#access control systems in usa

[sapphia]

USA please listen to me: the price of “teaching them a lesson” is too high. take it from New Zealand, who voted our Labour government out in the last election because they weren’t doing exactly what we wanted and got facism instead.

Trans rights are being attacked, public transport has been defunded, tax cuts issued for the wealthy, they've mass-defunded public services, cut and attacked the disability funding model, cut benefits, diverted transport funding to roads, cut all recent public transport subsidies, cancelled massive important infrastructure projects like damns and ferries (we are three ISLANDS), fast tracked mining, oil, and other massive environmentally detrimental projects and gave the power the to approve these projects singularly to three ministers who have been wined and dined by lobbyists of the companies that have put the bids in to approve them while one of the main minister infers he will not prioritise the protection of endangered species like the archeys frog over mining projects that do massive environmental harm. They have attacked indigenous rights in an attempt to negate the Treaty of Waitangi by “redefining it”; as a backup, they are also trying to remove all mentions of the treaty from legislation starting with our Child Protection laws no longer requiring social workers to consider the importance of Maori children’s culture when placing those children; when the Waitangi Tribunal who oversees indigenous matters sought to enquire about this, the Minister for Children blocked their enquiry in a breach of comity that was condemned in a ruling — too late to do anything — by our Supreme Court. They have repealed labour protections around pay and 90 day trials, reversed our smoking ban, cancelled our EV subsidy, cancelled our water infrastructure scheme that would have given Maori iwi a say in water asset management, cancelled our biggest city’s fuel tax, made our treasury and inland revenue departments less accountable, dispensed of our Productivity Commission, begun work on charter schools and military boot camps in an obvious push towards privatisation, cancelled grants for first home buyers, reduced access to emergency housing, allowed no cause evictions, cancelled our Maori health system that would have given Maori control over their own public medical care and funding, cut funding of services like budgeting advice and food banks, cancelled the consumer advocacy council, cancelled our medicine regulations, repealed free prescriptions, deferred multiple hospital builds, failed to deliver on pre-election medical promises, reversed a gun ban created in response to the mosque shootings, brought back three strikes = life sentence policy, increased minimum wage by half the recommended amount, cancelled fair pay for disabled workers, reduced wheelchair services, reversed our oil and gas exploration ban, cancelled our climate emergency fund, cut science research funding including climate research, removed limits on killing sea lions, cut funding for the climate change commission, weakened our methane targets, cancelled Significant National Areas protections, have begun reversing our ban on live exports. Much of this was passed under urgency.

It’s been six months.

[evidence-based-activism]

Male Violence Masterlist

To make my resources more accessible, I am now going to have separate posts linking to each of my feminism subcategories. These are intended to catalog my resource posts, not every post on my blog.

This is the masterlist for my #male violence tag, which includes (but is not limited to) posts on domestic violence, sexual violence, and femicide.

Most of these posts are mine, but I will include the occasional resource from others.

Please see my main masterlist for other topics.

This post will be edited to include further resources, so check back on the original post link for updates. (Last update: 03/2025)

Male Violence Against Women Prevalence

Women’s victimization:

Millions of women are lost to misogyny each year.

At least one in three women around the world experiences male violence.

Most countries report no to low levels of physical safety for women.

Victimization is a function of exposure rates; when adjusted for exposure, women are at greater risk of violence than men.

Men’s perpetration:

Many men around the world openly admit to abusing or raping women.

An estimated one in three men around the world openly admit to abusing or raping women.

Domestic Violence

The prevalence of domestic violence against women:

Heterosexual relationships are one of the most dangerous aspects of a woman’s life around the world.

Men commit more domestic violence than women:

Studies finding parity in domestic violence rates all rely on the same seriously flawed methodology; in reality, men are the perpetrators of most domestic violence.

Men commit more coercive-controlling violence than women.

Men are the primary aggressor more often than women.

Men report believing domestic violence is socially acceptable.

Contrary to the popularized myth, lesbians do not have a higher rate of domestic violence than men.

Black men commit more violence than Black women.

Men are more likely to abuse children, and their abuse is more severe.

Most child homicide perpetrators are male.

There are qualitative differences in men’s and women’s violence:

Men’s domestic violence is more likely to cause “impact” than women’s violence.

Victims and the legal system:

Men do not underreport domestic victimization any more than women do.

The police response to domestic violence victims is similar (and poor) for both male and female victims.

Men’s retaliatory violence is not self-defense.

Self-defense laws are biased against women because they ignore physical differences between the victim and perpetrator.

Men use DARVO to discredit their victims and extend their coercive control.

Country-specific issues:

The USA’s gun violence laws put women at a unique risk of gun violence by their domestic partners.

In the USA, the majority of mass shootings were domestic violence-related.

Russia’s inadequate state response perpetuates men’s domestic violence against women.

A horrifying percentage of Afghani men abuse Afghani women.

Other:

A factor in a not-insignificant proportion of male suicides is their abusive behavior towards women.

Characterizing some femicide as “honor killings” when they are motivated by the same male entitlement as white men’s femicides is racist.

Sexual Violence

Prevalence of sexual violence:

Women make up the majority of sexual violence victims.

Men openly admit to perpetrating sexual violence.

Sexual violence is common on public transportation.

Sexual violence is common in the US military.

Rape is a significant, major, or endemic problem around the world.

Trafficking of women is common around the world.

Men commit more sexual violence than women:

Most sexual violence is perpetrated by men.

Despite attempts to misrepresent statistics, men make up the vast majority of sexual perpetrators against women.

The majority of sexual harassment perpetrators are men.

Men underestimate, and women overestimate, their perpetration on quantitative scales.

Men make up the majority of animal abusers.

Many rapists offend more than once.

Victims and the legal system:

Due to inadequate legal response, rape is effectively decriminalized.

Over 60% of female rape victims do not refer to their rape as rape.

Only about 5% of rape accusations are false, and the majority of false accusations do not name a perpetrator.

Violence by women is taken as seriously as violence by men.

Male victims:

Studies with poor methodological quality cannot be used to generalize the prevalence of male victims.

The majority of male child sexual abuse victims were victimized by a man.

Male victims suffer negative consequences of sexual violence.

Women have similar empathy for male and female victims.

