Florida to deputize prison guards as ICE agents to find undocumented immigrants | Blogs
Jeezus Krrrrrreyest….
George Skelton: Kamala Harris should have never run for president
“The hard truth: Harris was a weak presidential candidate [emphasis: Peanut Gallery],” Duran wrote.
Harris excelled in California politics because she’s part of a home state Democratic cabal, an insiders’ machine. But that machine doesn’t work outside California. [emphasis: Peanut Gallery]
…She hadn’t yet established herself in the U.S. Senate. And she hadn’t exactly excelled in her previous job as California’s attorney general.
…After being elected to the Senate in a 2016 cakewalk [emphasis: Peanut Gallery]…
…Harris’ lack of money was just a symptom of her failed presidential bid, not the root cause of its demise. [emphasis: Peanut Gallery] Her downward slide in polls destroyed the confidence of potential campaign contributors in her ability to win, drying up the money flow. But the plunging poll numbers resulted from her inability to connect with voters.
And she couldn’t connect with voters because of the core weakness in her candidacy: a lack of cohesive strategy and clear [personalized message].
…The campaign was confident she would win the votes of African Americans in South Carolina and from fellow Californians. [Without much basis for that other than the color of her own skin, that incomplete thinking was an insult people of ALL backgrounds. Whoever thought she could have California liberals without actually being a liberal hasn’t seen too many campaigns.]
…Anyone who watched Harris as attorney general could have predicted this outcome. She refused to take positions on any state ballot proposition. Her excuse was that the attorney general writes the official ballot titles and summaries, and she didn’t want to appear biased. But that was nonsense. She was trying to avoid making political enemies, especially among law enforcement. [Which is understandable but not very courageous or principled. And it sure as shit doesn’t leave much room for paving a clear path forward.]
…“This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly.” [This indictment doesn’t actually mean that she personally is difficult to work with but it does mean her top brass were. Like a President and their administration, the buck for that ultimately rests with her.]
George Skelton: Kamala Harris should have never run for president – Los Angeles Times
sigh…
Oh, and her refusal to shake hands and do selfies was cast by her campaign as a security decision. The Peanut Gallery believes wholeheartedly that there were indeed threats to her safety, threats a candidate who was not a woman and a POC would never have had to endure. The Peanut Gallery has also seen a lot of campaigns and a lot of Secret Service people in action and firmly believes this was a cop out and excuse for lazy and/or California style campaigning. The Secret Service are damn good at their job and they weren’t going to let anything bad happen to her. Basically this is the job she was asking for and reality is the place she was running for it. It’s harsh but true but she need to woman up or get out of the way. If Barack could manage to do selfies, shake hands, and bend down to talk to children she could too.
If you are too good to speak to early state voters (and make no mistake, this is how the campaign presented her) then you do not deserve to be in the running for the job.
Colin Reed: Kamala Harris and I were both very wrong about her candidacy
It is true that campaigns require resources to remain competitive, but running out of money is a symptom – not a cause – of more serious political ailments.
Colin Reed: Kamala Harris and I were both very wrong about her candidacy – Here’s why | Fox News
No, Colin, making accurate political predictions isn’t that hard at all. You just need to step out of the echo chamber and look at the big picture.
Salient points about fundraising being a symptom rather than a cause and how little KH would bring to the ticket as a VP nom though!
Trump-China trade war: The industries hurt by US tariffs
Farmers in some US states are being forced into plowing their crops under — effectively burying them under soil in fields — as there is not enough room to store them in storage facilities, and they are unable to sell their products thanks to Chinese tariffs, Reuters reported last week.
All grain depots and silos are almost full, meaning farmers have to find their own storage solutions or allow their crops to rot. Neither option is particularly palatable.
…Manufacturing activity in the US slowed to a six-month low in October, with industry figures citing future protectionism and widespread uncertainty as major reasons for the slowdown.
“For the consumer, the tariffs are for the most part still an abstract idea, but for manufacturers they are real, and a big problem.”
Trump-China trade war: The industries hurt by US tariffs – Business Insider
hmmm
A Reminder That ‘Fake News’ Is An Information Literacy Problem – Not A Technology Problem
Children are taught to regurgitate what others tell them and to rely on digital assistants to curate the world rather than learn to navigate the informational landscape on their own. Schools no longer teach source triangulation, conflict arbitration, separating fact from opinion, citation chaining, conducting research or even the basic concept of verification and validation. In short, we’ve stopped teaching society how to think about information, leaving our citizenry adrift in the digital wilderness increasingly saturated with falsehoods without so much as a compass or map to help them find their way to safety.
…[Silicon] Valley has doubled down on technological solutions to combating digital falsehoods, focusing on harnessing legions of “fact checkers” and turning to Website and content blacklists, algorithmic tweaks and other quick fixes that have done little to turn the tide.
