It’s been a steep learning curve (and still is), but I’ve planted a fresh stake in the open-web commons.
Browse my IndieWebCamp user page, kick the tires, and let me know what’s missing:
https://indieweb.org/User:Ragecognito.digital
Owning our own ground—one protocol at a time.
Wisconsin answers the handcuffs on Judge Hannah Dugan with a surge of people-power—and a warning.
The FBI, acting on illegal orders rather than obeying its oath, sought to teach the rest of the judiciary a lesson in fear and uncertainty. Twenty-four hours later, more than seven hundred Wisconsinites were marching on that same federal field office, chanting that the law belongs to the people, not to the White House’s newest enforcers.
How We Got Here
Actions in Response
A coalition of immigrant-rights organizers, labor locals, veteran anti-war medics, and ordinary Milwaukee families converged on the FBI’s St. Francis office. The crowd swelled past seven hundred, reminding us once again that there are more regular people than there are of the enforcers.
The protestors message:
This Could Be the Tipping Point for American Democracy
The nation has reached a critical juncture. A federal executive’s unprecedented decision to criminalize a state judge for exercising routine courtroom discretion iis a seismic erosion of the constitutional firewall meant to shield local justice from federal overreach. By weaponizing the Department of Justice against a judicial branch actor, the administration hasn’t merely crossed a line; it’s bulldozed the guardrails designed to prevent centralized coercion of state courts.
This escalation marks a dangerous convergence of political power and law enforcement. ICE’s tactics have long cast a shadow over immigrant communities, deterring cooperation with authorities and breeding mistrust. Now, the DOJ’s targeting of judges threatens to paralyze the very individuals tasked with upholding fairness in courtrooms. The ripple effect could be catastrophic.
The implications stretch far beyond immigration, though. If a county judge can be arrested for rulings deemed inconvenient to federal agendas, what stops future administrations from detaining election officials who resist voter purges, prosecutors who investigate powerful figures, or journalists protecting sources?
The question now isn’t whether this moment will be remembered, but how: as a wake-up call or a point of no return.
Grassroots Resistance Takes Shape as Constitutional Crisis Deepens
Across America, a quiet revolution in civic defense is brewing.
You can join.
As federal overreach intensifies, ordinary citizens and local officials are crafting bold strategies to protect vulnerable communities and preserve judicial independence. Grassroots organizers look toward “court-watch squads” at immigration hearings nationwide, stationing volunteers armed with smartphones and notebooks to document ICE agent behavior. Their footage can serve as both evidence and accountability in courtrooms where transparency is under threat.
Rapid-response networks are rewriting the optics of enforcement. When federal agents target a judge or prosecutor, activists are mobilizing within hours. The goal? To ensure headlines never completely sanitize coercion and authoritarianism while spotlighting public defiance (and our numbers). It becomes harder to normalize the abnormal.
Behind the scenes, legal-defense networks are also emerging. Crowd-funded legal support now offsets some costs of fighting federal charges. This isn’t charity. It’s a shield. When judges know their community has their back, they’re freer to rule without fear.
Perhaps most striking is the growing whisper of coordinated strikes. Following Wisconsin judges’ threats to shutter courtrooms rather than surrender defendants to ICE, labor groups are drafting “solidarity playbooks.” Imagine teachers’ unions, healthcare workers, and municipal employees quietly discussing work stoppages in solidarity with judges or targeted (vulnerable) populations, should the judiciary walk out. Calibrated pressure through synchronized non-cooperation. Choke enforcement machinery of legitimacy without providing pretext for escalation. Lawful resistance can turn bureaucracy into a weapon for the people.
These tactics share a common thread, rejecting despair as the default. In a moment when institutional safeguards falter, citizens can build back better through granular, relentless participation. The message to power? Every act of overreach will now meet organized light.
What We’re Fighting For
True victory will unfold as a story of reclaimed power. Federal charges against a state judge should collapse, not in hushed negotiations, but in a packed courtroom under the glare of public scrutiny. Such a moment would etch into legal precedent what common sense already knows: an administrative warrant isn’t a magic badge granting federal agents unchecked authority. Restoring the bench’s independence requires these visible wins—rulings that affirm local courts as the final arbiters of justice within their own courtrooms.