Male and female victims face similar levels of victim blame and perpetrator support.

Internet posts about sexual violence describe similar levels of victim negative and perpetrator positive sentiments for male and female perpetrators and victims.

Men of color are not uniquely predisposed to sexual violence:

Men of color do not commit more sexual crimes because of their race/ethnicity in the USA or globally.

Arab men do not commit more sexual crimes because of their race/ethnicity in Europe.

Country-specific:

Sexual violence is pervasive in North Korea.

There have been recent advances in women’s rights in Chile.

Sexual violence as a weapon:

Sexual violence is not an acceptable response to oppression or discrimination.

The UN has described the use of rape as a weapon of war.

Incels make a choice to identify with a movement that encourages and perpetuates violence against women.

Other:

Sexual victimization in childhood is not a causal factor in sexual offending.

It is ineffective to try and rank sexual crimes based on a single characteristic.

Male circumcision is not equivalent to female genital mutilation.

General Violence

Women are not as violent as men:

Men are the majority of perpetrators of every violent crime, and particularly the more severe offenses.

Gay men commit more crime than women.

Criminal behavior patterns follow sex, not gender identity.

Men make up the vast majority of serial and mass murder perpetrators.

There is no significant reporting gap by perpetrator sex.

Qualitative differences in crime:

Female homicide offenders’ criminal patterns are significantly different from male offenders.

Many female homicide offenders were acting in self-defense.

Reasons why men are more violent than women:

We do not have a definitive reason why men are more violent than women.

Higher testosterone does not explain men's higher violence rates.

Legal responses to perpetrators:

There is not a criminal sentencing gap caused by sex.

Race:

Black men do not commit more crime because of their race in the USA.

White men commit more crime than Black women. (Further clarification.)

Other:

Men do not protect women in disaster situations.

[betterbemeta]

I like the cockroach spirit of posts going around to encourage queer community in the USA during this current time. I think that's valuable.

Where some of them are losing me though is 'do you know how to DIY HRT'? Which is definitely a valuable knowledge to have! You should know all that is possible regardless of what choices you make. But I think we need to have a chat about illegalism. okay.

Illegalism is: "illegal actions, seen through a lens of praxis, ideology, systemic activity."

When you tell someone that they should/must be prepared to break the law for their safety, security, survival, or even just because it's a stupid law, illegalism has entered the discussion.

in the USA, Testosterone is classified as a Schedule-III controlled substance. The penalty for illegal possession and use is not as high as Schedule I or II. But we should still understand what its status means, beyond the concept of 'magnitude of punitive consequences' when we talk about it. Illegalism can help us do that.

Public understanding of illegality is pretty much dog shit where I live, starting in early childhood. We typically are taught early that it's bad to break the law, without a need to know what any laws actually are in detail. Or how they're enforced aside from 'by the police,' or the level of knowledge enforcers have, what the objectives of said laws are, and if you had any say in the process. The idea of 'criminals' is hazy at best, like, 'bogeymen.' Religion definitely pollutes this, like 'a criminal' is a Bad Person, Unlawful, Sinner, Punishable, etc.

But this means many people think of 'crimes' in very limited ways, or don't update this knowledge over time. I think it would be fair to say that it's common to think, 'when it's hard to compete, some people cheat.' It's very popular to believe that it's 'easier' to do illegal, dishonest, illegitimate actions as if these are all the same concept. They aren't.

But that narrative seems to 'make sense' as its commonly applied to a doping scandal. That person couldn't win a sports competition fairly. So they took testosterone, or a steroid. That's easier than 'competing fairly,' isn't it?

No! It's way more expensive, riskier to get and use a prohibited substance than to not do that.

In reality, illegal actions are harder than legal ones. This has nothing to do with whether this is a moral or immoral action, enforcement of the law is only about making some actions harder to accomplish than others.

This is not always enforced by the cop form of violence, the prison form of violence. Sometimes it's enforced by the fine form of violence. Or the 'fee' form-- others are 'allowed' to capitalize on the barrier to access. Scarcity can do the job with years-long waiting lists or every warehouse out of stock of something you're technically allowed to obtain. Inconvenience can be enforcement too: requiring so much time or effort that it's easier to quit than to complete the process... if it even has an end.

Some things are hard to 'successfully' prohibit even by all of these means. The consequences may be enormous and brutal if the police raid your 1950s gay scene, but it costs people very little money, frustration, time to 'go to the same place as other people in your local area.' This is because many non-illegal activities require 'walking around', 'meeting people'-- laws against 'crossdressing' or 'soliciting' are often written to select 'the criminals' out of a bunch of people doing ordinary things.

But can you tell me your plan to DIY some Adderall? Do you know how to make Adderall? Do you know a drug dealer? Can you pay the price they set? Can you protect yourself from that person's level of risk as well as manage your own? Are you capable of giving informed consent about the Adderall you obtain-- if it's just some cornstarch in a pill jacket, do you have a way to test that?

If you answered yes to these things, you probably have more resources than some people who will hear 'just DIY it.' Yes, that includes 'do you know a drug dealer.' Drug dealers aren't 'those things poor people know.' And someone who currently pays nothing for their medication via a govt. program, and loses access to that program, is not going to be helped by The Ability To Buy Weed In The State of Georgia.

So we can now understand that unlike walking, meeting people, 'obtaining restricted substances' is an extremely specific behavior that authorities assume no 'normal' people need to do. Even crossdressing in the 1950s, dresses had to be available for women so the sale of dresses, creation of them couldn't be regulated. Laws are enforced at the stage that 'selects the criminal'-- if that enforcement is absolute, you may not be able to break a specific law at all even if you wanted to. DIY me some Plutonium-239.

But what difference does it make if Adderall, HRT, become simply so difficult to access that they might as well be weapons-grade plutonium even to people who legally could obtain them? That's already true for some people, and if conditions continue to deteriorate could apply to more people. How do you 'DIY' your way out of that? (Hint: it may require...)

"Be prepared to break the laws you can break," is a less attractive statement, isn't it?

It's necessary. But it also admits that some of us may not be able to successfully resist oppression even by illegal means. Or at least not completely, or in all ways. Some of us could just be stuck experiencing the material consequences of losing human rights. The scope of illegal actions some will be capable of will be like, shoplifting laundry detergent. violating a lease, working extra unreported jobs, squatting. Rioting. While not being on T.

