Werd I/O

[Joseph Cox at 404 Media]

Without needing a warrant, police can track ordinary peoples' smartphone locations - including people who travel out of state to get abortion procedures. The implications are troubling:

"“Warrantless law enforcement access to digital information related to reproductive health care, including location data, threatens reproductive freedom,” Ashley Emery, senior policy analyst, reproductive health and rights at the non-profit the National Partnership for Women & Families, told 404 Media. “If law enforcement can bypass court approval needed to obtain sensitive data and instead use this new surveillance tool to track pregnant people and build cases against them, the implications for abortion and pregnancy criminalization are alarming. This risk is especially salient for Black women, brown women, and low-income women, who are already over-surveilled and over-policed.”"

The tracking crosses states and is made possible by the cellphone networks themselves as part of what are shockingly lenient data sharing policies overall. Because of the jurisdiction, and the complicated way this data becomes available, the only surefire way to solve this problem is with a federal privacy law that protects our data.

At the very least it should need a warrant - but really, this sort of tracking shouldn't be possible at all. Without strong technical and legal protections against sharing, all our cellphones (this problem is not limited to smartphones) can be used as tracking devices to understand our whereabouts, who we're gathering with, and potentially more. We're all highly-dependent on them at this stage, but it's worth questioning whether we should be.

#Democracy

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[Blake Ellis, Melanie Hicken, Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Audrey Ash, Kyung Lah, Anna-Maja Rappard, Casey Tolan, Lou Robinson and Byron Manley at CNN]

"More than 1,000 reports filed with government agencies and consumer advocacy groups reviewed by CNN, along with an analysis of campaign finance data and interviews with dozens of contributors and their family members, show how deceptive political fundraisers have victimized hundreds of elderly Americans and misled those battling dementia or other cognitive impairments into giving away millions of dollars — far more than they ever intended."

Some of these are for Democrats, but most are for Republicans, who use an array of dark patterns including pre-selected checkboxes and misleading UI elements to convince donors to pay far more than originally intended.

The problem is most acute for elderly donors, and particularly for those with dementia, but there are plenty of other people who have been misled. It's a giant problem that stems from something everyone who's worked in tech will be familiar with: a focus on pushing success metrics up and to the right above all else.

There needs to be stronger regulation here, but of course, politicians aren't necessarily incentivized to push it. The best option would likely be for dark patterns overall to be more highly-regulated - after all, these same techniques are often used by lenders, insurance providers, subscription services, and more.

There's an even sadder story lurking here, too, which is more to do with a lack of the support and infrastructure for elder-care that these politicians should be providing:

"Forensic geriatrician Kathryn Locatell said what Richard Benjamin felt each time he received a “thank you” message or made a donation is the same “dopamine hit” a lot of elderly Americans are seeking. And the solicitations are crafted in a way that intentionally suck elderly donors into their web, providing “a feeling of belonging to a thrilling, special club.”"

In other words, if these people weren't so lonely and isolated to begin with, they might be less susceptible to this and other scams. That feels like an important problem worth solving, too, and one that should be tackled universally, for every person who needs it, regardless of means. Instead, the people who claim to want to help them end up persuading them to part with sometimes tens of thousands of dollars they can't afford to spend. It's nothing short of an abuse of power.

#Democracy

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[Timothy Snyder]

Timothy Snyder on the seriousness of the Trump-Vance deportation plans and their implications:

"Such an enormous deportation will requires an army of informers. People who denounce their neighbors or coworkers will be presented as positive examples. Denunciation then becomes a culture. If you are Latino, expect to be denounced at some point, and expect special attention from a government that will demand your help to find people who are not documented. This is especially true if you are a local civic or business leader."

The proposal itself has echoes in some of the worst policies of the worst governments of the past. To see arenas of people giddily waving "mass deportations now" signs is genuinely chilling, and it's not reasonable to dismiss this as electioneering. (Even as electioneering, it establishes a despicable us-and-them division that is unabashedly fascist.)

