End of Show Mixes: UKPMX - Gx2 -Oh My Bosh - Danny Loos-Secret Agent Paul-Stepford Wives-PlaceBoing- Dave Courbanou - Able Kirby - Jungle Jones - Chris Wilson - Tom Starkweather - Conan Salada - Future Trash - Phantomville Billy Bon3s
Timmonsville, SC - The South Carolina NAACP president posted about how he was racially profiled on a traffic stop, and now the police chief has responded by releasing bodycam video and calling him a liar (video below.)
NAACP President Rev. Jerrod Moultrie posted to Facebook on April 13 about how he was just racially profiled on a traffic stop.
The allegations in his account are disturbing, and would indicate profiling by the officer - except none of it was true.
Below is a transcript of the interaction as posted by Rev. Moultrie:
Me: hello sir how can I help you
Officer: I am stopping you cause you fail to put on a turn signal and do you have any drugs in the car
Me: sir how would you know If I used my tum signal when you was approaching me as I turn and is there any drugs in your car?
Officer: License and registration
Me:sir can I take off my seat belt and get it
Me: (as i open glove box i said )sir this is a new car i just purchased and all ! have is bill of sale, insurance card and registration from car I am transferring tags
Officer: ok where you work and who car is this and why you in this neighborhood
Me: sir I am a pastor and I live in the house on the left
Officer:And I guess I am the bill gates
Me: sir what's the problem
Officer: I ask who car for the last time and why you in this neighborhood
Me: I told you for last time who car and where I live.( as my neighborhood starts to come out there house) By the way sir can I speak to your supervisor
Officer: walks away with my information When he returned he said did you know your tags comes back to another vehicle
Me: sir I just explain this to you
Officer: you need to park this vehicle and never drive it till you get this straight with DMV
Me: sir I have purchased multiple vehicles and never heard this now officer and I start fussing cause I said well i will be driving my car sir and anyt time I want
Officer: I am waming you to not drive this car till tags get straight and just know I am doing you a favor tonight not taking you to jail or writing you a ticket
Me: sir you might be doing your Self a favor but you certainly not doing me a favor.
The reverend finished off his post by saying that his wife and baby were in the back seat, but still he was profiled and accused of having drugs.
"Guess I can't be a pastor and can't drive a Mercedes Benz and live in a nice neighborhood," Rev. Moultrie said. "...someone needs to answer for this behavior and this officer will."
After seeing the post, local community activist Timothy Waters went down to the police department to look at the bodycam and dash camera footage, according to WPDE.
He was shocked to see that everything the reverend said was a lie.
"Once I got a copy of that body cam, it's as if he made the whole story up. And I felt like he set us back 100 years, because think about all of the racial profiling cases (that) are true," Waters told WPDE.
WPDE reports that Timmonsville Police Chief Billy Brown said that Rev. Moultrie even went so far as to contact him the next morning to claim that he had been racially profiled and mistreated.
"He made a comment that the officer accused him of having drugs in the car. He said that his wife and grandchild was in the car. He asked them not to move because the officer looked as if he might shoot them or something. He also made mention that the officer continued to ask him about his neighborhood. Why was he in that neighborhood? And threaten(ed) to put him in jail in reference to something dealing with the registration to the vehicle," Chief Brown told WPDE. Except all of those accusations were lies.
"When I saw the video, I was shocked that someone who is supposed to be a community leader, a pastor, and head of the NAACP would just come out and tell a blatant lie. It bothered me. It really bothered me, thinking about the racial unrest it could've cost in the community and it's just troubling to me that someone who held a position like that would come out and just tell a lie," Brown told WPDE.
Rev. Moultrie refused to comment to the news station, and instead referred them to Timmonsville NAACP officers Kenneth McAllister and Henry James Dixon.
Both men told the station that they didn't need to see the video because they support Rev. Moultrie, and know that he's a man of integrity who wouldn't lie.
UTRECHT - Actiegroep De Grauwe Eeuw heeft maandagmiddag aangekondigd verdere juridische stappen te nemen tegen TivoliVredenburg. In de concertzaal werd in juni vorig jaar een cowboys- en indianenfeest voor kinderen gehouden.
''¸ GETTY IMAGES/WESTEND61
Vorige week oordeelde het OM dat het feest niet strafbaar was.
De actiegroep start daarom nu een zogeheten artikel 12-procedure om alsnog om vervolging te vragen. Hiernaast stelt de actiegroep de gemeente Utrecht in gebreke omdat deze 'niet binnen de wettelijke termijn handhavend heeft opgetreden'. De actiegroep had de gemeente gesommeerd de subsidie van TivoliVredenburg in te trekken.
Mochten de nieuwe acties niets opleveren, dan gaat De Grauwe Eeuw door met procederen. 'Wij gaan alle procedures volgen tot aan het Europees hof.''
VolkerenmoordKinderen die het feest bezochten hadden het verzoek gekregen zich te verkleden als cowboy of indiaan. Dat ging volgens de actiegroep om racistische stereotyperingen, maar het OM was het daar niet mee eens. Evenmin is volgens het OM te bewijzen dat het de bedoeling was om een groep te beledigen of volkerenmoord als iets 'leuks' neer te zetten. 'Als kinderen zich verkleden dan is dit een spel en houdt dat geen goedkeuring van geweld tegen enige groep in.''
TivoliVredenburg heeft inmiddels besloten geen cowboys- en indianenfeesten meer te geven.
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Spike Lee delivered a blistering attack against Donald Trump on Tuesday, refusing to mention the president by name while saying he'd shirked his moral duty to speak out in the aftermath of last year's deadly riots in Charlottesville.
Appearing at a press conference alongside the stars of ''BlacKkKlansman,'' which world premiered in Cannes on Monday night, the director said the film was on the ''right side of history'' while denouncing the president for not taking a firm stance in the wake of violence that erupted following a white nationalist rally, leaving three people dead.
''That motherf'--er was given a chance to say we are bout love, and not hate, and that motherf'--er did not denounce the motherf'--ing Klan, the alt-right, and those Nazi motherf'--ers,'' he said.
''It was a defining moment, and he could've said to the world'...that we were better than that.''
''BlacKkKlansman'' is based on the incredible true story of black police detective Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s.
Describing it as a ''major comeback'' for Lee, Variety called the film ''as much a compelling black empowerment story as it is an electrifying commentary on the problems of African-American representation across more than a century of cinema.''
Though set in the '70s, Lee said it was ''our job as filmmakers and storytellers'...to connect this period piece to the present day.'' He framed the film in the context of the bloody history of a country he said ''was built upon the genocide of native people, and slavery,'' calling it ''the fabric of the United States of America.''
He added, ''What's happening did not just pop up out of thin air.''
Lee recalled watching the Charlottesville violence unfold on CNN while in Martha's Vineyard, and recognizing ''right away'' that the footage ''had to be my'...coda for the film.''
The director got permission from the mother of Heather Heyer, who was killed when a man drove a Dodge Charger into a crowd of protesters, to use footage of her death in the movie. ''I was not gonna put that murder scene in the film without her blessing,'' he said.
Focus will be releasing ''BlacKkKlansman'' in the U.S. on the one-year anniversary of the riots, which Lee described as an ''ugly, ugly, ugly blemish on the United States of America.''
Calling the film a ''wake-up call,'' he repeatedly returned to the moral failings of President Trump, while adding that the rise in right-wing hate speech and violence had become a global scourge. ''We look to our leaders to give us direction, to make moral decisions, and I like to say this is not just something that pertains to the United States of America, this bulls''t is going all over the world,'' he said.
''We have to wake up,'' Lee added. ''And we can't be silent.''
''BlacKkKlansman'' is peppered with digs at the current president '' one KKK member talks about embracing an ''America first'' policy '' while drawing parallels between the rise of Trump and the political aspirations of former Grand Wizard David Duke (Topher Grace). After the premiere, the film received a six-minute standing ovation.
Lee walked the red carpet Monday evening wearing the iconic ''love'' and ''hate'' brass knuckles from ''Do the Right Thing.'' Speaking on Tuesday, he said that while he couldn't predict the outcome of this year's mid-term elections '' ''even though my friends call me Negrodamus'' '' he still remained hopeful about the future.
''I believe in hope, but I'm not blind or deaf,'' he said. ''I think that you could be hopeful but still be aware of what's happening. Too many people walking around in a daze.''
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Spike Lee delivered a blistering attack against Donald Trump on Tuesday, refusing to mention the president by name while saying he'd shirked his moral duty to speak out in the aftermath of last year's deadly riots in Charlottesville. Appearing at a press conference alongside the stars of ''BlacKkKlansman,'' which world premiered in Cannes on Monday ['...]
Spike Lee delivered a blistering attack against Donald Trump on Tuesday, refusing to mention the president by name while saying he'd shirked his moral duty to speak out in the aftermath of last year's deadly riots in Charlottesville. Appearing at a press conference alongside the stars of ''BlacKkKlansman,'' which world premiered in Cannes on Monday ['...]
Spike Lee delivered a blistering attack against Donald Trump on Tuesday, refusing to mention the president by name while saying he'd shirked his moral duty to speak out in the aftermath of last year's deadly riots in Charlottesville. Appearing at a press conference alongside the stars of ''BlacKkKlansman,'' which world premiered in Cannes on Monday ['...]
Spike Lee delivered a blistering attack against Donald Trump on Tuesday, refusing to mention the president by name while saying he'd shirked his moral duty to speak out in the aftermath of last year's deadly riots in Charlottesville. Appearing at a press conference alongside the stars of ''BlacKkKlansman,'' which world premiered in Cannes on Monday ['...]
Spike Lee delivered a blistering attack against Donald Trump on Tuesday, refusing to mention the president by name while saying he'd shirked his moral duty to speak out in the aftermath of last year's deadly riots in Charlottesville. Appearing at a press conference alongside the stars of ''BlacKkKlansman,'' which world premiered in Cannes on Monday ['...]
Spike Lee delivered a blistering attack against Donald Trump on Tuesday, refusing to mention the president by name while saying he'd shirked his moral duty to speak out in the aftermath of last year's deadly riots in Charlottesville. Appearing at a press conference alongside the stars of ''BlacKkKlansman,'' which world premiered in Cannes on Monday ['...]
Spike Lee delivered a blistering attack against Donald Trump on Tuesday, refusing to mention the president by name while saying he'd shirked his moral duty to speak out in the aftermath of last year's deadly riots in Charlottesville. Appearing at a press conference alongside the stars of ''BlacKkKlansman,'' which world premiered in Cannes on Monday ['...]
On Mother's Day, employees at a Cheesecake Factory in Miami, Florida, verbally attacked and made threatening gestures toward a black man who dined with his girlfriend's family simply because he was wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat, according to multiple witnesses interviewed by The Daily Wire.
The Sunday incident allegedly began at the Cheesecake Factory located inside Dadeland Mall when 22-year-old Eugenior Joseph was seated while wearing his MAGA hat.
According to multiple witnesses and Joseph's own account, a woman who worked at the restaurant walked up to him and started pointing at his hat, signaling for the other employees to come over.
"Her finger was literally on top of his head, we were all looking at her like 'what is happening?'" one witness told The Daily Wire. "She was pointing at him, calling her other coworkers, telling them to look at this guy wearing a Make America Great Again hat."
At that point, approximately a dozen or so employees approached the table and began making comments about the hat, with some saying they wanted to punch Joseph in the face. Witnesses also allege that some of the employees also referred to him as a "n**ger" in their conversations among each other.
"So then all the employees started standing there, saying things out loud, like, 'I'm going to knock his head in so hard his hat's going to come off," the witness continued.
One of the employees gave Joseph intimidating looks, clenching his fists and making hand gestures that appeared to indicate that he was ready to engage in a fistfight.
"He got behind me and another coworker came by and they were staring at each other and he fist bumped him and then he started looking at me, balling his fists, smacking his fists, trying to scare me," Joseph told The Daily Wire.
Another witness told The Daily Wire that the group of employees looked like a lynch mob and they couldn't stand to see a black man wearing a hat that showed support for the president.
Employees at the restaurant continued to mock and intimidate Joseph after he got up to use the restroom.
"I got up and went to the restroom, my girlfriend followed me, and as we were walking back, a group of [the employees] came out from the back and they just started clapping and yelling, and just screaming things at me," Joseph says.
