That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons bring us some web forums whereupon we can gather
http://garbi.online/forum/
Yeah, that's unfortunate. I was trying to think up of a way Americans could fight back in spite of the orders. Sometimes it's the little things that make a difference. I just wear my heart on my sleeve too often though.
I hope you didn't think I was shitting on you.Rumpy wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 7:02 pmYeah, that's unfortunate. I was trying to think up of a way Americans could fight back in spite of the orders. Sometimes it's the little things that make a difference. I just wear my heart on my sleeve too often though.
With all the discrimination and proselytizing that comes baked in.Holman wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 7:10 pm In America the dream of replacing the social safety net (such as it is) with private charity (i.e. churches) is hugely popular on the Right.
I've already doubled my monthly contributions to Doctors without Borders, and thankfully I still work for a company that embraces DEI and matches my donations to charities.Rumpy wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 5:54 pmThen I think it would be nice to see Americans double down on donations via international organizations. Because it's quite clear Trump isn't the voice of most Americans.$iljanus wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 1:51 pmIts the scale of financial aid needed which makes it unaffordable for organizations like the Red Cross or the equivalent to bankroll these sorts of health programs. And sure a multi billion dollar philanthropist can do it until they get bored or distracted by the next shiny thing.Rumpy wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 1:37 pm What would stop a non-government organization or philanthropist from doing what the government isn't doing? I'm assuming they can't stop an organization like the Red Cross from providing foreign aid, and if the government is refusing foreign aid, then I would probably see more of this kind of thing in the future.
My anxiety has spiked tremendously. I was having a panic attack maybe once every couple of weeks, and now it's almost daily. I shudder to think about what is happening to my blood pressure.LordMortis wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 1:40 pm Beginning January 20th, my daily Blood pressure check went from controlled to borderline uncontrolled bad enough that my PCP wants to increase my meds rather than lower them, as I have been working very hard on getting to this point of reducing meds over the past two plus years. I wonder what changed in my health beginning on the 20? She struck a bargain with me and said to start doing my monitor in the afternoons to see if it's better. After a week's checks it's not better.sigh
Sounds like whatever functional areas do happen to survive (and they're not expecting many) will get folded into State Department. The prevailing opinion from any new political leadership is "these countries can figure it out on their own". Words can't express how bad this will be for the rest of the world, and for the US in the long term.Hearing from very very reliable sources that USAID will no longer be a separate agency. Most contractors at HQ let go this week. HQ being gutted, pictures taken down, etc. It's a trial run in folding an agency.
mode this time around.I think Education may be safe now that it can be used to funnel money to private entities via 'school choice' initiatives.Skinypupy wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:08 pm Having worked with them for the past 15 years, I have lots of friends who work at USAID. One of them working at HQ texted me a few minutes ago.
Sounds like whatever functional areas do happen to survive (and they're not expecting many) will get folded into State Department. The prevailing opinion from any new political leadership is "these countries can figure it out on their own". Words can't express how bad this will be for the rest of the world, and for the US in the long term.Hearing from very very reliable sources that USAID will no longer be a separate agency. Most contractors at HQ let go this week. HQ being gutted, pictures taken down, etc. It's a trial run in folding an agency.
I would have had my money on Education being the first agency to go, but it looks like AID might speed run it instead.
That's all so discouraging. I console myself in knowing that only 2/3 of eligible voters bothered, and trump only won 49.8% of them -- a plurality, not a majority. Five million fewer votes were cast in 2024 than in '20. Those Democrats and sympathetic independents who stayed home put trump over the top. There are many different takes on why that happened, but the fact is that trump's' so-called "mandate" came from a plurality of a reduced electorate.Kurth wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:20 pm - 77,284,118 Americans voted for Trump to be President again in 2024.
- That's 3,059,799 more popular votes in 2024 than he won in 2020.
- That's 14,299,293 more than he won in 2016.
That's about where I am. I feel... resigned. It's what we chose, or chose to accept. It's who we are. Watching America show its worst qualities, watching the attitudes and idiocy of people on both sides has me to the point where I just don't feel like there's anything to do but survive what's coming.Kurth wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:20 pm I think if I were to trace my Trump-related anxiety and stress levels, they steadily rose during his initial campaign, election and first term. They were off the charts after Biden won and in the weeks preceding and following 1/6 and then receded. Then they gradually rose again when it became apparent no one was going to do anything about this traitorous scumbag and, in fact, they'd all fall in line and nominate him for the presidency again. After Trump won the popular vote and crushed Harris in the EC, my anxiety and stress really fell away, though. I think I'm just done.