But Timothy Snyder is right here to go a get step further and ask what the impact would be on communities. Some people will inevitably be willing collaborators; others will not want to make a scene or hurt their own community standing and will become de facto collaborators. And the effect will be to establish a new normal that will be incredibly difficult culturally to turn back from.

"The deep purpose of a mass deportation is to establish a new sort of politics, a politics of us-and-them, which means (at first) everyone else against the Latinos. In this new regime, the government just stokes the fears and encourages the denunciations, and we expect little more of it."

It's sickening to think that this is an America that some people actively, intentionally want. If they win, I genuinely don't know what happens next.

Personally, I can't wait for an election that's fought on tax policy or infrastructure or the nuances of government. Right now, here in 2024, it seems like a big ask.

#Democracy

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[Charles Duhigg at the New Yorker]

"As the tech industry has become the planet’s dominant economic force, a coterie of specialists—led, in part, by the political operative who introduced the idea of “a vast right-wing conspiracy” decades ago—have taught Silicon Valley how to play the game of politics. Their aim is to help tech leaders become as powerful in Washington, D.C., and in state legislatures as they are on Wall Street."

This is a major change - it wasn't so long ago that journalists were remarking that tech was hopeless at influencing Washington.

That's not always a bad thing, but it sometimes very much is - for example when Silicon Valley lobbies politicians against crypto protections, or against privacy legislation, or prevent rideshare drivers from receiving standard workplace benefits.

What is certainly true, which this article takes pains to point out, is that tech is now one of the most powerful cohorts in politics. Future Presidencies - perhaps including this next one - will be chosen in large part based on tech's agenda. That's a new normal we need to get used to, and tech workers who care about equity need to deeply understand.

#Democracy

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[Kavitha Surana at ProPublica]

"When the mother of three realized she had unintentionally gotten pregnant in the fall of 2022, Georgia’s new abortion ban gave her no choice. Although it made exceptions for acute, life-threatening emergencies, it didn’t account for chronic conditions, even those known to present lethal risks later in pregnancy."

This story - alongside Amber Nicole Thurman's - shows that the abortion bans really are leading to preventable deaths.

"Miller ordered abortion pills online, but she did not expel all the fetal tissue and would need a dilation and curettage procedure to clear it from her uterus and stave off sepsis, a grave and painful infection. In many states, this care, known as a D&C, is routine for both abortions and miscarriages. In Georgia, performing it had recently been made a felony, with few exceptions."

As Kavitha Surana points out, abortion bans haven't actually led to a decrease in abortions. Instead, they've made them harder and significantly riskier. It's a worse situation all round. Deaths like these are senseless: a tragedy at the hands of a fundamentalist ideology with no basis in science.

#Democracy

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[Brett Wilkins at Common Dreams]

"After years of working with Iraqis whose relatives were killed by U.S. Marines in the 2005 Haditha massacre, American journalists finally obtained and released photos showing the grisly aftermath of the bloody rampage—whose perpetrators never spent a day behind bars."

These pictures, now published by the New Yorker, were covered up and obstructed for almost 20 years, presumably in an effort to present an image of America as a benevolent intervener. They are graphic and disturbing in themselves, and revealing of the real impact of America's impact overseas.

As Common Dreams notes:

"The Haditha massacre was part of countless U.S. war crimes and atrocities committed during the ongoing so-called War on Terror, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of civilian lives in at least half a dozen countries since 2001. One of the reasons why the Haditha massacre is relatively unknown compared with the torture and killings at the U.S. military prison in Abu Ghraib, Iraq is that photos of the former crime have been kept hidden for decades."

One of the reasons this kind of sunlight is important is so that Americans can be aware of what its military foreign policy is truly enabling in the rest of the world. I hope we can change tacks and become a genuine force for peace and international democracy, but I don't believe that's where we are or where we have been.

As always, I recommend Vincent Bevins's excellent book The Jakarta Method to help understand what has been done in our name. I wish it could be taught to every American citizen.

#Democracy

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[Aaron Ross Powell]

""First, there’s what I’ve referred to in the past as the “Quillette Effect.” Because we believe our own ideas are correct (or else we wouldn’t believe them), we tend to think that people who share our ideas are correct, as well." This whole piece is worth your time."

