I remember hearing about Kash Patel’s children’s books and couldn’t help but think back to the days of Nazi Germany when the propaganda as children’s books were promoted . The tales would feature Snow White’s dad wanting to invade Poland or Little Red Riding Hood would be rescued by Adolf.

I often thought such notions were ridiculous but here we are.

Federal employees receive emails telling them to rat on their co-workers, if said co-workers continue to illegally operate DEI offices https://www.reddit.com/r/fednews/s/XljzxE18uX

Just listened to this NPR story about Trump ordering all the health agencies to stop updating websites and passing public information.

The reporter had no idea what the end game might be.

Any guesses beyond a general dis-interest being responsive to the public.

I'm actually pretty surprised the CBS affiliate fired them. "Look into it", sure. "Suspended", maybe. But, literally one day after, fired.

Source: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/01/22/cbs-58s-sam-kuffel-is-out-after-criticizing-elon-musk-arm-gesture/77883983007/

(I had a link here but decided against sharing my home town.)

This event is coming to my community. The main speaker appears to be Richard Mack of the Oathkeepers. This whole situation is mind blowing as it looks like a right wing overlap with our local homeschool/no masks/raw milk groups.

For context, I am a sitting county board supervisor. Myself and others have spoken with our County Administrator and steps have been taken to make it clear that this is not county affiliated and that no staff/deputies are to attend on the clock. Other than that there isn't much we can do about it. Originally a session was supposed to happen at our sheriff's office but this has been stopped.

Our county Dems party is organizing a sit in of sorts in an attempt to let them know that the community is watching. However, the active members that will likely attend is going to be less than 20 I suspect. To be frank, I'm hesitant to sit in myself. I have kids and in the changing political climate of this country I worry about drawing violent attention to myself in a way that could harm my family.

Is there any advice or input from the community on how to counter this?

Welp. Don't know what else to say.

On the fire evacuation preparedness episode today, Margaret and James go on a tangent about books and brought up one of my new favorites: The Dawn of Everything by the Davids (Graeber and Wengrow).

I’m on my second read through on the Libby app because my local library network has a digital copy. That means that I never realized how massive the physical copy is. So I decided to do did an image search. Dang its thick!

Hi everyone, still doomscrolling, still freaking out quietly. But now the initial AAAAAAHHHHH has subsided, there's 2 things that give me hope.

First, Trump. He's the glue that holds the disparate mess together. And... he's old. He's not well. If he's not there, everything falls apart. It may well fall apart anyway because of the size of the egos.

Second, there's awareness. There's a lot of people, including those of us here, who are fully aware of just how bad this administration could get. And I think there's a lot of people recognise they will be targets no matter what, so, hey, might as well do something!

I still don't have any ideas aside from Robert's "throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks." And regardless, it's going to be UGLY. But we're here, and we want as many people as possible to stay that way.

Everyone, I’m losing my mind . I thought there was an episode on the history of abortions and how medical doctors demonized the midwives that were handing it . It covered the background and case of the Dallas county prosecutor etc . Does anyone know what I’m referring to ? I usually only listen to cool zone but these were guest podcaster and interviews without our normal people.

It’s clearly happening here and as a person with physical disabilities and soul I’m finding it hard to cope with the anger I’m feeling from current events. So if I have to white knuckle it for four years I will manage but it’s only going to get more difficult

I'm angry. I'm angry the future I was promised was a lie all along. I'm angry I have to keep my mouth shut to keep what I have. I'm angry the bastards keep winning and the folks who are actually trying to help are vilified. It's exhausting. I'm exhausted.

I want to put the news down and go work in my garden and get some things ready for spring planting. But I can't. It's all one outrage and disappointment after another. I'm worried I'll miss something important that will effect me and mine. I'm worried that as soon as I stop looking the bastards will do something irreparably awful and I won't be able to react. It's exhausting. I. Am. Exhausted.

What do you do to force yourself put it all down for a minute and not worry?

Listening to today's episode, my brain did the nerd-crossover thing and got me thinking about Andor (a Star Wars show for those of you who don't know- and a damn good one at that.)

It made me think of this quote, specifically:

"Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.

And then remember this:

The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that.

And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many.

One single thing will break the siege.

Remember this:

Try. "

Long story short - I am intersex. It was such a decision, and cause for celebration to choose to get that 'X' on my passport. Now I am fucked. I don't even know if I want to apply to change it, I don't know if I can change it because it's kindof to what? , my birth certificate is sketchy, my mom fought against having me assigned or hormonally treated in the late sixties

My worry is them just not returning the passport at all -- I also worry that this will effect my medical treatment now since it's all informed based on understanding of gender variance in health codes

Fuuuuuuuucccccckkkk

My dad's residency expires in a year and a half. He plans on trying to renew, again. I've been telling him to be prepared and work on it ahead of time... but people seem pretty confident that Trump shouldn't affect him, so it reassures him even though he's a felon. (Third strike dui) I'm more cautious, and I would hate for him to be put in a detention center for an indefinite amount of time.

I'm trying to get us to move back to Chile, but he has this mindset that "I've worked so hard for everything I have here. I own a house." And he's very hesitant. I told him today, "I agree, but if shit goes down they won't care about that." And how are we, his daughters, supposed to have children here? It's not safe.