It was not routinely done in Australia but their Supreme Court recently ruled it was illegal to keep people indefinitely in detention.ImLawBoy wrote: Thu Jan 30, 2025 10:43 amI don't know the legal ins and outs of Australia and those other countries, but it's blatantly unconstitutional to hold prisoners indefinitely without due process in the US - even if they ship them to Guantanamo. (Holding prisoners from Iraq and Afghanistan there was considered different because they were more like prisoners of war, which is a bullshit argument with respect to undocumented immigrants, but I suspect the administration will try to make it anyway.)waitingtoconnect wrote: Thu Jan 30, 2025 3:12 am Australia has done this for years. They’ll lock up people in surrounding countries indefinitely if their home country won’t take them back (and often they won’t). Other parts of south east asia do the same; or worse - they will shoot you if you try and enter illegally.
I’m actually calm as well. But I can see our fate.Kurth wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:20 pm I feel for everyone who is dealing with increased anxiety and stress from Trump 2.0. I get it. But I'm strangely feeling pretty zen about it.
Make the mosquitos pay for it while also putting up a no mosquitos allowed sign.GreenGoo wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 1:52 pm Thank goodness HIV etc respects political boundaries. Especially if walls are built on those boundaries.
I'm holding out on bringing polio and the black plague back.raydude wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 2:13 pm Imagine having something like that come back to the US after 59 years.
I'd be willing to bet that most, if not all, the politicians against vaccines are mostly vaccinated. Them and their immediate families.Rumpy wrote: Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:19 am My Dad had polio, but thankfully it was near the end when they had started getting vaccines. He had to spend time in an iron lung for a bit. He still gets some side-effects of the polio now and then with sore muscles debilitating him, but he would have been far worse off if it hadn't been for the vaccines. I have to imagine anyone against vaccines has never had to deal with a life-altering illness.
...because they never encountered the diseases the vaccines prevented.Rumpy wrote: Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:19 am I have to imagine anyone against vaccines has never had to deal with a life-altering illness.
Except for all of the people with dead loved ones and loved ones whose lives have seemingly been permanently altered by long COVID. I watched it happen in multiple circles in real time. It was in no small part what has moved me on my journey along the continuum of to not being able to accept "we just disagree."
Aides to Elon Musk charged with running the U.S. government human resources agency have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees, according to two agency officials.
I hate the newsThe systems include a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains dates of birth, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades and length of service of government workers, the officials said.
"We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems," one of the officials said. "That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications."
And they are usually blaming that on the vaccine instead of the actual virus that killed their loved ones.LordMortis wrote: Sat Feb 01, 2025 7:50 amExcept for all of the people with dead loved ones and loved ones whose lives have seemingly been permanently altered by long COVID. I watched it happen in multiple circles in real time. It was in no small part what has moved me on my journey along the continuum of to not being able to accept "we just disagree."
The Army has identified two of the three soldiers killed in Wednesday's crash outside a busy Washington, D.C. airport. The three-person crew was on board a Black Hawk helicopter that collided with an American Airlines passenger jet carrying 64 people.
The soldiers identified are Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O'Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Ga. and Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Md.
The third crew member on the helicopter was a female pilot with 500 hours of flying experience, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation. The Army is withholding the pilot's name at the request of her family.
The withholding of a name in instances like this is a highly unusual move. The identity of the third crew member has already drawn intense scrutiny online.
Misinformation on social media falsely claims she was a transgender pilot from the Virginia National Guard named Jo Ellis. Ellis has posted a "proof of life" video on Facebook, denouncing the rumors and offering condolences to those killed in the crash.
Illinois Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth, herself a decorated former Black Hawk pilot, told NPR she understood why the family declined to make their loved-one's name public.
" We should be respecting the family's wishes at a time when they have suffered an unbelievable loss," Duckworth said. "I think it is a perfectly legitimate request the family would make. And I'm glad that the Army is honoring that request."
Duckworth condemned the online speculation about the third member of the crew and especially President Trump's musings that the Army crew was to blame or was affected by diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring.
"Every one of those troops that was in that aircraft earned their place there, and they are the most highly trained military aviators in the world," Duckworth said. "And I am just sick to my stomach that we would have a president who would say such things about the heroic men and women who serve every single day."