…How is it possible that the nation’s most prestigious scholars and scientists at preeminent research institutions and universities could all suspend their disbelief and blindly believe that an anonymous Twitter account claiming to be a secret society “resisting” their government was everything it claimed to be without the slightest bit of verification?
…Algorithms can help citizens sort through the deluge of information around them, identifying contested narratives and disputed facts, but technology alone is not a panacea. There is no magical algorithm that can eliminate all false and misleading information online.
To truly solve the issue of “fake news” we must blend technological assistance with teaching our citizens to be literate consumers of the world around them.
Societies must teach their children from a young age how to perform research, understand sourcing, triangulate information, triage contested narratives and recognize the importance of where information comes from, not just what it says.
…A more information literate society would likely bring with it considerable economic harm to today’s viral-obsessed social platforms that thrive on digital falsehoods, meaning there will be considerable resistance from Silicon Valley to a more information literate society.
A Reminder That ‘Fake News’ Is An Information Literacy Problem – Not A Technology Problem
hmm
Errrr… Senator?
It is the accepted truth of Silicon Valley that every problem has a technological solution.
Most importantly, in the eyes of the Valley, every problem can be solved exclusively through technology without requiring society to do anything on its own. A few algorithmic tweaks, a few extra lines of code and all the world’s problems can be simply coded out of existence.
Sadly for the Valley’s technological determinists, this is far from the truth.
A Reminder That ‘Fake News’ Is An Information Literacy Problem – Not A Technology Problem
I’m just going to park this here to refer to when the desire to give a certain Senator shit for simplistic solutions to complex problems (that require actual humans to solve!) comes up.
How To Tell When Someone Else Tweets From @realDonaldTrump
This proved particularly challenging during version one of the Trump administration, when press secretary Sean Spicer, chief of staff Reince Priebus, and alt-right interpreter Steve Bannon all had yet to be ousted. Along with advisor Kellyanne Conway, they all likely took a spin on Trump’s Twitter account at some point.
…Though he may be adept (enough) at Twitter, Trump isn’t known for being tech savvy. About two years ago, The New York Times noted that Trump “has no computer in his office (a staff member brings in a laptop to show him videos) and asks aides to print his emails for consumption the old-fashioned way.” This means that any time you see an image or video attached to one of Trump’s tweets, our good friend Dan was almost certainly the mastermind.
…Trump generally dictated tweets to his assistants during the work day, but would send out his own missives during down time. According to a different report from Trump’s first weeks in the White House, at around 6:30 pm he generally heads back to the residence to mainline cable news until sometime after midnight. So it’s relatively safe to assume that any text-only tweets coming out of @realDonaldTrump in the evening (assuming, of course, he’s not off at a rally) were typed by the man himself.
The morning, however, is when Donald Trump truly shines. Usually up by around 6 am ET or so, the president can often get a good three or four hours of Fox News under his belt before he has to go pretend to listen to the daily intelligence briefing at 10.
…If it’s text-only and sent between 6 pm and 10 am, Donald Trump probably did the tweet.
…If it looks like it was written by the Flowers for Algernon guy after the meds start wearing off, Donald Trump probably did the tweet.
Donald Trump does not know how to thread his tweets. He certainly seems to understand that it’s a thing people do, since at some point over the last year, he started using ellipses to indicate that he wasn’t quite done yet.
Trump does not, however, seem to know that replying to his own tweets would connect his thoughts in chronological order for him, which makes for some incredible disembodied half-thoughts.
Scavino has a knack for adopting Trump’s latest mannerisms, though, and the ellipses is no different. That’s why the real tell is the threading—Scavino can’t bring himself to not take advantage of the site’s features.
…If the tweetstorm consists of a series of disconnected nonsense, Donald Trump probably did the tweet.
How To Tell When Someone Else Tweets From @realDonaldTrump | WIRED
hmmm
Harris Policy Proposals That Got Lost in that Shitshow of a Campaign
Under Harris’ proposal, homebuyers who rent or live in historically redlined communities can apply for a federal grant of up to $25,000 to assist with down payments or closing costs. Harris’ campaign estimates that this will help up to 4 million families.
Redlining is the discriminatory practice of denying financial or other services for low-income and minority communities.
Harris’ policy proposal also aims to prevent discrimination in home sales, rentals and loans by promising to strengthen and strictly enforce anti-discrimination laws.
…In May, Harris reintroduced her 2018 bill to tackle racial disparities in maternal health and rolled out her proposal to fine companies that don’t achieve pay equity
Harris’ education proposal — her first major policy as a presidential candidate — would boost teacher pay, make additional investments in public schools and support programs dedicated to teacher recruitment, training and professional development, particularly at historically black colleges and universities.
