@LukeTaylorUSA My Anker solix s2000 just came in today. Came half charged and fully charged in an hour via wall outlet. Researching compatible solar panels now. In the interim it can be plugged into my vehicle in a pinch.
@TylerAndrews13@TyrantDesign Iโve had 2 bowel resections. The first with a walking epidural for 4 or 5 days post surgery and the second without. Highly recommend the with walking epidural. Definitely something to discuss with your team. Praying for you, your care team, and loved ones ๐
@nicknorwitz Thank you for sharing your journey and struggles. As a person who was diagnosed with Crohnโs 27 years ago, 2 small bowel resections, and countless bowel obstructions, I find your content very informative and relatable. You found your calling through your struggles.
๐จ๐จ THE ILLEGITIMACY PLAYBOOK / THE DEMOCRACY FILES: A PRIMER ๐จ
I will be using this thread to track all drops, so bookmark it.
I spent most of yesterday backing everything (now 312 gigabytes) up in various sources and getting the materials out to others. I also produced an AI video (below) to explain the whole thing to others are not on ๐ - feel free to distribute.
Here's the primer:
USAID, the foreign aid agency, had a democracy office. Inside the agency, it was called DRG.
Officially, DRG administered "democracy assistance." They'd go inside countries they thought were sliding into authoritarianism and help the opposition there. That assistance included election monitoring, judicary support, independent media, and civil society building.
You may have heard the term "color revolution." The model comes from Serbia in 2000, where trained student activists brought down Milosevic with the help of Western governments, after sustained protests. With the help of USAID's democracy office, this model was implemented in many other countries to topple governments: Georgia's "Rose Revolution" in 2003, Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" in 2004, and many more.
Then last year, DOGE shut down USAID. But the USAID democracy office didn't stop. They formed a group called the Democracy Renewal Group, the same initials as their office (USAID Democracy, Human Rights, Governance). Their goal: apply their own playbook to the United States itself.
This goal became a plan, called Renew American Democracy (RAD). It invoked the "4 B's" framework. Block - use lawfare and protests to make life harder for the Trump administration. Bridge & Belong - control dialogue and win people over. The final and most important B is Build. Build means redesigning the American government itself, and the crisis is the opening.
In their own words:
"We can take that breakdown moment and leverage it for a big structural reform, you know, refounding moment." - Danielle Reiff, DRG lead.
Calls show DRG working alongside DSA on ideas of creating a different government, one that does away with the Constitution itself.
DRG does not run the Block operations. They hand it to UDA, the United Democracy Alliance. One organizer calls it a "huge galaxy": lawsuits, street protests, non-cooperation. They list No Kings, Indivisible, MoveOn, 50501, and many other mega-activist NGOs among their members.
Another organizer calls UDA Erica Chenoweth's project. Chenoweth is the Harvard professor behind the three-and-half-percent rule of regime change: get that share of a country's populace onto the streets, and historically, the movement wins.
The UDA is very "hush-hush." They have no website, no roster, no filings.
Then come the red lines: things the Trump administration could do, such as calling the Insurrection Act on protesters, that would mean that the federal government, in their words, "crosses the threshold into illegitimacy." Nobody voted on those lines. There was no public debate. These red lines were developed within secretive working groups, and in a paper addressed to governors and staff.
In the words of Reiff/DRG:
"So that if there is a red line crossed in terms of a Constitutional crisis, like everyone's already pre-organized. And so Mike Smith actually said, he goes, oh, you guys have the day after tomorrow plan."
Cross a line, and the paper's options include states refusing to lend their resources to federal officials, and governors convening what it calls a "Third Continential Congress."
Running the UDA's Insurrection Act working group: Rear Admiral Mike Smith (RET) of National Security Leaders of America (NSL4A). NSL4A is also credited with operationalizing UDA, the blocking operations. NSL4A consists of about 1,600 ex-officers, spies, diplomats. They're turning red lines into indicators and running a situation room to monitor them throughout the midterms and beyond.
The NSL4A's lawyers told them to stop recording meetings in case of subpoenas. But the rest of the network continued to record. DRG works in conjunction with Renew to Thrive (R2T), which ended up accidentally publishing 400+ calls and thousands of documents. These calls and documents were never meant for our eyes, but it's them, on tape.
Thousands of NGOs and billions of dollars are involved in this endeavor. Most of them believe they're saving democracy. The problem is that people who spent their careers deciding when other countries' governments had lost their legitimacy wrote that test for ours, in private, and planned for what comes after.
Who decides when your government is legitimate?
@FunnyMaine Top tier assessment as always!!! Even with the loss last night Iโm excited for the rest of the season. Best team of the last 5 years and I see the vision Coach has and Iโm here for it.
@thomas_garrard Itโs been spring 2024 for me for much of the same reasons. Protecting my peace and own mental health is simply more important at this point in my life. Maybe one day but for today Iโm good โบ๏ธ
@FreddyLA7 Only 45 minutes south of the Rocket City, Huntsville, AL from Cullman. Definitely should come take a gander. Lots of trails around to explore and obviously the NASA space and rocket center.
Iโm starting the last episode tonight. Iโve been pleasantly surprised with it. A little embarrassed to admit it wasnโt until episode 6 that I realized Brett Cooper was playing Merlinโs former love interest that was haunting him. Sheโs really good too as are many of the cast. 2 thumbs up ๐ ๐