Basic Glitch
Researcher in the U.S. trying to stay informed and help others stay informed. I write a blog that focuses on public information, public health, and policy: https://pimento-mori.ghost.io/
I only recently began using ghost, and am slowly figuring things out. Apologies for any formatting issues.
- 114 Posts
- 251 Comments
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeto News@lemmy.world•Elon Musk Suffers Late-Night Meltdown Over Murdoch NewspaperEnglish10·1 day agoYeah, 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?
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPto News@lemmy.world•Russian state media claims Marco Rubio may attend Putin's victory paradeEnglish4·1 day agoYeah 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…?
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeto News@lemmy.world•Elon Musk Suffers Late-Night Meltdown Over Murdoch NewspaperEnglish11·2 days agoI 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.
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeto News@lemmy.world•Elon Musk Suffers Late-Night Meltdown Over Murdoch NewspaperEnglish571·1 day agoI’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.
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPto News@lemmy.world•Mike Johnson says he's not on Signal and jokes that his texts are 'monitored by the Russians'English2·2 days agoHonestly, who tf knows anymore?


Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPto News@lemmy.world•Russian state media claims Marco Rubio may attend Putin's victory paradeEnglish16·2 days agoI 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…”
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeto News@lemmy.world•'Did I Miss Something?': Online Shoppers Shocked as Trump Tariffs Jack Up Prices 145%English7·2 days agoThe 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.
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPto News@lemmy.world•The ‘Recklessness Itself Sends a Message’: 35 Legal Experts Assess Trump’s ReturnEnglish1·4 days agoOr JD Vance could just retweet him to make his own legal arguments
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeto News@lemmy.world•Trump staff puts immigrants' mug shots on White House lawnEnglish5·4 days agoWWMD 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.
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPto News@lemmy.world•The ‘Recklessness Itself Sends a Message’: 35 Legal Experts Assess Trump’s ReturnEnglish4·4 days agoThe impression of a constitutional crisis is misleading. That impression was initially created by overreaching district judges selected by plaintiffs, who obtained temporary victories and leveraged those victories in the media. If there is a crisis, it does not arise from the actions of the administration but instead from a slew of highly aggressive judicial decisions that have transgressed traditional legal limits on the relationship between the judiciary and the executive branch — limits the courts respected during the Biden administration. — Adrian Vermeule, professor, Harvard Law School
The administration always talks about ivy league elitists that hate America, but they never mention this guy for some reason.
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPto News@lemmy.world•Donald Trump went after one of America's top law firms. Its decision to fight back took just two hoursEnglish5·4 days agoLegal scholars are usually very knowledgeable about the law, but not always great lawyers in the courtroom (hence the judge basically rolling her eyes at the argument).
Adrian Vermeule is a right wing constitutional law professor/legal scholar. He will never show up in court, but he is definitely influencing their legal argument.
NYT actually just released an article today asking legal experts their opinion on what’s happening now. Of course Vermeule somehow managed to put the blame on the courts and not the administration.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/opinion/trump-constitution-rule-of-law.html
The impression of a constitutional crisis is misleading. That impression was initially created by overreaching district judges selected by plaintiffs, who obtained temporary victories and leveraged those victories in the media. If there is a crisis, it does not arise from the actions of the administration but instead from a slew of highly aggressive judicial decisions that have transgressed traditional legal limits on the relationship between the judiciary and the executive branch — limits the courts respected during the Biden administration. — Adrian Vermeule, professor, Harvard Law School
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeto News@lemmy.world•Spain, Portugal work to fix massive power outage – DWEnglish1·4 days agoI always consider buying a hand cranked FM radio for Hurricane season, but always talk myself out of it. I think you just inspired me to finally just do it.
Have you heard anything about what might have caused the drop in power?
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeto News@lemmy.world•Spain, Portugal work to fix massive power outage – DWEnglish4·4 days agoIt was a failure of the interconnection between France and Spain after a sudden drop in power, but no reports of what caused the drop yet.
Have you heard any theories about what it could have been that caused the drop?.
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPto News@lemmy.world•Donald Trump went after one of America's top law firms. Its decision to fight back took just two hoursEnglish10·4 days ago??? That seems like kind of a bizarre takeaway, but just to be clear, this is far from over. We are in no way in the safe zone. Not even a little bit, DO NOT get complacent.
Adrian Vermeule, the Harvard Law professor, who is behind their legal argument has been writing about executive authority and Carl Schmitt (the legal architect of the Nazi agenda) for several years.
Unchecked executive authority is what allowed Hitler to legally carry out genocide. This is a very dangerous group of people.
It’s just very funny that a group of ivy league and silicon valley billionaires have been spending the last few months trying to rally the public and get them on their side by somehow claiming that anyone opposed to their actions is an out of touch elitist.
