I am wondering about the midterms & what & if musk will be sending his goons to hack into state election centers & computers. Hopefully people are preparing for that.
I cover solutions for grassroots groups to protect their privacy online through the Democracy Labs blog. Most of the solutions are free. Here are a few recent posts:
One way to resist Facebook, is to still use it but to encrypt your communications on it. The value Facebook gets from an individual is based on how much information about a person they can collect and sell to advertisers (age, interests, location...). By encrypting your messages on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp you deny those platforms those details. Think of it as putting your message in a sealed envelope, rather than on a postcard which Facebook can read as it delivers it to others. Plus there is the security risk of having your messages being turned over by Facebook to others you do not care for... Democracy Labs released a free service to encrypt your messages before you send it. You pick your own password(s) that you share separately with the recipient(s). The service can be used from a phone or laptop without any registration or download. You can even encrypt/decrypt messages while you are offline for extra privacy. The service is MAKE IT PRIVATE and available at: https://makeitprivate.org/ Read more about the service at: https://thedemlabs.org/2024/12/23/protect-your-privacy-with-free-makeitprivate-encryption/
Your comment: "US voters have decided to be fascist" is as an evidently irrational thought as stating half an apple is larger than the whole apple we cut it from. No reasoning is possible to disprove such "argument'. Such irrational and disrespectful positilon about US voters disqualifies everything else you wrote. If the current Democrat elite did not feel outrage about wjat Elon Musk and DOGE are doing, perhaps there could be reason criticise Musk and Doge, unfortunately, their credibility has been completely destroyed when the called Hitler "nazi", etc.
There is lots of waste and corruption in government.
It is good Musk is attacking it.
Must make sure Musk sticks to that without political bias.
Musk must not be allowed information not relevant to his task.
Musk must not derive personal privileges or advantages for any business.
By demonizing Musk now, Democrats and their media show they have not learn anything from the free lecture the American people gave them at election time, as a direct result of demonizing and persecuting Trump relentlessly.
I would disagree that Musk is doing anything to attack waste and corruption. Firstly, you reduced waste if you are still able to deliver the same level of service with less resources. What Musk has done to USAID is akin to me reducing my car expenses by driving my car off a cliff. My car expenses are now nil but what happens tomorrow when I need a car to drive to work? Secondly, corruption and waste can only be reduced by some sort of an open process - the people fighting corruption themselves must be fully transparent (who is watching the watchers and all that). That's certainly not what Musk is doing.
Broadly, the time for worrying about demonizing or lecturing anyone has long passed. US voters have decided to be fascist - the time is now to keep resisting. It looks more and more liky the contest will move beyond the ballot box to a Maidan type situation in the future so no need to worry about whether or not fascists should be lectured, hehe.
On the plus side, if the good guys win the Maidan, there will be a genuine chance to reform the system (possibly even if in a more Swiss direction :P)...
Turkey's internet freedom is also far more curtailed. Freedom House rates Hungary 69/100 and Turkey 31/100, IF you're old enough, you remember that Erdogan ran as a champion of democracy and was embraced for it by the West.
The Republican's sinister master plan seems to be to restrict voting rights so that the midterm elections or any election will not unseat them. They will eliminate the filibuster to do this.
I would say that the media prong more closely resembles Erdogan's lawsuits against the opposition press for defamation and tax inquests into owners of those outlets, which resulted in ownership being transferred to the Gang of Five, the oligarchs he enriched, whether they wanted to become press barons or not.
I am wondering about the midterms & what & if musk will be sending his goons to hack into state election centers & computers. Hopefully people are preparing for that.
I cover solutions for grassroots groups to protect their privacy online through the Democracy Labs blog. Most of the solutions are free. Here are a few recent posts:
One way to resist Facebook, is to still use it but to encrypt your communications on it. The value Facebook gets from an individual is based on how much information about a person they can collect and sell to advertisers (age, interests, location...). By encrypting your messages on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp you deny those platforms those details. Think of it as putting your message in a sealed envelope, rather than on a postcard which Facebook can read as it delivers it to others. Plus there is the security risk of having your messages being turned over by Facebook to others you do not care for... Democracy Labs released a free service to encrypt your messages before you send it. You pick your own password(s) that you share separately with the recipient(s). The service can be used from a phone or laptop without any registration or download. You can even encrypt/decrypt messages while you are offline for extra privacy. The service is MAKE IT PRIVATE and available at: https://makeitprivate.org/ Read more about the service at: https://thedemlabs.org/2024/12/23/protect-your-privacy-with-free-makeitprivate-encryption/
People Over Papers: Crowdsourced ICE Watch Map
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/01/31/people-over-papers-crowdsourced-ice-watch-map/
Tech Considerations for Grassroots Groups: Protect your data privacy
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/02/03/tech-considerations-for-grassroots-groups-data-privacy/
Follow these 18 practical safety tips to avoid becoming a WALKING TARGET
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/01/18/18-safety-tips-to-protect-your-privacy-and-not-become-a-walking-target/
Your comment: "US voters have decided to be fascist" is as an evidently irrational thought as stating half an apple is larger than the whole apple we cut it from. No reasoning is possible to disprove such "argument'. Such irrational and disrespectful positilon about US voters disqualifies everything else you wrote. If the current Democrat elite did not feel outrage about wjat Elon Musk and DOGE are doing, perhaps there could be reason criticise Musk and Doge, unfortunately, their credibility has been completely destroyed when the called Hitler "nazi", etc.
The rational thing is to focus on the facts:
There is lots of waste and corruption in government.
It is good Musk is attacking it.
Must make sure Musk sticks to that without political bias.
Musk must not be allowed information not relevant to his task.
Musk must not derive personal privileges or advantages for any business.
By demonizing Musk now, Democrats and their media show they have not learn anything from the free lecture the American people gave them at election time, as a direct result of demonizing and persecuting Trump relentlessly.
I would disagree that Musk is doing anything to attack waste and corruption. Firstly, you reduced waste if you are still able to deliver the same level of service with less resources. What Musk has done to USAID is akin to me reducing my car expenses by driving my car off a cliff. My car expenses are now nil but what happens tomorrow when I need a car to drive to work? Secondly, corruption and waste can only be reduced by some sort of an open process - the people fighting corruption themselves must be fully transparent (who is watching the watchers and all that). That's certainly not what Musk is doing.
Broadly, the time for worrying about demonizing or lecturing anyone has long passed. US voters have decided to be fascist - the time is now to keep resisting. It looks more and more liky the contest will move beyond the ballot box to a Maidan type situation in the future so no need to worry about whether or not fascists should be lectured, hehe.
On the plus side, if the good guys win the Maidan, there will be a genuine chance to reform the system (possibly even if in a more Swiss direction :P)...
Turkey's internet freedom is also far more curtailed. Freedom House rates Hungary 69/100 and Turkey 31/100, IF you're old enough, you remember that Erdogan ran as a champion of democracy and was embraced for it by the West.
The Republican's sinister master plan seems to be to restrict voting rights so that the midterm elections or any election will not unseat them. They will eliminate the filibuster to do this.
I would say that the media prong more closely resembles Erdogan's lawsuits against the opposition press for defamation and tax inquests into owners of those outlets, which resulted in ownership being transferred to the Gang of Five, the oligarchs he enriched, whether they wanted to become press barons or not.