Despite President Trump saying the pilots of the Army helicopter bore responsibility for the crash, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the crew was "fairly experienced" and carrying out a "required annual night evaluation, they did have night vision goggles."
It’s simply evil.Max Peck wrote: Sat Feb 01, 2025 9:41 am Who could have foreseen that an aviation tragedy would be politically weaponized?
Let the purge commence. HEIL TO THE CHIEFThe Trump administration is set to expand a purge of career law enforcement officials, demanding the names of those who worked on January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack and Trump-related investigations for potential removal – a move that could affect thousands.
In other words, they've achieved their goal of making the President unquestionable and untouchable. There's a term for that somewhere, I'm pretty sure, and I don't think it's 'President.'$iljanus wrote: Sat Feb 01, 2025 10:47 am Essentially it's no longer safe for agents of the FBI to investigate things that a sitting president has an interest in.
The Department of Defense announced Friday night that it will institute a new “annual media rotation program” for its in-house press corps, effectively removing several major news outlets, including NBC News, from their Pentagon office spaces in favor of other outlets.
In addition to NBC News, The New York Times, National Public Radio and Politico must vacate their dedicated workspaces. The news organizations learned about the new directive in a memo sent to the press corps without being individually notified, and an accompanying email included a message that read, in part, “no additional information will be provided at this time."
The new outlets rotating in are One America News Network — which will take NBC News’s spot — the New York Post, Breitbart News Network and HuffPost
"They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em" -- indeed.What they feared quickly came to pass. Already, content from the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which includes data from a national survey, has disappeared; so have parts of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s Social Vulnerability Index and the Environmental Justice Index. The CDC’s landing page for HIV data has also vanished. And the agency’s AtlasPlus tool, which contains nearly 20 years of CDC surveillance data on HIV, hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections, and tuberculosis, is down. Several scientists I talked with told me they had heard directly from contacts at the CDC that the agency has directed employees to scrub any mention of “gender” from its site and the data that it shares there, replacing it with “sex.”
...
A scrub such as this could also change how the government allocates funds for long-standing threats to public health, which could widen health-equity gaps, or reverse progress in combatting them. Rates of STIs more generally have recently begun to plateau in the U.S., after decades of steady increase—but altering data that focus interventions on, say, transgender populations, or men who have sex with men, could undo those gains. If no data exist to prove that a health issue concentrates within a particular community, that “provides a justification to cut funding,” one researcher told me.
My PCP was just using CDC apps to work with me on the last week to determine my vaccine status. Oh that's right vaccines only take a backseat to dirty rotten godless illegal foreigner DEI when it comes to being evil.LawBeefaroni wrote: Sat Feb 01, 2025 1:29 pm There are number of useful apps that clinicians use that are made by, or use data from, the CDC. They are all down. The STI app was a popular one. No longer working and completely scrubbed from the site.
A direct, negative effect on patient care.
Right, exactly, and what a difference it does make! They would very likely sing a different tune without those vaccines. I count myself lucky that I've never had to deal with what my Dad went through.
Ahh yep, I've had that exact conversation with friends. They usually do turn it back on the vaccine being the one doing the harm. Nevermind the fact that things would be far far worse without it.Victoria Raverna wrote: Sat Feb 01, 2025 9:15 am
And they are usually blaming that on the vaccine instead of the actual virus that killed their loved ones.
It's happening quickly:
I'm beginning to think my time with X is coming to a rapid end.The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Saturday said it will stop e-mailing news organizations and reporters with updates about two plane crashes that occurred earlier this week.
Moving forward, the federal agency tasked with investigating transportation-related accidents and disasters said news organizations and reporters will have to follow the agency’s official account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, where “all NTSB updates about news conferences or other investigative information” will be posted moving forward.
The NTSB did not say why it was choosing to post information about public safety matters exclusively on X, a private social media platform owned by technology mogul Elon Musk, who has curried favor with President Donald Trump in recent weeks. The Desk has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the government agency to learn more about the NTSB’s decision-making process in moving updates to the news media exclusively to X.
I think even we here at OO, as cynical a bunch as we are, underestimated the extent that people are simply willing to bury their heads in the sand and ignore everything that is currently happening.Smoove_B wrote: Sat Feb 01, 2025 2:06 pm Yeah, I'm not surprised but I'm still a little shocked. I'm guessing 99% of population has no idea what's happening and even if they did, they don't necessarily care, but the information that is being targeted for removal...it's insane.