Another witness verified the claims, saying that the employees in the kitchen were booing Joseph loudly as he walked by.
One of the witnesses said that the event was so traumatic and threatening that an elderly woman who was present had to take medication to calm herself down.
Multiple witnesses said that as the family exited the restaurant the manager followed them out and told them that some of the employees admitted to their actions and that one of the employees had been sent home.
As the family left the restaurant they ran into police that had been called to the scene who documented the incident in the police report but supposedly did not file any charges, according to multiple witnesses.
The Daily Wire contacted the Cheesecake Factory where the alleged incident took place and spoke to a manager who refused to answer any questions and instead recorded this reporter's contact information and had a public relations firm representing the Cheesecake Factory reach out to this reporter. When this reporter brought up the incident and asked whether or not he could confirm that it took place in the restaurant, the manager's tone became slightly hostile as he reiterated: "I'm going to have someone get in touch with you."
The Daily Wire viewed multiple video clips and photos that validate the claims made by the witnesses about the number of employees appearing to stand around the table. One of the photos showed one of the men described by the witnesses as being the one who made the threatening hand gestures, making the fist bump with another employee, which was described by at least three witnesses.
Another video reviewed by The Daily Wire showed a young girl crying at the table, afraid of the hostile environment created by The Cheesecake Factory employees.
Another video showed the family leaving the restaurant and speaking to multiple law enforcement officials who arrived on scene. The video shows Joseph in a state of disbelief over what had just unfolded as other witnesses were visibly angry over the way he had been treated.
Joseph says that he has not heard from anyone at The Cheesecake Factory about what he experienced inside their restaurant.
Despite being new to politics, Joseph says that he wears the hat because he thinks Trump "is a really good president," adding that he is disappointed that a black man can't wear a hat to support the president without being attacked.
UPDATE: The Cheesecake Factory has responded to the allegations in this report in a statement that can be viewed here.
Eric Clanton took to the streets with anti-fascists during a season of violence in Berkeley '' and may spend the next decade in prison
Eric Clanton took to the streets with anti-fascists during a season of violence in Berkeley '' and may spend the next decade in prison
Shortly after Donald Trump took office, the college town of Berkeley, California, found itself at war. Three violent protests broke out in the city within three months of Trump's inauguration. In early February, a riot erupted at its famously liberal university as masked anti-fascists from the movement known as antifa attacked the student union center and stopped the alt-right agitator Milo Yiannopoulos from delivering a speech. Four weeks later, a second group of anti-fascists descended on a local public park, coming to blows with a raucous gathering of the president's supporters. It seemed at the time that Berkeley had again become what it hadn't been in more than 50 years '' a battlefield for radicals. But the third event, Patriots' Day, a "free-speech" rally planned for April 15th by a broad array of far-right groups, was poised to be the biggest battle yet.
Protesters from both sides showed up early that day, slowly filling Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park, a landmarked greensward in the middle of the city. The police had cut the park in half with a barrier of orange plastic mesh; the left-wing demonstrators made their way to one side, the right-wing to the other. Kept at bay by riot cops, most of the participants were passionate but peaceful. A throng of Berkeley liberals, carrying signs and banners, squared off with a band of their MAGA-hatted rivals, many of whom were shouting "USA! USA!" and waving American flags. While the hostile camps initially did little more than heckle one another, as the day went on and the crowd grew into the hundreds, the threat of partisan bloodshed started rising.
Early in the fray, a group of antifa combatants, clad in ninja black, had ducked into no-man's-land and pepper-sprayed an alt-right partisan in a Roman-era gladiator helmet. That set off a series of aggressive scrapes between the anti-fascists and some members of the Rise Above Movement, a group of white supremacists who had shown up wearing skull masks. For the next few hours, as marchers waved signs, the militants in the crowd scuffled at its edges in probing skirmishes. But at 3 p.m., there was an explosion deep in right-wing territory '' some would later say it was an antifa M-80 '' and the skirmishes erupted into a brawl. The men from Rise Above charged across the antifa frontline: People were body-slammed, punched in the face, kicked in the gut. Tear gas filled the air and the park became a swirling sea of fists and sticks and pipes. As a helicopter shuddered overhead, the park's perimeter gave way and the conflagration spilled into the streets. Unable to contain the melee, the police withdrew and a three-by-four-block section of the city was consumed by open war.
Amid the chaos was a brief, but brutal, scene of violence. Out on the street, a young anti-fascist dressed in a hoodie, his face obscured by a bandanna, swung what seemed to be a large metal bike lock squarely onto the skull of an unwitting alt-right demonstrator. The victim was a 20-year-old college student, Sean Stiles, who had made the trip to Berkeley from his home in Santa Cruz. Though Stiles had been consorting with the men from Rise Above, the bike-lock attack was unprovoked. Stiles had been arguing with two young leftist women about illegal immigration; when he was hit, he simply put his hands on his head, which started gushing blood, and stumbled off as his assailant disappeared. (Reached by Rolling Stone, Stiles had no comment on the attack.) According to the Berkeley police, Stiles was one of 11 people injured at the rally. There had also been 20 arrests '' but the man with the lock was not among them.
The bike-lock attack seemed at first like a footnote to the city's season-long experience with violence. In the days that followed, the media focused on the broad themes of the protest '' "a little American civil war," as the Daily Beast called it '' but appeared less interested in the details of the fighting. Many reporters were also unaware that even after Civic Center Park returned to normal, a clandestine battle triggered by the conflict had continued online. Driving that campaign was /pol/, the politically incorrect chat board on 4chan.
"A lot of anti-fascists don't expect much from the mainstream," says an antifa member. "The mainstream could have stopped what's happening '' and it didn't." As soon as the protest ended, the trolls and hackers who used the site launched a fevered search for Stiles' assailant '' a suspect they took to calling "Bike Lock Guy." From the moment it was formed in 2011, /pol/ had been a breeding ground for some of the right's most virulent movements, an online swamp for everyone from Gamergaters and men's rights activists to overt racists and white supremacists. Now its digital sleuths were poring over videos for clues about Bike Lock Guy, eagerly swapping tips with one another. "Look into the OakRoots anarchist group in Oakland," one wrote of a lead that turned out to be false. "You will find him."
By April 17th, two days after the battle in the park, the 4channers had compiled a list of "Bike Lock Guy Identifiables." The man they were looking for was five-feet-six or so, slimly built and had worn a hoodie, dark jeans, black gloves, a black backpack and knockoff-Rayban sunglasses. When one /pol/ user theorized that "given his footwork," the suspect might belong to a martial arts or boxing gym, another posted a list of local facilities. When the hackers ran the evidence they had '' partial photographs of Bike Lock Guy's unmasked eyebrows and "nasolabial" angle '' through an image search, it came back with a hit: a 28-year-old Bay Area college professor named Eric Clanton.
Clanton was a perfect target for /pol/. He was not just a professor, but an ethics professor who taught philosophy and critical thinking at Diablo Valley College in the East Bay suburb of Pleasant Hill. In a detail that provoked the chat board's sardonic ire, his work encompassed "restorative justice from an anti-authoritarian perspective." Once /pol/ had found Clanton's name, its hackers found his OkCupid account, discovering that he had described himself to suitors as a "gender-nonconforming" sapiosexual interested in "helping to precipitate the end of civil society." They also published the home phone numbers and addresses of some of his closest relatives. "Poor little terrorist snowflake," one 4channer wrote, "about to get melted."
But /pol/ was not content to sit on its scoop. On April 20th, Milo Yiannopoulos broke a bombshell story on his website. Topped by photographs of Clanton, the site announced that the Internet had identified "the antifa rioter who weaponized a giant bike lock." One day after the story ran, the Berkeley Police Department got an email from the Alameda County sheriff's office; it had been sent to the sheriff's anonymous public tip line. "Recently," the email read, "there has been an individual assaulting people with a U-Lock at various rallies and events in California. After intensive investigation a group of concerned citizens has identified the suspect as Eric Clanton."
Attached to the email were a half-dozen video clips of right-wing marchers on Patriots' Day being clubbed with a lock by a young man in a hoodie, black pants, black gloves and a black backpack. Though the Berkeley police had no idea who had sent the trove of evidence, they seemed to take it seriously. Within two days, detectives had obtained a photograph of Clanton from the state DMV. According to investigative documents, the photo showed that Clanton's nose, jaw, hairline and facial hair were at least similar to those of the bike-lock attacker.
The police began surveillance on Clanton's house in San Leandro, a few miles south of Oakland. They also started tracking his cellphone, and determined from a mapping program that he'd connected twice to a cellular tower two blocks north of Civic Center Park on the day of the attacks. On May 24th, the cops used Clanton's phone to locate him at a large communal house in Oakland. A strike team broke into the house and found Clanton standing in the middle of an upstairs bedroom. When they searched the room, they found a canister of bear spray, two flip knives, metal knuckles, Rayban sunglasses and a Tupperware of psilocybin mushrooms. They also discovered a Billy club stashed inside Clanton's car.
By 3 p.m., Clanton was in custody at Berkeley police headquarters. Two detectives sat him down in an interview room. After they Mirandized the suspect, the first detective asked a question: "Why?"
There was no response. So the second took a shot: "Why," he said, "did Mr. Clanton do what he did?"
The roots of antifa arguably stretch back decades, to the communist street gangs in Europe that battled fascists when they first emerged in the 1920s and '30s. Almost a century later, the movement is again making headlines. Since Trump first stepped into the presidential race, antifa's frontline fighters have been engaged in near-constant conflict. They have sparred with skinheads in California, punched a neo-Nazi at Trump's inauguration, shut down speeches by xenophobic ideologues and fought against the preservation of Confederate-era statues. Almost from the start, the right has demonized antifa followers as cartoon villains. The left, meanwhile, has split over the movement and its use of violent tactics. As white supremacists and proto-fascists have re-emerged across the culture, many progressives have embraced antifa's cause, though others remain wary of its eye-for-an-eye approach, concerned that it could merely serve to inflame right-wing extremism. After the violence in Charlottesville last summer, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said antifa's militants should be prosecuted; others, like the scholar Cornel West, praised them as heroes.
When I flew to California to speak with Clanton three months after his arrest, he told me he had granted the interview only because he'd already been outed by the criminal-justice system. Even as antifa has attracted more attention under Trump, it remains a source of mystery to many, cloaked in a shroud of secrecy its followers seem eager to sustain. Unlike the far right, which despises but often engages with the press, antifa activists tend to shun reporters. For security reasons, they avoid revealing their identities, mask themselves during illicit operations and typically communicate through encrypted chat apps like Signal. "A lot of anti-fascists don't expect much from the mainstream of society," says Daryle Jenkins, a self-described member of the movement who has been involved in protests for nearly 30 years. "The reason is, the mainstream could have stopped a lot of what's happening before it took root '' and it didn't."
I met Clanton in a conference room at his lawyer's office in Oakland. Though he had been charged with felony assault, there was no outward sign of the violence that the bike-lock attacker had evinced on video. A slim young man with watchful eyes and wavy blond surfer's hair, Clanton seemed instead like a distracted academic. In his blue jeans and preppy sweater, he was pensive, full of halting pauses and obviously frightened by the possible 11-year sentence he was facing. (Clanton is scheduled to be in court next month for a hearing that could decide whether he pleads guilty to a lesser charge or goes to trial.)
He immediately told me there were things he wouldn't talk about: antifa's tactics, its hangouts in the Bay, any specific groups or individuals. He was also adamant that he not be represented as a spokesman for a movement that has none. Antifa is not a cohesive group with a top-down leadership. It is structured horizontally, with autonomous local cells that act independently in cities across the country. While there is often cooperation among its chapters, there is no central antifa authority. "To me, it's like an expansive circle of friend groups," Clanton says, adding that the movement is composed of "friends, and friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends."
