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.

  • 3 Posts
  • 19 Comments
Joined 19 days ago
Cake day: March 13th, 2025
  • Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.world•I guess some people can changeEnglish
    5·
    3 days ago

    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.”

    https://www.wbrz.com/news/sen-bill-cassidy-among-senators-concerned-by-rfk-s-anti-vaccine-rhetoric-during-confirmation-hearing

    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.

  • Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPtoTechnology@lemmy.world•Louisiana Governor's Cybersecurity State of Emergency Renewal, grants the National Guard authority to undertake any activity authorized by law deemed appropriate in responseEnglish
    2·
    5 days ago

    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

  • Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.world•The Gov of Louisiana placed the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness under the National Guard and signed a state of emergency for Cybersecurity granting them the authority to act.English
    41·
    5 days ago

    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:

    1. 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.

    1. 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.

  • Basic Glitch@lemm.eetoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.world•Godspeed to our OPSECEnglish
    47·
    6 days ago

    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

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

  • Basic Glitch@lemm.eetoNews@lemmy.world•Americans under 30 are so miserable that the U.S. just fell to a historically low ranking in the world happiness reportEnglish
    10·
    10 days ago

    I think one thing we’re all going to have to remember, is that living in unprecedented times means we’re going to have to start holding ourselves to unprecedented standards. We should all be very angry and demanding better as a society, but it’s important to give ourselves grace as individuals, remember it’s up to us to try and avoid the things that make us unhappy as much as we can, and be proud of ourselves when we do manage to find glimmers of happiness while living in a dystopian society.

    I say that to remind myself as much as to give advice to anyone else. I remember dreading 30 as it approached, and feeling like I was nowhere near where I was supposed to be. It felt like I had done everything I was supposed to do, but just never saw the payout for doing it. I had gotten a college degree, then a graduate degree. This allowed me to get a 9-5 job that I dreaded going to everyday. I was under a mountain of college loan debt. I barely made enough to cover my rent, let alone ever consider buying a house. I felt like I was going nowhere fast, and when I looked at social media, it felt like I was way behind all of my peers.

    That was also around the time I decided that if I couldn’t obtain the material things that were supposed to make me feel happy and successful, I would focus on maximizing the activities and relationships that made me happy while slowly (and sometimes painfully) cutting out the things that only made me more miserable.

    Flashforward a decade as I begin to approach 40, and I wish I could tell you that the material things eventually all worked themselves out, but pretty sure you already know they didn’t.

    Financially I’m in basically the same situation I was then, except now I have a child to take care of, so obviously that means less money. Even with cost of living and merit based raises over the years, with inflation and an even worse housing market, it just never seemed to work out to making much of a difference. I’m still buried under the mountain of student debt and barely make rent each month. I also found out this past week that I’m losing my job soon, and as a federally funded researcher, the prospects of me finding one to replace it aren’t great to say the least.

    However, even though the stakes are more dire than ever, and hard times are only forecast to get harder, I don’t feel quite as pessimistic as I did when I was approaching 30. I actually feel a bit of comradery with the majority of Americans, because I think most of us are in a pretty similar boat. As far as my personal relationships and family, I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

    Maybe it’s just a part of mellowing out with age, but I feel it’s also in part due to being very happy with my personal relationships, and the people that are in my life now vs a decade ago. I’ve gotten involved in community work in my free time, and as of 2025 I feel a drive to embrace that kind of work more than ever. In a lot of ways starting from scratch at almost 40 is scary, but in some ways it’s actually somewhat of a relief. The last of a mirage that was keeping me in my stable career has been destroyed, and it would feel a bit more delusional for me to jump ship to a similar job knowing it will eventually just meet the same fate.

    Again, I want to stress I don’t say this as a way to get people to be docile and just accept what’s happening, but to channel your anger and frustration into something that gives you a sense of accomplishment. If anyone in your life is making you think that being unhappy with the current situation is strictly a you problem, and not a reflection of reality, that’s a good sign you should probably lessen your ties to them for now. If they want to do some self reflection and try to come back later, that’s always an option.

    Finding others in your community that feel the same way, and working together locally to keep people informed and prepared for policy changes before they happen, is one of the easiest ways you can improve your immediate surroundings and feel some power in a situation where we’re all pretty powerless.

    Most of the senators and representatives we’ve elected to look out for our interests are failing hard. It’s important to keep in mind that everything happening at a federal level is going to start happening at state levels. In many red states it has already begun. DOGE inspired taskforces are popping up all over the country. I’ve been keeping a list of them, but even since my most recent update a few weeks ago, more have been announced.

    Here is the list so far if anyone is interested: https://pimento-mori.ghost.io/state-level-doge-inspired-task-forces-pop-up-across-u-s-promoted-by-republican-governors-love-of-small-government/

    Regardless of where they’re located, all of these DOGE task forces have a common goal. Make up a dollar amount to show how much they’re saving tax payers, find excuses to cut money for social programs (and in some cases even cuts to government safety programs that help prepare for natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes) in order to make that dollars saves number a reality. Citizens suffer, their lives are made worse, and governors and their wealthy friends become even wealthier, all in the name of trimming wasteful spending and getting rid of bureaucracy.

    It’s easy to get stuck in a mindset where you let the reality of yesterday influence the way you view your present, but it’s a mental trap. I haven’t used any form of social media that isn’t anonymous in almost a decade. No Facebook or Instagram. I don’t scroll by pictures of a lifestyle that never even came close to matching my reality. I think it’s no coincidence that I no longer feel left out among my peers, when I’m not acknowledging false public images people attempt to shape for themselves online. Instead, I feel more connected to a bigger chunk of America than ever before, and it’s helped me to realize how much we all have in common regardless of political identity.