Victory hinges on state legislatures, even those skewed by gerrymandering, rising to codify firewalls against overreach. New York’s 2019 law banning warrantless ICE arrests in courthouses offers a template; now imagine even more states tightening loopholes and passing stronger versions in unison. It would be a deliberate recalibration of power, forcing federal agencies to either respect local autonomy or wage endless, unpopular legal wars.
No statute can substitute for cultural resolve. When a prosecutor, clerk, or social worker chooses principle over compliance, then finds their community instantly mobilizing to fund their defense, it will start a snowball. The endgame is messy, but more durable. Democracy survives not through passive hope, but through the daily, collective work of holding the line.
The Open-Handed Slap
Judge Dugan’s wrists wore cuffs so ours don’t have to. The next slap is ours—open-handed, visible, undeniable.
Authoritarians count on passivity. Wisconsin just showed them a different math:
One judge plus seven hundred defenders equals a line they’ll regret crossing. It might not seem that way at first, but watch us rise to meet this threat!
I’ve learned from Reddit shutting down my entire mutual aid project with no recourse or warning. Now I back up the important stuff, and Reddit user handsawillinformedan has a really important guide that I refuse to let Reddit control.
iTLDR: Maybe you dislike the current administration in the U.S. You voted, but you can absolutely do more without ever leaving your house to do so. Divest from Big Tech. Deprive them of your data.
Big tech consists, for the purpose of this post, of GAFAM:
Apple, Amazon, FB/Meta, and Alphabet/Google are each being sued for antitrust violations by the federal government. Specifically, it is alleged that they have constructed “illegal monopolies that harm consumers and choke innovation.”
Google and Microsoft each donated $1 million each to the DJT campaign.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, personally donated $1 million to DJT’s inauguration, as did OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta, and Amazon. Of course, Elon Musk donated altogether $340 million to the DJT campaign and groups aligned with DJT’s policies, which is more than the total sum of his donations to any other cause, if you exclude his TSLA allocation to a foundation he himself started (source 1, source 2, source 3).
The combined net worth of Sundar Pichai ($1.8B), Bill Gates ($108.7B), Mark Zuckerberg ($232.8B), Elon Musk ($417.9B), Tim Cook ($2.3B), and Jeff Bezos ($250.6B) is over a trillion dollars, and that’s just six of these guys.
So what?
Are these companies just a bunch of Trump supporters then?
No. These companies, like pretty much every company in the United States, optimize for one thing: increasing profits as much as possible. These companies, with the exception of Elon Musk, have all at one point or another donated to democratic candidates as well. It just turned out that this election cycle the majority believed Trump would provide a better outcome for their bottom line.
The primary way these companies have amassed such a large amount of wealth is not from innovation and not from your purchases.
Their most major and most valuable source of revenue is your data. Things like: What is your name? Where do you live? How old are you? Who do you text/message? What is your relationship with these people? How are you feeling? When was the last time you thought of company [blank]? What products do you buy? What is your political leaning? This business model has been coined “surveillance capitalism” by Shoshana Zuboff, who wrote an excellent book on the topic.
The way to divest from these companies is through choking them off from your data. It is way more valuable to them than the money you spend on their products. Divesting from big tech takes the form of prioritizing your privacy.
Why Divest?
The data GAFAM collect on you is mainly used for ads. But it is also sold to companies who have their own motives, sometimes policital motives as shown in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. This data is not harmless. It is powerful, and it is being used against you, blue or red, rich or poor. Look yourself up on truepeoplesearch, spokeo, or the white pages and you’ll find your home address, phone number, full name, those of your relatives, etc. Of course you won’t find the same information for anyone with a large enough net worth. Privacy is a luxury of the rich. It shouldn’t be. Privacy should be a human right. See article 12 of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.
If you are a democrat today, then you want to shield yourself from the current administration. If you are republican, then until 3 months ago you were likely interested in protecting yourself from the last administration. Administrations change, so privacy should be important to everybody. Both democrats and republicans have been guilty of passing legislation eroding our rights against warrantless, dragnet surveillance, and increasing the pressure of big tech’s boot on your face. The time to act is now.
