By Abby Zimet / Common Dreams
What fresh hell is this? In yet another mindlessly cruel, deeply racist, utterly pointless move aimed at – what?! distracting the masses from the dumpster fire engulfing him? flexing his psychotic muscle by trying to find more people of color he can traumatize? – the Trump administration (sic) wants to deport certain Vietnamese refugees who may or may not have committed any crimes but they’re not quite white so really does it matter? [Read more…]
By Jacob Snow, Technology & Civil Liberties Attorney, ACLU of Northern California / ACLU Speak Freely
Recently, a patent application from Amazon became public that would pair face surveillance — like Rekognition, the product that the company is aggressively marketing to police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — with Ring, a doorbell camera company that Amazon bought earlier this year.
While the details are sketchy, the application describes a system that the police can use to match the faces of people walking by a doorbell camera with a photo database of persons they deem “suspicious.” Likewise, homeowners can also add photos of “suspicious” people into the system and then the doorbell’s facial recognition program will scan anyone passing their home. In either case, if a match occurs, the person’s face can be automatically sent to law enforcement, and the police could arrive in minutes.
As a former patent litigator, I’ve spent a lot of time reading patents. It’s rare for patent applications to lay out, in such nightmarish detail, the world a company wants to bring about. Amazon is dreaming of a dangerous future, with its technology at the center of a massive decentralized surveillance network, running real-time facial recognition on members of the public using cameras installed in people’s doorbells. [Read more…]
Chris Hayes of MSNBC’s All In reports that one of the last acts of the current Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, has been to block any vote on the U.S. involvement in Yemen by inserting a rule into the farm bill with language that achieves that purpose. The HuffPost notes that five Democrats joined Republicans in adding that language to the farm bill. The U.S. currently provides many support functions for the Saudi War in Yemen which has starved tens of thousands and threatens to starve 14 million people. [Read more…]
A congressional hearing on the economic consequences of a $15 hourly minimum wage was cancelled this week due to revelations about bigotry penned under the guise of satire by one of its primary witnesses, San Diego State University economist Joseph Sabia.
The House Education and Workforce Committee was ready to feature testimony asserting poverty wages are in the national interest.
Sabia, an economist who penned a paper titled Minimum Wages: A Poor Way to Reduce Poverty, was to be their star witness until his past came back to haunt him. [Read more…]
Still looking for a good explanation of the current dynamics of the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia? Hasan Minhaj has you covered; facts and biting humor make it real. [NSFW: language] [Read more…]
Today’s Union-Tribune has a front page article about hate crimes in San Diego County. There are lots of details about criminal/hate-inspired actions and almost no acknowledgement as to what motivates them.
Hate crimes are up, we’re told. While local prosecutions have increased in the past year, most hate crimes aren’t reported.
A majority (60%) of hate crimes are directed at people based on their race or ethnicity, followed by religion (20%) and LGBTQ (16%) orientation. [Read more…]
The San Diego Free Press will soon be gone. And with its departure, San Diego will be losing a precious space—the only unapologetically progressive outlet in the city.
We had a good run through some incredibly challenging times locally and nationally and did enough excellent work to irritate a fair number of politicians and local power brokers.
That’s worth celebrating. [Read more…]
I had a moment a little while ago when I was thinking about the notion that democrats, in spite of recent political victories (Yes!!!) need to come up with a message or at least a snappy meme, that resonates with voters (and more and more people are becoming so designated).
In that same moment I happened to turn the TV on and a man on C-SPAN was discussing superheroes, how they are mostly about creating a better world, citing Superman’s pursuit of “Truth, Justice and the American Way.”
That triggered in my mind, right away, long ago days, when I was all caught up in the excitement of “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane!” feigning flying, with a croker sack or a pillow case or half a sheet tied to my neck, rescuing dames in distress and going upside the head of evil geniuses and tricksters and anyone daring to challenge my super powers – seeking, basically, “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.” [Read more…]
Natasha Trethewey, U.S. Poet Laureate of 2012-2104, was born in Gulfport, Mississippi on April 26, 1966. I suspect that the incident described in this poem was a lived experience and not mere literary invention. There was something chilling about reading, at this time of year, the line describing “the cross trussed like a Christmas tree”. [Read more…]
It’s the most wonderful time of the year for the town criers at Fox News, when reality intrudes on their dreams of a White (Evangelical) Christmas.
This year the outrage was triggered by a church nativity scene referencing hypocracy about attitudes toward immigrants and an asssertion about The Left opting for child pornography over Rudolf the Red Nose Reinder for holiday entertainment.
San Diego’s Mike Slater got the call from Fox and Friends this morning to bemoan a statanic statue in Illinois, and the banning of candy Christmas canes in a Nebraska classroom.
Last year it was the #MeToo movement spoiling office holiday parties as companies limit alcohol consumption. And who could forget the 2015 uproar over Starbucks cups with “no Christmas designs?” [Read more…]
Pulling back the curtain on the ostensibly “bipartisan” orientation for newly elected members of Congress at Harvard’s Kennedy School in Boston, Reps.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) informed the public through live social media updates on Thursday that—contrary to the ideologically neutral advertising—the private conference featured a heavy dose of speeches by corporate CEOs and completely shut out organized labor and members of the progressive community.
“Our ‘bipartisan’ congressional orientation is co-hosted by a corporate lobbyist group,” Ocasio-Cortez noted, likely referring to the Koch-funded American Enterprise Institute, which is co-sponsoring the event. “Other members have quietly expressed to me their concern that this wasn’t told to us in advance. Lobbyists are here. Goldman Sachs is here. Where’s labor? Activists? Frontline community leaders?” [Read more…]
When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when you’re feeling sad, what are some of your favorite things to think of? For Trump, when his friends flip, when his day sucks and his hair looks bad, Randy has some insight into what might be going through Trump’s mental playground. [As usual, Randy is NFSW, so there’s that] (h/t to AGD) [Read more…]