[free-luigi-mangione]

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/big-corporations-are-trying-to-control-the-narrative-around-luigi

There is also this article

this is a fantastic article!! they talked about so much that mainstream media won't talk about and also pointed out exactly why. go give it a read!!

my favourite bits:

the headline!! it's exactly what's in the url!! and it's straight to the point!!

“It’s been almost four months since the assassination of Brian Thompson, the late and unlamented CEO of UnitedHealthcare.” the first sentence is itself a banger – ‘late and unlamented’ huh?? 😏

“So clearly, the problem isn’t violence. Rather, it’s expressions of sympathy for the one person in the country who is accused of directing violence at a rich healthcare executive, which is being treated as worse than violence against anyone else. That’s not moderation, it’s political censorship. The effect is to suppress popular anger and opposition to the for-profit healthcare system, with “violence” as a pretext.” 'nuff said, methinks

the breast cancer surgery story straight from the doctor with UHC denying coverage for the patient (this is in my list of favourites because it shows exactly how bad the insurance industry is and i'm glad it was reported here)

love how they showed how badly NYT is covering everything (NYT is actually famous everywhere, like everybody knows about NYT, so for NYT to become so unreliable is kinda symbolic of a lot of things happening in USA rn)

“Rather than simply providing the public with information, which is the job of any journalist, the [NYT] staff appointed themselves chaperones of what information the public should and should not have access to, and what conclusions they should draw from it.” this reminded me of another thing i read somewhere else where it said something like ‘mainstream media had to tell people how to react appropriately to the murder’

“in a pungent stinkpiece [in NYT]” this got added to my vocabulary from now onwards xD

“Witty emphasizes the fact that Thompson was born in Iowa and “worked farm jobs” growing up—which is irrelevant, since it’s not where we’re born but what we do in life that defines us.” this Witty guy doesn't seem witty at all tbh

this article pointed every thorn it could at the UHC people trying to brainwash the public and also pointed out exactly why UHC and a for-profit healthcare system shouldn't exist at all

“In fact, Thompson’s innovative AI denial system is alleged to have had a 90 percent error rate (meaning that 9 out of 10 denials would be reversed upon appeal) and is the subject of a huge class-action lawsuit. So he was making things worse, not better. But even without a shady AI involved, simply being a for-profit healthcare operator should be considered a crime of the worst kind.” 🔥🔥🔥

“In the United States, the Lancet medical journal estimated in 2020 that 68,000 people die every year because they can’t afford to buy healthcare.” love the usage of the word ‘buy’ here

“that Brian Thompson was a worse killer than Luigi Mangione could ever dream of being, that there’s no reason anybody should feel particularly sad that he’s left this mortal plane, and that the whole system he represented needs to be torn down.”

calling TMZ out for the name of their documentary (called ‘film’ and not documentary later in the article) for not giving Luigi the presumption of innocence

comparing Luigi to Bernie Sanders xD

“the real killers wear suits and ties to the shareholders’ meeting, and they’ve got to be stopped.” great last sentence 👏👏👏

[dn-838]

It’s not Third-Party voters fault that the Democratic Party lost the election in America, it’s not leftists fault the Democratic Party lost the election, it’s not the fault of “inherent bigotry” that reactionary movements have gained such massive traction across the West, it’s not Russian and Chinese propaganda causing a rightward shift.

It’s not immigrants causing problems in Industry, it’s not LGBT+ people causing birth rate decrease, it’s not some grand conspiracy causing an increase in Immigrant populations across major cities, it’s not some secret society running the world.

It’s all Class, the billionaires, Corporate CEOs, national leaders you think represent you, all withhold the exact same system, neither the Democrats nor Republicans will ever represent or care for their people, the USA is controlled by a bunch of regressive, Imperialist, Genocidal racists, no matter which of its two parties are in power, they are monsters, Fascists of the worst kind. Kamala Harris was a Warmongering, Genocidal Transphobic Fascist and any perceived “lesser evil” from her was built off of pure convenience for her campaign and not because she was genuinely in any way a better human being than the man she was opposing at heart. Trump, the Republicans, are complete lunatics made up by a bunch of Reactionary billionaires, and matter how much you think they agree with you, Billionaires are never allies of working people… no exceptions. No, not Gabe Newell or George Lucas, if they reached Billions, their hoarding of wealth in of itself is enough to deserve a lack of respect, nevermind whatever unethical things it likely took to get to that position in this era of such worker or economic exploitation.

There’s no relying on these “Liberal” or “Conservative” politicians, they all represent the same thing, they all value you just as little, anti-immigration policies aren’t going to fix the problems, giving marginalised groups effective access to what they need is not going to fix the problem. Any success or progress countries make is temporary, as is the cycle we’ve seen again and again all across the world for the last 2 and a half centuries. If anyone actually wants anything to happen effectively, they need to look to the root of all the problems in the first place, class, wealth inequality, Imperialism, Corporate controls. There’s no way forward the way the world is now, there needs to be change, a lot, and everywhere actors the globe.

[the-nyanguard-party]

in a socialist state, what makes a capitalist a capitalist? if the state owns the means of production then how can capitalists who also own the means of production exist? sorry, i'm just a little confused on the logistics of this. do they both own it somehow?

well the proletarian state is not necessarily immediately capable of bringing all economic activity and resources under its control. wealth may be hoarded, it may be taken abroad. private economic activity may continue, even in an irregular fashion.

the petit-bourgeoisie, particularly in the agrarian sector, tends to continue to exist for some time under socialism and takes time to proletarianize. attempting a rapid forceful expropriation and proletarianization of these people may cause more harm than good by prematurely intensifying antagonisms that could be worked out through other means. particularly problematic if you are a country like the USSR or China built on the revolutionary alliance of proletariat and peasantry - the peasantry in question takes this role of agrarian petit-bourgeoisie, though they can be gradually proletarianized and their property brought under collective and state control

the bourgeoisie that has been expropriated may continue to struggle to restore capitalism, and due to the interconnected nature of the world capitalist system they have access to resources and connections abroad to help with that. i suppose this is not the main point of your question, but also to some degree some proletarians without a properly developed class consciousness can also join their side, particularly if they expect to personally benefit from it in some way. while the economic base is the principal aspect of the base-superstructure dialectic, the superstructure still exerts some degree of influence and has some inertia that can't just be ignored (and neither can foreign influence - the bourgeoisie of countries like the USA spend a lot of effort and resources in trying to foment counter-revolution in socialist countries)

in underdeveloped countries, the proletarian state may deliberately allow for the bourgeoisie to engage in a form of state-capitalism under the control of the proletarian state in order to develop the productive forces. this was the principle behind Lenin's New Economic Policy, and also the Socialist Market Economy of China

does this make sense? I'm not very good at explaining stuff

[ocean-sailor]

Trump to pause tariffs for '30 days' after speaking with Trudeau.