The government and police do not need a warrant to access your data in the hands of GAFAM. In many contexts your fourth amendment right is being bypassed. Your first amendment right is being affected online when shadowy companies like Cambridge Analytica are attempting to sway your political views in subtle ways. Phrases like “if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear” are used to discredit privacy advocacy as criminal aiding and abetting. This phrase has been repeated by many, perhaps notably Joseph Goebbels. The argument is not a strong one. Numerous prominent advocates have offered their rebuttals. I will not delve further. Such phrases contradict the spirit of the fifth amendment, where legal interpretation has made it explicit that exercising your fifth amendment to “remain silent” is not itself evidence of criminal behavior. It is clear that big tech, and thereby the federal government, have been stretching their powers far too long. It is time for you to fight back.
This isn’t a conspiracy. Just look at what these tech CEOs are saying about your data privacy:
First of all, this process can be very overwhelming. You have more ties to big tech than you think. It is going to take some work. Each individual task (except a few big ones) will be relatively simple with time investment on the order of an hour or so. But if you were to do all of this in one weekend, it could amount to 40+ hours of work. I recommend taking this in small steps, spreading it out over several months to a year. Every step forward in privacy is a step back in convenience. Remember this and do not take things too far. You may get frustrated with the loss of convenience and then decide to throw the baby out with the bath water, and then return to full dependence on the same services; do not do this. Privacy is not an “all-or-nothing” thing.
Secondly, what I’ve written below, while I did my best to ensure it is specific and actionable, may not be detailed enough to help with each individual step. I have provided links intended to help with each step, but I have not reiterated the steps in full here.
Thirdly, I would like to point to other resources which may be helpful:
BLOCK ALL ADS
By removing the incentive to collect your data, the practice becomes pointless and costly for the companies to continue. The best way to do this is with uBlock Origin in Firefox. To block ads on YouTube, you need to disable the “quick fixes” list in the dashboard for uBlock Origin. To block ads in the YouTube app, on android you can search up “privacy-friendly YouTube frontend” and you will find an app that works very well with a highly-dedicated development team. Unfortunately, no good app alternatives exist on iOS.
You may have moral qualms with this. Let me convince you otherwise.
Almost every ad you see is targeted to you using thousands of intimate datapoints about you. You have “consented” to this surveillence in that legislation has failed to make this spying illegal. In cases where companies have broken the law, the FTC rarely gives them more than a strongly-worded report. Even in cases where they have been fined, the FTC has never took away all earnings from these illegal practices. If a drug-dealer sells meth and makes millions, and then gets caught, does the police take away just 1% of their profits? No. They take it all. But it seems this does not apply to these corrupt companies. The way it is today is that these companies collect your data without your explicit consent, sell it, store it insecurely, often such data ends up in the hands of hackers in endless data breaches, and the government simply takes their cut.
Use End-to-End Encryption Use Signal with anyone you can. Do not use WhatsApp. It is owned by Meta and the app has tons of trackers. If that app is on your phone, it’s sending all sorts of data. You can see this with the DuckDuckGo app on Android (turn on app tracking protection and it will show you all these requests).
Don’t Buy New Devices
Buy used, or don’t buy at all. Try to keep your phone good for five years, at least. Get a very good case. Install a custom ROM if you’re on android, since this will protect you from updates of death like what recently happened with the Pixel 4a. iPhones are not exactly known for their longevity, but if you are reluctant to leave the Apple ecosystem, at least buy used. Use a computer with optimal longevity and repairability. Do not be afraid of “unauthorized” third-party repair people.
Store Locally
Buy two decently large HDDs for storing photos/files locally without having to rely on cloud services (one should be used as a backup in case the other one fails; this is called RAID1).
Use a different browser and search engine
Use duckduckgo, searx, or startpage for search. Use Firefox, Mullvad, or the DDG browser for browsing. Use Tor for private browsing.
