What's in the News? 2.0

[CyranoDeBergerac]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgpdg/remington-subpoenas-report-cards-of-five-children-killed-in-sandy-hook-shooting

Yeah.. so some Sandy Hook parents have been in a lawsuit against gun manufacturer Remington, and as per the whole discovery thing the gun manufacturer is asking for the disciplinary records etc of some of the kids.

Why? *shrugs* who knows

One theory I've seen is that they're going to attempt to use these children's grades and reports in order to figure out just how 'productive' of adults they would have grown up to in order to determine how much to pay in blood money. ex. "Oh little Timmy was failing algebra, he would've only grown up to be a minimum wage worker, so we'll pay you $7.25 x 40 x 52 X rouchly 60 years for his life." 

[Oniya]

These were six and seven year olds.  If Little Timmy was taking algebra at that age, he'd for sure be an accountant at least.

At that age, grades aren't any sort of predictor.  Kids are just starting to get used to 'school work'. (Kindergarten is learning how to socialize for the most part.)

[Sara Nilsson]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/technology/texas-abortion-law-website-tiktok.html (paywall)

https://gizmodo.com/godaddy-is-giving-texas-abortion-snitching-site-the-boo-1847616447 (non paywall)

So the Texas abortion whistleblower website is getting kicked off Godaddy. yay! Because FUCK those scummy pieces of shit! This after tiktockers and others been flooding it with Shrek porn and other fun stuff (sometimes trolls are the good people).

And I still cant believe I am cheering for Godaddy here

[Skynet]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/magazine/fbi-terrorism-terry-albury.html

https://theintercept.com/2018/10/18/terry-albury-sentencing-fbi/

Following up on a story last year, the New York Times did an in-depth report on FBI whistleblower Terry Albury, and how he reported to the press rampant abuses within the Bureau which included legal loopholes to get away with discrimination on the basis of race and religion, ruining the lives of innocent people (including minors) when their names shown up on FBI databases despite being found innocent which harmed their abilities to get employment, a driver's license, or anything that would require a background check. He wasn't the only person feeling disillusionsed: the Counter-Terrorism task force he worked on was notoriously incapable of finding actual terrorists and the overwhelming majority of people they spied upon were innocent. Compounding this were various levels of systemic discrimination that went unchallenged in the FBI, such as the view that Muslims as a whole were enemies of America, relying on a bigoted informant who had a personal vendetta against Muslims, coercing other informants to work for them such as threatening to deport them if they were immigrants or had prior criminal history, and multiple instances of anti-black racism such as agents expressing violent fantasies of bombing a public housing project in Minneapolis and running over protestors.

The article is rather long and goes over a lot of things, but I took out a few excerpts in the event a paywall blocks some from reading.

In the wake of the Church Committee, new guidelines limited the F.B.I.’s ability to investigate anyone without an indication of criminal activity. But Sept. 11 changed this calculus. Terrorism was the new communism. “The indoctrination was immediate,” Albury recalls. “It was, ‘We’re at war, we need to respond, we need to use every tool at our disposal.’” President Bush, in his speeches following Sept. 11, went out of his way to describe Islam as a religion of peace, portraying the perpetrators of the attacks as outliers. But as Albury went through training, “it was made very clear from Day 1 that the enemy was not just a tiny group of disaffected Muslims,” he says. “Islam itself was the enemy.”

But it also wasn’t enough. Adaki’s little brother, for example, was screwed for life. There was nothing connecting the kid to terrorism. Albury knew this after spending months completing a process known as “baseline collection”: scouring his social media, checking his phone records, running his name through the D.M.V. database as well as myriad other secret and top-secret government databases. But now his name was in the system. That meant any number of government agencies — the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the D.E.A., ICE — could have access to his file.

Albury had recruited too many informants found in precisely this manner not to understand that what he’d done by simply looking at Adaki’s brother was to open him up to future harassment or, at best, put an asterisk next to his name that would be with him forever. Now, any time he applied for a passport, or a job that required a background check, or a driver’s license, or simply had his name run through any sort of government database, for the rest of his life, it would show up that he’d been looked at by the F.B.I., which would inevitably be viewed as suspicious. That was what was so insidious about the process, Albury thought. And it wasn’t just this kid — there were thousands of Minneapolis Muslims in the system just like him and untold millions elsewhere in the country.