A 1929 anti-fascist protest in New York City. "Fascism is re-emerging, and there are structural reasons for it," says a political scientist who counts himself as an adherent of antifa. "So it's no accident that we also see the re-emergence of those willing to fight fascism." GettyIn the United States, the movement's origins can be traced back to the 1970s and '80s, when neo-Nazi skinheads started making inroads on the punk scene. In response, leftist punks formed a loose resistance known as Anti-Racist Action, which shut down their rivals' gatherings and music shows, using the slogan "Never let the Nazis have the streets." The current antifa movement has borrowed tactics from the anti-globalization protests of the late 1990s, in which "black blocs" of fighters wearing balaclavas marched against international finance groups like the W.T.O. Antifa's egalitarianism and consensus-based governance largely derive from the Occupy phenomenon. More recently, in an effort to fight institutional racism, a kind of proto-antifa joined forces with Black Lives Matter in its serial protests against police brutality.
All of these strands '' anti-racism, anti-capitalism, anti-authoritarianism '' have come together in the struggle against Trump. Drawn from a diverse array of backgrounds '' labor unions, anarchist clubs, communist and socialist political parties '' the groups of radical leftists that have aligned themselves with antifa's ideals have come to the conclusion that the president, and the extremists who have flocked to him, present the closest thing to a fascist threat the country has seen in decades. "I hate to mention the actual historic Nazis, because of America's unique relationship to white supremacy, but I'm going to," Clanton says. "It took a decade or so for the sort of social and political situation in Germany to normalize anti-Semitism such that it was viable for things to happen the way they did. And I think that the alt-right building power in the streets is the sort of beginning of the same sort of normalization."
I heard the same from every follower of antifa I spoke to: In an echo of 1933, a virulent strain of nativism is ascending in the West as political leaders, from Warsaw to Washington, have sought to reorient state power toward white populations and blame the failures of the economic system on refugees and immigrants. "Fascism is re-emerging, and there are structural reasons for it," says George Ciccariello-Maher, a political scientist at the Hemispheric Institute in New York who counts himself as both a scholar and an adherent of antifa. "So it's no accident that we also see the re-emergence of those willing to fight fascism."
Beyond street-fighting, antifa members also write expos(C)s on the methods and movements of far-right leaders; host anti-fascist conferences and workshops; and tout ideals about fostering sustainable, peaceful communities '' tending neighborhood gardens and setting up booths at book fairs and film festivals with literature on everything from Native American sovereignty to Sacco and Vanzetti. But their chief means of beating back the neo-fascist threat is "direct action," the tactical term for using force to deny extremists a platform from which to spread their rhetoric. "You can't reason with fascism '' it's irrational," Ciccariello-Maher says. "You can't argue your way around it. You just have to stop it."
People come to antifa through different channels. Clanton's channel was academics. Raised in a stable family in Bakersfield, one of California's most conservative cities, he studied at Bakersfield Christian, an evangelical high school. He says he felt like an oddball there and struggled to find a voice for his out-of-step beliefs, which he described as an "embryonic anti-state communism." Even when he went to college '' at Cal State Bakersfield '' few of his fellow students were interested in his budding notions about capital and race. He remembers feeling a sense of isolation as he watched a live-stream of the cops in New York City raiding Zuccotti Park during Occupy Wall Street. It was only when he left for grad school in 2013, heading off to San Francisco State, that he finally found a language for his politics. He started reading anarchist zines and theorists like Errico Malatesta in between attending seminars on the prison system.
Far more alluring than his classwork, though, was the Bay Area's robust community of activists and organizers. Clanton started spending time in Oakland, the nation's "riot capital," where queer folk, militants of color, Marxist academics and tech-bro-hating anarchists were protesting Google buses and mass incarceration. "I felt like my politics had a home," Clanton says. "I wasn't alone in what I thought about the world."
Oakland's radicals were particularly focused on police brutality, and Clanton's first taste of violent protest came that summer after George Zimmerman was acquitted in Florida of killing Trayvon Martin. Clanton tagged along '' merely watching, he insists '' as a swarming crowd took to Oakland's streets, smashing windows, blocking freeways and occasionally fighting the police.
Within a year, he had reached a deeper level of engagement. In November 2014, a grand jury declined to indict the cop who killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and this time Clanton joined the angry mob that flooded downtown Oakland, with some in the crowd rioting and looting for nearly two weeks. Soon after, Clanton took part in another massive protest when Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who killed Eric Garner in New York, escaped prosecution. Running with a throng that shut down trains and freeways, Clanton was arrested for the first time in his life, charged with public nuisance and willful obstruction of movement in a public place.
Marching against the police directed Clanton's energies against white supremacy and what he described as "the structural violence of the state" '' and set him on a path toward antifa. The protests also proved that, with sufficient motivation, radicals could oppose even the most entrenched forms of authority. "Before I saw those things happen," Clanton says, "I had this very docile academic sense of what I believed to be wrong with the world and no real sense of power to do something about it." But after, he adds, he realized that he had been part of "a force of people that were going to hold the street and that weren't going to back down easily. It was, I think, the first time that I believed that people had a power sufficient to challenge the state."
Users of the 4chan chat board /pol/ went on a fevered search for the antifa assailant they called Bike Lock Guy. Their efforts led them to Eric Clanton. "Poor little terrorist snowflake," one 4channer wrote, "about to get melted." Paul Kuroda/ZUMAIn the wake of his arrest, Clanton took a break. Burned out on politics, he returned to his studies, working on a master's thesis about the roots of human ethics. In what he called a "mutual education," he also took a job as a volunteer instructor at San Quentin State Prison, teaching Emma Goldman and Angela Davis to the inmates.
But then, in June 2015, something brought him off the sidelines: Donald Trump rode a gold escalator into one of the strangest '' and most overtly racist '' political campaigns in recent memory. Trump was the embodiment of everything that Clanton had been fighting: a law-and-order billionaire who vowed to use the full force of the government to redress white grievance. Clanton told me that when he heard the candidate talk about his Muslim ban or his plan to wall off Mexico, his instinctive reaction was "Fuck Donald Trump." But Trump was only part of the problem.
A few months into the campaign, Clanton started noticing recruiting posters for Identity Evropa '' a California-based neo-Nazi group that would later fight in Berkeley '' on both the U.C. and Diablo Valley campuses. Around the same time, Trump was having trouble disavowing David Duke, a former grand wizard in the Ku Klux Klan, and three protesters were stabbed at a violent Klan rally in Anaheim. Things were getting worse, but Clanton says the situation did not seem ripe enough for action yet. "At that point," he explains, "we weren't seeing right-wing guys with sticks and bats coming into our neighborhoods."
In fact, most of the violence then was taking place at Trump's campaign events. At a gathering in Miami, one of Trump's followers shoved and kicked a Latino protester; at another, a black man was sucker-punched by a Trump supporter in North Carolina. On the eve of the Nevada caucuses, when a left-wing demonstrator interrupted a rally in Las Vegas, Trump told a cheering crowd, "I'd like to punch him in the face."
By the spring of 2016, the anti-Trump forces started fighting back. Much of the pushback came in California. On April 26th, left-wing protesters scuffled with the right at a city council meeting in Anaheim; a few days later, leftists tossed eggs at Trump supporters in San Jose. Then, on June 26th, the Traditionalist Worker Party, a neo-Nazi group from Indiana, held a march in Sacramento with the Golden State Skinheads. Its stated purpose was to take a stand against the anti-Trump protests '' or what the rally's planners called the "orchestrated pogroms by Zionist agitated colored people." A group called Antifa Sacramento organized a countermarch, arranging carpools for its members, readying medics for the injured and setting up a bail fund for those who got arrested. The neo-Nazis' permit allowed them to march in a park outside the domed state capitol at noon. The two sides clashed almost at the moment they arrived. Within minutes, one antifa fighter was stabbed. There were fistfights, stick attacks and six more knifings.
"Personally, I've always wondered whether nonviolence was a better means," says one anti-fascist, a friend of Clanton's who gave her name as Lou. But Sacramento, Lou explains, "cemented for me that these people are willing to use violent measures. They have no moral restraint in inflicting harm, whether through their ideology or their actions. And we need to do everything we can to stop them and silence them." She adds: "These are punchable people, these are people who should be punched."
Clanton won't say whether he was in Sacramento that day, but he does admit that the violence there radicalized him further. Antifa, he tells me, had been watching the right expand for months, but Sacramento was the first time that weapons had been used as the two sides came to blows. "That's a moment in which things escalate," he says. "It's like an 'oh, shit' moment in which things start to seem really serious."
Trump's inauguration was another. Shortly after 10 a.m., as the president-elect was preparing to take his oath of office at the Capitol, a crowd of several hundred black-clad anti-fascists formed two miles away at Logan Circle. Over the next half-hour, the antifa column traveled 16 blocks, the authorities say, its members smashing windows at a gas station, a Starbucks, a bank and a Bobby Van's steakhouse. After the police arrested dozens '' journalists and legal observers among them '' splinter groups veered off to commit more mayhem: They set fire to a limousine, and one antifa marcher, who remains unidentified, slugged the neo-Nazi Richard Spencer in the face. "It was the largest black bloc I'd ever seen in the U.S.," said one man who took part. "It was actually sort of shocking."
Several hundred black-clad anti-fascists protested during Trump's inauguration in Washington, DC. Spencer Platt/GettyDuring Trump's transition, the extreme far right had a public coming out. Two weeks after the election, Spencer threw a victory party a few blocks from the White House, shouting "Hail Trump! Hail our people!" to a room full of supporters making Nazi salutes. On inauguration weekend, a roster of conservative luminaries '' including the "alt-light" tweeter Mike Cernovich and James O'Keefe, the dirty-trickster activist '' appeared at a triumphant D.C. gala known as the DeploraBall. Around the same time, Matthew Heimbach, the founder of the neo-Nazi group that fought in Sacramento, lunched with Republican operatives at the Capitol Hill Club. Milo Yiannopoulos was meanwhile traveling the country, triggering college students on the finale of what he called his "Dangerous Faggot" tour. In a calculated and lavishly funded assault against the left, the incendiary roadshow of Islam-bashing and misogyny was partly underwritten by the billionaire Mercer family, which had also supported Stephen Bannon in his roles as both the chairman of Breitbart News and as one of Trump's chief White House counselors.
Anxiously watching as all of this unfolded, the antifa website ItsGoingDown.org published a report in January claiming that these various activities were evidence of a "growing far-right which is attempting to leave the confines of the internet and enter into the streets in the wake of Trump taking power." The move offline had already had consequences. On Inauguration Day, an IWW union worker was shot at one of Yiannopoulos' speeches in Seattle; five days later, fights erupted when Yiannopoulos appeared in Boulder, Colorado. Now he was scheduled to speak at Berkeley, where he planned to announce a new initiative that dovetailed with the president's agenda: an effort to abolish "sanctuary campuses" that harbored illegal immigrants. "For all these reasons and more," ItsGoingDown wrote, "several thousand people are expected to come out to UC Berkeley in the hopes of shutting down Milo's event."
On February 1st, before Yiannopoulos arrived, more than 1,000 protesters gathered in the dark at Sproul Plaza in the heart of Berkeley's campus. A small detachment of antifa activists moved among them. When the anti-fascists started throwing rocks at the police, the protest spiraled into a riot. Windows were smashed; barricades were trampled; people hurled fireworks; gas-powered spotlights erupted into flames. The administration canceled the address. All told, the vandalism caused more than $100,000 in damage.
The campus riot was a signal event, escalating the antagonism between the anti-fascists and their right-wing rivals, and shaping the contours not only for the battles that would soon be fought in Berkeley, but also for those that would take place later in cities like New Orleans; Portland, Oregon; and, ultimately, Charlottesville. While many on the right may not have felt much affinity with Yiannopoulos, a larger number could detect a common enemy in the black-clad youths who had seemingly defiled the First Amendment by chasing him from one of the country's premier universities. In the wake of the riot, critics on the left also had qualms about the canceled speech. But wielding free-speech rhetoric as a cudgel, the right '' especially in Northern California '' began to organize around it. Leaders emerged who couched the conflict with antifa as a patriotic defense of liberty '' a gambit that attracted to the fray many conservatives who until then had been silent. Some of these conservative recruits were not just eager to oppose their new enemy, but to physically confront it. They went into their basements, grabbing pipes and two-by-fours, and readying an ersatz armor of football pads, plywood shields and motorcycle helmets. As rallies were announced that spring, a right-wing fighting class was born.
