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.

  • 14 Posts
  • 36 Comments
Joined 18 days ago
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Cake day: March 13th, 2025

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  • Yeah, if only we had a free press that could keep the public informed about matters so we could know what the fuck is actually going on anymore.

    It’s especially weird the university just didn’t release a statement about it or anything.

    It definitely could go either way

    If we actually still had a free press, you would expect this to be getting some coverage and for there to be some kind of statement from the University’s lawyers saying they were cooperating with the FBI if this guy was legitimately wanted for shady dealings.

    It’s fucking sad that we all read this and have to think, is this the FBI handling a legitimate threat or is this why DHS keeps complaining about Civil Rights Offices standing in their way.






  • 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.





  • 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






  • 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.









  • 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





  • Yeah I went ahead and just deleted it, but I’m very confused why it’s showing any app associated with that email. It was literally just a throwaway email I used once so I wouldn’t have to use my main account.

    When I tried to log in to Google play using that email it said I needed to accept the terms and conditions bc I’d never logged in before.