Canadians aren't stupid. This is not about migrants (<1% in 2024) or fentanyl (also <1% in 2024) crossing the Canadian border into the USA. Goods/people that cross this border into the USA is controlled by US Border Services. The Canada Border Services Agency controls what comes into Canada.

Trump also threatened Canada's sovereignty again. It will be a cold day in hell before Canada becomes the 51st state.

Trump wants Canada's resources - water, energy, minerals, etc. without trade negotiations and contractual obligations with a foreign country and the tax revenue and control it would bring.

Trump wants access to our banking system - stronger and more highly regulated than the USA system. Note Canada's banks did not fall in 2008 when the USA system nearly collapsed the world economy.

Trump wants to control Canada's Arctic Passage. As climate change melts northern ice, this area becomes a new and shorter, more economical trade route.

This is about money and power for Trump - not the American people.

To learn more about the country of Canada 🇨🇦

[gatekeeper-watchman]

Good morning, USA and the World Daily Devotionals for November 6, 2024

Proverbs: God's Wisdom for Daily Living

Devotional Scripture:

Proverbs 27:20 (KJV): 20 Hell and destruction are never full; so, the eyes of man are never satisfied. Proverbs 27:20 (AMP): 20 Sheol (the place of the dead) and Abaddon (the place of destruction) are never satisfied; so (the lust of) the eyes of man is never satisfied.

Thought for the Day

Worldly lusts, idolatry and power oppose God's will. Look around you and see what’s going on. Those who yield to them are never satisfied, just as hell is always hungry for more inhabitants. Lust can never be satisfied. Our Heavenly Father gave us elections as a motorization of our wickedness. He allows us to see the evil and distaste in others for a reason. "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever" (1 John 2:16-17).

Satan tempts us in three areas of lust, idolatry and power; by using the same lie he told Adam and Eve. We can benefit from studying how this hostile fallen angel struck at God through the man and woman He had created and loved: "...And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat" (Genesis 3:4-6).

Notice Satan's method of tempting Adam and Eve. First, he challenged God's Word and cast doubt upon His judgment and goodness. Next, he placed three temptations before her through the lust of the flesh (Eve saw that "the tree was good for food"), the lust of the eyes (it was "pleasant to the eyes"), and the pride of life (it was "a tree to be desired to make one wise"). Our desires for the things of the world tempt us today as stated in James 1:14: "But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed." The "world" consists of the systems of fallen human society without God: education, science, arts, religious systems, politics, etc. This "world" is controlled by Satan. Many of us do not realize that when we touch the things that make up fallen society, we touch the power of Satan. Therefore, we become independent in the way that we use them, if we do not put them under the power and direction of God. God does not want to deny us these things, but if we do not allow Him to rule over us as we partake of them, they become like forbidden fruit to us.

I do not believe that God intended to forever deny man access to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but He had a plan that would have opened his eyes to good and evil in time; when human beings had matured enough to be able to live with that knowledge. By eating prematurely from that tree, it brought death instead of wisdom, just as God warned. Physical death did not come immediately, but spiritual death did, as man could no longer face God. Fear and shame are the fruit of sin. If we fellowship with God on a daily basis, we find that there is simply no guilt that troubles us. However, when we sin and do not repent, we run from the presence of God just as Adam and Eve did.

Prayer Devotional for the Day

Dear heavenly Father, we thank you for all the wonderful things You created in this world for us to enjoy. Lord, I know when You restrict anything from us, it is for our good, and because You love us. Help us to understand but not yield to the temptations to go beyond the boundaries that You have set for mankind in Your Word. Deliver us from all lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and the pride within its greed of this life that may set our eyes on eternal things and hold loosely the things of this world and use them for Your glory. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Wednesday, November 6, 2024, Jacksonville, Florida USA From: Steven P. Miller, @ParkermillerQ,gatekeeperwatchman.org , TM ‎Founder and Administrator of Gatekeeper-Watchman International Groups. #GWIG, #GWIN, #GWINGO. www.facebook.com/gatekeeperwatchnan www.facebook.com/ Instagram: steven_parker_miller_1956

[subdee]

Billionaire Elon Musk’s team yesterday took control of the Treasury’s payment system, thus essentially gaining access to the checkbook with which the United States handles about $6 trillion annually and to all the financial information of Americans and American businesses with it. Apparently, it did not stop there.

Today Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press reported that yesterday two top security officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) tried to stop people associated with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, from accessing classified information they did not have security clearance to see. The Trump administration put the officials on leave, and the DOGE team gained access to the information.

...

In a riveting piece today, in his Thinking about…, scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder wrote that “[t]he people who now dominate the executive branch of the government…are acting, quite deliberately, to destroy the nation.” “Think of the federal government as a car,” he wrote. “You might have thought that the election was like getting the car serviced. Instead, when you come into the shop, the mechanics, who somehow don’t look like mechanics, tell you that they have taken the parts of your car that work and sold them and kept the money. And that this was the most efficient thing to do. And that you should thank them.”

Apologies for all the politics posts but the USA is literally being couped right as we speak and even if someone shoots a certain billionaire tomorrow so much damage has already been done.

Seriously get all these people out, immediately.

[headedoutleft]

…

USAJOBS, the federal government’s official hiring site, was one of the systems that Musk's associates were given access to. The database stores personal information — Social Security numbers, home addresses, employment records — provided by private individuals who have applied for federal jobs, regardless of whether the applicants went on to work for the government.