"Free speech is being used to [cover for] a very violent message," says one anti-fascist. "What they're trying to protect is hate speech and calls for genocide."The first time this militia took the field was at March4Trump, a free-speech protest held in Berkeley and a dozen other cities on Saturday, March 4th. In advance of the event '' the first to occur in Civic Center Park '' Kathy Zhu, one of its local organizers, tweeted, "If you want to defend your liberty and your rights, then march with us on Berkeley." Antifa had closely tracked the gathering, and a company of its activists was planning, as one of its communiqu(C)s said, on "confronting fascists in the streets." What resulted was a multi-hour rumble of fistfights, stompings, pepper-spray attacks and wrestling matches.
Clanton was in the park that day, unmasked, he says, as an observer. "What happened on the ground on March 4th actually seemed like more of a shit-show," he recalls. "Fights just broke out, and it was very confusing who was who, and people were just getting hit all over the place."
If the Yiannopoulos protest served as a wake-up to the right, March4Trump had a similar effect on antifa. What disturbed the movement most was that, under the rubric of defying the left, the right was starting to bring together its disparate factions. A coalition was emerging, ItsGoingDown wrote, of "libertarians, ancaps, armed militias, brownshirt alt-right enforcers, the 'patriotic' Tea Party crowd, and alt-lite Deplorables without alienating any of them." Even Berkeley's College Republicans were now involved '' and the hardcore neo-Nazis would soon join them on the frontline.
"The energy began before Trump, but there's no question that the deplorable subculture that developed around him and the free-speech rallies were something new and different," says James Anderson, the editor at ItsGoingDown. "It looked very scary, like the far right could do whatever it wanted and get away with it. That was people's mindset then '' like, 'Holy shit, this is the new normal.'"
Anderson admits there was concern in antifa circles that the free-speech rallies were a trap of sorts, designed to provoke the anti-fascists and expose them to both public censure and police reprisals. But when a new group on the right, the Liberty Revival Alliance, took to YouTube in April announcing that it would hold another free-speech rally in Civic Center Park, the anti-fascists decided to respond. The Patriots' Day protest was going to feature a list of celebrity speakers '' among them Kyle Chapman, a commercial diver from San Mateo who had swung his stick with such ferocity at March4Trump that he was christened with the nom de guerre Based Stickman. In the run-up to the rally, Chapman went on a publicity tour that included an interview with Gavin McInnes, a co-founder of VICE and the leader of the Proud Boys, a cult-like fight club of young "western chauvinists."
"People are totally inspired by you," McInnes told Chapman. "We're pushing back the antifa and the liberals and the nutbars and the commies and the Marxists."
"I think that calling these people anarchists or antifa isn't good," Chapman answered in his bright-red "USA" cap. "I think we need to start calling them what they are '' these are domestic terrorists."
As Patriots' Day approached, the stakes kept getting higher. First, the Oath Keepers, a gun-toting nationalist militia, agreed to provide security, calling on "three percenters, military veterans, patriot police officers, bikers, and all other brave American patriots" to help protect the rally against "radical leftists who use violence" to "shut down and silence free speech." When several neo-Nazi groups '' among them, Rise Above and Identity Evropa '' announced that they were also going, antifa sounded the alarm. Calls to "defend the Bay" were issued from ItsGoingDown and Northern California Anti-Racist Action, a regional antifa collective. On Facebook and Twitter and through real-world social networks, friends spread word to friends (and friends of friends) to fetch their balaclavas and head toward Berkeley again.
On the advice of his lawyer, Clanton won't talk about Patriots' Day. But it's clear that he considers the event, and the fighting there that led to his arrest, as a kind of last straw. The Bay Area was the liberal bastion where he had found his place in the world after fleeing Bakersfield. For months, he'd watched in outrage as the right showed up like insurgents in the Bay, ranting about feminists and illegal immigration, not in coded dog whistles, but openly and proudly in public places.
"I found that personally fucking offensive," Clanton says, "because the Bay Area is my home. And it's hard not to take it personally when people come into your home and say these things: praising Pinochet, wanting to throw leftists out of helicopters, talking about the supremacy of whiteness, talking about what amounts to rape culture. That is offensive. It's infuriating. And it's infuriating because it praises and legitimizes violence against my friends, my neighbors and me."
After Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and the Sacramento Nazis; after Donald Trump, Richard Spencer, Milo Yiannopoulos and Kyle Chapman, it seems Clanton had finally had enough. Which may be why, when the Berkeley police searched his house on the day of his arrest, among the other things they found was a U-shaped metal bike lock.
Alt-right marcher Sean Stiles moments after being hit on the head with a bike lock at the Patriots' Day rally last April Paul Kuroda/ZUMAThe Alameda County courthouse sits just east of downtown Oakland, across from a jogging path that curves around the shores of Lake Merritt. It was built in 1934 and once held the office of District Attorney Earl Warren before he served on the Supreme Court. Made of granite with a terra-cotta trim, the structure is blocky and imposing, in the California Gothic style, like something out of Chinatown. Last May, Clanton was there for his arraignment. The hearing was procedural, but afterward, there was drama in the hallway. Clanton's lawyer, Dan Siegel, took questions from reporters, and among the scrum was a video crew from the alt-right outfit TheRedElephants.com. "If your client goes to jail, will this be the first time he moves out of his parents' house?" one of the Elephants asked. A few moments later, the same man shouted, "An ethics professor decided to attempt murder on people! What kind of ethics is that?"
On the last day of my trip to California, I have coffee with Clanton and Lou, his antifa comrade. It's a Sunday afternoon, two weeks after Charlottesville, and Berkeley is again on high alert. Yet another right-wing protest '' this one billed as "No to Marxism in America" '' is underway in Civic Center Park. As we sit in a caf(C) in Oakland, I watch the news, which does not feel new, unfold on Twitter. An antifa mob is breaking through police lines. Its fighters are swarming their outnumbered opponents. Now they're pepper-spraying people. Now they're chasing them away with flying fists.
Learning of the scuffle, Clanton shares a look with Lou: They hope aloud that everyone's OK. Earlier that morning, both had attended a breakfast at an antifa communal space where their colleagues were preparing for the conflict. Because of his court case, Clanton isn't going to the protest, but it's clearly on his mind. Perched on a patio chair, smoking American Spirits, he says, "Just about all of my thoughts are up in Berkeley."
We had spent much of the weekend going back and forth about using nonviolence to confront the right. Clanton had been adamant: Showing up unarmed and unprepared to protest people who were willing to hurt others was simply too risky. While peaceful demonstration might serve to dispel antifa's critics, Clanton says he isn't interested in giving up his safety, or that of his friends, to seize the moral high ground, which he dismisses as a notion created by the "narrative class." Nor does he put much stock in the right's high-minded assertion that it's fighting for free speech. "Was [Yiannopoulos coming to Berkeley] defensible in terms of free speech? It is an open question," he says. "But what is not defensible is outing undocumented students in a way that, if not directly advocating, suggests or sort of incites violence against them." Lou is more direct: "Free speech is being used to [cover for] a very violent message. What they're trying to protect is hate speech and calls for genocide."
Whether what we're seeing now is fascism or not, it would not be hard to argue that Donald Trump has already accomplished more than any recent president to imperil both the day-to-day welfare of the country's most vulnerable residents and the various democratic norms that have long protected even the powerful from authoritarian rule. At the same time, he has reanimated a class of extremists, some of whose explicit goals are to rid the nation of its nonwhite races. Sitting with our coffees, Lou says, "The inherent truth to fighting fascism is that we just want people to be good to each other, and fascists aren't good to each other." The only way to end the fascist menace, she adds, is by "smashing it immediately."
As the Twitter reports keep rolling in '' tear gas has now been fired '' I ask Clanton if he thinks there is any meaningful distinction between a white supremacist like Richard Spencer and a Trump supporter who wants to build the wall. After one of his academic pauses, he acknowledges the two are not the same. The real difference, he suggests, is "who is wielding bats and sticks and shields and knives, and who is not?" But does he apply those parameters to the unarmed right-wing marcher who was set upon just 30 minutes earlier in Berkeley and kicked by antifa protesters as he lay on the ground?
Clanton's moral certainty, his deep conviction that the fascist threat is real and needs to be snuffed out even at the cost of his liberty or scruples, makes me think of a letter he wrote to his loved ones while he was being hunted by the cops last year. Addressed to "the broken hearts," it seems to make reference to Patriots' Day, but was apparently never sent.
"It will be a very long time before anyone who isn't a part of this fight will come to any understanding of the fucked up events of that day," he wrote. "The world is much stranger and more complicated than you seem to realize. I've tried to have open conversations about my politics, but mostly I've sheltered you from them, another mistake. Well those days are over now and it's time to do the hard work of finding actual common ground if we want to have a relationship. It's time to have hard conversations about where you stand in this messy world and which side you're on."
It's hard to believe that much of anything is truly private these days. Between smartphones, the internet, and everything else, so much of our data and lives are on full display for various businesses to see. Recently, it was discovered that all four of the major United States carriers provide your real-time location info to third-parties thanks to a loophole in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.
How'd this matter come to light? Between 2014 and 2017, former sheriff Cory Hutcheson used a service called "Securus" to track the location of a judge and members of Missouri's Highway Patrol around 11 different times. Securus is a service that allows police officers to facilitate calls made to inmates, but it can also be used to pinpoint the location of a cell phone in a matter of seconds.
Securus obtains this location info from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon, but according to ZDNet, it does so through a middle-man called "LocationSmart."
LocationSmart can pinpoint your real-time location in about 15 seconds.
LocationSmart is based out of California, and after it obtains this data from carriers, sells it to companies like Securus. The location data LocationSmart gets is based on tower information it gets from carriers, and while this process is slower than using GPS, it works in the background without your knowledge and has little-to-no impact on battery life. LocationSmart touts it can pinpoint someone's real-time location in just 15 seconds.
In other words, carriers are letting LocationSmart have your real-time location information so it can then share it with other third-parties. Is any of this even legal?
Unfortunately, it sure is.
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act prevents carriers from sharing user location to the United States government, but there aren't any restrictions in place on other companies. As noted by Kevin Bankston, the Director of New America's Open Technology Institute, this is "one of the biggest gaps in US privacy law."
If you're looking for a silver lining, LocationSmart says that companies that use its services must get "explicit consent" from users before obtaining their location '' whether it be through an app or text. However, there are other instances where it's implied that a user wants their location shared and this step can be avoided (such as when someone calls a towing company to pick up their car).
The FCC's been asked to investigate the matter by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, but it remains to be seen what actions (if any) will be taken.
Visible: Everything you need to know about Verizon's new phone service
US cell carriers are selling access to real-time phone location data | Hacker News
Throwaway account.I work in location / mapping / geo. Some of us have been waiting for this to blow (which it hasn't yet). The public has zero idea how much personal location data is available.
It's not just your cell carrier. Your cell phone chip manufacturer, GPS chip manufacturer, phone manufacturer and then pretty much anyone on the installed OS (android crapware) is getting a copy of your location data. Usually not in software but by contract, one gives gps data to all the others as part of the bill of materials.
This is then usually (but not always) "anonymized" by cutting it in to ~5 second chunks. It's easy to put it back together again. We can figure out everything about your day from when you wake up to where you go to when you sleep.
This data is sold to whoever wants it. Hedge funds or services who analyze it for hedge funds is the big one. It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go. This isn't fantasy, it's what happens every day.
Almost every web/smartphone mapping company is doing it, so is almost everyone that tracks you for some service - "turn the lights on when I get home". The web mapping companies and those that provide SDKs for "free". It's a monetization model for apps which don't need location. That's why Apple is trying hard to restrict it without scaring off consumers.
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I can confirm this is happening, I designed some of the analysis systems used. Contrary to what many people assume, this is not just a US thing. It is done throughout the industrialized world to varying degrees, including countries where most people believe privacy protections disallow such activity. Governments tacitly support it because they've found these capabilities immensely useful for their own purposes. reply
Should they? The vast quantity of users find it incredibly useful and have no reason to be concerned about governments or third parties being able to determine their geographic location, because governments or third parties don't generally care. reply
Several recent HN stories have had this kind of comment (first noticed with the Securus submission) that's a weird mix of "You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide" and "They will never come for you, you're too unimportant." Is this a sustained campaign or just a way for folks who have contributed to these issues to feel good about themselves? reply
You can be upset about an aspect of a product, and seek to change that aspect, without abandoning use of the product. For example, 1.3 million people are killed by cars every year, and while we recognize the risk, we also constantly improve them through safety regulations, training and improved technology. Just because people use cell phones and apps today doesn't mean we're okay with the downsides and should stop trying to improving them. reply
Did they? They're sales pitch claimed they could but what we've heard of actual methods and impact didn't appear more effective than regular FB ads. reply
Mass surveillance is not really for investigating individuals.The game being played is not '1984', it is 'Foundation'.