Albury had been doing assessments for years before they were officially enshrined in the F.B.I.’s rule book. It was standard procedure, which officials often described as “leaving no stone unturned,” though determining a party’s guilt, or even guilt by association, was never the sole objective. Assessments were the opening salvo to the informant-recruitment process. It was a delicate art of manipulation, persuading a person to work for the federal government against his or her own community, but with access to the person’s criminal history, or immigration status, it was much easier. There were different techniques agents were allowed to use. They could assist a person who lacked legal status to be given it, a tactic known as the “immigration-relief dangle.” Conversely, agents could also work with immigration officials to deport those people if and when they’d exhausted their usefulness as confidential sources. Fear was a prominent driver. “You love America and want to protect this country, right?” Albury would ask his targets, many of whom were recent immigrants, or permanent residents, or maybe they were in the United States on a visa or had no documentation at all, and so what were they going to do, say no? He was standing before them with a gun on his hip.

“You know what I think we should do with the Somalis?” a secretary with the Minneapolis Joint Terrorism Task Force said to a group of agents in the office in fall 2012. Albury had been on the job for a few weeks. “I think we should blow up the Somali towers.”

She was referring to the Riverside Plaza housing project, the heart of Minneapolis’s East African immigrant community. Albury managed a smile, assuming she was joking to shock the new guy. But she was serious. “You don’t get the problem,” she told Albury. “These people are dirty, smelly, disgusting, worthless pieces of [expletive].”

Compounding this disillusionment was the increasingly visible disproportionate phenomenon of police brutality against African Americans. The August 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., devastated Albury. So did all the other high-profile police killings of Black men and boys that year: Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice. Many of his colleagues made clear that they saw the victims as guilty, or at least suspicious, leaving the cops no choice but to use force. After Garner died in a police chokehold, some members of the J.T.T.F. argued that Garner had caused his own death. “You agree, right?” Albury recalls being asked. “He should’ve just complied, right?”

[Skynet]

In another example of Cancel Culture, conservative politicians pressured an historic LGBT exhibit to be removed from Missouri's Capitol building.

During the 60s the state was home to prominent LGBT rights individuals and groups.

Someone who helped curate the exhibit has a good Twitter thread of articles going into its history and the ill intentions behind the decision.

[Lustful Bride]

Actor Michael K Williams has passed away.

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/michael-k-williams-dead-the-wire-1235057436/

[Tyrus]

Actor Michael K Williams has passed away.

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/michael-k-williams-dead-the-wire-1235057436/

My heart sank when I read this. Man was a legendary actor, far as I'm concerned. Omar Little, Bobby McCray, Chalky White... it's gonna be sad catching up on Lovecraft Country, now, or even re-watch of The Wire, and seeing him steal the screen.

[CyranoDeBergerac]

My heart sank when I read this. Man was a legendary actor, far as I'm concerned. Omar Little, Bobby McCray, Chalky White... it's gonna be sad catching up on Lovecraft Country, now, or even re-watch of The Wire, and seeing him steal the screen.

My thoughts exactly.

[Mechelle]

We have had quite a controversial development in Britain where Boris Johnson has  explicitly reversed one of his manifesto pledges by increasing National Insurance (this is really a tax on jobs, paid by both employees and employers) to attempt to cover the costs of social care, although the NHS will take much or all of the revenue at least at first, while they try to reduce waiting lists. The result is that younger workers, including poorly paid workers in social care, will have to pay more tax, while wealthy pensioners, unless they are still working, will pay no more tax, although they may have to pay towards the costs. The Conservative voters do tend to be older, and older people are more likely to vote than younger; lots of the Conservative MPs feel uneasy  about the cynicism in this, feeling it may come back to haunt them, but it will go through with no problem. 

The increasing cost of social care is a genuine problem, which has not been addressed for years, but this is a very partisan way to go about it.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/sep/07/what-has-boris-johnson-announced-social-care-plan

On a lighter note, the hapless Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has found himself embarrassed by stating he met footballer and social campaigner Marcus Rashford on Zoom and found him very "engaged." Actually he was speaking to rugby union player Maro Itoje. The two sportsmen have both made a joke of it,  but I do wonder how Williamson retains his job as he is consistently incompetent. Actually, I don't wonder; as a former Chief Whip, when his job is under threat he mentions that he knows all the other government ministers' secrets. This is how you maintain high office in modern Britain.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12402253/education-secretary-gavin-williamson-accused-of-mixing-up-man-utds-marcus-rashford-with-maro-itoje

[Lustful Bride]

I'm not at all surprised. Just disappointed.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/watch-this-newsmax-host-scream-a-veteran-off-his-show-for-offering-basic-fact-checking-mild-trump-criticism/ar-AAOwIlc?ocid=msedgntp

[Thufir Hawat]

I'm not at all surprised. Just disappointed.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/watch-this-newsmax-host-scream-a-veteran-off-his-show-for-offering-basic-fact-checking-mild-trump-criticism/ar-AAOwIlc?ocid=msedgntp

Likewise :o ??? !