This whole piece is worth your time: a dive into why some of Silicon Valley's leaders seem to be disappearing down an ideological morass, using AI model collapse as an analogy. These are ideas that turn to themselves again and again to infinity.

There's a lot to be said for getting out of Silicon Valley and seeing the bubble from the outside. But you've really got to do that for yourself - or have something really catastrophic do it for you.

"The problem with model collapse is, once it goes too far, it’s difficult to correct. The solution to model collapse is to train on better data. But accomplishing that, and undoing the rapidly radicalizing right-wing ideology of these titans of the Valley, means undoing the structural causes of that self-referential and self-reinforcing cascade. And that’s no easy task."

I have no idea what would bring that about.

#Democracy

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[The 19th]

"To understand how the anti-trans agenda could reshape all of our lives, The 19th set out to examine how the laws and rhetoric behind it are impacting Americans."

My friends at The 19th dive into how the wave of anti-trans legislation and rhetoric is impacting American life.

This is a vital conversation: 177 anti-transgender bills have become law since 2021. The country has been swept into a red wave of bigotry.

These laws have implications for everyone. As The 19th describes its rationale behind this series:

"To understand how the anti-trans agenda could reshape all of our lives, our reporters have set out to examine how anti-trans laws are impacting the lives of Americans, whether or not they are trans. The goal is to connect the dots that will show how these laws, intended to target a small minority, are rewriting the future for all of us, and for generations to come. This is the Toll of America’s Anti-Trans War."

#Democracy

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[Andy Kroll at ProPublica and Nick Surgey at Documented]

"Project 2025, the controversial playbook and policy agenda for a right-wing presidential administration, has lost its director and faced scathing criticism from both Democratic groups and former President Donald Trump. But Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could battle against the so-called deep state government bureaucracy on behalf of a future Trump administration remains on track."

It's not hyperbole to look at these as training videos to enact a heavily right-wing America: one that is subject to Christian nationalist ideas and seeks to squash dissent. They discuss how to eliminate climate change protections and erase decades of progress on race and gender.

At any rate, it's a fascinating view on a movement that, regardless of your political views, clearly seeks to re-make America. In that sense they're a little like something from a Philip K Dick novel - or, dare I say it, the Handmaid's Tale.

#Democracy

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[Dan Kennedy at Media Nation]

"Four years ago, Boston lawyer and journalist James Barron wrote that the Watergate break-in may well have been an attempt to steal documents from Democratic Party headquarters showing that Nixon had taken $549,000 from the Greek government in order to help finance his 1968 campaign."

Dan Kennedy argues that there are parallels here with the story, reported a year ago, that Donald Trump might have partially funded his 2016 election campaign with an illegal contribution from the Egyptian government.

It does seem strange that the story hasn't been followed up on by either the press or the Democratic Party. What sticks out to me about Dan's commentary, though, is this:

"What makes a story stick is repetition — and without prominent Democrats coming out every day and giving journalists something to report on, it quickly withers away."

Should that be true? I'd hope that the press could find their own leads. Otherwise it, in effect, becomes a press release driven industry. I'm not disputing that it probably is true in reality, but I'd hope for a better dynamic.

#Democracy

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[Reid Hoffman in the New York Times]

"As Vice President Harris defines her vision for how best to lead the United States in this moment in time, she has an opportunity to take the torch passed to her by President Biden in an explicitly pro-innovation direction. Instead of governing by tweet, Mr. Biden passed bipartisan legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that authorized hundreds of billions of dollars for new manufacturing construction and investment."

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman explains why Silicon Valley should get behind Harris, counter to the example set by Musk, Andreessen, and a few others. Hoffman is a co-signatory of VCs for Kamala, which makes clear that most Silicon Valley funders are in favor of the Democratic candidate and current Vice President.