It is for steering entire societies, and this works far better on the boring people who think they have nothing to hide as they are the easiest to model
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The general public and repeatedly-reported-upon understanding of how data collection can be leveraged to find unexpected insights not obvious from the data, coupled with the Snowden leaks, coupled with the ever-increasing user count for cellphones, Facebook, Twitter, and the Internet in general.If people were deeply individually concerned about the risks vs. rewards of these technologies, they'd stop using them. That's the rubber-meets-the-road calculus I see.
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Do you trust the public is informed about these technologies? I think you might be overestimating individuals... most folks still don't know about Cambridge Analytica. reply
> "If people were deeply individually concerned about the risks vs. rewards of these technologies, they'd stop using them."Why do you think that? It clearly doesn't apply to stuff like oil, for instance.
I could give up my phone, but I would be in deep shit if I did it tomorrow. It would take a lot of arrangement to do so and it would piss off my family and lose me work.
If they "don't generally care", they wouldn't be collecting that data to begin with. reply
They collect the data because they can find themselves needing to care in the future, at which point nobody wants to be kicking themselves for failing to collect the data. reply
> for their own purposesSuch as?
If this also happens in the EU and is as blatant as you say it is and with GDPR and all, surely this is just waiting to blow up?
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Parralel construction.You pull the phone location records of everyone near a protest without a warrant (and no intention of using the location data in court) then you dig into them to find something unrelated to the protest you can nail them on.
That way you take out key players without it looking like a political crackdown.
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Based on the discussion in this thread doing such a thing seems relatively easy.Obligatory Orwell:
''The most gifted of [the Proletariate], who might possibly become a nuclei of discontent, are simply marked down by the Thought Police and eliminated.''
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Yep, that's on the simpler end of the spectrum, they can/could be far more insidious and subtle.It's horrible but beyond supporting ORG, EFF and writing to my MP (I'm in the UK) not sure what else I can do, even if I protect myself from it my family and friends are still potentially fucked.
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I'm in the space as well. I've tried telling my congressmen but they ignore me. I'm waiting for the backlash, especially will all the recent privacy issues. It hasn't happened yet and the problem is so large that I honestly doubt whether the public will ever truly grasp what the scope.The advice I always give when this topic comes up us to be very careful with what you install on your phone. The least expensive mobile location data tends to come from random apps collecting the data to sell it, and ad networks. Permission to use your GPS is permission to track you until you uninstall the app.
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If you're willing to have your name attached to this, if / when it does finally blow up, please make an effort to talk to news organizations about who and when you initially reached out to congress people.If you're not comfortable with your name being publicly attached, at least give news orgs the information and request confidentiality.
Part of the reason congress people can punt is that the cost of inaction < cost of action before it penetrates media.
A big part of shifting that equation is starting to publicize "You had all the information available now on X date and did nothing" as loudly as possible. Naming and shaming has been healthy for vulnerability disclosure.
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Are you able to send them a copy of their individual location data, or the location data of their staffers/friends/family? That might make for a potent wake up call. Though, you'd want to run that by an attorney first. reply
Screw that. Put together a consumer stalking website, sell the data directly. Advertise, make tons of money, and let the outrage from that bring light to the entire industry. reply
that's only the low end. app gps usage shows up on the UI.the article discusses when the ISP/telco sells the data that you have zero visibility on. there's no way to get around this.
btw, apple and google ad spyware process (google play service) will collect gps and wifi data without any user visible UI, not to mention download ads in the background.
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>It's not just your cell carrier. Your cell phone chip manufacturer, GPS chip manufacturer, phone manufacturer and then pretty much anyone on the installed OS (android crapware) is getting a copy of your location data. Usually not in software but by contract, one gives gps data to all the others as part of the bill of materials.so what's the flow here? is it something like this?: phone gps -> manufacturer installed crapware app -> crapware server -> (various third parties)
wouldn't this be mitigated if you use a custom ROM like lineageos?
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some of crapware can be avoided by using custom ROMs, but not all of it. For example: Qualcomm IZat location services and other location-based trustzone applets remain running even on custom ROMs. reply
How is it sending the data though? if it's using mobile plans, wouldn't it be noticeable on the data usage plan? (or is it that manufacturers have agreements with carriers to not charge for it?) reply
>Qualcomm IZat location servicesdid a quick check, it's not on my phone (SD 820 SoC).
>other location-based trustzone applets remain running even on custom ROMs.
I have no doubt some proprietary blobs still remain on custom ROMs, but do those actually send back location data to the OEM?
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You have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820? Oh yes, IZat is definitively there, along with other interesting trustzone applets :)It is running under QSEE (Qualcomm) and/or MobiCore (Trustonic) OS, which is separate from your Android OS. It is left untouched by custom ROMs.
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I do not understand.Even if there was a separate OS running in parallel with Android, how could it access the wireless-networks-based and satellite-based location data? I thought that access to these things is controlled by Android.
In other words, when I turn off e.g. satellite location data in Android, can IZat (which, according to your post, runs outside of Android) or other similar spyware keep secretly using it anyway? That would be quite worrying.
I suppose that the location data can be collected by sniffing the low-level communication between the radio device and Android kernel, provided that it has been enabled in Android first. But even then, how could this location data be transferred out of the device? Are these "parallel-running" OSs also able to somehow "tap into" Android's network layer and send the collected data out?
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Oh, sweet summer child ..."Even if there was a separate OS running in parallel with Android, how could it access the wireless-networks-based and satellite-based location data? I thought that access to these things is controlled by Android."
There is a separate OS running in parallel with Android and it is running on the very hardware that makes the network connections to the cellular network that you are speaking of.
In fact there are two - the OS and software stack that run on the baseband processor and the OS and software (java apps) that run on your SIM card, which is a full blown computer with its own memory and processor, etc. In fact, your carrier can upload new java programs to your SIM card without your knowledge at any time.
Your final question is a good one - many (most ?) implementations give the baseband processor DMA to the main, application processor. So you are hopelessly owned. Deeply, profoundly, hopelessly owned.
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True++ there are at least 4-5 OSes on Qualcomm with direct access to the Internet:1. Linux Kernel / Android OS, running on main ARM CPU in "normal mode"
2. QSEE or Trustonic OS, running on main ARM CPU in "trusted execution environment" mode, in parallel with "normal mode"
3. OKL4 / REX Kernel + AMSS OS, running on the baseband CPU (modem)
4. SIM card processor, although it is very limited (typically 32k RAM) and acts only as a MITM for SMS's, not cellular data
5. The OS running on the Wi-Fi card
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You're looking in the wrong place.TrustZone OS is started during SBL2 (secureboot level 2), running in hypervisor mode, while you're looking at the Android OS started during SBL3 (secureboot level 3). You cannot see hypervisor processes & apps from your vantage point (the android kernel).
The trustzone OS is usually located in TZ partition, and it uses some additional partitions for custom TZ apps and data persistence.
The hypervisor has independent access to the internet, the wifi card (for indoor location), and more.
Qualcom boot process, showing SBL1, SBL2 and SBL3 stages:
It goes without saying that without TrustZone OS, the phone won't boot to Android OS (won't proceed to SBL3).
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You don't seem to appreciate the fact that the OS you interact with on a modern smartphone is essentially a guest.There's a world of proprietary complexity you have zero visibility into, and much of it is running with direct access to hardware the application OS you interact with can only partially make use of.
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If all that is claim in here isn't conspiracy, how can it stay a secret?Isn't it the reason wikileaks was created in the first place? reply
if you want to get it to blow up then (based on past experience of what seems to catch regulator/legislator interest) I'd say that someone tracking the locations of a load of politicians for a while, finding things of interest about places they've visited and then publishing on a news outlet would do the job. reply
Your approach starts off by making the very politicians that you want to help you extremely pissed off at you.More effective would be to track a few key politicians, such as those on the committees that would deal with regulating these things, and also a few reporters who have agreed beforehand to participate.
Then the tracking on the politicians is turned over to the politicians, but NOT made public. The reporters write stories about this, illustrating the tracking detail by publishing what it showed about them.
This approach gets the news out to the public, personally shows the key politicians the scope of the issue (and that they are vulnerable too), and lets the public know that the politicians have seen proof of how serious the issue is so that the politicians know that they need to get to work on this because their opponents come the next election will certainly be gearing up to use it as an issue if they do not.
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Expose's by investigative Journalists have often made politicians angry, but they have also effected change.My idea is based on the fact that in my experience people rarely really care about privacy until it personally affects them.
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Will it blow up, even if the public is aware?When Snowden revealed the extent of NSA activities, it caused a momentary uproar but the people moved on pretty quickly after that. As far as I know (and let me know if I am wrong!!), there was no fallout for the government, and business continues as before.
So I am not sure if people will care this time either.
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Snowdens' revelations had a massive effect on the tech. sector.It provided security people with ammunition to push things like encryption of data over "private" network connections, which prevented their misuse by governments (or at least made it harder)
It also pushed tech. companies to publicly take positions on government spying, in general by insisting they wouldn't co-operate.
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Good way to loose your job very quickly. I don't think we should have to rely on somebody sacrificing themselves to make a difference. reply
Not sure anyone would lose their jobs.1) Be an investigative Journalist
2) Purchase access to these location vendors data
3) Correlate data with known mobile numbers of politicians
4) Find things in data that might be of interest to readers (e.g. "politician x was noted to be in the same place as Lobbyist y on 5 different occasions")
5) Publish Story :)
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I you are willing to be blacklisted than more power to you. I wouldn't want to force that on someone. reply
Not if precautions are taken, and even if someone did, such a patriotic disclosure (if done responsibly a la Snowden) would put that person is very esteemed company. reply
Yes, but Snowden is currently living in exile, and there's no end to that in sight.Few have the stomach for that sort of thing...
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Tested and same result.I have a strong suspicion that it intentionally places you some distance from where it knows you actually are. Unless there is some underlying reason why it would never be 100% accurate -- I've seen dozens of people post their results and every time it's 1-300 meters off.
And it's not just "no one tests while under the cell tower" because the location it gave me was 150 meters in the opposite direction of the cell tower that I can see out my window. And the location it gave was smack in the middle of a neighborhood I know well and know to be free of cell towers. Or I'm just paranoid.
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I just used the internet site it said up to 14 miles off in accuracy on the results page. It was actually 4 miles off with my wifi off and GPS off and ZLAT off. I'm also pretty sure the location it picked is very close to an existing cell tower. reply
I'm somewhat weary. This might be the final missing piece to connect your mobile phone number to your mobile browser user agent, or even worse, your desktop browser agent. reply
If the mobile carriers are selling your real time location data, I don't think there is much stopping them from also selling your browser user agents. reply
I believe that dmichulke means that when the phone number is linked to the user agent it's much more dangerous than when they are sold without that connection being known. reply
Interesting. I wonder if the mistaken use of "weary" comes from a combination of "wary" and "leery"! I always assumed it was because "wear" is pronounced the same as the first syllable of "wary". Unfortunately "weary" is already a word and "I'm wary of X" has a different meaning from "I'm weary of X", but similar enough that a lot of confusion could result. reply
Can you post the SMS opt-in message you received? Curious as to whether this is exploitable as well reply
LocationSmart: Reply YES or YES LS to confirm consent for cloud location & messaging demo. Reply HELP for help, Reply STOP to cancel. Msg&Data Rates may apply.That is what I was sent.
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I'm betting the opt-in is something along these lines"FirstName LastName wants to obtain your location..."
Also betting that you can put 160 characters into those fields, so effectively a blank SMS is received
Betting further still that you can just spoof the SMS reply
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And how can I buy this realtime data? Also> Hedge funds or services who analyze it for hedge funds is the big one. It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go.
Any articles/webpages about this one? Or a company name who is doing it?