Kamala Harris unveils $100 billion black homeownership plan – CNNPolitics
sigh…
Trump Target Lisa Page Speaks: ‘There’s No Fathomable Way I Have Committed Any Crime at All’
Page, of course, is the former FBI lawyer whose text-message exchanges with agent Peter Strzok that belittled Donald Trump and expressed fear at his possible victory became international news. They were hijacked by Trump to fuel his “deep state” conspiracy.
…”The president of the United States is calling me names to the entire world. He’s demeaning me and my career. It’s sickening.”
“But it’s also very intimidating because he’s still the president of the United States. And when the president accuses you of treason by name, despite the fact that I know there’s no fathomable way that I have committed any crime at all, let alone treason, he’s still somebody in a position to actually do something about that. To try to further destroy my life. It never goes away or stops, even when he’s not publicly attacking me.”
…At the end of July 2016, Page finds herself transitioning from one investigation, the Hillary Clinton email inquiry, to another, the Russian government disinformation probe. Trump is not under investigation, but the FBI is trying to determine if someone associated with his campaign is working with Russia.
“We were very deliberate and conservative about who we first opened on because we recognized how sensitive a situation it was,” Page says. “So the prospect that we were spying on the campaign or even investigating candidate Trump himself is just false. That’s not what we were doing.”
…In 2017, Flores said that the Justice Department inspector general approved the release of the texts to congressional committees, and that DOJ then provided those texts to reporters who cover the agency after they started to leak out. “As we understand now, some members of the media had already received copies of the texts before that—but those disclosures were not authorized by the department,” Flores said then.
DOJ declined to comment.
…“It’s very painful to see to places like the FBI and the Department of Justice that represent so much of what is excellent about this country, not fulfilling the critical obligation that they have to speak truth to power,” she tells me. “The thing about the FBI that is so extraordinary is that it is made up of a group of men and women whose every instinct is to run toward the fight. It’s in the fiber of everybody there. It’s the lifeblood. So it’s particularly devastating to be betrayed by an organization I still care about so deeply. And it’s crushing to see the noble Justice Department, my Justice Department, the place I grew up in, feel like it’s abandoned its principles of truth and independence.”
…The era of Trump populism always had an ugly edge, particularly toward women. Trump revels in bringing misery to his opponents and will always seek out and exploit any weakness. Page “wasn’t nice to him,” and so in his eyes she can be endlessly targeted and assaulted.
It’s tempting to describe this as just part of Trump’s deep, baked-in misogyny and sociopathy, but in Page’s case it’s worse; it’s a sign of how deeply he’s corrupted the government to serve his will and his whims. His apologists have become part of Trump’s own squad of witch-hunters, hunting fantasies like “Ukrainian interference” while attacking the people who tried to protect us from Russian attacks.
Trump Target Lisa Page Speaks: ‘There’s No Fathomable Way I Have Committed Any Crime at All’
sigh…
Rep. Duncan Hunter to plead guilty in case alleging misuse of campaign funds
Hunter’s forthcoming guilty plea comes months after his wife, Margaret, pleaded guilty in June to conspiring with her husband to “knowingly and willingly” convert campaign funds for personal use and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
Hunter had initially blamed his wife for the alleged campaign fund abuses, saying she was the one handling his finances. “She was also the campaign manager, so whatever she did that’ll be looked at too, I’m sure,” he said on Fox News in August 2018.
“But I didn’t do it,” Duncan Hunter said. “I didn’t spend any money illegally.”
But in response to the judge at the time, Margaret Hunter acknowledged that Duncan Hunter had attempted to set up a one-day tour of a naval base in Italy to justify their Italian vacation — one of the examples prosecutors have cited as evidence that the congressman used his position of power for personal gain.
Rep. Duncan Hunter to plead guilty in case alleging misuse of campaign funds – CNNPolitics
hmmm
Misinformed YouTubers are undermining the fight for children’s privacy online.
“The access that children have to YouTube carries with it a corporate obligation to institute and enforce policies that protect the well being of these young users.” As part of its FTC settlement, Google created a new system allowing YouTubers to mark their content as “Made for Kids.” Once they do, Google disables some of the site’s features, such as personalized advertising, commenting, and notifications for these videos.
But YouTubers seem confused about what these things mean in practice and why Google has implemented them. As a result, many are unintentionally spreading misinformation about children’s privacy law. Some claim that YouTube will have to ban certain types of content, such as videos about the popular game Roblox. Others, from food bloggers to a capella artists, worry that YouTube will have to disable all personalized advertising on a video just because a child may watch it. One commenter even said that she will have to start “swearing like a sailor” and incorporate more “adult” conversations into her videos in order to avoid being covered by COPPA.
