed to buy from us. Good thing our dear leaders planned ahead and destroyed USAID before all those American farmers got paid for their crops.
Yikes, I knew we had detention centers but didn’t know people were getting shipped here.
Well, I’m here and while there’s plenty of things I don’t like, there’s also things people and places that I love. It makes me angry they’re trying to hide what they’re doing in the shadows in order to destroy something I love even if it wasn’t perfect to begin with. Why should I leave? It’s my world as much as it is theirs.
Actually feel that way about the whole country at this point. Even if I’m powerless to stop you I’m not going to just pretend I don’t see something happening. If there’s any chance for my state or my country that’s what we’re all going to have to do. That’s exactly what “speak out while you still can” means.
This shit is going on all over the place. Louisiana was one of the first, but DOGE has taskforces in 16 states at this point. I’ve actually been considering creating a community to have people start collecting stuff like this across all their states, so that we don’t let this shit keep happening in the dark.
Here it is if anyone wants to join feel free: https://lemm.ee/c/stateleveldoge
Allegedly moving GOHSEP under the National Guard is just a way to save money, as to why it happened on the same day this executive order was signed? No idea because nobody has even brought it up. I only realized it by accident, and only realized that he granted the director of GOHSEP authority because I downloaded the recent executive order and compared it to the old one (which I had to go to archive.org just to find).
But if Moskowitz’s bill passes:
- It puts Louisiana at the mercy of the National Guard and yes seems to greatly increase the chance of the Governor declaring martial law for the state.
With hurricane season there is always the threat of a disaster. It is not unusual for the guard to be called in as a precaution and stick around after a hurricane to enforce curfew.
Even though I personally have not had a bad run in with any guardsman, I think it’s understandable to feel uneasy seeing tanks on the street and guys with guns standing guard when you go to buy groceries. I know I always do, and I don’t even have the negative experiences that many people do to justify it. It would be naive to pretend that there’s not always the possibility things could go wrong.
Usually if a disaster is bad enough for the guard to stick around for a while, that means members of FEMA are also present. While FEMA is by no means an ideal agency in terms of how it should be run, the fact that they have their own dedicated civil rights office within the agency, is very important. Without it, you have armed soldiers being asked to handle crowd control and resources for a huge group of people, often during a time of extraordinary stress for everyone involved. If nobody exists to enforce civil rights, you’re relying on people to maintain them out of the kindness of their hearts. While I like to believe people for the most part will try to do the right thing, I’m not naive enough to believe that’s the case when people are scared and desperate.
- It potentially puts the entire country in the position that Louisiana is now in. If a President decides that he wanted that cabinet position to be placed under the military in a cost savings effort, hopefully it’s a little more difficult to achieve than a governor doing it at a state level, but again, feels a little naive to just assume that.
Most people didn’t even notice that this happened, and I’m not even sure how the governor can do this, but a week ago today it was like he just decided to hold a press conference, say this is what I’m doing, and now that’s the way it is. That’s kind of the problem with unchecked executive authority and letting people see how far they can push things.
So I updated some stuff and yeah this seems very strange. The original order was in 2019 after an attack on some government servers. I had somehow forgotten that in 2023, the government admitted that there had been an ongoing cybersecurity attack on Louisiana OMV data and that essentially every adult in the state had their data breached (it’s been a bit of a hectic year).
The governor is a former lawyer, so someone might even suggest it was left intentionally vague?
According to the AP it’s a direct quote from the memo written by the finest legal minds Trump’s money can buy
Damn, I’ve been so distracted with the everything else I didn’t even think of that, but yeah sounds about right.
Little fucking fascists typing up their big scary memos to prove how much they love trampling on rights
Also haven’t heard anyone mentioning this, but late on the Friday before this story was published, Hegseth’s chief of staff sent a late night memo threatening anyone that leaks classified information to the press by saying they’re going to start doing polygraph tests at DOD, and said
“If this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure,” then such information “will be referred to the appropriate criminal entity for criminal prosecution,”
So threatening to turn Department of Defense employees over to the authorities for leaking classified information to reporters if they fail a polygraph (which isn’t even admissible in court bc they give false positives so often).
Then it turns out, oops the guy trying to intimidate everyone texted classified information to a reporter in a group chat and now it’s a story in the Atlantic
I do have face unlock option but it’s showing in settings it’s never been set up. No app permissions I wasn’t aware of except android system intelligence. I tried to switch it to always ask permission but it just disappeared
My instance has a rule that new accounts can’t post images until 30 days old