Posted by m-hodges 2 days ago
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/doj-confirms-fbi...
He doesn't have a face for Fox News, so he'll have to try to parlay his past closeness with the administration for lobbyist money, but if he gets shunned by the people left in the administration, he's got to go back to his public defender job.
Eh, with how many people in the current administration seem to use out of band channels to communicate very important things who knows what else they located.
How many former officials used personal accounts about government business?
How many corporate executives communicate business via personal accounts to avoid legal discovery?
How many individuals communicate outside their main email accounts to avoid scrutiny or attribution?
Point is, nobody should feel superior or shocked that such things like this happen. I understand some enjoy the privacy of their perceived enemies being exposed, but IMHO, nobody should be happy about invasion of anyone's privacy.
Noem - habeas corpus definition she gave at the Congress hearing
Kennedy Jr - vaccines and the rest of his view on medicine
Now Patel's unhackable FBI.
I think the world has changed, and i really need to update my expectations of what is new normal. It is like in tech when paradigm shift happens, and you're either go with the new paradigm or get irrelevant.
For all his flaws, Camacho was a good leader - he recognised there was a problem, knew he couldn’t fix it and actively rallied the world around the one person who could.
This bunch of dipshits expressly denigrated the experts, refused to take the slightest precaution to protect themselves and others from a deadly virus and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.
And that’s not even thinking about the industrial levels of fuckery and bullshit they’ve perpetrated over the last year.
Excess mortality in the US during the pandemic was around 1.2 million.
It "was like a family office meets organized crime, melded with Lord of the Flies," Kennedy said. "It was a government of chaos." Kennedy says was shocked that he and a dozen other twenty-somethings with no experience in the medical sector were tasked with procuring much-needed PPE for the country, using their personal laptops and email addresses.
"We were the team. We were the entire frontline team for the federal government." Kennedy added, "It was the number of people who show up to an after-school event, not to run the greatest crisis in a hundred years. It was such a mismatch of personnel. It was one of the largest mobilization problems ever. It was so unbelievably colossal and gargantuan. The fact that they didn’t want to get any more people was so upsetting." [1]
What Kennedy described during COVID is now the entire government from top to bottom. DOJ, FBI, DOD, FEMA, DHS, ICE, NASA, USPS, SSA etc etc, rotting from the head.
[1]: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/robert-f-kennedys-grandson-w...
For example many attribute rise of totalitarianism back then in 20th century to the power of broadcasting radio and "formation of mass society". We have a similarly transformative factor now - social media. And with the new tech power - propaganda (sounds dated, today it is more like mind control) through social media and total surveillance plus AI "minority report" - we can get a hyper-totalitarianism orders of magnitude more totalitarian than those of the 20th century. And may be we're witnessing the birth of such a new world order.
However there is revolt amongst a good chunk of the fractured coalition that barely brought Trump into office.
Trump's Epstein coverup and sheltering of Ghislaine Maxwell took off the shine with a large number of people. The ghastly behavior around the deaths of major figures takes off more. Exempting producers of the pesticide glyphosate has taken off most of the MAHA coalition. And then, of course the wars, when he promised not to launch any and accused his opponent of doing exactly what he's currently doing...
It remains to be seen just how permanent this is, and whether the post-Trump US can be reattached to reality instead of reality TV, but I use hope.
I'm frankly far more concerned that the Republicans lose next election, and we get Democrats in power who then prioritize "getting back to normal" and once again utterly failing to hold accountable the utter BUFFET of mediocre wannabe dictators who brought us to the brink already.
I also hope. But I'd be lying if I said I thought it was rational.
"Our" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. There were many "ours" whose ways of life, governance, and society were destroyed on the road to making the Jan 6th thing possible..
It's crazy that you continue to push this narrative despite the entire "Russia-Gate" thing turning out to total bullshit oppo followed by Trump being currently at war with one of Putin's allies and having jailed another.
The evidence supporting this claim is what, he wasn't nice to Zelenskyy that one time (despite still financially supporting Ukraine in their war against Russia)?
These are authoritarian countries. Meaning that they don't have an official ideology, the real one that has people willing to die for it. If anything, they are focused on suppressing people and keeping them passive.
Iran is a notable exception here. They _are_ a totalitarian theocratic state, and this makes them more resilient. They are not governed by a single person but by ideology, even if it's unpopular among the people.
