#and the federal government

[indigosabyss]

Billy "Please Don't Call The Police, I Can't Have A Criminal Record 😭" Kaplan and Kamala "Alien Empires Fear Me, Federal Government Wants Me" Khan. Throw them into a teamup I wanna see what happens.

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

[zinjanthropusboisei]

Noticed something a little funky in the world around you and want to figure out what's up? Especially if there might be something you ought to be doing about it? Not sure what information sources to trust these days? If you're in the US, federal agencies like NOAA, USGS, EPA and more collect massive amounts of scientific data every day, much of which is publicly available online - if you know where to look.

A PDF version with clickable links is available for free on my itchio page (quakeandquiver); I'll add a direct link in a reblog.

[reality-detective]

Get Ready For The Most Rigged Election In History...

Highlight #1 👇

Immigration Accountability Project: Kamala Harris Admin “Orders all federal agencies to provide voter registration information to everyone they come in contact with. — State election officials are not permitted to ask for proof of citizenship for applicants who fill out the federal form.”

Highlight #2 👇

House Judiciary Committee, They’ve made it “virtually impossible to prevent non-citizens from registering to vote”

Highlight #3

“There are strong indications that some of these NGOs are providing the aliens with voter registration forms”

Highlight #4 👇

DHS estimates “30 MILLION non-citizens residing in the United States”

- Rosemary Jenks with the Immigration Accountability Project

Makes me wonder if there really will be an election... You can't arrest anyone unless they are allowed to commit the crime. If it is stopped before it occurs then they aren't guilty of anything. 🤔

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

putting my prediction on record now that the coming decade is going to see the rise of viral-marketed fancy at-home water filtration systems, driving and driven by a drastic reduction in the quality of U.S. tap water (given that we are in a 'replacement era' where our current infrastructure is reaching the end of its lifespan--but isn't being replaced). also guessing that by the 2030s access to drinkable tap water will be a mainstream class issue, with low-income & unstably housed people increasingly forced to rely on expensive bottled water when they can't afford the up-front cost of at-home filtration--and with this being portrayed in media as a "moral failing" and short-sighted "choice," rather than a basic failure of our political & economic systems. really hope i'm just being alarmist, but plenty of this already happens in other countries, and the U.S. is in a state of decline, so. here's praying this post ages into irrelevance. timestamped April 2023

[fernsnailz]

been reading through various usps reviews this morning and i've started to notice some trends

[tothechaos]

we were SO CLOSE to updating the presidential assassinations wikipedia page. youre failing your country.

[stuckinapril]

“The US isn’t doing as much as it should but at least they’re warning Israel not to invade Rafah now!” “They use tougher language than they did before in their resolution” “they’re actually acknowledging that there needs to be a ceasefire now, even if they’re calling for a temporary one” are you guys nuts. They know. “The US” is comprised of politicians and advisors and people who know the value of time and stalling. They know what they’re doing. They know they’re stalling. There isn’t “too much red tape to get around,” especially where the US is concerned. The US calls the shots on a global scale, and this has been demonstrated several times before (especially where Arab countries are concerned). But you really think they’re trying their best & they’re being “strategic” because of the “red tape around these things”? The US IS the red tape. They are stalling on purpose, and they know every second they do countless Palestinians die. Please stop making it seem like the US doesn’t know the magnitude of stalling.

[the-final-sif]

There's a post from someone outside of the US about how people in the US don't put their country down and just put down their state and something about US people being US centric, and part of it has always kind of bothered me because I think that people outside of the US don't really understand how states work for us or why people think their state should be enough. Some of it is being US centric for sure, but I honestly don't think that's the main reason.

It's because the US is a bunch of countries in a trench coat. I've compared it before to the EU, and I really do think that's accurate. It's literally a union of states. Each state has it's own government and laws and we have the federal government too but day to day a lot more of your life comes down to the state laws. Your driver's license, license plate, wage and a lot of employment protect (and enforcement), vast majority of court experiences, etc all go through the state. Moving to different states can mean being subject to wildly different laws, tax rates/methods, and forms of discrimination (ie florida trying to ban queer people while other states are explicitly adding protections for them).

Like, you'll notice that streamers often tend to be clustered in certain states in the US, and a lot of that has to do with certain states not having an income tax. Depending on what state they're registered in, companies can be subject to wildly different laws. Hence why Delaware is so popular for businesses. Bankruptcy law works differently in every state.

Lawyers are licensed to practice by state, and while they can move to different states, it's difficult and depending on their area of law they may be totally out of their field. Even small states like Delaware have totally different laws from a place 15 minutes to the left like New Jersey.

The largest single state by population is California which has nearly 40 million people. That is more than the entire population of Canada. It's roughly on par with Poland. Give or take a million people.

Ohio has about 11 million people, about 1 million more than Sweden. Florida has 22 million, over double Greece's population. New York and Romania both come out to about 19 million each.