Amazon
Facebook/Meta
Twitter/X
This is the “final boss” as it is likely to hardest company to divest from. There is no one alternative, since Google handles so many different things. Here are the services you likely rely on Google for, and here are some alternatives:
Apple
Not nearly as bad as the others with respect to privacy and surveillance. It may be easier to stick with them and port all your other stuff over to apple.
Microsoft
Remove GAFAM Trackers while browsing
When you are browsing websites, regardless of whether that website is owned by any big tech company, you are almost always connecting to GAFAM domains. You can prevent this with DNS blocklists. Reccomend NextDNS and include the OISD blocklist. A premium subscription to NextDNS is only $2/month with the annual plan. You likely pay more for the “convenience fee” when paying rent each month. This will block a ton of trackers, and you can share the subscription with your family. Keep in mind the owner of the account is able to see website logs. Please inform any individual with whom you share this that this is possible (“Informed consent”).
It is super easy to set up NextDNS and you don’t need to do anything crazy. With the OISD block list, you will probably never experience any sites breaking. You can add the OISD list directly within NextDNS. You can use NextDNS free for up to 300,000 queries per month. Set it up on your computer and your phone. If you’re tech savvy and own your router, you can set it up directly on that.
Do NOT buy a VPN
VPNs are actually quite ineffective for preserving your online privacy. For their price, they actually do very little. All they do is obfuscate your IP from any websites you connect to. This does not prevent websites and companies/trackers from identifying you at all. It may be useful for spoofing your location and accessing geo-blocked content, and in peer-to-peer content sharing, but the use cases drop off there. Your identity can be uniquely determined by trackers using things like: your screen resolution, your operating system, your installed fonts, your CPU, your “Canvas” fingerprint, and cross-site cookies, among many other things. No one of these makes you unique. But all of them in aggregate certainly will.
Google/Apple Home, Amazon Echo “Alexa” alternatives
Google Photos/iCloud Photos
Windows/MacOS
Whatsapp/iMessage/FB Messenger/Zoom
Shopping
One last thing: Do not criticize the administration using SMS or non-encrypted communications. This includes stuff like WhatsApp and FB Messenger, since the metadata on these platforms is not encrypted and stored indefinitely. Absolutely do not use completely unencrypted stuff such as plain SMS, RCS (android to iPhone), e-mail, snapchat, instagram, or anything Google. You never know if or when that data will come back to harm you. Use amnesic and end-to-end encrypted services like Signal for these discussions. Protect yourself, your family, and your friends. Heed this advice carefully, especially if you are in the demographic of people that this adminstration is currently targeting very ruthlessly. But even if they haven’t come for you yet, that doesn’t mean they won’t.
They need you more than you need them! Fuck these guys.
The best we can do is mitigate future exposure! All data about you has an expiration date, and that’s why so much effort is being put into collecting realtime data about people. In the context of the current admin, just try to focus on improving your privacy going foward. Also, I’m definitely NOT saying to keep our mouths shut. We should all be protesting loudly! But doing so safely is important with such a vengeful government.
Your post is full of great advise but I would also recommend removing message content from push notifications.
Push notifications are a side channel which can allow spying on encrypted message contents.
Edit: You’d also want to make sure whoever you’re communicating with also does this or type a paragraph of text that you don’t care is intercepted.
Mesa’s Cybertruck blaze, the man who lit it, and why the Justice Department just called him a “terrorist.”
I’m writing this dispatch while the embers are still warm on a certain Tesla lot.
At 1:38 a.m. Monday, a lone rider pedaled up to a Tesla dealership in Mesa, Arizona. In his pack: a red five-gallon gas can, three fire-starter logs, a can of black spray paint, and a hand-drawn map of every camera on the lot. Ninety seconds later a silver Cybertruck was roaring like a magnesium flare, with the word “THEIF” (misspelt but unmistakable) was dripping down the stucco wall. No one was hurt. Property damage: one showroom façade and a single $80-ish-thousand-dollar status symbol piece of shit.
By sunrise, Tesla’s Security Center in Palo Alto had piped its real-time footage to local police. Officers matched the video to a biker who’d just climbed into a Chrysler minivan parked a quarter-mile away. Inside: the gas can, the mask, the lighter, and that map. They arrested 35-year-old Ian Moses on the spot.