Authoritarian states are fragile in comparison. They struggle to survive the removal of their leader, especially the ones that had governed for a long time. The long-time ruler inevitably becomes the arbiter between the elites, a focal point of their undercover agreements.
And once the ruler is gone, the elites are now faced with a new round of struggles. So the smarter ones decide that perhaps it's a good idea to have some kind of collegial power, where people can discuss their disagreements rather than shoot each other. This usually results in the country becoming milder and not so carnivorous towards its citizens.
The USSR was a good example. Stalin died, and his successors decided that a new Stalin was not a good idea. Instead, they gave power to the Politburo, where the General Secretary was "the first among equals". The USSR did not become a human rights paradise afterwards. But it never had any more mass purges, deportations, or mega-projects built with slave labor of GULAG inmates.
Russia is totalitarian today. It transitioned from authoritarian to totalitarian slowly starting about second half of 201x and very quickly down hill during 2022 with the introduction of all those "discreditation" laws and the likes and especially with extreme hardening of application of such laws.
>Meaning that they don't have an official ideology, the real one that has people willing to die for it.
That is the point. In a contrast to being just a kleptocracy for the first ~15 years of Putin, Russia does have such an ideology at the state level today - "Russian world" (known outside as "Russian fascism" - "rushism") with Ukranian war (where at least several hundred thousands of Russians have already died) being one of the real-world implementations of that ideology.
It's really not. There is no ideology. There are no mass rallies in support of the government. No official sets of books, there's no "My Struggle" by Putin that everyone in the country needs to have.
> That is the point. In a contrast to being just a kleptocracy for the first ~15 years of Putin, Russia does have such an ideology at the state level today - "Russian world"
Not really. It's trying to do that, but it looks comical even for people inside Russia. Even true believers in "Russian World" are now either dead or silenced. Russian government systematically punishes _any_ true belief.
Another example to watch is Venezuela. I predict that it'll slowly transform into being a more open country, with at least some electoral freedom. It won't become a liberal democracy overnight, but it won't be completely authoritarian for long.
for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzaoHPWfkbE
>No official sets of books,
new unified history textbook. The "Talks about Important" school ideology lessons. Putin's propaganda article on Ukraine history (of course no relation to real history).
>It's really not. There is no ideology.
the foundational ideology of a fascist state is "interests of state trump any and all rights/freedoms/interests of an individual". One can see that in Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal, Mussolini's Italy, and in Putin's Russia these days. Of course that was also the case in Germany in 1933-1945, yet the Germany went further - it was a fascism where state had a political nationalism as an official ideology. Similarly Russian state in recent years took "Russian world" as its official ideology, and thus now you see Lebensraum, Volksgemeinschaft, Blut and Boden and Dolchstoßlegende in the words and actions of Russian state.
>Not really. It's trying to do that, but it looks comical even for people inside Russia.
There is nothing comical here. One of the cornerstone of "Russian world" ideology is Russians being the master-nation (and by the way the words to pretty much that effect were even put into the Russian Constitution in 2020) while Ukranians are declared "inferior". The state TV openly talks about "Ukrainess" being a brain decease needing eradication (reminds a lot how "Jewishness" was talked about back then in Germany). It definitely lost any chance of being even remotely comical when they actually declared and started that eradication in 2022.
>Even true believers in "Russian World" are now either dead or silenced. Russian government systematically punishes _any_ true belief.
State ideology never requires true believers. Even more - true believer may happen to follow his/her beliefs even when state orders the other way - that of course would conflict with the basic tenets of totalitarian state.
That was electoral event with mandatory presence. This is nothing like Stalin's rallies where people themselves organized and attended, e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC6bzBTmmhU
> new unified history textbook. The "Talks about Important" school ideology lessons. Putin's propaganda article on Ukraine history (of course no relation to real history).
Yup. They are _trying_ but without at least semi-coherent ideology, it just looks comical. I suggest reading that textbook, it's just trash. It's badly written and is just a collection of unconnected facts. All it can teach is the late USSR norm: "Say what they want to hear, think what you want, and do what you actually need to do".
There can be no ideology in an authoritarian state, ideology binds the leadership. Khomeini in Iran can't just go to a gay party or eat during Ramadan. Putin (and his ilk like Maduro) does not want to get limited in any way.