Musk’s aides were also given access to the OPM’s Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) system. Contained within the EHRI are the Social Security numbers, dates of birth, salaries, home addresses, and job descriptions of all civil government workers, along with any disciplinary actions they have faced. “They’re looking through all the position descriptions… to remove folks,” one of the OPM staffers said of Musk’s team. “This is how they found all these DEI offices and had them removed — [by] reviewing position description level data.”

Other databases Musk’s team has access to include USA Staffing, an onboarding system; USA Performance, a job performance review site; and HI, which the government uses to manage employee health care. “The health insurance one scares me because it's HIPAA [protected] information, but they have access to all this stuff,” the OPM staffer noted.

…

 A new server being used to control these databases has been placed in a conference room that Musk’s team is using as their command center, according to an OPM staffer. The staffer described the server as a piece of commercial hardware they believed was not obtained through the proper federal procurement process.

There is a legal requirement that the installation of a new server undergo a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA), a formal process to ensure the change would not create any security vulnerabilities. But in this instance, the staff believes there was no PIA. “So this application and corresponding hardware are illegally operating,” they added.

…

Upon gaining access to the OPM databases last week, Musk used the agency to email all federal civil employees simultaneously. The email announced a “deferred resignation” program, claiming that any federal employee who wished to resign effective September 30, 2025, would receive pay and benefits until that date and would not have to show up for work except in rare cases. Musk and the White House falsely described the offer as a "buyout" or "severance." The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, has condemned the program, saying it “will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government.”

[menlove]

the thing abt HRT and gender affirming surgery is that like... yes many providers do provide incorrect/insufficient information. a lot of providers DO downplay the risks or don't mention all of them. ignoring this reality and pretending that everyone who starts HRT/gets gender affirming surgery is completely 100% informed doesn't do anyone any good

however

this problem is FAR from exclusive to gender affirming medical care. it is a GENERAL problem in ALL aspects of medical care, especially in the USA (and I'm sure elsewhere but I can only speak on our healthcare system as I haven't lived anywhere else)

like here's a couple examples.

when I was 8 years old, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes by a nurse practitioner. she however prescribed me a type of insulin for type 2 diabetes and instructed me to take it once a day and only check my blood twice a day. this is completely incorrect, as type 1 diabetics need to take short acting insulin every time they eat and long acting insulin once or twice a day and check their blood sugars at MINIMUM 4 times a day. I almost died. I had to be hospitalized about a week later with insanely high blood sugars. this was grossly mishandled by that nurse practitioner who had no idea what she was doing & she could've killed a child. does that mean no one should have access to insulin? or that we should start scare mongering diabetics telling them their providers are trying to harm them?

another example! when I was 14, I was having an allergic reaction to a medication and had to go into the ER. they didn't read my chart to see that I had type 1 diabetes, did not check my blood glucose levels, and gave me a steroid shot. that shot spiked my blood sugar (which was already high) so high so fast that I passed out and nearly cracked my head on the floor. it turned what would've been a quick ER trip to an overnight fiasco. does that mean doctors should never ever give steroids as treatment for allergic reactions?

or far more general than me- how many times are people prescribed birth control without the side effects being fully described? how many people get gastric bypass surgery without fully understanding what they're doing to their bodies? how many people have debilitating chronic illnesses but have no clue how they're supposed to handle them bc no doctor ever bothered to educate them (as I see constantly with other diabetics)? how many people have 0 knowledge about their own reproductive systems or have their concerns about their reproductive systems completely ignored until it turns lethal?

the issue isn't gender affirming care. the issue is medical professionals who don't care enough about their patients to make sure they're fully informed and fully consenting, or even that they themselves know exactly what they're doing. it's overworked medical professionals who skip vital steps because they've been working 15 hours in a row. it's the disregard for the health of people assigned female at birth (& the disregard for the health of people assigned male at birth if they decide to pursue gender affirming care). it's the disregard for poor people, for people of color, for patients in general who tend to get viewed with disdain for not having medical degrees and asking questions

like yes it IS something we should be talking about. but focusing the conversation on "we have to ban gender affirming care!!!" instead of "the medical system needs to take better care of its patients" is just stupid

[meret118]

Elon Musk's henchmen have reportedly installed a commercial server to control federal databases that contain Social Security numbers and other highly sensitive personal information.

. . .

"According to two members of OPM staff with direct knowledge, the Musk team running OPM has the ability to extract information from databases that store medical histories, personally identifiable information, workplace evaluations, and other private data," wrote investigative reporters Caleb Ecarma and Judd Legum. "The arrangement presents acute privacy and security risks, one of the OPM staffers said."

. . .

The government outsiders were identified as University of California Berkeley student Akash Bobba, a software engineer who graduated high school less than three years ago and interned at Meta and Palantir, and Edward Coristine, another 2022 high school graduate and former software engineering intern at Musk’s Neuralink.Musk also installed former xAI employee Amanda Scales as the OPM's new chief of staff, and he placed in the department longtime SpaceX employee Brian Bjelde, former Twitter engineer Gavin Kliger and former Boring Company software engineer Riccardo Biasini.

. . .

The civil servants in charge of the office's information technology services were instructed new chief information officer Greg Hogan, who took over after Donald Trump's inauguration, to grant full access – including "code read and write permissions" – to Musk's associates, according to the OPM staffers.“

They have access to the code itself, which means they can make updates to anything that they want,” the staffer said.Musk's associates now have access to federal government’s official hiring site USAJOBS and OPM’s Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) system, as well as USA Staffing, USA Performance and employee health care website HI, which together store Social Security numbers, home addresses, employment records, birthdates, salaries, private health information, job description and disciplinary actions.“

They’re looking through all the position descriptions… to remove folks,” said one OPM staffer. “This is how they found all these DEI offices and had them removed — [by] reviewing position description level data.""The health insurance one scares me because it's HIPAA [protected] information, but they have access to all this stuff,” the staffer added.

[cklock1]

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[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jack Winstanley and Jack Wheatley at MMFA:

On Monday, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to “immediately restore frozen funding,” claiming that the administration had violated his January 31 order to halt its freeze on spending appropriated by Congress. In response to this decision and a litany of other rulings against President Donald Trump’s actions, right-wing media figures and MAGA online influencers called on the Trump administration to defy the court orders, labelling the judges “unconstitutional” and “lawless,” and even calling for them to be impeached.

