How should we treat social media in this new/old administration?
With the election passing now and we know who the next President will be on 1/20/25, I am going to capture some of the consequences that electing someone whose first term ended in an unmitigated disaster and follow up coup attempt. I call this the FAFO file/
Tariffs - Tariffs are always paid by the consumer in the end, not by the country of origin itself. Your electronics are likely to go up 20% or more in all likelihood, as well explained in this Gizmodo article. If you were planning to purchase a new computer, TV, cell phone, or other electronic device, see if you can move your purchase to before any idiotic tariff goes into place. This will be similar for most household appliances as well. Don’t like inflation over the past couple of years? Wait to all the tariffs get added to the cost within the manufacturing and supply chain….
Science and medicine - the war on science and facts will continue. If RFK Jr. is anywhere near the healthcare or FDA, his insane antibacterial and holistic medicine positions will kill people. Vaccines do NOT cause autism, fluoride in water is beneficial, but RFK Jr. has brain worms that affects his ability to think logically and gives air to anti-health ideas. Scientists are concerned to about the affects Cult 45/47 will have on research according to this article in the Washington Post. Because we will make idiotic decisions that will further harm the climate, future generations will have a harder time on this planet.
Project 2025 - Now admitting Agenda 47 is a kissing cousin to Project 2025 (not quite the same, but has people overlapping between both “conservative” agendas (ain’t nothing classically conservative about them). Judge for yourself the differences through this article from verifythis.com or from Harper’s Bazaar.
Education - Education will be gutted. I think the GOP likes their populace DUMB. Voting on school principals annually is a good idea? A good list of things Agent Orange (on video) can be found at the MeidasNews.
Mass Deportation - This will both be an economic disaster and an assault on the Rule of Law (trying to disregard the 14th Amendment to our Constitution). Migrant crime is lower than the rate for natural-born American citizens.
One last question - what is the temporary hardship that the world’s richest tech bro is referring to under an Administration Orange?
Since our dog ha had plenty of energy when I get home from work, I have had chance to read…er…listen to audiobooks more recently, and I have been on a kick on trying to decipher on how the GOP had gone from a somewhat sane center-right party to the party of crazies that it is in 2024. Some of these well written books include:
The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta (2023) - This book is written by the son of an evangelical minister who wrote about his experiences with the religious movements in the age of MAGA.
Tired of Winning by Jonathan Karl (2023) - the effect of Trumpism on the GOP and elections post January 6.
The Conspiracy to End America by Stuart Stevens (2023) - Written by a former GOP media campaign operative who work multiple winning GOP presidential campaigns, this book takes a look on how the Republican party has gone from functioning center-right political party to that of one espousing many tenants of autocracy.
Finally….the book I just started is Network of Lies by Brian Stelter (2023) - How Fox News and the Trumpist GOP fed off one another.
If you have a chance to get a digital library card, it can be a great (usually free) way to increase access to reading material. Many libraries have a link to libby, which gives access to more than 100k titles.
As I was listening to this week’s Hacking Humans podcast, there was a great discussion about an interview on the Today Show with Andy Cohen with regards to a fairly sophisticated phishing event that led to the compromise of his bank account with funds being wired out of his account. It is a great, non-technical interview with tips from a victim on what to look out for.
It feels like I say the same thing about the GOP every year about being a non-serious party, especially in the “Free” state of Florida, which is working towards a sadistic love child of George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (or if you are like the Ziegler’s, a threesome including Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451). Instead of working for the good of the Floridian citizen, like working for real insurance reform, preparing for continued impact of climate change through environmental fortification, and ensuring real equity and freedom, they are trying to enact a dystopian future for many Floridians. Bills being introduced in 2024 include:
Taking away parental rights and free speech of minors:
HB1129/SB1196 “Harm to Minors” - among the provisions being proposed include “They also require all manufacturers of smartphones and tablets to provide on-by-default filters on all their devices sold in the state after Jan. 1, 2025, that would prevent minors from accessing or downloading harmful material, with heavy penalties for companies failing to make a good-faith effort to comply or adults besides parents or guardians who remove the filters for a minor.” Who defines what is harmful material is? Do you want nutjobs like Mom’s for Liberty, or ultra right wingers make that definition? Does the nanny state of Florida want to apply this to movies that can be seen on these devices? Games? Websites? Why do I need to have these rule turn on for me as an adult by default. In the computing world, code is free speech. Does the theocrats of the GOP want to have their great firewall of Florida, or do they truly believe in free speech for its citizens?