OTOH, Paris and Brussels were both disappointed and surprised...
A comparison between Biden and his predecessor was already made at highest levels, too. Like "EU's top diplomat" high level.
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-blindsides-europe-aukus-alliance-234310222.html
So who wins from that? Other than the US defense industry, that is?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/16/aukus-deal-showing-france-and-eu-that-biden-not-all-he-seems

[TeamVelma]

Likewise :o ??? !

OTOH, Paris and Brussels were both disappointed and surprised...
A comparison between Biden and his predecessor was already made at highest levels, too. Like "EU's top diplomat" high level.
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-blindsides-europe-aukus-alliance-234310222.html
So who wins from that? Other than the US defense industry, that is?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/16/aukus-deal-showing-france-and-eu-that-biden-not-all-he-seems

Well, it has annoyed the French (I'm British so, yay!) and allowed the Austrialians to get out of a contract that they were already trying to get out of (https://www.politico.eu/article/why-australia-wanted-out-of-its-french-sub-deal/).  The biggie in this will be the transfer of the SSN technology, something the Australians were already looking at as the French subs could (potentially) be converted from an SSK to an SSN.

Whilst the French are fuming they haven't been able to yet turn it into a EU thing with the rest of the EU seeming to just shrug and try and work out what this week's fudge will be over China.

[Skynet]

The Department of Veteran Affairs announced that soldiers discharged for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy due to their sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status will be eligible for all benefits as non-discharged veterans.

[Annaamarth]

About fucking time.

[Lustful Bride]

Anonymous pulled down the curtain for the Alt-Right and airs out a lot of dirty laundry.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/huge-hack-reveals-embarrassing-details-of-who-s-behind-proud-boys-and-other-far-right-websites/ar-AAOFRQk?ocid=msedgntp

[Tolvo]

Anonymous pulled down the curtain for the Alt-Right and airs out a lot of dirty laundry.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/huge-hack-reveals-embarrassing-details-of-who-s-behind-proud-boys-and-other-far-right-websites/ar-AAOFRQk?ocid=msedgntp

As someone who has spent a lot of former time archiving and recording online extremists, I assure you I am trying to contain a large "Yeah boy!" and fist pump at this news.

[Annaamarth]

Hrm.  Would it be appropriate to link the original announcement from Anon?  I found it at Wayback, but I'm not sure whether such a thing violates site guidelines here.

It is amusing - and has a torrent link for the goods, in case anyone has a, what, 160, 200gb hard drive they aren't doing anything with?

[Oniya]

That would be a bit over the edge.  According to the news article, it contained personal information, and we do have a rule about that.  (Number 7)

[Annaamarth]

Yeah, that makes sense.  Thanks Oniya!

[TheGlyphstone]

Its weirdly nice, in a way, to see Anonymous back to its old hacktivist roots. Doing battle with conspiracy theories instead if perpetuating them.

[Tolvo]

It also might not be entirely safe to download the raw in addition. This is something I'd say is best left handled by anti-extremist activists, journalists, and researchers.

[Skynet]

Upon hearing news of Haitian immigrants being whipped at the US border, Tucker Carlson decided now would be the perfect time to cite racist conspiracy theories such as the Great Replacement, which he explicitly named during the segment.

Back in February, he also criticized the Democratic Party for not being accepting of white supremacists and QAnon.

This is to say nothing of his dangerous anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.

[Blythe]

Upon hearing news of Haitian immigrants being whipped at the US border, Tucker Carlson decided now would be the perfect time to cite racist conspiracy theories such as the Great Replacement, which he explicitly named during the segment.

Back in February, he also criticized the Democratic Party for not being accepting of white supremacists and QAnon.

This is to say nothing of his dangerous anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.

Given how rampantly horrible Tucker Carlson is and the broad scope of his awfulness, we could probably justify an entire thread on him.

He's a terrifyingly good example of unethical media at work; he's pretty much the poster child for it. When people talk about mass media and bias/prejudice (whether it's political, racial, or otherwise) or mass media and rampant misinformation/lies, Tucker Carlson pretty much comes to mind instantly.

[Skynet]

Given how rampantly horrible Tucker Carlson is and the broad scope of his awfulness, we could probably justify an entire thread on him.

He's a terrifyingly good example of unethical media at work; he's pretty much the poster child for it. When people talk about mass media and bias/prejudice (whether it's political, racial, or otherwise) or mass media and rampant misinformation/lies, Tucker Carlson pretty much comes to mind instantly.

Very much so, although there have been parts of me that debated how much of it will be preaching to the choir (most Elliquiyans who post about politics aren't far-right) but on the other hand he is very much a prominent voice in US conservative culture by now, and there's not a lot of talk about the man specifically.

[TheGlyphstone]

There's also not a lot to talk about, on the other hand. He's pretty much defined by the horrid nonsense he vomits out - take that away and he's about as generically uninteresting as its possible to be.