Here’s where the story leaves the realm of routine vandalism and sprints head-first into the new America:
If they want to sink the money and effort into these cases, they should feel free to spread themselves thin.
Let that timeline sink in.
One burned pickup → full federal muscle → terror rhetoric → decades of cage time on the table. Compare it to how slowly the same people move when the morbidly wealthy attack us.
Different speed, different priority.
Washington has quietly re-classified anything stamped with an elongated “T” (compensating for the not so elongated wiener) as critical infrastructure. Musk is Trump’s favorite oligarch, the Cybertruck is the administration’s rolling campaign prop, and arsonhands them a security narrative.
Today’s message is unmistakable:
Hurt a worker? Maybe OSHA shows up next quarter.
Torch a Tesla? The national-security state is on your porch before breakfast.
This is deterrence by spectacle. It’s also a preview of the “freedom of movement” we’re giving these Trump-suckling stormtroopers.
Don’t carry your case file. Ian Moses rolled out with a map of cameras, a gas can, and the exact tools used—all in his backpack, all recovered from the van he used to flee. If you must act, carry nothing that can place you at the scene: no receipts, no sketches, no burner phones with traceable logins. The best action leaves no forensic breadcrumb.
Avoid repeatable patterns. Riding a recognizable bike to and from a crime scene, then jumping into a nearby van? That’s what cops dream of. Never arrive or leave in ways traceable to you. Ditch phones. Rotate vehicles. Don’t park close. Don’t return to the area. If your plan requires convenience, it’s not a plan.
Delete the map. Moses had surveillance locations drawn out—useful for planning, damning in court. Digital or paper, it’s all admissible. If you scout, do it in person. Store nothing. Memorize, don’t document.
Ghost yourself. Before any high-risk move, erase your digital shadow. Factory-reset phones or leave them behind entirely. Use gloves and masks—real ones, not costume-level. Block license plates. Expect infrared and drones. Never assume you’re anonymous just because it’s dark.
Sow doubt, not clarity. The government wants a clean story. Don’t give them one. If they find a burned truck, let them find nothing else. No manifesto, no fingerprints, no matching vehicle. Make every attribution a stretch, every warrant a reach. Drag out the process. Confuse the chain of evidence. Force prosecutors to work, not celebrate.
Act like they’re watching—because they are. DHS flags anything around “critical infrastructure,” and Musk’s toys are on the list. If you’re near a Tesla lot, assume cameras, license plate readers, and wireless intercepts are live. If your action doesn’t assume full-spectrum surveillance, you’re gambling with prison time.
Stay away from lone-wolf theater. One-man shows with fire and slogans are not usually the most successful or impactful. People worry that these actions are fuel to justify new crackdowns, rightfully so. Be bold but be as smart as possible. Coordinated, collective, and legal-adjacent pressure that’s harder to label as “terror” is the smarter play.
Make prosecution unattractive. If a corporation is terrified of its own insurance premiums, jittery about investor optics, and faced with widespread yet low-risk dissent—it’s more likely to cut PR losses than call in the feds. A legal headache beats a criminal prosecution every time.
Narrative matters. You can’t (usually) win public sympathy with torched luxury cars, although in the shadow of Project 2025, it makes me smile a bit. If people want to see less of these types of actions, they should add to the collective power of striking workers and others in the resistance. Keep the spotlight on harm to our people, not damage to their property. 😉
What Moses taught us, if nothing else:
You don’t beat a security state by lighting a match in front of its cameras. You beat it by making surveillance useless, overreach costly, and prosecution a public-relations quagmire.
I don’t know Moses’ motives beyond what the criminal complaint says. Was he making a statement? Cracking under economic strain? Either way, he’s a cautionary tale.
I’m here, not to scold a man I’ve never met or to glorify him, but to remind you that power loves nothing more than an excuse to amplify its own violence. Don’t give it free ammo.
Organize. Expose. Strike surgically.