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Pinsight is a big one.But there are too many to name. In 2018, you should assume that any free service (Unroll.me), web/mobile SDK (Slice), email client (Airmail), personal finance tracker (Mint), integration API (Plaid), geolocator (Foursquare), etc is monetized by selling your data en masse for market research.
It's not just location data. Dig into the TOS of free services you use. It's your receipts, your transactions, your subscriptions...all are "anonymized" to varying degrees of success. Even Meraki, the network router/switch company, sells location data.[1]
Link to pinsight: https://pinsightmedia.com> Ever wonder what your consumer thinks minute-by-minute? Pinsight's ID Suite gets behind the lock screen to understand the mindset of your best customer. Leveraging 24/7 insights from the mobile device, we uncover new audiences and discover new market opportunities so you can engage with consumers in ways that matter.
''Gets behind the lock screen''
Jeez that is some brazen marketing.
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Assuming you're talking about Airmail, the iOS and Mac mail client[1] (which is not a free app), do you have any reference to back up this claim? Their privacy statement states:> Airmail does not share your information with any third parties. We are not in the business of selling your data. However, we may disclose information if we determine that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with the law.
They also state that they do not send information to their servers unless you enable push notifications, store data only for this purpose, and delete the data when you disable this setting.
[1] http://airmailapp.com
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Foursquare is selling business services based on the data they collect, not the data itself (as far as I know). reply
Do you get that data before you place the bid? Can you can just bid the minimum amount so you never actually buy an ad, but get the tracking data anyway? reply
You get all the data (geo, user's year-of-birth, user interests, device type, etc) before you place the bid. All the json data fields are defined in the standard. I can see iOS and Windows-phone in the feed, it's not limited to Android phones.https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/OpenRTB_API_S...
You don't actually have to bid.
(HN is rate-limiting me)edit: Data is pushed to you as fast as you can process it. It's a firehose.
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To get a seat on the exchange, you need to bid, and exchanges also don't allow you to store data of bid requests that you don't win for purposes other than bid algorithm optimization in their terms and conditions, since that's stealing data. If they find out you're freeloading, they'll cut you out.Also, most of the data on it is pretty shitty with lots of fraud since the publishers want to get more money. The geo data is often fraudulent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_center_of_the_conti...), and that's why companies that bid hire data scientists to sift through the fraud.
There's also rarely, in my experience, year-of-birth or any personally identifiable data.
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In a typical bid entry there are between 500 and 5000 bits of information relating to an individual, per the definition of GDPR. And that's not including the dreaded "IFA", which uniquely identifies the individual.I don't agree with your claim that "the geodata is often fraudulent".
Anyone can read the linked pdf specification (above), download sample data from the exchanges, and judge for themselves.
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Is it pushed to you or do you pull it? Is there no rate limiting?That's really creative honestly.
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>> Hedge funds or services who analyze it for hedge funds is the big one. It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go.> Any articles/webpages about this one? Or a company name who is doing it?
Foursquare does it, there were some articles last year about how they pivoted to providing that data. They were able to accurately predict Chipotle customer declines after their food contamination scandals.
I'm not sure if they use this carrier location data, or just the data from the people who are still using their app.
Advan, Reveal Mobile, QuestMobile, Pinsight, Streetlight Data, RootMetrics, OpenSignal, SafeGraph are a few of the companies selling various forms of mobile user location data. reply
Allow me to ask some questions :)> It's not just your cell carrier
How & when is this transmitted and what other data apart from lat & long?
> pretty much anyone on the installed OS [...] is getting a copy of your location data
You mean the devs of whatever app is installed on the phone? The outgoing data should be visible in things like Charles proxy, right?
Is this analogous to FB data being available to any dev that gets permission to access your profile?
> It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go
Whaaa ... ? Do explain, fascinating.
Can this all be mitigated by those smartphones-hardened-for-criminals type devices?
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Is this happening with iPhone as well, or primarily android due to the third party nature of the hardware? reply
The problem is once it's at the cell carrier level it doesn't even matter if you use a dumb phone. They know roughly where you are based on tower triangulation. reply
Not my area of knowledge at all, so perhaps someone who knows radio better could chime in: Would it be possible to fool the triangulation from the device, by arbitrary (or intelligently) delaying the mobile radio signals? Or are they too dependent on timings and such to work? reply
> Would it be possible to fool the triangulation from the device, by arbitrary (or intelligently) delaying the mobile radio signals?Not without messing up your ability to make and receive calls. Cell towers use precise timing and power-level measurements in order to do things like decide which cell-site is best, and to hand-over your call from one tower to the next without breaking your call or glitching.
Edit: Even if you were to play around with timing of responses of the radio signal, you have no control over how it radiates in free space. The time-delta between reception of the same signal by 3 towers at known locations is enough to triangulate your position. Maybe a unidirectional antenna pointing to just one tower might work, if there are no other towers within the beam behind it and no sideway leakages.
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There are no available cellphone radio baseband computers/transceivers that allow you do do things with that. You would literally have to implement the entire cell baseband from scratch with a software defined radio. It would be a very non-trivial project.And it'd be useless unless you had many of these custom transmitters faking your signal spread out over large physical distances.
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That's always been common knowledge, the shocker is that it's being transmitted to "everyone and their dog" or even being sold. Afaik that was never the case with dumb phones. reply
A dumb phone can be localized by cell triangulation. The US military disclosed that it was using such a technique in Afghanistan to locate Al-Qaeda targets (they disclosed this because Al-Qaeda had gotten so paranoid about he accuracy of US military operations that they had assumed they had human spies on the ground feeding the US information and began killing civilians on suspicion of spying). reply
As an amateur radio operator, I would expect nothing less for carrying a highly networked radio transceiver with loads of sensors including geopositioning.Simply put: don't want to be tracked? Put your phone in a lead sealed box or leave it at home. Tracking only tracks the phone , not your person.
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Yeah they know where you are at any given moment, but they don't have to record it. And they especially don't have to sell it to third parties. That's what we mean by "tracking". reply
So basically either give up your right for privacy or don't use any new technology? That doesn't look practical. A better idea would be to ban cell carriers (and anyone else) from using location data for anything except explicitly permitted by law, like help in emergencies or conducting investigations. reply
What would be most effective would be a pair of rules in tandem:1. Allow the location data to be utilized by the cellular carrier only for legitimate engineering purposes relevant to the delivery of the cellular services. (The network needs to know your location in real time in order to route calls to you.) Also, allow the use of real time location data for emergency services in response to an emergency call. Potentially also allow the use of emergency services initiated real time locations, with a non-suppressible UI required to be presented to the user if this is performed.
2. Require that the cellular service providers purge / NOT retain this location data for any longer than is literally required to provide proper service.
The data retention policy #2 item here is essential in preventing temptation to come up with end-runs for the first rule. It's important that historic data that has no legitimate use under rule #1 not be preserved so that there isn't a mound of accumulating data of theoretically increasing value if only we could change / get rid of rule #1. That sort of thing will create ever mounting incentive to repeal / replace rule #1.
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A better idea would be to ban cell carriers (and anyone else) from using location data for anything except explicitly permitted by law, like help in emergencies or conducting investigations.That doesn't do anything to protect your data from being accessed by the State, which is actually the bigger problem.
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If it does great harm for the state to have this data, and also great harm for the cell carriers to have this data...Why thwart one great harm yet happily tolerate the other?
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Does it cause "great harm" for private businesses to have access to this? I'm not sure sure. After all, there is a qualitative difference between the State, which employs men with guns and arrogates to itself the right to use force to impose its will on people, the right to jail people, etc.If Starbucks knows my location, they can send me a coupon if I enter a Dunkin' Donuts store. If the State knows my location they can falsely accuse me of a murder that I just happened to be near the location of and - if I'm unlucky or have a bad lawyer - execute me for it.
That's not, of course, to say that there aren't some cases where a private business having access to my location could have a deleterious effect. But here's the rub: if you rely on regulation to prevent those cases, you're right back to needing to trust the State, which is - IMO - a foolish proposition.
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> Does it cause "great harm" for private businesses to have access to this?Wide availability of tracking data facilitates domestic violence and stalking, for starters.
Say that someone gets killed by their ex who found them through tracking data leaked by some irresponsible and/or profiteering company. How do we hold that company accountable? How can we prove that it was them who leaked the data, when it's everywhere?
We can't hold the credit authorities like Equifax accountable today for the identity theft they facilitate. This is the same problem. The aggregation of our individual data by companies causes massive negative externalities, borne by individuals.
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It doesn't really matter, if a business has the data and the state wants it, the state gets access to the data via the business.The division is so trivially violated it's pretty much irrelevant.
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Whataboutism. Yes, there is a bigger problem. No, that should not prevent us from solving the smaller problem first. With regard to the bigger problem, we build checks and balances in the legal system. reply
That doesn't mean banning corporations from exploiting your location is a bad idea, even if it's not the optimal privacy-enabling solution. reply
I don't think we want an outright ban. I certainly have the right to allow a corporation to access my location if I choose to. There may be cases where an individual would judge it in their interest to allow a corporation to have such access.The problem with the current setup is that we don't know who's gaining access, when they're gaining it, what they're doing with it, etc. Once the cell carriers have it, there's no easy way of knowing who they are selling the data to, and who that entity sells it to in turn, and so on.
Sadly, I don't see a good way to resolve this at the moment. If you use a cell-phone the carrier can always get your (at last approximate) location through triangulation. And regulation only makes sense if you trust the State, and I would like to think we've all learned better than to do that by now. So what do we do?
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For communications technology: yes, that seems to be the norm.Don't like the rules of the road, don't drive.
Don't like that your data goes over a third-party's network to get to its destination, don't put your data on a third-party's network.
Bans "by law" only work until the people making the law become people interested in your location and they change the law.
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So basically either give up your right for privacy or don't use any new technology?I think this is probably correct.
The problem with the ban you suggest is that it will degrade service in many instances. Some level of location tracking is necessary for all cellular phones to make a smooth handoff between towers or for example to load balance connectivity between different towers.
In the end the more personalized the service you want to have, the more "invasive." Opt in is probably the best total solution, however it quickly becomes an education game if you want it to be effective, and most people don't have the time or technical understanding to put up with a dozen different opt ins.
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Uh, not really. They can still utilize location data to make smooth handoffs and the other services you mention without bending us over and fucking us with a rusty chainsaw.They do not need to sell location data to other parties in any way, shape, or form.
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Define me the following then about the metadata:Who does your cell phone's location belong to?
Who does the tower's connection data belong to?
Who does the multitude of tower signal strengths belong to?
Who does the user's cell phone data belong to if allowing multiple apps to use it?
Answer: User's location data belongs: to the user, 3rd party apps they have allowed, and terrestrial cell companies that run towers with the appropriate frequencies for your phone.
The technology isn't the right area to change it. In the end, you're doing stupid stuff with encryption and still emitting point-source radiation that can and will be triangulated.
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There's no need for lead sealed box, Faraday cage will do. :)I think they even sell phone casing Faraday cage nowadays. reply
It's android for the hardware manufacturers and OS crapware getting location data.For iOS, assume every app using your location is selling the data. That means every app using a map or location smoothing SDK (GPS jumps around, there are services to smooth it out), since the map SDK providers (and there's not many) are selling your data even if the app itself isn't.
Google, Apple, Microsoft etc are pretty careful for good reason. Anyone below that is probably selling it.
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Every app that has access to nearby WiFi SSIDs (or even just the one you're connected to) can also turn this data into location data.In fact I don't think that is even a gated permission on iOS.
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> This data is sold to whoever wants it. Hedge funds or services who analyze it for hedge funds is the big one. It's normal to track hundreds of millions of people a day and trade stocks based on where they go. This isn't fantasy, it's what happens every day.I initially thought this was too far fetched but then I started duckduckgoing* and found this: https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/regulators-campaigners-sou...
* If 'googling' is a verb, why not this.