…That’s not what COPPA does. Under this law, companies with content directed to children under 13 must inform parents what information they collect from kids and obtain parental permission before they collect it. So the content creators complaining that the law prohibits all personalized advertising are simply misinformed—and spreading that misinformation. If a company like Google really wanted to use personalized ads on videos for kids, it would just need to get parents’ permission first. But instead, Google is acting as if children on YouTube—and the protections they’re afforded—are relatively new phenomena, exacerbating content creators’ misunderstandings of the law.
Misinformed YouTubers are undermining the fight for children’s privacy online.
People are such idiots.
Daphne Caruana Galizia: Maltese journalist’s family presses on after prime minister resigns
One of the most important levers they pulled was a visit, by all three brothers, to Strasbourg, the seat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in northeast France, where they petitioned that international organization — devoted to human rights — to investigate their mother’s death.
The result was the appointment of a special rapporteur, the Netherlands’ Pieter Omtzigt, who told me about his initial meeting with the brothers.
…But when Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, made the surprise announcement Sunday that he would resign in connection with the government’s mishandling of the case, there was little jubilation in the family.
…But that relief is mixed with dissatisfaction that the prime minister says he’ll stay in office for another month, allowing him to manipulate and cover up — or so the family fears.
…The family, understandably, is not yet satisfied — but for press advocates around the world, the developments are stunningly positive, because they suggest a rare accountability taking shape.
“This is an incredible moment and achievement,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
hmm
Maltese Premier Promises Resignation Amid Firestorm Over Journalist’s Killing
The investigative journalist had been known widely in Malta for her dogged pursuit of government corruption — quite a bit of which she unearthed by carefully perusing the massive Panama Papers leak, which has revealed a slew of inappropriate financial moves by politicians around the world.
Maltese Premier Promises Resignation Amid Firestorm Over Journalist’s Killing : NPR
hmmm
Senator Warner: Let Users Freely Move Their Data From One Social Media Platform to Another
“So if you get tired of Facebook, and you want to move all your data, including your cat videos, to a new site, you should be able to do that easily and transparently,” Warner explains.
…The legislation requires social media companies to maintain apps and interfaces to let you transfer your stuff anywhere you want.
Senator Warner: Let Users Freely Move Their Data From One Social Media Platform to Another | WVTF
hmm
If You Still Hate Michael Vick, You Might Be Racist
We can’t consider the story of Vick’s rise and fall with understanding the context of the systemic racism that informed his life at every step, including his interaction with the criminal justice system and an American public intent on punishing people of color far more harshly than they do white people.
There is no shortage of evidence showing the profoundly racist double standards our society applies to black boys and men, particularly those who have found financial success or have any sort of public platform.
White boys make mistakes. Black boys are thugs. White boys have their whole futures ahead of them. Black boys are superpredators.
…Since pleading guilty to the dog-fighting charges 10 years ago, Vick has served nearly two years in federal prison, paid for the care of all of the dogs seized from his property, apologized sincerely and completely for his crimes, publicly campaigned for stricter laws against dog fighting and joined— on his own volition — the Humane Society of the United States’ campaign against dog fighting.
If You Still Hate Michael Vick, You Might Be Racist
hmmm
To Make Sense of Lebanon’s Protests, Follow the Garbage
The government’s inability to provide basic services, including 24-hour electricity and garbage collection, is rooted in an agreement that ended Lebanon’s civil war nearly 30 years ago. The deal divided power between the nation’s 18 recognized religious sects, effectively institutionalizing corruption, with each group able to dole out government jobs, contracts, favors and social services to its followers.
…The perpetual garbage crisis is only the most pungent example. It last exploded into public view in 2015, when the country’s political elite squabbled over a lucrative waste-management contract as mountains of uncollected trash fouled the streets of Beirut. A wave of protests ensued.
The stopgap solution was to build two new landfills. Three years after they opened, the landfills have only relocated the garbage crisis to the coast, and they are fast threatening to hit capacity.
…Employees dumped trash and toxic waste directly into the Mediterranean.
…Mr. Khoury’s company was dumping trash into the landfill without sorting it, despite a contractual requirement that recyclables be separated and hazardous material be removed.
Moreover, she found, the landfill’s breakwaters in the Mediterranean were not keeping the trash out of the water. Garbage and the toxic liquid oozing from it were going straight into the sea.
…For several years, the government has promoted incineration as a long-term solution, despite objections from environmentalists and scientists.
In June, the environment minister, Fadi Jreissati, told The Daily Star, a local newspaper, that he did not think Lebanon was “qualified” to regulate the incinerators.
…A major reason that Lebanon does not produce enough electricity for its four million people, experts say, is the powerful lobby of generator owners, whose machines provide power during daily blackouts, as well as the $1.2 billion-a-year diesel industry that fuels them.
..Hospitals, roads, schools and other projects are distributed to favored contractors according to sectarian quotas that ensure every group benefits, regardless of necessity.
To Make Sense of Lebanon’s Protests, Follow the Garbage – The New York Times
hmmm
Comments From The Peanut Gallery 