> the foundational ideology of a fascist state is "interests of state trump any and all rights/freedoms/interests of an individual"
If you want to talk about fine details of political science, then fascism is not necessarily totalitarian. It can be practiced in a far-right authoritarian state. Nazism is indeed different, and it _is_ a totalitarian ideology.
Nazism had its foundational work ("Mein Kampf") and a doctrine fortified by a set of "scientific" proofs of German superiority. And they had plenty of true believers, including the actual core of the Nazi party. It also imposed binding restrictions on everyone. For example, nobody in the Nazi party could (openly) marry a Jewish person and expect to stay in power.
Putin doesn't want any of this. He loves that one day the US is the enemy number one for him, and the next day Trump is his best friend.
> The state TV openly talks about "Ukrainess" being a brain decease needing eradication (reminds a lot how "Jewishness" was talked about back then in Germany).
Yes, and these TV channels now have less popularity than gardening channels. This is another point of difference. In a totalitarian state, the ideology must be, well, _total_ and omnipresent.
The Russian government is trying to make sure the war stays as invisible as possible. Try to find any mentions of it here: https://yandex.com/maps/-/CPVwbS-t
> It definitely lost any chance of being even remotely comical when they actually declared and started that eradication in 2022.
Unfortunately, you don't need ideology to wage wars.
> State ideology never requires true believers.
It does. And that is the true difference. A significant part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran really sincerely believes that they're fighting for Islam. It's not _just_ a way for them to get into power to run protection rackets.
Nobody knowing anything about Russia would make such a gross mistake like you've just made. It is like you'd be discussing physics problems while not knowing Newton's laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_Russia
"Television is the most popular medium in Russia, with 74% of the population watching national television channels routinely "
As it happens you just don't know what you're talking about. Most of the other things you said about Russia is similarly just incorrect. It looked strange to me how and what you've been arguing about, and in good faith i thought that we're discussing while each being well informed, and may be you just have different opinion/view and may be a bit less understanding and information than me. Well, it happens you just don't know basically anything about Russia. In such a case instead of arguing, you should just look for and consume the information, and not waste other people's time with uninformed arguments.
I'm Russian with parts of my family in Russia.
> It is like you'd be discussing physics problems while not knowing Newton's laws. > "Television is the most popular medium in Russia, with 74% of the population watching national television channels routinely "
Yes, and according to MediaScope, a company that tracks the TV ratings in Russia, "Evening with Solovyiev" is at the 78-th place: https://mediascope.net/data/
You might not know this, but Russia still has multiple TV channels, and people can (and do) switch between them.
This is both good and bad news. Good news is that there are very few actual rabid nationalists in Russia, and once the war is over, Russian population will gladly return to normality. The bad news is that the war will be over only once Putin dies or is deposed.
>"Evening with Solovyiev" is at the 78-th place: https://mediascope.net/data/
again, it sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. Have you ever watched the Russian TV in recent years? They repeat the same stuff with slight variations again and again. It doesn't matter whether it is Soloviev today or Soloviev yesterday or Skabeeva or Sheinin or any other spawn of Goebbels there - they all would make him proud - their message reaches everybody in Russia.
I expect cogent commentary about ritual magick by a Druid, but was a little surprised to find well laid out political commentary. I guess that was a failure of my imagination. Worth a read, even if you consider the topic bollocks. Greer sticks mostly to psychology and musings about using metaphor to engineer the mass imagination. Much less woo-woo than you might expect.
I mention it in support of the previous poster's commentary about the Dems messaging being irrelevant to most Americans. Seemed to me middle America doesn't love Trump as much as they weren't able to hear Harris address any issues they were concerned about.
I can recommend The King in Orange, What's the Matter with Kansas and Metaphors We Live By for more musings about such things.
Under MAGA, the state no longer pretends to be guided internally by reason and progress, but is instead founded on non progress and terror, a scorched earth approach to slashing government agencies, and the accelerated destruction of state institutions: rather than seeking to resolve societal crises, MAGA produces constant crises to feed off of, preferring to annihilate its own systems rather than stop the destruction.
Yes, the world has changed. We have entered a reality where insanity has become the goal of the authoritarians, ie the self-destruction itself is the actual end goal.