I saw a poll today the republicans are still happy and enthusiastic about the presidency. Gov. Waltz’s response was lackluster, at best. I’m referring to his approach now as the Chamberlain approach - try to talk it away with the person responsible. So let that sink in that the people in power are either ineffective or ready to kill you. Think about that. Truly. Walk away from this post and just think.

Back? OK.

There have been many legal shifts that empowered ICE and the executive to get here. The chain of SCOTUS decisions leading up to this for instance. From warrantless authority and expansion of border zones that are under US CBP authority to immunity for the executive from criminal prosecution. And here we are. Where killing someone is not just legal, but praised and celebrated. The results are playing out in Minneapolis. Don’t think it ends there. This is a proving ground and it will continue and spread. If you are an American outside the MAGA movement, you are not safe. Neutral? Not safe. You are not free at all. The state can and will disappear or kill you, get away with it, and will have loved every moment of it.

Not American? This is going to be your problem real damn soon. Part of America wants to kill the people they don’t like. They are happy to do it. They are doing it to their own. You will be even less of a concern when they look at you as the next problem to solve. Indeed, arguing they deserve this, or that this is just their problem, are the dumbest takes out of all of this. A nuclear super power doesn’t just collapse into a fascist apartheid state and not send shockwaves through the world.

For whatever ills America has wrought, and they are many, no one deserves to have their own government break down their door and kill them because they felt like it today. To kidnap a kid because they need a hostage to catch the father. No one deserves that.

Its not just an American problem anymore. The gloves are off and the regime is out for blood, any blood it doesn’t see as pure and in its image. This is a humanitarian problem.

Its a fight now to stop a nation hellbent on killing its own citizens and then turning its power and hatred on you because no one has stood up to them, meaningfully, and said “enough.”

This was very hard to write, and process, but I needed to write it. Please, I beg you, treat this as the danger it is.

It does not matter when the rule of law is not enforced nor supported:

“Those that think law, accountability, transparency, and ethics can save us from this moment. I fear they can not. Thus, to shout, “You can’t do that,” is now moot. They can do that, and they will do that. Many remain unaware that the window for warning has already closed. Our conversation must shift from “You can’t do that,” to “What can we do to stop this?” The answer is not clear. However, an answer, some answer, lies in how we view freedom and how we protect it.”

https://lecternmedia.substack.com/p/and-we-thought-nation-states-were

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The EU needs to take the gloves off or nothing will stop the madman and his madmen and madwomen. If there’s an economic war, fight it. Stand up. You can do it Europe.

Can’t wait for it to turn its latest travesty Suicide Goodnight Moon into an ad for rope.

Sure-

Response: I appreciate the reviewer’s concern about maintaining scholarly rigor in moments of political disruption. I have moderated claims throughout and grounded assertions in available sources and peer-reviewed scholarship. However, I respectfully maintain that the evidence available to any informed observer, including official government documents, Supreme Court rulings, mass resignations, weaponization of the administrative state, and documented administrative actions targeting career public servants, supports the analysis presented. Indeed, the revised manuscript does not call for abandoning administrative theory wholesale, but rather for extending and adapting theoretical frameworks to account for such new realities the theories were not formulated to explain. Critical scholarship must continue to acknowledge evidence as it emerges in-the-real. Accordingly, I have clarified the sections where the original wording could be read as overly prescriptive. I hope these revisions address the concerns raised. I am grateful for the opportunity to strengthen the manuscript and remain open to further suggestions.

Asking for a friend. How the hell can Non Danish/non EU folks help or contribute if or when that friend was a military person in a past career?

BG3 done? Time for a new play thorough /u/Chloyster

I’m in 15th century Bohemia, galavanting the countryside and getting into trouble as Henry of Skalitz.

KCD2. I also just finished KCD1.

Fuck. More power to you.

23 job applications out to door. Nothing yet. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to everyone else in the world. My old university gave me a courtesy appointment just to help me maintain my academic creds. Publish or perish, as they say.

Had a paper sent back to me. Reviewer told me that I’m “ill informed” and “overstated” the problems of the executive branch. That the US govt is working well. I had to dig deep into my academic shade throwing library to retort and felt great about my response. I think I captured the dumpster fire meme in academic prose.

Very focused on landing a job this week and fueled by coffee.

If i were to return to the US, this is place I’d go and that is the industry I’d try to get into.

I’ve responded to a few posts about Reich recently. He’s lost whatever credibility he had left with me. His recent postings since leaving Berkeley, and the run up to it, have seemed ruderless and not well argued or articulated.