When the inevitable overreach comes, meet it with twice the discipline and ten times the daylight. If Washington can turn a burned Cybertruck into a terror indictment overnight, imagine what it will do when the resistance finally moves from symbolic sparks to sustained, collective heat.
They don’t stand a chance.
There’s so much to process and digest, personally, before I can bring you a fully synthesized report—both here on Substack and on the other platforms where I share my work. Over the past few days, I’ve been challenged and inspired by amazing people who motivate me to deliver an even stronger message.
Thanks to the community’s support, I embarked on a solo trip to Washington, DC. If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ll know I don’t demand support. I work hard to earn it. Here are my main priorities to make sure I keep doing exactly that:
Get ready to take direct action! We have work to do, and I appreciate each of you who’s walking this path with me.
— In solidarity,
RAGECOGNITO (Juan April)
Let’s cut straight to it: Our democracy is on the brink, and it’s not going to save itself. Authoritarian forces have tossed our norms into the shredder while corporate billionaires keep snapping up power the way some folks snatch up discount candy after Halloween. We can’t afford to sit back and watch. Real change demands real action. That’s where you—and The People’s Priority Movement—come in.
Why The People’s Priority Movement?
Because we believe in a society that invests in its people rather than selling them out to the highest bidder. PPM is built on empathy, fairness, and collective responsibility—simple but powerful ideas that have become oddly radical in a world where greed is the status quo. If you’re tired of leaders who use “divide and conquer” as their go-to strategy, welcome aboard.
How You Can Step Up
I’m not asking you to quit your job and chain yourself to a government building (yet). But if you’re ready to stand tall against corruption and indifference, here’s how you can help right now:
What’s Next?
I don’t pretend we can topple entrenched power structures overnight. It takes grit, strategy, and a willingness to rattle the comfortable. But make no mistake—if you believe in putting people before profits, if you’re sick of government leaders acting like corporate lapdogs, and if you’ve just about had it with “business as usual,” then you’re exactly who I need in this fight.
There’s a reason I’ve kept the brand “Quiet Part Loud.” Because we’re done pretending the injustices we see every day are too impolite to discuss. We name them, we confront them, and we change them—together.
So, join me. Subscribe, share, donate, and most importantly, speak up. The People’s Priority Movement is bigger than just one person shouting into the void. It’s a collective roar that demands better—and we’ll only grow louder with your voice in the chorus.
Stay safe, stay determined, and remember: real democracy isn’t a spectator sport.
—
Written by RAGECOGNITO (Juan April), founder of The People’s Priority Movement, combat veteran, and unapologetic truth-teller.
“They want us silent and scattered, convinced we can’t push back against their machinations. They want us to wait and watch them bulldoze everything our republic stands for. But here’s the truth: we don’t need a massive organization or piles of cash to make a difference. All we need is clarity, focus, and persistence to conduct these surgical strikes—targeted efforts to undermine the core pillars propping up Trumpism, no matter where we live or what resources we have on hand. Frankly, scattershot outrage isn’t cutting it anymore….”
I don’t know if this is going to reach anybody. The internet is unpredictable—you put something out there, and you’re lucky if it gets picked up.
But I have to say this.
I’m a federal employee. I’ve served my country since the late 90s. I’ve served in combat, I’ve been an elected official, and right now, I need to tell you that the civil service is under attack—and Elon Musk and his acolytes are at the center of it.
Listen up, fellow feds and federal service supporters: we are on the front lines of a legitimized takeover.
I knew something was up last week when we got those HR emails from opm.gov. That “fork in the road” email we all received? Musk and his people have infiltrated the Civil Service and have reportedly compromised the OPM data servers.
I’ll include a legit news report in the description—it’s eye-opening and needs to be shared.
Some feds have already been fooled—including myself. I was dangerously close to falling for it. I know the unions are fighting this legally, but this was Project 2025’s plan all along—to do whatever they want and let the courts sort it out later.
Here’s the problem: while the courts are sorting it out, the people victimizing us are still getting away with it.
If you read up on Project 2025, you’ll see exactly what’s happening right now—it’s word-for-word their playbook.
To my fellow federal civil servants, take a good look at that report. It outlines:
Let that sink in.