The Trump administration faces a number of legal barriers to its executive actions

On February 10, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell issued an order for the Trump administration to “immediately restore frozen funding” after the White House failed to fully comply with his previous ruling. According to NBC News, McConnell issued the order after officials from 22 states “presented evidence” that “in some cases” the administration “continued to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement of appropriated federal funds” after McConnell’s January 31 court order blocking the administration’s funding freeze. [NBC News, 2/10/25; The Associated Press, 2/10/25]

Other judges have ruled against several of Trump’s actions, including decisions at least temporarily blocking the administration’s moves “restricting birthright citizenship, a buyout offer to federal workers who agree to resign by Sept. 30," and the transfer of three Venezuelan immigrants to Guantánamo Bay. On February 8, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer issued an order in New York barring Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing the Treasury Department’s payment systems. Another judge in Boston issued a February 10 order delaying Trump’s plan to offer resignation buyouts to tens of thousands of federal employees, and a separate federal court issued a February 9 order blocking the Trump administration from sending three Venezuelan immigrants being held in New Mexico to the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba. [USA Today, 2/10/25; Politico, 2/8/25; ABC News, 2/10/25; CBS News, 2/10/25]

On February 9, Vice President JD Vance posted, “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.” [Twitter/X, 2/9/25]

For years, right-wing media have repeatedly taken aim at judges overseeing cases across the country involving Trump. Conservative figures previously railed against judges in cases about Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, his New York hush money trial, and his civil fraud trial. [Media Matters, 5/30/24, 11/1/23, 5/28/24, 1/30/24]

Right-wing media throw temper tantrums over judges halting the Trump Regime’s harmful and un-American policies, with suggestions to defy such orders and/or calls to impeach or arrest such judges.

[spoofyleaf]

I've been seeing a lot of people comparing Trump and current state of the USA to 1930s Germany, but I don't see much when it comes to explaining why. If you want people to listen and understand, you need to explain.

So, in this post I'm going to do my best to do so, because that's not an incorrect comparison to make imo (note that I'm shit at wording things). Bear with me, as this will be a long post

Let's begin by looking at how Hitler came into power, and what he did. This is watered down, and there is a lot more, and I encourage you also do more research beyond this!

Let's start at the end of WWI

important things to know: - Reichstag: the central legislative body - President of the Reichstag was elected by the people - Chancellor was appointed by the president

The Treaty of Versailles was signed, and it caused Germany's government and economy to collapse.

Inflation made it hard for people to afford basic goods, and unemployment was high

in 1919, the National Assembly was held to establish a new government, the Weimar Republic. It was a constitutional republic with a parliamentary system.

People did not like this new government at all, and believed it to be too democratic and one of the main reasons the country was in the state it was in. Left and Right radicals popped up.

One of the political groups that popped up in 1920 was the National Socialist Worker's Party (the Nazi party).

1921- Sturm Abeilung(SA) are established, they were also known as the "brownshirts" due to their uniform. The were initially made up of ex-soldiers and unemployed med. This was a violent and disorderly group

By 1921, they had their own newspaper, their own flag, and their own private army. By 1923, the private army had ~15,000 men, they had access to hidden weapons.

1923 rolls around, and Hitler and his party attempted a coup, hoping to change the government into one of a nationalist regime.

Hitler was arrested for a year, and in this time he wrote Mein Kampf

After Hitler's arrest

Hitler wanted to work with the parliamentary system in order to prevent another coup from happening, however people believed Hitler and his party to be ultra extremists

Hitler changes his tactics in order to gain power: instead of attempting to violently seize power, he attempts to win over people's votes for the elections

1925- Schutzstaffe(SS) is established, they were initially formed to be personally Hitler's body guard

At the same time, the economic depression was happening, and Hitler used the failings of banks and rise of unemployment as "evidence" that the government wasn't good enough

In his campaigns, Hitler promised to: fix the economy, return Germany to how it once was (make the status one of a great European and a world power), create a strong, authoritarian government, and regain the territory Germany lost due to WWI

His propaganda wasn't directed at just one group of people, but rather several groups of people

Hitler and the Nazis falsely claimed that Jews and Communists were to blame (more so blaming the Jewish people)

1928, the Nazi Party won less than 3% of the national vote

September 1930. the Nazi Party won 18% of the national vote

July 1932, the Nazi Party won 37% of the vote (more than the other parties)

Now lest talk about how Hitler got into power

Even though the Nazi party refused to work with the other political parties, Hitler demanded that he were to be appointed Chancellor, and the president, Paul von Hindenburg, denied him

Conservatives pressure Hindenburg to appoint Hitler. They essentially wanted to use his face/ charisma to get people to want a more conservative authoritarian government. They wanted to use him to help crush the left.

January 30 1933 Hitler is appointed Chancellor, and Hindenburg believes that he will be able to keep Hitler under control.

Shortly after, on February 27 1933, the Reichstag building in Berlin, a fire breaks out and a young, Dutch communist confesses to starting it and is arrested.

The fire caused mass panic, and using that fear they encouraged anti-communism

Because of this fire, Hitler convinces Hindenburg to declare an emergency. Freedom of the press, freedom of expression, the right to hold public assemblies were suspended, the right to own property. etc.. The police were now allowed to detain citizens without cause. Power, arrests, and intimidation are on the rise.

the SA ran a violent campaign, many people were scared to vote.

March 5 1933- elections take place and the Nazis secured 43.9% of the vote

He convinces the government to ban the Communist party in order to remove his opposition, and by March 15 1933, there are over 10,000 communists detained

Political prisoners were originally held in prisons, however, there were too many people being arrested for the prisons to cope

in order to house all the political prisoners, the first concentration camps are opened.