Meanwhile, the legal theory for the constitutional interpretation that is the basis of their entire power grab (judges can’t overrule a president’s order, we don’t have to have a warrant if we break down your door claiming we’re looking for gang members bc executive authority overrules individual liberty) is so highly technical and obscure, that it is actually a pretty flimsy argument and definitely out of touch with most American’s interpretation of the constitution (we the people did not want to be ruled by a king, so you can pry our liberty from our cold dead hands).
Someone like justice Alito (who also coincidentally happens to be an ivy league graduate) would probably still support Vermeule’s interpretation, so a weak argument is no guarantee of protection. What often seems to make or break the argument, is public knowledge and opinion, which can then lead to public pressure due to justices hoping to preserve their legacy in history.
You already have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to make the argument in the first place, but it would be next to impossible to make the public aware of this interpretation, and view it as anything other than an attempt to create a loophole allowing for the King to invade your home and seize your property, while taking away your right to defend yourself.
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPto News@lemmy.world•ICE is reversing the termination of legal status for international students around the USEnglish11·5 days agoUsually that just creates a power vacuum, and there’s already plenty of fascist already standing in line ready to continue this BS. The first mandate for leadership was written over 40 years ago, but many of the original ideas remain in project 2025.
The people currently running the Heritage Foundation are not the original members. The founding members are all dead, and the people sitting in the White House are just continuing their legacy.
They have infected the entire system. The country is septic because of these people, and hacking off a limb just because you can see it’s the origin of infection, will not solve the problem. It will just leave you minus one limb and unnecessarily distracted while you try to stop the bleeding.
If we survive this as a country, we have to treat a systemic infection. To treat it and keep it from coming back, we will need to demand accountability from the people that were supposed to stop the infection from spreading in the first place. That means holding them accountable now or voting to actually replace them when it’s time.
Governors and AG up for election between 2025 and 2028.
33 of the 100 Senate seats are up for election on Nov 3, 2026 as well as representatives from all 435 congressional districts across each of the 50 U.S. states.
If a group of billionaires could pressure the Supreme Court to overturn something that the majority of Americans agreed we didn’t need to overturn, then the majority of Americans can pressure the Supreme Court to overturn Citizens United so that it can no longer benefit the same group of billionaires.
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPto News@lemmy.world•Donald Trump went after one of America's top law firms. Its decision to fight back took just two hoursEnglish191·5 days agoThis is very funny to me:
In a hearing on April 23, US District Judge Beryl Howell, who is overseeing Perkins Coie’s case, appeared incredulous at the government’s arguments. She subjected Richard Lawson, a Justice Department lawyer, to a barrage of often sarcastic questions about the scope of the executive order, brushing aside some of his positions as “hyper-technical legal arguments that may have no merit.”
On the docket, meanwhile, the administration is outgunned.
The two lawyers representing the government are Chad Mizelle, US Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff, who worked in the first Trump administration and at a pair of elite law firms, and Lawson, who joined the Justice Department after a stint at a conservative nonprofit founded by Trump aide Stephen Miller.
Most of their legal arguments rely on constitutional interpretation of unchecked executive authority. This is actually the argument of a very prominent legal scholar and professor of constitutional law at Harvard.
While they’ve been calling everyone around them bureaucratic elitists, they’ve now jumped into the game very confidently but totally dependent on this argument only to have a judge essentially say, this may make for a good publication on legal theory but essentially has no basis in reality 🤣
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPto News@lemmy.world•Donald Trump went after one of America's top law firms. Its decision to fight back took just two hoursEnglish45·5 days agoExactly, I think it’s funny that the law firms that didn’t back down also retained two major clients (Boeing and Amazon) that you would expect to be automatically on team Trump, and that career DOJ lawyers just said, this is dumb fuck this I’m retiring rather than being humiliated trying to argue this dog shit in court.
The thing about bullies is they will take whatever you’re willing to give, but they usually can’t win a fight without psychological intimidation and large numbers backing them up.
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPto News@lemmy.world•Secret Trump Memo Tells ICE to Break into Homes Without WarrantsEnglish14·5 days agoI mean they already are. They’ve been doing this since March.
The only reason we know is because one of the many employees within ICE who have been leaking information to the press in the hopes we would pressure congress to do their jobs, also leaked this.
If you know anyone in the conservative camp that’s still blissfully unaware/not pissed yet, loop them in. Their voices are the most important when it comes to giving Congress one last try while they’re still collecting paychecks paid for by our tax dollars.
If it comes down to us fighting we will have to join together anyway if we stand any chance. The next civil war will not be left vs right, it will be Americans refusing to follow orders vs. corporate billionaires controlling both public and private military (Blackwater, Palantir, etc.).
Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPto News@lemmy.world•Secret Trump Memo Tells ICE to Break into Homes Without WarrantsEnglish1·5 days agoMany people find comfort in authoritarian personalities.
It’s also possible if you’re just willing to stop paying attention, and believe the people in power are doing what’s best for you. Trust them 😉
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.