What the hell is happening to our country?
There is no guarantee that we win this fight, but I can promise you this: if we don’t fight for each other, we 100% lose.
Find your people. Find the ones you trust. Lock arms with them and hold the line.
The good news? These people aren’t as invincible as they think.
People like Trump and Elon always make mistakes. That’s why we can’t back down. Stand up for what’s right.
I won’t lie—I’m fired up right now. And I have every right to be.
I saw this coming.
Anyone in my circle knows that I’ve been called borderline crazy for warning about this for years. It baffles me that people ignored what these politicians openly said they would do.
They told us their plans. And we let them do it.
So now I’m begging my fellow federal employees: stand up and fight.
And if you’re not in federal service but you see what’s happening, I need you to do something:
Our government is supposed to function for the people—not serve a political agenda.
We can’t afford to sit back and do nothing.
Unveiling corruption and inspiring action—because accountability starts with us!
The Commentary Video on the Martin Shkreli Report is posted to YouTube today. It’s the first of many (increasingly improving) commentaries and discussions to spread class consciousness and redirecting the anger of the middle and poverty classes.
Unveiling corruption and inspiring action—because accountability starts with us!
Let me start by setting the record straight. I’m not a “personality,” an influencer, or a politician. My worth isn’t tied to wealth—especially since I don’t have any. My self-value comes from the people I help and the good I strive to do. That’s not hyperbole; it’s how I’ve lived my life.
I’ve served in combat. I’ve been elected to public office twice. And at every stage of my life, I’ve aimed to contribute meaningfully to society—not just through donations but through the simple yet powerful act of being a decent human being to others.
I’m what happens when someone dedicates themselves to serving their country and community without ulterior motives. I’ve never accepted a dime from anyone for my campaigns. I’ve been attacked, insulted, conspired against, and threatened. Those threats didn’t stop with me—they extended to my wife and children.
Even the politicians I initially thought were kind and principled lacked the moral courage to do the right thing when it truly mattered. For someone like me, who doesn’t aspire to personal wealth or political gain, you quickly become a threat to the establishment. When you’ve been behind the curtain and seen how things operate, the last thing the establishment wants is for you to retain credibility, should you decide to speak out. I know this firsthand. It’s what happened to me, and it’s what happens to any independent candidate who makes real headway.
The system adapts, creating rules to make it harder—and sometimes nearly impossible—for independents to compete in future elections. Over the years, I’ve become burned out, distrustful, and unable to serve in most organized capacities. Decades in the trenches have taken their toll.
Still, I can’t shake the compulsion to contribute. The world—and particularly the American world—has been in a constant state of transformation for a few decades now, toward oligarchy and hoarding of resources and wealth. While I may no longer be on the front lines, I still have a brain and the drive to play my part.
That’s what this project is about.
I hope you’ll join me on this journey.
The First Report
My first report was a trial run—a way to rebuild momentum and reestablish the discipline of studying and researching. Healthcare and health insurance dominate the minds of many Americans today, so tackling pharmaceutical price hikes felt like an obvious starting point. Martin Shkreli, the unapologetic pharmaceutical executive notorious for his greed, became my subject. Even after his time in prison, he remains remorseless.
Video report – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od7KkasNTkM
Blog Post – https://ragecognito.digital/?p=75
I feel good about the job I did in presenting the facts in that report, but I’m especially grateful for the independent fact-checker who signed on to keep me accurate and focused. Their contribution gave me a solid foundation to build on, as well as insight into deeper issues worth exploring.
For example, through this fact-check, I identified two areas I want to delve into further: the regulatory environment that enables such price manipulations and the broader trends within the pharmaceutical industry.
Looking Ahead
I want to draw a line between my reports and my commentary. My reports should be grounded in facts, free from sensationalism. My commentary, on the other hand, is where my personality and perspectives will shine through.
This first report was just the beginning. With each new piece, I’m striving to improve, refine my approach, and tackle increasingly complex topics. I hope my journey inspires others to think critically and engage meaningfully with the world around us.
So, here’s to the next step. Let’s see where this road takes us.
