Both locally and during work travel through the southeastern US, I'm noticing a lot more agricultural fields being left fallow/abandoned. Usually by this point in the season fields would at least be cleared and planted, but many have been left un-plowed.

I'm also seeing a shift in crops being grown. Definently a lot more fields are growing hay than usual.

Farmers trying to respond to tariffs? Farmers opting to not lease lands leading to more empty fields?

Controlling the narrative. This is an important step for the success of this administration, and something a few of us have been saying would happen for years now. If they control the narrative, they can keep people in the dark.

The government looking to effectively silence NPR, PBS, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, AP, and others, as well as Zuckerberg's pushing of pro-Trump content on Facebook, and then add Musk's personal vendetta (and partial success) at getting Reddit to comply with his demands for takedowns of not just posts but banning users for even liking certain content, this all falls in line with the authoritarian playbook.

Stay frosty, people. We aren't 3 months into this administration, and we're 2 days away from the administration likely inciting the Insurrection Act on April 20th. Things are escalating fast.

I don't even know what else to include. This administration speaks for itself.

I want to reiterate that now is past the time to start being paranoid about what you say, where you say it, and to whom you say things to. There is zero doubt in my mind that those with a grudge against you may drop your name in a tip line for those who, in their eyes, "hate America" or are "aiding and abetting terrorists", and end up with you being bagged.

https://lemmy.world/post/28260599

I apologize in advance to the Mod that this is not so much a news article, but coming from a military background, I firmly believe that this is 'intel' that needs repeating loudly. I hope you understand.

Folks, we all know where things are headed in the United States. The tactics being used by ICE, the goalposts being moved for who the targets are, and the recent news that even "homegrown" people are going to be included soon on the planes to foreign supermax prisons where there is no escape from, this country is absolutely resembling pre-WWII Germany. People being taken off the street by masked individuals in unmarked vehicles and without any judicial hearing or oversight, being shipped off to a prison in a country they've never even been to, this is a 1:1 buildup of rounding up the "undesirables" in Germany. We know the fate of those when it happened back then, and make no mistake; the people who are sent there, even if they are US citizens (taken "by mistake" or not), they're not

JFC. No further commentary needed, I suppose.

With the likelihood of the Insurrection Act being implemented in less than a week, the military no longer looking to root out Nazis or other extremists is very concerning. FTA:

"...in February, the DoD issued a memo halting a major counter-extremism initiative rooting out white nationalists and far-right influences among servicemen, citing that it was not in line with Donald Trump’s executive orders. Since, the efficacy of rooting out the far right within the ranks remains unclear."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27995219

Now we're mixing the leadership of law enforcement and military.

In other news, armed minorities are harder to suppress.

For me, my job has been hybrid for 20 years. So, WFH some, and in the office some. We were told on Thursday, March 12th to prepare to WFH full time for the next 2 weeks. Little did I know that Sunday, March 15th would be the last time I would be leaving my house for months, at least not in any meaningful way.

The evening of Monday, March 16th, the Governor of my state issued a state wide lockdown of non-essential business, to go into effect at 5 PM Tuesday the 17th. I can’t recall what the timeline was for how long that was supposed to last, but it ended up being almost 2 months before business like restaurants had figured out how to be open for takeout only. It was almost a full year in my town before things were back to the “new normal”.

We’re still full time WFH, and there’s no going back to the office for me. They sold the building, so there’s no where to go.

Life has never fully gone back to the way it was prior to that, and it probably never will. That’s a scar that will just

This shit has surpassed ridiculous. I feel like the writers of Spaceballs, and Idiocracy, are somehow making things happen.

“One senior Trump administration official says the White House’s overarching approach on these matters is to, quite simply, “move fast” — both because they expect courts to try to quickly order them to stop, and if a judge does so, moving quickly allows Team Trump to execute certain actions before the law and oversight can catch up to them.”

“Another close Trump adviser simply says that the president’s ultimate leverage against certain judges who try to stand in the way of his agenda is that the judiciary does not command an army, while the president of the United States does. “Are they going to come and arrest him?” the adviser asked, rhetorically.”

Definitely scary shit.

There are methods that can be used to alleviate the effects of audible offensive weapons, from placards used in protests to some solid shielding otherwise (makeshift riot shield), but for inaudible subsonic weapons, I only have theories based on the way RF works. In short, aluminum foil *should *work to protect from inaudible weapons like shown in the video. If the shield were to be made concave and faced towards its origin, it could end up focusing it back to where it came from as well. "Space blankets" should act as a shield as well without reflecting it back (instead dispersing it).

As we get closer to this coming to fruition, forecast confidence is increasing that this will be a significant event. I have linked the latest forecast from the storm prediction center, but I also recommend using local sources as well if available. If you live in Michigan, “Michigan Storm Chasers” are on Facebook and YouTube, they’re providing the best statewide forecasts currently with easy to digest information and no senseless hype. Nationally, I’ve found Max Velocity to be a decent source on YouTube. NOAA and NWS are currently strained to the max, so being weather aware is paramount at a time like this.

All the tariff back and forth nonsense is obscuring what is going on in the background. Keep your eyes and ears open folks, and stay safe.