SB 454: Protection of Minors on Social Media Platforms - First of all, define what a social medial platform is. Facebook, X, Tiktok, YouTube? Twitch? Zoom? IRC? Any website with a comment section? If they have to put on age verification, this means I have to to identify myself online to any social media site I sign up for? Do I have to put website verification on my web site? Sounds like another 1st Amendment violation to me….
HB 1/SB 1788: Social Media Use for Minors - Same reasoning as the previous anti 1st Amendment violations, this time banning social media to anyone under 16. I thought that I as a parent, have ultimate say on what my children access, or are they blowing smoke up my skirt with all their parental rights rhetoric?
A variety of anti LGBTQ+ bills that are so egregious and against human rights that they should immediately shot down, but they have the smell of the religious right or the TPUSA’s and their ilk in their red meat of the knuckle-dragging MAGAts in this state. More of these can be seen in this Gainesville Sun article.
We also have an anti-science antivaxxer as our state Surgeon General, who thinks that he knows more that the FDA about vaccines (including mRNA vaccines), and has recommended against the vaccines because of some cockamamie idea of DNA contaminations (which as been thoroughly debunked). And this idiot is being paid by the taxpayers of Florida more than 500k to spout off this non-sense and to campaign with our missing governor who thinks he can out-MAGA the multiply indicted former President who is leader of Cult45, whose supporters freely give their money to this supposed billionaire.
It is problematic to have a 2 party system when one of the major political parties is not serious at all on real issues, but all about trolling and rage politics. The U.S. House will have the malcontent wing with extraordinary pull, while state legislatures in particular work hard to bring back the 1950’s for some reason. Here are some prime examples of how unserious this party is at this point:
Wyoming Republicans want to ban electric cars - An attempt to troll the California government in an effort to protect their oil and gas political donations business interests.
Smoking ban has ended in Congress - Freedom for lung cancer for all!
We have a whole list of Ron DeSantis political red meat for the far right in order to run in 2024 for POTUS and his desire to continue to destroy Florida’s educational system in K-12 and post-secondary promote his conservative agenda through legislative and executive fiat orders. This includes:
Still taking on Disney for their choice to exercise their free speech
Continued attack on free speech at public universities with his anti 1st Amendment Stop Woke Act. - By the way, can I get a Republican to explain what they think “woke” means and why they are against it?
I guess using Florida taxpayer funds to transports migrants from Texas elsewhere flopped badly in the public’s eyes.
While not truly legislative, we still have to award the Oxymoron award to Moms for Liberty, which is strongly Republican. They want to extend the “Don’t say gay” law into puberty, past the time when most children go through puberty and well past the time when most students get sex ed in public schools. Let’s not forget that they want to ban books and keep children from being exposed to the real world.
Back to legislative actions, Missouri is worried about bare arms in its legislature, GOP legislatures are for conversion therapy, blocking what adults can see, and block books that have trans or gay people depicted in it. We cannot forget the race to the bottom with regards to Women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, voting rights, and 1st Amendment attacks.
What are the odds of default as the GOP House plays a game of chicken with the debt ceiling? They must be forgetting the words in the Constitution in Article IV Section I, something about full faith and credit….
With all of the issues going on on Twitter these days, I can be found on these difference sites. Some of them I am pretty inactive on (see anything that is owned by Mark Zuckerberg), but the accounts do exist and have rare posts on them. Just click on the links for the appropriate site. The 2 without logos currently are Mastodon (on the left) and Post.news (in the middle):