Hoffman make the case clearly:

"Under the Biden-Harris administration, U.S. stock market indexes hit all-time highs, with the S&P 500 increasing by 48 percent. Unemployment dropped below 4 percent. The number of U.S. manufacturing jobs hit its highest level since 2008. While Mr. Trump’s great ambition was to build a big beautiful border wall, Mr. Biden actually secured the necessary funding to build large-scale factories for manufacturing semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries, solar cells and more. And we’re now constructing them at stunning rates."

I'm more pro-regulation than Hoffman is. Harris should maintain a strong antitrust stance, too, I believe, as well as providing new protections against the worst excesses of AI and other technologies that might harm vulnerable groups. But it's certainly true that her administration will be better for innovation than her opponent, even if the latter might be better for lining the pockets of a few select billionaires.

This is also true:

"In a speech Ms. Harris gave on the future of A.I. in 2023, she noted that we must “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation.”"

It is a false choice. Regulation, principles, and a duty of care to the public are not anti-innovation: in fact, they promote it. And that's the direction we should all be heading in.

#Democracy

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[Dmitry Antonov and Andrew Osborn at Reuters]

"A family of Russian sleeper agents flown to Moscow in the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War were so deep under cover that their children found out they were Russians only after the flight took off, the Kremlin said on Friday."

What a bonkers story. It's crazy to me that these kinds of sleeper agents are still real - or that they ever were at all. Imagine what it takes to fit in with a culture completely, from language to mannerisms to cultural understanding.

Also, many of these voices appear to adhere to their pulp fiction archetypes:

"Andrei Lugovoi, a former spy wanted by Britain for murdering dissident Alexander Litvinenko with atomic poison and now serving as head of an ultranationalist party's faction in the Russian Duma, said on Telegram: "Our people are at home with their families. And for each of them it is no pity to hand over a bunch of foreign agent scum.""

I wonder how many sleeper agents are still out there, acting on behalf of Russia and every other nation.

#Democracy

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[Molly White]

"With $45.5 million in corporate contributions, American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is the largest donor to Fairshake: a newly-minted super PAC focused solely on installing political candidates who will be friendly to the cryptocurrency industry, and ousting those with a history of pushing for stronger regulations and consumer protections when it comes to an industry that has long been a regulatory “Wild West”."

"[Coinbase's] $25 million contribution, however, appears to be in violation of federal campaign finance laws that prohibit contributions from current or prospective federal government contractors. This would be by far the largest known illegal campaign contribution by a federal contractor."

Molly points out that there's a possibility here that Coinbase is using a loophole that had previously been exploited by Chevron. But it's certainly not clear that this is the case.

It's also worth calling out what "candidates who will be friendly to the cryptocurrency industry" means in practice this election cycle. It's far more likely that Trump-aligned candidates will fall into this camp.

#Democracy

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[Justin Elliott, Robert Faturechi and Alex Mierjeski at ProPublica]

The majority of Donald Trump's net worth is wrapped up in Truth Social's parent company Trump Media & Technology Group. If he's elected, its deals and ownership structure will present conflicts of interests - illustrated by this ProPublica investigation into its streaming TV deal:

"The deal announced by Trump Media involves a series of largely unknown small players. Trump Media’s disclosures about the deal describe a nesting doll of companies that leave many questions unanswered about its new business partners."

"The sellers include a pair of Louisiana companies: [major Republican donor James E.] Davison’s JedTec LLC along with another called WorldConnect IPTV Solutions."

JedTec's issues are relatively straightforward. For me, the bigger mystery surrounds WorldConnect IPTV, which seems to be acting as a wrapper around a UK streaming company called Perception Group. In turn, Perception's servers seem to be colocated with Hurricane Electric, a backbone provider based in Fremont.

Perception seems like a bit of a mystery operation in itself: there's very little information on its website that really illuminates if there's any new technology here at all. WorldConnect, meanwhile, seems to have spent many of its early years helping right-wing Christian TV stations reach audiences across the UK's Freeview over-the-air digital TV service and the internet at large.

It's all super-strange. There's definitely more to discover.

#Democracy

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[Anthony Robledo at USA Today]

"Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his estranged transgender daughter was "killed" by the "woke mind virus" after he was tricked into agreeing to gender-affirming care procedures."

