totallynotaspy

Have you reached out to your local "community?" If not or you don't even know, then check out FetLife; lots of local lifestyle groups all over, and they are typically very open/understanding when someone is new, exploring, or just curious. Any legitimate group will typically have "vanilla" meetups to discuss everything and vet people at a restaurant or coffeeshop or something.

I'm sorry you're going through this, it's not easy.

Fuck you Biden:

In August of 2024, Akima Infrastructure Protection was given a $163.4m contract by the Biden administration to run the migrant detention facility at Guantánamo through June of 2029.

Asshole knew what was coming and still awarded a contract to a contracting company with KNOWN human rights abuses against victims/detainees.

I'd say a good quality multi-tool and at least one first aid kit in a go bag. I have a "tactical" bag i got for cheap since it could be strapped to a bike/motorcycle, around my waist, or even another larger hiking pack. I would also highly recomend the Red Cross's first aid and cpr certification course if the extent of your medical/first-aid knowledge was the chapter or two of the Health class textbook or something similar. It's been like 5 years since I re-upped my certs, but I can't imagine the Red Cross's course material changing since then.

I would typically avoid those pre-built first-aid kits since they tend to have crappy quality bandaging. Examples of what I run in mine, keep in mind almost everything is in a sterile outer layer so it's a one time use: sterile medical scissors, sterile forceps, a small bottle of sealed Isopropanol, various sizes of sterile gauze for packing wounds and bandaging, sterile self-adhereing tape, sterile iodine based wound cleaning pads, a leatherman multitool, various sizes of fabric and waterproof band-aids, and finally 2 tourniquets with a sharpie to mark the time of use. I use/have used nearly everything (except the tourniquets thank the gods) in my kit and replace what I use asap.

The things CMonster said as well. Depending on where in the country you live, having a minimum of a month(3 months is better but it can be a little daunting to not just splurge on food you think you'll need)'s worth of non-perishables and water is just good life advice (hurricanes, tornadoes, and blizzards etc can and will disrupt normal operations in the food supply chain).

Eh, I'm with unexposedhazard on this one. From my anecdotal past experiences working at nearly all type of civilian organizations over the years; the average person is remarkably uninformed/lacking knowledge or interest in infosec, then doubles down on it when shown they have vulnerabilities. But like the article references, unfortunately, the US has previously been caught spying on allies and citizens alike (ex. bugging Merkel's phone and the illegal wiretapping of US citizens by the NSA).

Joined up with some others with the same religion, we have setup a contact chain to alert each other at least 2 specific people each (with overlap) via the Signal app, only using a specified encrypted service like Signal to contact each other, there's a few rednecks on my street so they've been going to a local range to practice weekly, discussed our family risk tolerance and when we gtfo/ setup a few contingencies incase any of the extract options become nonviable. Oh and working out regularly, nothing motivates you more than the nagging thought of what if I'm not fast/strong enough to protect those I love.

Slightly off topic, but if you are receiving any disability benefit payments from SSI please make sure to get in touch with the social security administration to get the process of switching it to just your name and to a separate account at a different bank than you family uses (just prevents the off chance they find a way to access your account if a banker doesn't do their job correctly).

Agreed :(

Wish people would get over the whole "Oh that's just politics/a smear campaign" or "I don't talk politics" when anyone tries to discuss the US public officials' actions or provide a different view (politicians, institutions, policy, etc) since it effects our everyday lives. Met too many deniers the past few years about first lady cheeto's actions.

Agreed with a dash of despair and large helping of grief. We can thank the myth of American exceptionalism (fucking propaganda/Reagan/FOX/ Sinclair buying out key local news markets to name a few) and outright hostility to complex thought many here developed in the past 30 years or so.

Unfortunately, the bones for a class/race-based society have been here from the start and inequities never were fully/properly addressed; if the US is still a democracy after the next few years then I sure hope we collectively setup safeguards to prevent this again. I know it's been an oligarchy for ages, but the new class of billionaires/robber barons seem to utterly lack what little morals that the old guard had (e.g. Rockefeller seemed to somewhat follow his religious story book since he believed that he should share his wealth to improve society; very likely due to something about a camel, death, wealth, and a sewing needle).

Here's to hoping at least one lawsuit will get a stay/block on this unconstitutional EO. Reading through the EO feels like reading a shitty TOS down to the if one of these provisions is struck down spiel (almost never holds up).

Im no lawyer, but pretty sure regardless of what the client wants, the lawyer can't just bend reality or use the correct special words to change the established code of law or the decades/past century of precedent set by already resolved cases. So I imagine this should be a fairly easy EO to shitcan hopefully.

If not, then please make sure you can protect yourself and neighbors for when the US version of the Night of the Long Knives or Kristallnacht drops. I know my cul-de-sac won't go down without a fight and I genuinely hope others have organized a preemptive way of communication to warn each other at a minimum.