March 22 1933, the first concentration camp is established, composed of primarily political prisoners

Homosexuals were also some of the first people that were sent to these concentration camps. They were forced to wear pink triangles to define them as homosexuals. Nazis had closed down on gay bars and shut down any gay publications. The arrested gay men were forced up turn in address nooks and name partners in an attempt to register all gay men in Germany

SS and SA are treating the imprisoned people horrible, but many of those detained are terrified to speak out

By the end of 1933, there were ~200,000 political prisoners

SA and SS are going around and using fear and arrests to get rid of opponents

March 23 1933: Hitler proposed the "Enabling Act", and after promising to protect the interests of the Catholic Church, it was passed and it allowed him to enact new laws with no interference from the president or Reichstag for four years. Hitler was now governing by decree

April 1 1933- the government takes official action against Jewish people. and announces a major boycott against Jewish products

April 7 1933- "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" is enacted. This made it so Jewish people were no longer allowed to cork in Civil Service (ie schools and government jobs). They were exempt if they were in that job before, or had fought in WWI, or had lost a father or son in WWI. Most Jewish lawyers were forbidden to practice law

April 24 1933- "Law Against Overcrowding in Schools and Universities" is enacted. This limited Jewish students in German school to a max 5% of the total student body

May 2 1933- trade unions are banned

July 14 1933- all non Nazi Parties are banned

July 14 1933- "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" (aka the Sterilization Law) is passed. This law names nine disabilities (hereditary feeblemindedness, schizophrenia, manic-depressive (or bi-polar) disorder, hereditary epilepsy, Huntington’s chorea, genetic blindness, deafness, severe hereditary physical deformity, and chronic alcoholism) and forced anyone with them to be sterilised. This law also allowed public health officials to people who were seen to reject German social values

September 29 1933, the "Hereditary Farm Law" is passed, banning Jewish people from owning or running farms

October 4 1933- it was declared that all editors must by Aryan, due to the heightened censorship, over 1,600 newspapers were closed by 1935. New reporters had to register and prove they were not Jewish, newspapers couldn't publish anything "un-German", and journalists who broke this law could be sent to concentration camps

November 24 1933- “Law Against Dangerous Habitual Criminal" is passed. Tis allowed the government to hold prisoners indefinitely if Nazi officials decided that the prisoner was a "dangerous habitual criminal". Often, the prisoner would be transferred to a concentration camp

Hitler feared that the SA and Ernst Röhm (their leader) were a threat to his leader ship and organizing a coup

Ernst Röhm and the Nazi party were disagreeing with how to take complete control and replace everyone with Nazis. Hitler slowly took control and replaces the traditional conservatives with Nazis via as much democratic processes as possible to maintain the illusion of democracy.

June 30 1934- July 2 1934: the Night of Long Knives took place. This was a purge of any political opponents, including SA leaders. The SS and Gestapo carries this out, and over 150 people are killed, and hundreds of people were arrested

By August 1934, there are over 3,000,000 SA members.

August 2 1934, President Hindenburg dies at the age of 87, and shortly after his death, Hitler declares he's going to combine the role of a chancellor and president into one role, and he was going to fulfill that role as Führer

August 19 1934, the citizens voted on rather or not they agreed on this new role. ~96% of the population voted, and ~90% were in favour

There is no longer any limits to Hitler's power.

After Hitler no longer has limits

September 15 1935- "Reich Citizenship Law" is passed. This is a law that defined who the German government concidered a "German" or a "Jew". This law defined Jewish people as a race that is identified by blood and genealogy, not as a religion or culture.

Bc of that law, Jewish people were stripped of their Herman citizenship, and in 1938 Jewish men began to be arrested into concentration camps solely because they were Jewish (where before there were "reasons" that didn't just pertain to that)

September 15 1935- Marriage between Jewish people and non Jewish people are banned. The law also made sexual relations between these couples a crime.

Throughout the 1930s, people were leaving Germany due to the increasing persecutions of Jewish and other minority non-Aryan groups, but due to the economic problems bc of the Great Depression, countries had a limit of refugees they took in, so in July 1938, a conference is held in Evian, France to discuss this. At this conference, almost all of the 32 countries expressed their sympathy, but ultimately didn't do anything (save for a small handful that took in some more German Jewish refugees)

Due to basically nothing getting solved at the conference, it was clear to the Nazis that no one was going to act against them, nor help the victims to emigrate.

the "law on the alteration of family and personal names" forced Jewish people who didnt have "Jewish names" to take the middle names "Israel" and "Sara", and by January 1 1939, all Jewish people needed to get a new passport or identity cads with their new names. They were all marked with the letter "J"

November 1938- Jewish people are banned from owning a business or participating in trade/

December 8 1938, Himmler, the Head of German police, issued the "Decree for Combating the Gypsy Plague". This caused the creation of a nationwide database on all Roma living in the Third Reich. This data base was used later to detain Roma and force them into labour and concentration camps.

June 28 1935- Paragraph 175 is revised in the German Criminal Code to ban homosexual contact, and included "criminally indecent activities between men". This allowed authorities to arrest any man suspected with little to no evidence.

The Roma and gays were subject to medical experimentation

The initial Roma camps were portrayed to be an act to clean up inner cities and remove unauthorized dwellings in municipal areas. They had very limited sanitation, were guarded, and most people were free to enter/leave the camps for work or leisure. However, as the second world war stated, the camped quickly changed to be stricter. More supervision, curfews, daily headcounts, etc.,

1938-1939 Germany invades surrounding countries for "living space"

September 1939- Germany invades Poland, which led to France and Great Britain tp declare war

As Germany gained more territory, there wre millions of Jewish people who were forced under Nazi controll. German authorities rounded these people up, and forced many into ghettos

September 1 1939- Hitler signed a note that allowed designated physicians to carry out "mercy killings" meant to protect doctors participating in the "euthanasia program" that targeted and aimed to mass murder people with disabilities. This opporation was dubbed "T-4" and was Germany's first mass murder program, it is estimated there were 250,000 murders from this secret program.

October 1939- a decree was issued banning the movement of Roma. People in the camps were forced labour.

Jehovah Witnesses were also persacuted throughout the years, and by 1939, over 6,000 were in concentration camps. At the end of WWII over 1,400 were murdered in the camps and ~250n were executed for refusing to fight/

On 27 April 1940- Decree was announced aimed to deport all German Roma from the Reich within one year. 2500 people were deported to the General Government in Poland, but it was suspended in September

By the Summer o f1941, "the final solution" began. Germany and its collaborates began to systematically murder European Jewish people. Some were rounded up in villages and shot outright, or murdered in killing centers, In some areas, they were forced into labour, and died due to overworking or starvation

September 1941- ~5,000 Austrian Roma were deported to the Łódź Ghetto, where many of them died

September 1 1941- Germany forced Jewish people to wear a "Jewish badge" in order to quickly and easily identify them.