I understand. The USA is really the only country we know. He's 53 now, and came here with my aunt and grandparents when he was 5 years old during the coup in Chile. I want to claim my citizenship through him and get all of us to leave. Is it really so surprising that the country that destabilized his home country is itself unraveling?

When he was 5 years old, he was walking through torture camps looking for my grandfather. Talk about revictimization. I felt awful when he told me, "This isn't fair. I already went through this."

We have a year and a half to prepare. I'll be working on our passports in the meantime. Wish us luck.

Basically asking what it says on the tin.

America is so steeped in constant surveillance, not just from the government directly - NSA, FBI, police, etc - but on basically all forms of social media - and I'm suuuure it's a coincidence thay Zuck, Musk, and that guy who runs Google were all front row at the inauguration - is it even viable possible for anyone to organize enough, on or off, to organize massive and armed direct action?

This is not an invitation to reveal those methods of organizing here, I understand that everyone's probably uneasy about being so open about the "how" on a public forum, I'm more interested in the "if," especially from an outsider perspective as a New Zealander.

A lot of my friends are voting on signal, just wanted to confirm its a solid choice 🫡🫡🫡

Throwaway because I have a big family.

My cousin died last week. We were not close but every time I met him he was nothing but the kindest, best kind of dude. The only way I can begin to make sense of his death is by warning as many folks as I can about what happened.

His insulin pump was bluetooth enabled, and his phone died. His pump was somehow reliant on the phone and malfunctioned, causing him to progress into hypoglycemia and pass.

All I can say is that if you have a pump with anything remotely similar to this set up, please consider looking into ways to ensure your safety.

I'm putting this here for a few reasons:

• If it happens here (and it already is), we've seen that Nazis dream of disrupting the electrical grid
• If there's a natural disaster, power supply may be suspended
• Diabetic supply companies are already the devil incarnate at a baseline and have been discussed on this show

RIP Alex.

In 1994, the California Department of Regional Water executed the so called Monterey Agreement -- an agreement which turned a publicly funded resource (water) into a commodity, privately owned, manipulated, and profited from like a crypto token. At the center of this con were the Resnicks and the following agencies: the Department of Water Resources, Kern County Water Agency, Metropolitan Water District, Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District, Solano County Water Agency, Coachella Valley Water District, and Central Coast Water Authority. Who else was there besides the Resnicks, real estate developers, and other Central California farming players? Which public officials gave the ok, and why is this absurd agreement being honored despite it being clearly evil? And should'nt it be illegal to double charge tax payers for water they've already paid for? (One of the stipulations of the agreement.) Just asking.

I figured Gare would appreciate this one.

My parents called me asking if I was happy that the US rolling back climate regs would cause oil prices to rise and the currency of Norway (where I live) would rise (it's a lie). I was very upset at her glib tone and I guess I suffered TDS because I am so sick of people seeing the "good side" of all of this and it devolved into a shouting match.

I mentioned that nearly everyone I know is worried about this and all she cares about is that both the Israel and Ukraine wars will be over because of him. At one point I asked if she liked Trump and she said he was crazy and could never support him but "so many people did and you should accept other's opinions". I exploded and told her flat out.

Me: "If you support such a person or Putin or any other populists you are a BAD PERSON. PERIOD. I don;t care what your reasons are"

"You cannot view things in black and white"

"Black and white EXIST. There is good and there is evil. There is truth and there are lies. There is 0 and there is 1."

And if I wanted to be TRULY sincere I would add "What those people SHOULD do is what GOOD people do: suffer in silence and wait for the peace of death"

I heavily regret getting so angry but honestly seeing people so calm upsets me so much. AITA or and I a sane person in a collapsing world?

I want to listen to the episode done a while back about offline communication and how to keep that secure but i can't find it can someone link to it.

Mia has been ranting lately about the Orientalism of Americans going on Red Letter, an App she describes as "a shopping social media app for Chinese Yuppies", and she's not wrong. However I'm also seeing some incredible conversations happening between Americans and Chinese people that is opening eyes on both sides of the Pacific of what life is really like. Mostly it's the Chinese being dumbfounded how terrible things are here (many don't realize we have no free health care, education, or childcare), but we also have normie-Americans realizing that we've been lied to about China as well.

Most of all, I'm seeing regular working people interacting and taking joy in the tools and techniques we use, sharing cultural recipes, and worker solidarity. Hunters in Montana getting excited to chat with Chinese hunters.

I'm hopeful that this will help radicalize Americans. I'm not hoping we become Maoists, but seeing regular Americans realizing a country with more than triple our population and equal landmass capable of getting everyone health care, education, and robust public transportation makes it possible to imagine it here.

In my wildest, unlikely to happen dreams, I hope Americans become more open to socialism while the Chinese become a bit more anti-authoritarian.

Regardless of what happens, it's quite funny the US allegedly trying to stop Chinese propaganda have now driven people directly into interacting with Chinese people.

People talking to people, and gaining worldwide worker solidarity is good. And on the cusp of the second Trump term, I'll be holding on to this little light in the darkness.

I might even upload some videos of my forklift and dog.