🚨 NEW: I regret to inform the public the individual blocking @RepMaxineWaters @MaxwellFrostFL et. al lawful entrance to the Dept. of Education today appears to be Tobie Jansen van Rensburg, an offensive cybersecurity expert from South Africa who runs "Grey Owl Cyber Defense".
They wiped his face from PimEyes, but I still found him.
They are seeding disinformation, seen here possibly using the stolen identity of a Black man on Threads.
This works by seeding lies that aren't verifiable, yet appear highly passable at first blush.
David Fridie does exist, and did work at DoE, but has no Internet presence, including on LinkedIn, so it's impossible to verify without contacting him directly.
Even more concerningly, LinkedIn thinks I should be looking at these three posts when I search for David Fridie.
One of those is the account of William Resinger, who says he's accomplished military SERE training, which is specialized/hardcore training given to special forces only.
Resinger's most recent LinkedIn post, as of 2 hours ago, states: "From what I understand, they got everything they need now so everything from here on out is futile"
Note his educational background, also shown below.
I rest my case and leave you to draw your own conclusions. Lawmakers must investigate, NOW!!
1/ People who believe Nicole Good was "in the wrong" for trying to drive away from a federal officer are telling us something important about themselves: they value compliance over justice.
That mindset isn’t just misguided. It’s fundamentally un-American. I can explain. 🧵👇
2/ America’s founding story wasn’t about obeying the rules, it was about challenging unjust ones. The Boston Tea Party and civil rights marches are examples of acts of defiance against oppressive power structures.
Justice has always preceded legality in our moral code.
3/ When you prioritize "following the rules" at all costs, you’re effectively saying power defines what’s right. But history shows the opposite: power often needs to be confronted to make things right.
Look, man. I was deployed to Iraq 2003-2004. Our unit leadership would provide us highly specific instructions on the Rules of Engagement for any given mission. If we were stepping outside the wire, there was a standing RoE, and we were briefed pre-mission. We knew to obey it.
My point is this: Yes, if you add a bunch of less-trained people to the force, there will be mistakes.
I believe this to be a convenient excuse which obscures reality which fails to account for the sheer number of violent incidents we are observing on American streets.
As an 18 year old brand new, freshly-minted Private, my unit could still trust me; and I could pretty much trust everyone in my unit not to violate the RoE. We had a notion of the consequences, and bloodthirst was not encouraged.
FACT: Sanctions are the most important method of global financial moderation to help keep us safe from the world's worst terrorists.
This key defensive tool is now converted to a weapon of state repression and censorship by Trump admin under false guise of defending free speech.
We're not just talking the regular ol' domestic state repression, either.
The sanctions list has just become a global cleaver to financially terminate Trump's political enemies who are not U.S. citizens nor residents. He seeks to antagonize his targets and send a public message.
The clear message being broadcasted is that opposing Trump or engaging in advocacy which runs counter to the ideology this administration is installing in the U.S. is likely to result in significant consequences.
The admin repeats this message of fear via every channel, daily.
🧵 Authoritarians follow a predictable playbook, and you can often spot it before it is too late. THREAD of core behaviors of dictators who want to hold power at any cost
1. Aggressively centralize power.
They weaken parliaments, courts, and watchdogs, often by using "emergencies" or legal tweaks to concentrate authority in the executive while claiming to respect the rule of law.
Elections keep their veneer of legitimacy, but rules, districts, oversight bodies, and term limits are quietly manipulated to make losing nearly impossible.
1/ Stockton’s mayor called this a gang-related incident.
WRONG! A lone gunman, not multiple as initially reported. Sheriff bungled initial response by wrongly assuming contours of the crime before arrival on scene, then failed to enter. Chased down victims while others bled out.
2/ Bc they’re habituated to community violence, not lone gunmen in mass shooter scenarios, they arrived fast yet unequipped, then failed to properly assess/secure the scene and find the gunman. The key witness who saw the shooter exited to seek a paramedic to help his dying son.
3/ Amari Peterson, 14, may have coded before he was loaded into the ambulance. The paramedics forced Dad to ride upfront, then drove slowly, and never told him his son had died. At the hospital, he was stonewalled by hospital staff as to status at the Sheriff’s behest for 7 hours
1/ Yesterday, Press Sec Karoline Leavitt appeared at the 78th annual National Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon wearing what can only be described as pilgrim cosplay 💀🦃
This wasn't an accident. A thread on political fashion as ideological theater. 🧵
2/ The outfit immediately drew comparisons to 17th-century Puritan dress, specifically the clothing women may have worn at the mythologized "First Thanksgiving" in 1621. Media called it "full cosplay" and "pilgrim-core." But dismissing it as a fashion miss understates the matter
3/ The "First Thanksgiving" narrative is one of America's most contested origin myths. Historians have spent decades unpacking how this story sanitizes colonization, erases Indigenous perspectives, & constructs European Christian settlers as top protagonists of American identity.