I write a blog that focuses on public information, public health, and policy: https://pimento-mori.ghost.io/
Moving from lemm.ee to sh.itjust.works
For 50 miles?!
I am also full expecting the term foreign adversaries to be applied to anyone who doesn't support their immigration policy... Which would be New Orleans... Which has a National Guard base that is the headquarters for the Louisiana National Guard...
I know dude this is fucking ridiculous. I'm working on writing a longer blog post about all of this right now. Just to be clear, I'm absolutely positive he does not mean creating trust of citizens/civillians.
He means how does he get private companies, military, or police in other countries to ignore or find loopholes that will allow them to purchase the mass surveillance technology Peter Theil invested in during the first Trump administration and unleashed on law enforcement agencies in the U.S.
I know that they never actually had any sort of ideological stake (bc they never do for any of these issues) when they hijacked the libertarian ideals of "small government," but I also think that if there is a way to get (at least some) of the Americans (and other countries somehow still thinking this might be fun to try) that somehow don't see that, it's through exposing this kind of bullshit.
Those angry farmers in Iowa yelling at Chuck Grassly about that "feller in El Salvador" give me some miniscule hope that even if we can't stop these people, we can still turn more Americans against them before they turn us all against each other.
•Military parade to celebrate your greatness as your tariffs absolutely massacre the economy, officially cementing record for the lowest first 100 days in office in 80 years
•Answering "IDK" when asked if you will uphold the constitution
• Your vice president saying "I don't really care that much," when asked about low approval ratings
•Your speaker of the House trying to gaslight the country into believing this is all for our own good as Walmart warns shelves will soon be empty.
•We have yet to roll out a bird flu vaccine, but we are banning some dyes in food and fluoride in drinking water...
Just stating all that to get a sense of where the red line is now? Wondering when/if the Republicans in the House and Senate will be continuing to move it as more "healthy Americans," somehow die from making America so healthy/great or do they stop bothering. Are they hoping we all just die off from disease/fighting each other for the last remaining resources before the midterms?
I honestly don't know much about property tax, mostly bc I can't afford to own a home.
One of the arguments about why voting yes was a bad idea is bc it would keep home ownership less affordable, which I definitely feel on a deep level, especially after trying several times unsuccessfully to find a home in New Orleans, I could actually *afford. (Affordability also considering not taking on a fixerupper project I know I couldn't realistically handle while working full time and raising a child.)
I really did put a lot of thought into my decision. Realistically, I didn't feel like the reduction of ~2.03% of the total current overall rate would have made much of a difference in the chances of me actually being able to afford a home.
Given that there is already a housing crisis in this city, and resources for mental health care, which were already not great, have recently and very suddenly been made way worse thanks to Federal DOGE cuts which unexplainably removed money that had already been granted and planned into the Louisiana Department of Health fiscal year budget, I believe that the number of vulnerable and at risk people in this city ending up in police custody will only be increasing in the near future. There literally seemed to be no benefit to me voting no, but potentially a big risk of harm to others if I did. Whereas continuing with the current rate could potentially decrease that risk.
I'm not sure why the disinformation campaign was trying to convince people that this would raise taxes, but I do have to wonder if people involved in the disinformation were hoping that a slight reduction in property tax would at least distract from or lessen the blow so many small business owners and homeowners are facing because of Trump's tariff's.
Even as a renter, I did consider that I very well might see my rent go up because of this, and maybe it wouldn't happen if slightly lower property taxes eased the burden of tariffs on my landlord.
But who is really at fault for the tariffs that are screwing over small businesses and homeowners? Definitely not the people that will be relying on those services if they end up in police custody.
When I say I morally couldn't justify voting No or sitting out the election, I'm not trying to virtue signal. I mean I gave a lot of thought to the evidence available, and combined that with my own existing knowledge, then voted for what I believed was best for the city.
Is this shitty?
Idk my kitchen doubles as my "dining room" and isn't even fully seperated from my living room, so maybe I'm biased.
I know what you mean. Just try to embrace the anger when you can, and keep people informed about what is actually going on. It's a war of WASPY Passive Aggression. It's ok to get exhausted and take a break, but don't get complacent and accept it as normal.
That's just a good rule of thumb for life in general, even outside of the context of an authoritarian government trying to use double speak to maintain and gain control instead of just saying the quiet part out loud.
No they are blaming other people for the misspent funds she was in charge of for 4/5 years. Firing doctors and trying to say Louisiana proves why Medicaid is unsustainable since no doctors will accept it (bc they fired them all).
They accidentally revealed they held a secret meeting with a current employee of a private government contract company who was formerly a Louisiana state employee/executive director of Medicaid
No one involved in LA DOGE is facing any legal repercussions for some odd reason 🤷♀️
The Louisiana Legislative Auditor (LLA) would be the one to bring charges for violation of the meeting law, but they're now partnered with LA DOGE and helping the governor with his own Robespierre-like reign of terror, except the cuts are all budget related instead of guillotine (at least for now).
So, now the LLA only cares about enforcing transparency laws for other people.
I'm not a journalist, but for some reason I'm the only one who is trying to bring attention to the fact that this person worked for LDH in charge of this program that is being accused of fraud by the LLA for 4 of the 5 years..
I think journalists are being intimidated and/or information is being suppressed all over the state. There is some really insane shit happening here.
Since the whole country is on fire though, nobody seems to really have the time to notice or care, but it does seem like the Governor of Louisiana is allowing us to serve as a bit of a guinea pig for all of Trump's authoritarian policy before he unleashes it on a larger scale to the rest of the country.