Whatever the reasons, I find he’s out of touch with reality. Yes, his messaging on wealth inequality and exploitation are sound. But he’s still playing checkers when the world has moved onto chess.

Quite. I fear what this loss of empathy will mean for humanity.

I’ll bite and share my experience. There is absolutely an issue. I’ve had applications for bank accounts denied, two people on hiring committees tell me I don’t belong here, a grant application simply withdrawn, another (confirmed insider knowledge) threw any application despite a valid work permit with any hint of US on the application into the trash. I have so many people ask me why I’m here, how I’m here, when I’m leaving. In professional settings and social. My partner, a entrepreneur, for the first time ever is having government entities stonewall her and representatives tell her off when she does any paperwork. She was in tears one day as she called to get some advice on a regulation and was told her business didn’t deserve advice. People. Are. Cruel. There is very little empathy left, and honestly, I get it. It’s not right, but I understand.

I want to integrate but there is absolutely an informal unwelcome mat being put in front of the door to Europe, and Canada.

I won’t be responding to posts as I am likely to get brigaded and trolled for writing the above. Americans wanting to get to safety, leave gun violence and fascism behind, and build a better world, are simply not welcome or have many barriers in place that didn’t exist before.

As a US researcher (social sciences) who left, I warned my EU colleagues not to go to our big conferences. They were floored. Many thought it wasn’t that bad, but the selling point that worked is, “do you want to risk being on the wrong side of an unaccountable border agent who hates how you look?” A gulag, literally a fucking gulag in a foreign country, could await. Its not worth the risk.

However, context. What I dont appreciate about these articles is that they assume a broad ban on the US because of morals, ethics, national pride, or solidarity. Nope. It’s risk. Hubris and prestige of a career trump all other things. That simple. These same researchers still go to Hungary and Turkey. Its really discouraging to me as a critical theorist.

I took some time off from the job hunt. I needed that and had a lovely holiday break.

“You’d think military officials would be delighted to find a contractor that isn’t trying to stiff them raw.”

That elicited a sensible chuckle.

This is my opinion alone. From trying hard to connect to resources. I’ve learned that elite actors like Mr. Reich, Ralph Nader, and others of similar ilk simply aren’t effective anymore. Their voices don’t carry. They are out of touch with reality. They are not effective in bringing meaningful change. I surmise they don’t truly grasp the reality of connecting with struggling Americans anymore. Their hearts and minds are in the right place, still, but they have not effectively evolved their work to the modern world. Nor have they transferred their work, advocacy, and knowledge to a new generation of activists.

A video from Berkley about wealth inequality is great. However, it does not go far enough. It pains me to say this, but Mr. Reich is just one of many tabletop activisits who publish, print, and stream advice and profit from it. We need less of that. We need more actionable items, resource and network sharing, and out on the streets work in this moment.

Highway Companion.

Its not Tom Petty’s finest. Noted. But that doesn’t matter for me. I was going through alot at the time. I came back from tour 2 in Afghanistan, was struggling to cope with what I’d been through and just lost. I would get in my wrangler, take the doors and top off, and just drive. For hours. The album had released for about a year but times were so messesld up for me that I missed releases or concerts for most music I used to listen to. I was just checked out from the things I loved. So one day when I saw this at the PX I grabbed it. It just hit me at the right time.

It was the only thing I’d play on those drives. Things got better for me and this was the album that was part of that experience. First to recognizing the ills I’d been a part of. Then to healing and buddhism. To trying to be a better human, accepting my past, and building a now that was beyond my self. 20 years later, I still use this when I’m needing to reconnect with the world and myself. Now it’s while I am biking or walking, but its the mood and the lack of a destination that make the setting. It really and truly lived up to its name for me, a highway companion on l the freeway that is my life.

I’m not a sudo apt master. I don’t know shit about terminal or making Linux do stuff beyond wanting to point and click. Yes, it can run a sea worthy version of Photoshop.

Let me break it down. I use a program called Lutris, installed from the software manager. Its technically a game launcher to collect all your games in one convenient area, letting me launch steam, gog, etc from one library. I install plenty of windows programs and obscure ones if I need them for my research. MaxQDA, SPSS for instance.

There are few, if any, normal day-to-day use cases where Windows is better. Gaming, thanks to Proton, is not a problem. Drivers? Got those too. But what about x software? There’s a less bloated FOSS or low cost version out there.

Just go for it.