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This is a problem with the GSM/UMTS standards themselves. Carriers always know where you are, but one could create a standard where they wouldn't have to know unless you make a call. With enough encryption and effort, I'm pretty sure one could even create a standard where carriers would never know where you are, even while you are using services. reply
Would not it be easier to ban anyone from using this location data for anything except explicitly permitted by law? The problem is not with standards, the problem is with people. reply
Banning things works relatively well for people because they fear having trouble with law and justice. Doesn't work that well for corporations whose law department is just like any other department. In this case you must assume that if it's technically possible then it's done. reply
This argument can be used against any law, like antitrust law. Having a law department doesn't give you a free pass to break laws. reply
Unless we start throwing the legal department and higher ups into prison then it basically becomes a free pass to break laws. Currently, we assess fines to corporations that violate these laws.It then becomes a cost/benefit analysis weighing the likelihood of getting caught * cost of potential fine vs business value of ignoring the law. Ignoring the law is frequently the correct decision.
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Agreed. There needs to be criminal liability for folks like Stumpf and other big bankers/corporate overlords.But do you think our government will ever stand up? Doubtful
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Exactly. I assume that's part of the point.But having a law doesn't mean people or corporations won't break it out of the 'kindness of their heart'. Or because they're 'good people'.
For example, look at 'No gun zones'. You think a criminal is not going rob a bank at gun point because the bank is a no gun zone? If anything it incentivizes them because they know they'll have a monopoly of force upon entering ( if they have a gun, and can fairly assume no one else will because of 'no gun zone' policy )
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Maybe not, but when the cost of breaking the law is less than the gain, it seems logical. A law department is probably better equipped to make that calculation.edit: Reading into the context of 'too big to fail' and 'collateral consequences' reveals exactly that kind of behavior.
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How does one determine which tower to route an incoming call through, in your model? How could roaming work?Spoiler: I don't think doing what you are describing is feasible.
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Calls could be done over IP, and as long as you could anonymously authenticate to the tower then you could be granted a new IP address at each tower via something like DHCP. I imagine roaming and handovers would have to be done on the end-device though; the end-device would need to proactively associate to new towers and both ends of the voice call would need to agree to switch to the new IP address.But if the tower operators collude then they can still track you across towers by localizing the physical source of the end-device's signal.
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If you really wanted to do this, a more secure approach is onion routing. It's essentially the same problem -- attempting to preserve anonymity in the face of adversarial network hardware, while being limited by a requirement to enter / exit through certain nodes.So you'd want a mesh network, formed adhoc out of currently in range cellular device neighbors, with packets re-encapsulated and encrypted at each hop, eventually hitting the tower from a random device.
Authorization would be impossible (the intent of the scheme) without a side channel (as you can't simultaneously have individual authorization and individual anonymization). Which makes it a non-starter for commercial use.
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Oh yeah, that's an interesting solution.I'm not sure simultaneous authorization and anonymization is impossible. Couldn't you use something like Chaum's e-cash to obtain tokens that guarantee the holder the right to use the network for some amount of data, but these tokens are tradeable and therefore the spender doesn't have to be the same as the buyer. Then you could spend this token in the network to get access and the network could authenticate the token without identifying the spender. I'm guessing something like zcash could be used as well...
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That's what I meant by side channel. So yes, you can split authorization responsibilities into a different entity, but then that entity is going to be able to deanonymize you.And it wouldn't play well with billing accounts being deactivated / reactivated.
And... now that I think about it, given the tower:location mapping, you'd also have to include bouncing traffic back out to a non-tower-sharing peer and then back into their tower w/ randomized timing, else outer layers of encapsulation would still identify tower association.
Which means latency would be utter crap.
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"without a side channel"Do you have any links where this is done without a third party?
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Off the top of my head, you could have this system: you use a new id that authenticates you with the carrier every n packets, and you do the routing from the source to your id on a server that you control yourself. reply
Spoiler. The utility of the live call is overstated. Most of the people I interact via a phone vastly prefer async SMS over sync voice calls. We can do SMS via polling, the network doesn't need to push anything to us. reply
People text so much because there is an expectation the other person is going to respond pretty quickly. There is definitely value derived from having people accessible all the time, and I doubt a service would sell if people weren't. reply
With the current setup, sure, but that's by design. The cellular modem could stay off until you decided to take the call if there was a nationwide page circuit listening, the user would get the ring, see the number the page sent, and if desired, answer, which powers on the modem, hits a tower and connects to a backend system that sent the page which took the incoming call.Page messages are in-the clear, but that's fixable by (gasp) OTP.
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You want every single cell phone call in the world to send out a signal over every single cell tower? reply
No. But at a certain point, with the high speed modulations we have today, it is totally feasible to broadcast these passively to a multi-state region encompassing a radius of hundreds of miles.There's not a legitimate engineering reason that the network needs to maintain constant fine-grained location data for each registered device at this point. The scope of the registration can be far more widely cast.
This would even have upsides for the devices and users. As check-ins to the network in which the device must transmit to the network would be far reduced, battery life improvements can be had.
Yes, this increases the amount of "broadcast" traffic, but honestly, even for some of the busiest telco switches in New York or LA, those data streams don't even approach the throughput requirements of a single HD Youtube stream...
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> where they wouldn't have to know unless you make a callPresumably this is actually "unless you make a call or use data"?
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How can one prevent this and still carry a cell phone? Would keeping one's phone in a faraday bag defeat this constant tracking? reply
I don't think it's possible through technological means to avoid being tracked and still use a wireless network. Even if you could anonymously authenticate to the network, if the base stations have a large number of antennas then they can locate the physical origin of your signal and track you that way.It may be possible of course through other means, like government regulation or only using carriers that have some guarantee of privacy.
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I mean unless you've got a ham license and bounce your signal through your own network of relays using a different band than the final signal to the cell tower. But I don't think that's going to work as a popular solution. Would be a really fun experiment to build though.I wonder if you could still use latency timing to get a rough fix on location through a secondary network like that. Not that anyone would be trying to.
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A good start would be using a prepaid mobile phone (paid with cash, via an intermediary to avoid appearing on store CCTV), plus using phone apps that are not tied to your real identity. A Faraday bag for the phone when it's not in use.Honestly, it just depends on how paranoid you want to get, and who your adversary is.
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If your goal is to simply avoid your location being sold by your carrier for marketing purposes, an intermediary seems a little excessive, no? Unless you have reason to believe that your local pharmacy or cell shop is selling facial recognition data as well ... reply
Selling facial recognition data is the next big revenue stream. There is a reason the Googles of the world are gushing over installing internet connected surveillance cameras on every block [0].[0] https://nest.com/cameras/
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Carriers will still be able to track you via the cell towers you're connected to. I'm sure they can triangulate based upon signal strength, and that's strictly using your cellphone as a dumb phone. reply
> "But switching off location will probably do it too."Wrong. Phones can be triangulated by the carriers regardless.
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Can we trust the GPS receiver to be powered down when we the OS tells us it's powered down? I know Android keeps listening for WiFi stations even if you tell it to turn off the antenna. Might it do the same thing with GPS? reply
It may help in regards to your exact location via GPS, but cell companies can still triangulate your location based off how strong your signal is to certain towers in the area and which towers you have connected to recently. reply
No switching off location would not do it - why would it? Cell tower data is sold at the carrier as per the article. reply
How much of this data is archived and searchable?Most of the descriptions of the service so far indicate a real time or near real time feed. I'm curious if it's possible to go take a phone number and ask "give me location data for this person around xx:xx at yyyy-mm-dd."
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i'm not quite following. are you saying that individual,identifiable location data is being collected and sold? reply
What specific data about the person is traded alongside their location history in the... schemes that you describe? (name? Some govt ID number? Phone number? Address? ....) reply
Ah yes I've personally seen this while working at an OEM. There are a lot of other insane things happening on a phone like CIQ. FYI, listening to users via microphone is one thing that actually does not happen. reply
okay, so, to cut to the chase here: how do we disrupt or destroy the companies doing this?it isn't acceptable that they are taking advantage of us in this way.
we can't expect any political solution to the problem, which leaves us to pursue other means if we want to protect ourselves.
is there a way to introduce fake data or noise? what about opting out?
is there a law being broken here that we can make into a lawsuit? i wonder if there is a precedent regarding restraining orders or unwanted surveillance by private entities...
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Making a cell phone out of a pi with a sim card and gps daughter board is sounding less and less crazy each day. Really looking forward to when the librem phone starts shipping. I wonder if they've really been thorough enough vetting hardware for those bare-metal security issues.This is at once staggering and completely unsurprising that companies would violate user trust in such a way and sell data without proper vetting that exploits people and could potentially put them in danger. Yet another episode in the misadventures of techno-illiterate regulation and totally unread TOS agreements.
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Even a RPI won't help you unless you can build all of the software for the microprocessors which drive the wireless stack. Even then, vendors (e.g. Qualcomm) will already have their software on the chip when you get it.A completely open spec, open source set of components is what the community has desired for a long time. As standards get more complex and evolve faster, 4G and beyond, it becomes less possible to keep up in the open.
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It's funny that this is coming up now. The other day I was on the phone with Geico's roadside assistance and they wanted to know my location. I told them I didn't have their app downloaded, they said it wasn't a problem and they could get it without it. Sure enough they could. I checked their disclaimers [1] and they purchase the data from my cell carrier. They didn't even have to know which one.[1] https://www.geico.com/web-and-mobile/mobile-apps/roadside-as... (see disclaimers at the bottom)
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Wow. The fact that they can just get this with "oral approval" (relayed by them to your carrier) is shocking to me. This is ridiculous. reply
The other respondents to this message more or less have it right.The way this stuff works is that when GEICO signed the deal to get access to this, they pinky-swore in a contract to only use the data certain ways.
Often, the representatives on both sides of such transactions even have a wink-wink nod-nod deal going which is different from what the contract materially represents.
Importantly, these contracts virtually always avoid talking about mechanisms for tracking such usage, auditing such usage, and even any remedies for violations (beyond discontinuing the service access - and then only if it's egregious).
You'd be amazed how much in the telecom world is handshake and contractual with no technological enforcement and often neither side of these agreements are incentivized to enforce the terms laid out.
The parts of these agreements that are solid is how transactions, events, etc are measured and what these cost and who pays and how. Shocking, that.
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They don't need oral approval or any approval. GEICO is only asking so that their customers won't freak out when GEICO magically knows where they are. The customer service rep probably had the data up on their screen already when they asked. reply
I wonder if they use this data to price insurance -- they would easily know when their drivers are going over the speed limit (or, if such data is not so precise, if their average speed over 10 minutes exceeded the speed limit). reply
More likely is approximating number of miles driven and price discriminating based off that. More miles driven = more risk of an auto accident. Basically pay-per-mile car insurance, but hidden. reply
I believe the relevant T-Mobile privacy policy (that I definitely read before signing up...) is:"With your consent. We may provide location-based services or provide third parties with access to your approximate location to provide services to you." https://www.t-mobile.com/company/website/privacypolicy.aspx
That is why a text message confirmation is required to get a cell phone's location from https://www.locationsmart.com/try/
For those on T-Mobile, there are privacy settings that can be adjusted here: https://my.t-mobile.com/profile/privacy_notifications/advert... I already had all of them disabled, and I was still able to get the location of my cell phone from LocationSmart.
I chatted with T-Mobile support yesterday to see if I could opt-out of them sharing my data. Not surprisingly, the support agent was less than helpful. "Don't worry, your data is secured"
Are there any US carriers that respect privacy and do not share private information with 3rd parties? Or is that a pipe dream?
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> Kevin Bankston, director of New America's Open Technology Institute, explained in a phone call that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act only restricts telecom companies from disclosing data to the government. It doesn't restrict disclosure to other companies, who then may disclose that same data to the government.It seems like intelligence services spend a lot of their time dreaming up ways to do an end-run around the law. This is the same reason US intelligence does partnerships with foreign intelligence services.
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I'd rather them try to do end-runs around the law than run it up the gut... (If I had to choose) reply
Just think of how amazing the museum will be for your great grandkids when we completely dismantle them when, inevitably, their stated mission goals supersede common sense and a responsible relationship to the American public. reply
I doubt any of the privacy invasions are going anytime soon.The big tech cos pull in ~100B in revenue precisely because they can capitalize on the data.
As long as there is crazy amount of money to be made, it will keep on getting worse. Having hope on the US govt to do anytime is wishful thinking. Govt and corporations are hell bent on knowing everything about you. It gives them the power.
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Carriers have been providing these services to 3rd party providers since at least 2006https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2006/feb/01/news.g2
A few points to note:
* Obtaining consent is entirely left to the provider to implement. It does not appear to have any auditing. A provider can query any number they like.