December 16 1942- a decree is issued to move all Sinti and Roma in the Reich territory to Auschwitz to a camp. More that 22,000 people were moved, and only a small handful of them survived

Non-Jewish people were often warned against assisting Jewish people, and Jewish people were also warned that those in hiding were subject to death penalty.

Millions of people were killed by the end of all this, and other countries, including the USA, did nothing. They didn't want to get involved, and some people just didn't believe that was happening because they can't imagine that really happening, especially to the magnitude.

Now, let's look at some of the parallels

Note, this is being written 01/23/2025 at 6:30 am, things may change for the better or worse

Currently, many people say that Trump wont actually do anything, that he is all talk, and that this will end soon. German people said the same thing about Hitler.

In the 1920- early 1930s, Hitler sought to delegitimize democratic institutions, blaming them for all the wrong (ie failing economy), just as Trump currently is, especially when institutions are not lining up with his political views. "the woke left", "communists", etc., are a couple examples

Trump famously calls the media that doesn't align with what he agrees with "fake news". Nazis did a very similar thing, and called them "Lügenpresse"

Both use minorities as an easy target to stir up mass hatred and fear within the countries. They vilianized these people by calling these people internal enemies, criminals, etc.,

Trump is currently promising to mass deport millions of people. If he follows through (which he's setting up executive orders to do so), there are not nearly enough dedicated spaces to house all these people.

Media is currently being censored

Police brutality has notably been on the first since Trump's first presidency. Currently it is too early to tell how it's changed since his return

Trump encouraged self-recruiters to "stand-by"

Both are extremists

Both won people over via charisma

People know that Trump is doing wrong, but rarely speaks out due to fear or "someone else will/should"

Trump wants to crush anything that is "un-American", especially in schools and colleges. (the Nazis did this too. For examples, books were burned that were deemed "un-German")

Florida is already telling people to not hide, and to give themselves up before they are detained by force

Protestors are being arrested

Trump signed an executive order ending birth right citizenship

Both are very technically doing these thing by manipulating the law/ democracy, atleast to start with

Elon did the salute, and many of his supporters are defending him

Realistically, are we going to commit such a genocide that Nazi Germany did? Most probably not, but that doesn't mean something really awful is brewing. That something awful isnt currently happen. History doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes.

It starts with demonizing minority groups of people, mass deporting/ detaining people, and not having the space for all these people.

If you ever said in your lifetime that you would of stood up in Nazi Germany, and did your best to make sure all of that didn't happen, then prove yourself. Right now, the current state of the USA is very similar to early 1930s Germany. The foundation is being laid down, just with different minority groups as the main focus. What are you going to do about it?

anyways, feel free to add to this post, my happy ass is going to bed

[kidspawn]

glad to hear you have masks that fit, but sorry to hear about the immune response. i know immunosuppression + retail can be an absolute beast, and a lot of people with “normal” disease resistance think it’s for lack of effort and not biology+circumstances. i wanted to make sure you had all the knowledge you needed to protect yourself as best as possible to the extent that is possible within an individual’s control, since disinformation makes it reaalllly hard for people to access info and i still come across people who were misguided by their doctors about how to best protect themselves (ie they are told to wear surgical masks and to take them off if 6 feet apart despite being indoors) and end up confused and disheartened. appreciate you being kind even though you’re probably tired of hearing it and/or are used to people blaming you instead of blaming society’s unwillingness to control illness, and hope you have a good one!

You're absolutely fine! I can tell you were coming at it from a genuine place - which says quite a bit, in my opinion. Frankly, I attribute it to most people knowing that someone who struggles with healthcare (especially in terms of covid) is probably from the USA and as such we tend to be criminally uneducated in regards to health, prevention, etc. It is important to make sure people are educated, and I think it's generous of you to send out resources to (i presume) a complete stranger who made a few snide comments about collecting viruses like pokemon cards.

I didn't pay much attention to my health, when I was a teenager, but it bit me in the butt when I found out my unwillingness to stay home from work when I'm sick (several holiday horror stories related to getting very sick but hey those are time and a half so it just made sense to work and stay very far away from others and wear gloves) just made me feel worse then I got other people sick. I'm not proud of it by any means, and knowing that my stubbornness surrounding ignoring my own health needs has hurt others has made me more cognizant of how my personal handling of my immune system can affect others. The USA work force (can't speak for any other countries) actively punishes you for, say, going "hey I am running a fever/have an illness/etc, and should not come in because it'll put others at risk." It puts your position in jeopardy, can cut your hours severely, etc. We've been forced into an expectation that we need to shelf our own needs to function in society.

(Also I'm just... used to being sick. I don't notice I'm sick until it's too late, most times. I digress. I've now become the bastard who tells coworkers to stay the hell away from me if they have so much as a sniffly nose bc I'm not missing out on work because you're irresponsible, my friend.)

That's not what you were touching on at all, but I do think it warrants a perspective for others to consider. I don't have much regard for my health, frankly. If it didn't affect others, I'd probably just keep working through a cold because I'd rather be miserable and paid than stay home and risk reducing my job or paycheck. But it doesn't just affect me. It affects customers, coworkers, even my family at the time. I'm lovingly coined patient zero because I pick up illnesses all the damn time. Once again, because retail + an (probably) undiagnosed immunosuppresive disorder clashes horribly with USA work culture and just how impossible it is to live and consider your health. Most people, including myself, chose their job over their health.

I don't know what to round out here. Am I warning people to prioritize themselves because I know several teenagers who follow me? Am I just pointing out it's a tragic collision of miseducation and the brutal work culture of this gradually decaying country? Who knows. Maybe I haven't slept in three days and as such I'm losing all capacity to regulate my word count.

(Anyway, now I just tell my colds to wait a few days until my usual day off. Do they listen? Not really, but I am quite skilled at gaslighting myself.)

Disregarding everything I said because it's frankly nonsense and unrelated to your ask (squirrel brain!), thank you. I appreciate your grace and composure. You were calm, professional, and very gentle with how you delivered information. I'm not the type to snap easily, so no worries there. Have a lovely day!