Also the Heritage Foundation is paying to run local tv ads promoting Gov Landry's policies.
TLDR II: Even if nothing happens to these corrupt pieces of shit, they're destroying my home and my country and I'm not going to just shut up and be quiet about it. If they didn't care they wouldn't be trying so hard to keep information suppressed while paying so much money to try and spread their own disinformation.
Gov Landry issued an executive order in December of 2024, creating his DOGE inspired taskforce. The taskforce was modeled after federal DOGE to investigate fraud/wasteful government spending and hold the government accountable.
The group met in secret at least twice, violating public meeting transparency laws.
Louisiana Senator Blake Miguez posted this photo to his Facebook, with the caption "It’s time to cut wasteful spending." The photo shows one meeting took place in the dining room of the governor's mansion.
The taskforce is required by law to: advertise when and where it will meet, allow the public a chance to speak at meeting, and record meeting minutes that will become publicly available. They of course didn't do any of that.
It's ok though, because as some members have explained, the meetings "weren't really meetings." They were just "talking about what they were going to do." The other meeting took place in the Governor's suite of offices, where the taskforce heard a sales pitch from federal government contractor, Guidehouse Consulting. They discussed doing a "deep dive," into Louisiana government spending.
It is a very long and complicated story, but I am trying to keep track of it all here.
TLDR: Turns out the FBI/government contractor LA DOGE met with at one secret meeting was the former executive director of Medicaid for Louisiana Department of Health (LDH), Tera LeBlanc.
Since then, LA DOGE has partnered with the Louisiana Legislative Auditor, and an audit of LDH has accused LDH of misspending Medicaid funds over a 5 year period. It turns out LeBlanc was in charge of that program for 4 of the 5 years, before leaving LDH to work for Guidehouse Consulting group.
Sure would be nice to have a public record/meeting minutes to know what was discussed in those meetings that weren't really meetings.
Definitely, don't get me wrong. Musk was not innocent in any of that. Theil is a Nazi too he just didn't get on stage in front of the whole world and do a fucking salute (twice). They are both pieces of shit, but like yin and Yang pieces of shit. I think Theil knew he would be able to use Musk's inability to keep anything to himself to his advantage.
Just kind of funny/bizarre to think about the possibility that one evil villain piece of shit essentially mean girlsed another evil villain piece of shit, in what seems to be an ongoing feud that has lasted for several decades, but somehow keeps escalating.
Yeah, but he can't do no A.I.
That is such a weird little krewe though. Like honestly can you imagine how fucking awful and just so awkward it would be?
Like Yarvin and Theil I kind of get bc they're both tech bros. Vane is the wildcard. What do they even talk about when they get together and hang out? Just general evil dickhead stuff?
Yeah dude, I feel like since people have known about this for a while, they couldn't have said something? Obviously they're not going to say anything now, but nobody in the whole government could have maybe given us a heads up at some point...?
I don't disagree that this was planned, but I am not so sure Elon was ever really completely in on it the whole time, even if he thought he was.
He's a narcissist, so it seems unlikely he'd be ok with his mental health being questioned and looking like such a failure in the public spotlight.
I've said it before but I'll say it again bc this just seems so obvious.
I really think Peter Theil intentionally fucked him over again and made Musk a scapegoat. Not saying that to get people to feel bad for Elon, just pointing it out bc if true, it's such a weird cruel intentions like mind game he's been playing for years, but now he's raised the stakes to involve so much power and corruption on a world stage.
Idk if it's just bc Theil really hates him or if it's just bc he's really a sociopath like Elon says. It would be odd for him to have it in so much for one person if it was just a sociopath thing though. Like it seems more like a personal vendetta.
When Theil and Musk worked together at PayPal, Thiel took advantage of Musk leaving for his honeymoon for two weeks, and then while he was away, called a board meeting to vote Musk out. Apparently it really changed the way Musk thought about a work life balance, and he never really was the same afterwards.
Flashforward to 2025. For months, starting on January 20th, Musk was constantly being presented by the press as this untouchable god like figure that couldn't be removed from Trump's office.
Looking back now though, it seems like they maybe just got Elon to handle all the dirty work, attach his face and name to some truly despicable shit, made him the most hated man in the country, then gradually everything shifted. The press made him look like an annoying nuisance who was disrespected by all the "adults in the White House," and got everyone to start questioning if his mental health was spiraling,
Once the Senate confirmed Theil's protege as Trump's science advisor in charge of handling all technology and AI policy it was like somebody told Musk his services were no longer necessary. Kinda like they no longer needed Elon to leave his fingerprints on everything.
Meanwhile Thiel has been successfully lurking in the shadows making some very successful deals.
Honestly, who tf knows anymore?
I think this has kind of become Putin's yearly check in to rally Russian Nationalism, and force the Russian people to show how much they adore his leadership.
Given how things are going with the war and news of Russian soldier desertions/imprisonments, I would imagine many Russians like "Fuck do we really have to do this again..."
The US is screaming and holding a hot pan fresh out of the oven, but refusing to just set it down and use the fucking oven mits next time.
Meanwhile, other countries are watching this happen, but somehow having a relatively difficult time deciding if they maybe want to give it a try with their own government.
Or JD Vance could just retweet him to make his own legal arguments
WWMD The wealthy white man defense is a pretty air tight legal argument. Fits in nicely with the narcissist's prayer.
I didn't do it, but if I did it wasn't a big deal. And if it was, you deserved it.
This is a state government, and as far as I'm aware there's been no declaration of war.
In fact, everything is perfectly normal. Absolutely nothing strange about any of this.