The thing is, his daughter Vivian is perfectly happy with the decision. The thing that's causing Musk pain is not her decision to transition; it's that she's cut him off and no longer speaks to him. Interviews like this illustrate why.

That so many of his decisions are governed by this absolute loser energy says a lot. Just calm down, call your daughter, and reconcile.

As USA Today points out:

"Gender-affirming care is a valid, science-backed method of medicine that saves lives for people who require care while navigating their gender identity. Gender-affirming care can range from talk or hormone therapy to surgical intervention."

It's not done flippantly; a huge amount of care and attention is undertaken, particularly for minors. This backlash is pure conservative hokum: it does not have any scientific or factual basis. It just makes some small-minded, old-fashioned people feel uncomfortable.

#Democracy

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[Matt Stoller]

"So what does Vance think? He is in agreement with the views of a rising set of younger conservatives, populists like Sohrab Ahmari and Oren Cass, who assert that libertarianism is a cover for private rule, most explicitly in Ahmari’s book Tyranny, Inc. It is flourishing of the family that animates this new group, not worship of the market. At Remedy Fest, Vance was explicit in his agreement with this notion, saying “I don't really care if the entity that is most threatening to that vision is a private entity or a public entity, we have to be worried about it.”"

An interesting analysis of JD Vance's economic ideas - at least as described here, I'm actually not in disagreement. The free market is cover for private rule. Lina Khan is doing a great job.

I'm less impressed with his backers Andreessen and Horowitz's ideas, which are tied up with military might and a self-interested misunderstanding of what happened in relation to the downfall of the USSR. The idea that Elizabeth Warren "hates capitalism" is nonsense. It's a very thin defense drawn from their particular mode of capitalism coming under threat of regulation.

The trouble is, as I've described, all the social policies that go along with it. Sure, try and influence both political parties to be beneficial to your businesses all you want. But if you throw mass deportations, military policing of our cities, and fascist reconstructions of government in the mix, you'd better be ready for the repercussions.

#Democracy

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[Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Hadley Beeman, Daniel Appelquist, Robin Berjon, et al]

"Government engagement in digital and Internet governance is needed to deal with many abuses of this global system but it is our common responsibility to uphold the bottom-up, collaborative and inclusive model of Internet governance that has served the world for the past half century."

A tremendously important open letter to the United Nations in light of the opaque, hierarchical process the Global Digital Compact is being developed with, and the centralized governance many of its proposals can be read to call for.

It's worth clicking through to read the list of signatories: these are people we can thank for the existence of the internet and the web at all. That they believe this is important enough to create this open letter is worth paying attention to.

#Democracy

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[Rachel Leingang at The Guardian]

"The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune."

I've been worried about the world my son will grow up into since before he was born. Over time, my worry has been upgraded to a fear that is becoming ever more visceral and searing. Today the volume of my fear turned up still further.

The thing is, this isn't the only thing allowing for misconduct. The President has effectively been able to commit crimes internationally with very little accountability since forever. Coups, backroom exchanges, and assassinations are all things the US has done to other countries for generations.

My hope is that (1) we come out of this more or less intact, (2) we eventually use this as an opportunity to create stronger ethical and legal rules for our leadership, wherever they act.

Whatever happens, these are truly scary times.

#Democracy

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[Drew Harwell at the Washington Post]

"Postal inspectors say they fulfill [requests from law enforcement to share information from letters and packages] only when mail monitoring can help find a fugitive or investigate a crime. But a decade’s worth of records, provided exclusively to The Washington Post in response to a congressional probe, show Postal Service officials have received more than 60,000 requests from federal agents and police officers since 2015, and that they rarely say no."

I wish this was surprising. Something similar seems to have gone on in every trusted facet of American life: from cell phone providers to online library platforms to license plate readers on the roads. It's all part of an Overton window shift into pervasive surveillance that has been ongoing for decades.

Senator Ron Wyden is right to be blunt:

“These new statistics show that thousands of Americans are subjected to warrantless surveillance each year, and that the Postal Inspection Service rubber stamps practically all of the requests they receive.”