Our smallest state by population, Wyoming, which has about 500k people, still has about 200k more people than Iceland.

Fucking Russia literally does not have half the population of the US. It sits at 144 million while we're at 333 million.

To give a sense of landmass/scale, France is the largest EU state by landmass with 630k square km. Texas alone is 695k. Alaska is 1.7 million square km. The US in total is 11.3 million square km. The entire EU has 4.2 million square km.

The US is 1) fucking huge and 2) so much less cohesive than a lot of non-Americans assume.

So why would someone from the US just put down their state? For the same reason that most people from the EU don't write down "Germany in the EU". Your state is where you're actually from, the USA is the weird umbrella you live under.

[newsfromstolenland]

WARNING: This story contains references to sensitive matters including violence, racism, self-harm and harassment

A government-funded report released to CTV News highlights 'systemic racism' against dozens of Black executives within the federal public service, including allegations of abuse, violence and harassment that, in some instances, led to suicide.

The internal report titled 'A Study on the Black Executive Community in the Federal Public Service,' published by Dr. Rachel Zellars for the federal Black Executives Network and released Nov. 4, interviewed 73 current and former Black employees working in the senior ranks of the federal government between October 2023 and February 2024.

It found the interviews "reveal patterns of anti-Black discrimination marked by differential treatment, abuse, cruelty, refusal, and subjugation."

Several Black executives interviewed in the study spoke of 'complaints and threats' used to punish them for their mistakes, including one person "witnessing racial harassment that led to the suicide of a Black colleague."

[...]

"One former executive shared how a white colleague raised a chair at him and threatened to “beat the [N-word] out of him” during a meeting with other participants,' reads the report.

Full article

I know this comes across as a "water is wet" type of study, but it's useful in proving to people that systemic racism is a real and current problem.

It will also provide leverage for Black federal employees when they take action against systemic racism in their workplace.

Having a professional study on systemic racism makes it possible for people to prove that their personal experiences with anti-Black racism in the workplace are part of a larger pattern rather than being isolated incidents.

People are always trying to argue that workplace racism happens because of a few bad people instead of systemic problems. Studies like this provide proof that racism, and especially anti-Blackness, is ingrained in our culture and systems. And enacting meaningful change requires addressing systemic racism.

There's actually an example of a situation where this kind of study is useful that's mentioned in the above article:

The report is released as an advocacy group representing roughly 45,000 present and former Black public servants -- dating back to 1970 -- are laying the groundwork for a potential class-action lawsuit against the federal government.

A Federal Court hearing taking place in early November is looking to gain clearance to move ahead with the lawsuit, seeking $2.5-billion dollars in compensation -- as well as, a diversity plan to ensure the public ervice is representative of Black Canadians at all government levels and a Black equity commissioner to oversee the implementation of diversity measures.

This study can be used to help support that lawsuit! This is important work.

Read more about the lawsuit here

Tagging: @allthecanadianpolitics

[beardedmrbean]

I wouldn't want to be a radfem at the best of times, but this election has to be a brain buster for them.

[clonerightsagenda]

Missouri politics is always a caricature but as we roll up to election day two particular standouts are:

There is a ballot measure to raise the number of allowed casinos so corporations can build one at the Lake of the Ozarks. ~*Coincidentally*~ the Osage nation (former residents of the area) have been trying to build a casino there. This is not something most people are aware but jfc it's blatant.

Our attorney general tried to sue about abortion pills, got tossed out for having absolutely no standing, and so tried again claiming that the state has standing due to lost federal funding caused by fewer teen pregnancies. I am not making this shit up.

[gamer2002]

Elections seem more and more karmatic

[zinjanthropusboisei]

FREE MAPS

Today's PSA about resources from the federal government that you might not know about: virtually all of the USGS's maps are in the public domain and free to download. More than a century's worth of them. They even have a nice map-based browser so you can search by location and filter by date, scale, etc. You can also generate your own topo map using the best available data for whatever area you define (within the US) using the topoBuilder application.

You can ALSO get printed versions for quite a low price - I just got one for my office for $9 plus shipping, which came to ~$15 total, I think.

SO if for INSTANCE you wanted a cool old map for your wall and you went to Etsy and found some schmuck selling reprints of old USGS maps for +$50 bucks - THEY'RE SCAMMING YOUUUUUUU they are depriving you of your American right to life, liberty and the pursuit of topographic data

[reality-detective]

An alternate angle on the Francis Scott Key Bridge shows what appears to be a large explosion, which you can see 👀 from the other angles I posted. Something reeks like a possible Black Swan Event?

Does it seem like a barge bumping into a pillar would cause the whole bridge to collapse? 🤔

[heliotrope155]

Another TFW missed opportunity would be getting together with the Ghostfacers to release a video apologizing for the Apocalypse and breaking down what to expect (featuring: Sam and Dean being very passive aggressive with each other while Castiel looks like he's in the Ninth circle of hell answering questions).