We shouldn't accept it. And yet, by and large, we do.

#Democracy

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"Justice Samuel Alito spoke candidly about the ideological battle between the left and the right — discussing the difficulty of living “peacefully” with ideological opponents in the face of “fundamental” differences that “can’t be compromised.” He endorsed what his interlocutor described as a necessary fight to “return our country to a place of godliness.” And Alito offered a blunt assessment of how America’s polarization will ultimately be resolved: “One side or the other is going to win.”"

If what's at stake in the upcoming election wasn't previously clear, this makes it so. This is a Supreme Court justice, talking openly, on tape, about undermining the rights of people in favor of a Biblical worldview.

It's easy to see this sort of rhetoric as the dying gasps of the 20th century trying to claw back regressive values that we've mostly moved away from. But to do so is to discount it; we have to take this seriously.

It's a little bit heartening to hear that Justice Roberts - also a big-C Conservative - felt differently and held a commitment to the Constitution and the working of the Court. But in the light of a far-right majority comprised of Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, it's not heartening enough.

#Democracy

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"Open Rights Group has published its six priorities for digital rights that the next UK government should focus on."

These are things every government should provide. I'm particularly interested in point number 3:

"Predictive policing systems that use artificial intelligence (AI) to ‘predict’ criminal behaviour undermine our right to be presumed innocent and exacerbate discrimination and inequality in our criminal justice system. The next government should ban dangerous uses of AI in policing."

It's such a science fiction idea, so obviously flawed that Philip K Dick wrote a novel and there's a famous movie about how bad it is, and yet, police forces around the world are trying it.

I'd hope for beyond an Open Rights Group recommendation: it should be banned, everywhere, as an obvious human rights violation.

The other things on the list are table stakes. Without those guarantees, real democratic freedom is impossible.

#Democracy

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"So, how do you distinguish between a psyop – a weaponized story – from other kinds of communication? Walk with me through these three simple steps."

This is a great introduction - I can't wait to read the full book.

It reminds me a little of some of the techniques described in The Century of the Self, the Adam Curtis documentary that explores the history of psychoanalysis, its influence on propaganda, and how it gave birth to the modern PR industry. If you've never seen it, the whole thing is on YouTube and is absolutely worth your time. #Democracy

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"Here’s what you’re not being told: The most pressing threats to our safety as Jewish students do not come from tents on campus. Instead, they come from the Columbia administration inviting police onto campus, certain faculty members, and third-party organizations that dox undergraduates."

A useful first-hand perspective on what the protests on campus are actually like. Seders and peaceful sit-ins don't scream antisemitism - but external actors, provocateurs, and police make them markedly less safe. Protest is a key democratic right, and this is fundamentally a movement about freeing an oppressed people. It's heartening to see so many people taking a stand for human rights. #Democracy

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"The University administration respects all student protests, just not this one. Students have fought for many important causes over the years, and their right to protest is sacrosanct. In this case, however, we must arrest and slander them."

Just completely spot on. #Democracy

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An interesting opinion piece about the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, the aftermath thereof, and how it all relates to the election.

"But even if we had performed adequate maintenance, the bridge was probably doomed. Dali is the size and mass of a skyscraper (far larger than container ships used to be permitted to be, but larger ships lower prices in supply chains, and lower prices in supply chains help profits, and profits are important)."

And:

"DEI is just diversity, equity, and inclusion, by the way. That's all it is. It's become the new word that racists say when they want to say a slur but they realize they're in mixed company. It's a handy watchword for people who have decided that every problem is the result of the proximal existence of Black people and other marginalized people groups, because what they actually intend is to end the existence of such people, as soon as they can, with as much violence as possible."

And:

"Things are already very very bad for a great number of people in this country; institutional supremacy sees to that, and this supremacy is mostly accommodated by power—not only by openly fascist power like the cabal of creepy Christian weirdos who want to control everyone's bodies, but by run-of-the mill power, because run-of-the-mill power is interested in keeping things as they are, and mostly recognizes supremacy as what it is, which is the way things are." #Democracy

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