* The opt-in process used by many providers is easy to exploit, by spoofing SMS replies or abusing the SMS template so that the surveillance target does not get notified
* The providers have are well aware of the potential to exploit this and have been for some time. It has never been resolved in over 10 years.
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I just discovered this treasure trove from the UK house of commons in 2006https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo06...
"To extend that to adults, The Guardian journalist Ben Goldacre showed recently that someone needs possession of another person's mobile phone for only a couple of minutes to appear to give the consent required under mobile phone companies' current procedures. The person he was tracking never got any of the warning messages that were meant to have been sent to her. Even more scarily, a hacker's website has recently published information telling how to spoof consent without even having to have temporary possession of the target's phone; all that is needed is the number. If someone has a person's number, he can track them. It is not a problem. I know where the website is, but I am not going to tell Members. It is possible to track people just through their phone numbers."
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Is it even considered an exploit?It's a cell carrier providing data about the radio communications between hardware they own and someone else. At a moral level, seems somewhat equivalent to a web server providing data about clients that access the server.
To opt out, stop using some third-party corporation's owned hardware to route your communications near lightspeed around the world. Hey, the Amish communities may have something in their overall philosophy of "Don't be beholden to strangers who aren't part of your community."
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I'm not clear if you missed the point here? This isn't aggregate data, it's obtaining the location of a specific individual just by knowing their phone number. It can be done without their knowledge or consent.By your webserver analogy, the equivalent would be more akin to google publishing the contact details and search queries of anyone using the service.
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One of these days, most of you will finally understand just how right RMS was and is...It's just a shame so many can't see it, and worse, give those of us who do shit.
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I am starting to wonder what all have I consented to? Every week I learn I have consented to this and that because of a news article as I never read those contracts or TOS. I wonder if there will be a way to phrase long contracts into bullet list of ideas for someone simple minded like me in the near future. reply
One of the things that GDPR requires is real informed consent, small print hidden inside a thirty-page EULA is not acceptable. reply
And unlike some of the recent proposals in the U.S., it's generalized to all industries. reply
Maybe by some 3rd party then? Maybe an application of all the fancy natural language processing or some other ML. I visit the site, paste the TOS or maybe there is a list of TOS that has been translated and i get a nice gist. reply
I think a more realistic option is Congress imposing a requirement on them, the way the terms of a loan have to be presented in a standard form. reply
The worst part is there isn't any possible way I know of to defend yourself against this other than not having a phone. reply
A while ago I thought of a very neat 'future job': you walk around town with somebody else's phone. So if you 'need to be' somewhere, you just hire this service, deliver your phone, which will be returned to you, and there goes your track record. reply
I'm hoping the Librem 5 succeeds. I think disabling the baseband would be a solve and at least slightly more trustworthy than airplane mode.Right now I think you're right, there's no defending against it without turning off devices.
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What about a decentralized networks over 802.11?It wouldn't be a total solution, because access points get hacked, etc. but it would make the data a lot fuzzier.
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The reason that cell phone networks actually work (they're effectively decentralized networks) is that they pay the big bucks to rent space on high towers, building roofs, etc.The only thing that matters for radio communications is line of sight. The only thing that gives you line of sight is relative height. The only thing that gives you consistent height is money.
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Voice over WiFi definintely works. I don't think ''works'' is the word you are looking for. ''Won't have great coverage'' is maybe what you were going for.A WiFi-based network with stronger privacy characteristics would be valuable to the small part of the market who cares more about privacy than coverage. Those people exist, ya?
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>The only thing that gives you consistent height is money.Or long rope, a balloon, and a heat source ;)
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You still can't be sure. Your car may contain a SIM card nowadays, always connected, for your protection, sure thing. reply
While unreliable it wouldn't be unrealistic to use wifi in densely populated areas. It looks like the pager industry is still alive, too. reply
Most wifi hotspots have location information anyway, so your phone will know where it is, and then one of the many apps on your phone can report back with that information.And isn't a pager just a really simple cell phone? I'm not sure how that's a solution if cell towers can triangulate your position.
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Until/unless they modify the law - turning off your phone thwarts it. While your phone is powered off, it has no ability to track & record your location movements. Obviously your active location will then be picked back up after you power it on, it won't have a record of anything inbetween.A simple example of limiting the invasiveness using this approach, would be to have your phone on only at work & home, or similar. In absence of phone snooping, someone can already easily locate you at those two standard destinations, and can easily discover when you'd typically be at those places (ie you're not giving them much by using your phone there under normal circumstances).
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The way I understood it is that the requester of the location is trusted to have gotten consent from the subject of the query. The providers will answer any queries.So Securus works on the "we're sure our customers are getting consent for their inquiries" presumption. What are the consequences if a company is found to not have gotten consent? Business sense dictates there to be no consequence at all if Securus can avoid it.
The way this should work is that the carriers can get permission to share location data with third-parties. They should not do it without having gotten permission from their customer. But then they probably get that when you sign the contract. Or do they just not mention it?
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The most obvious use of the data appears to be by credit card companies to detect fraudulent use of a card and decline those transactions. This is something I'm relatively comfortable with, though it's plainly in the interests of the bank and I only indirectly benefit from the tracking. reply
As blocking fraudulent claims could remove a reason for my premiums to he higher, I can't say I'm against that.With the caveat, for course, that people are not always where their phone is so this taken on its own would be circumstantial evidence: one would hope decisions are not made directly based on this information.
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It's not in the interest of insurance companies to lower premiums. They only do it if competition is eating them alive. Geico has been raising their margins ever so slightly. I bet they are also the purchasers of ungodly amounts of data for targeting marketing.Insurance companies #1 goal is to make maximum profits for their shareholders without getting caught with their pants down.
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Are you changing insurance companies regularly? Why would an insurance company have any reason to reduce your rates unless legally required to? Even if they've been overcharging you for years compared to competitors, if you aren't calling them up and threatening to change insurers, why would they ever give you money back? reply
Or maybe parallel construction used to deny/approve loans. E.g. I can't weight the loan approval negatively specifically bc the person is black, but the GPS information suggests they frequent black areas.But really every use of this information is highly assymetrical. If they're using it to trade stocks, while regular people are using traditional means, it's an advantage we don't have access to. This is basically the virtual castle walls keeping us peasants out in the fields. Modern feudalism.
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Yes, I am greatly bothered by it, especially because I am not aware of the extent that my information is being distributed.On the one hand, I opt-in to location tracking for apps and services such as Google services, because I genuinely believe that I benefit greatly from location-targeted information. On the other hand, I would opt out of any other location tracking of my cellphone to companies that I do not see the benefit of having. I want fraud-protection and no liability when it comes to fraudulent purchases (opt-in for credit card companies and banks), but I don't want the government/Facebook/retailers/insurers to have this access without permission.
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How do you expect this data to be used in your favor? If there is a technical glitch/human error and your data is intermingled with someone else's, it will be used against you silently and you will have no recourse. reply
I was aware the cell phone companies were selling anonymized data for some time (not revealing the numbers and adding some jitter to the location data to avoid identifying users).This is the first I'm hearing that they're releasing detailed personal tracking by phone number. When I sat in on a recent presentation with Verizon execs they flat out said they were not doing this. Oops.
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Airplane mode would work, yes. But it only works against the cell provider. The on-phone GPS can still work and sync the data later. reply
The off button/battery out is a simpler solution. You won't be receiving calls anyway. reply
Previously discussed yesterday, and again two days before that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17069459This is one of the reasons I use a public-facing Twilio number, which forwards to a private number which I never hand out.
This isn't something that people should have to do to opt-out of tracking like this, but it doesn't seem like there are many other reliable options.
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If you take that cell phone home with you regularly and don't live in a multi-unit building, it would be relatively trivial to figure out your identity using this data. reply
Undoubtably. Not a strong protection against doxxing, but might offer some semblance of protection from 'drive-by-lookups'. With a modern smartphone and location services, there's only so much you can do. reply
Just a heads up: Twilio now offers a metric fuckton of services geared towards SIM-enabled IoT. You can order SIM cards by the pile and then bind them to a Twilio number by activating it in the UI (or via API). So now instead of (or in addition to) simply forwarding traffic from garbage numbers to your real number, you can get Twilio numbers that are registered on T-Mobile's network via an actual SIM card, making it much easier to send from your Twilio number than it used to be without it bound to a SIM card. Fairly good price, too. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what happened to Twilio's API as it's now as opaque and awkward as any AWS API (almost as though someone on Twilio's engineering team made the decision to model their API after the way AWS builds their APIs), but the services they offer are as compelling as they always were. I'd give Twilio a solid D for what the API has turned into, but A+ for service innovation. reply
Last time I checked the data price for twilio sim was not good for daily use. Far cheaper to use something like Google Fi and a data only sim. reply
I wondered how the spam callers knew what area code I was in while traveling out of state.I would assume that through clustering analysis (eg coworkers/friends travel together) even fairly coarse position data can allow you to construct relationships. Then they can spam/fish both you end your coworkers with the same fake number. That makes it seem more important to answer and more organic.
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A friend of mine just got back from NYC and then received a fake call from an NYC area code. I get several every day from random area codes, and we had to wonder whether it was coincidence or not. reply
When are we going to wake up and reform privacy laws?! This cannot be the new norm.Something about this has to be illegal.
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This exploits a vulnerability in the SS7/MAP protocols that power mobile networks worldwide; the cooperation of the carrier isn't even required (even if carriers were against this; bad actors can and will get this data anyway). reply
> the Electronic Communications Privacy Act only restricts telecom companies from disclosing data to the government. It doesn't restrict disclosure to other companiesClearly the US has their priorities completely the wrong way.
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Part of the American mythology is that government involvement is always bad. It's hard for me to know if this developed because of the myths of the America Revolution, that a small colony won it alone and not because of external factors, and how much is due to people preaching small government politics. Regardless a distrust of the government seems to be ingrained in the American psyche IMO. reply
Small government just means localized government.At a more local level, people have much more influence and ability to change problems that they see. At a more federal level, policy is imposed without localities having much/any influence.
That centralization and imposition of policy that half the country opposes is the reason for the political divide that we see today. If the same policies that we argue about so much were implemented at a state level, people would have the ability vote with their feet.
That doesn't mean some legislation shouldn't be federal, but there is a reason that the intention was for federal policy to be overwhelmingly agreed upon rather than forced in along party lines.
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This is a good summary. The US was designed similar to the EU; each "state" is autonomous, but some things are shared, like currency, etc. Allowing frictionless movement between states is also paramount (and explicitly defined).The logic being, if a state starts to get out of control, you can just move to another state. This allows states to experiment with various laws specific to the population.
Most of this was undone with the Civil War. As abhorrent as it was, the federal government had no legal power to ban slavery outside a constitutional amendment. The 13th-15th amendments actually banned slavery after the war, not the Emancipation Proclamation. Today, the federal government bans whatever it pleases and uses the commerce clause to skirt the constitution.
Take the drug war for example. Because a group of drugs was federally banned, states were powerless to do anything about it. I think most people would agree that federally banning all drugs ended up being a terrible idea and ruined many lives and families over the course of it's execution. It continues to do so today. If the constitution was actually followed, each state can determine which drugs it would allow. As far as I know, Colorado hasn't devolved into a cesspool of depravity since it legalized pot. Imagine all the hell that could have been avoided if states were allowed to decide which drugs to ban rather than the federal government.
Of course a strong federal government has some plusses as well. It was hotly debated during the country's inception, but the ultimate compromise all the states agreed to is what we got.
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Ahaha what? There's no myth that we won it alone. Elementary school texts on the subject lay it out fairly clearly that we did it with the French. reply
There are a worrying number of people in the US who believe in American exceptionalism. When the French are brought up by them, it's generally in the context of "We saved their asses in WWII", not "They were vital in our war of independence". reply
Trump just spent his formal state visit with Macron repeatedly extolling the role the French played in American independence. Trump addresses almost everything he does to the same audience that elected him (the same people that your premise would imply don't understand how vital France was to US independence). It's blatantly clear that average Americans for two centuries have understood the very important role France played. It is taught in all schools in the US.Just about all nations believe in their own exceptionalism. Ask a person from Scandinavia what the best nations on earth are sometime. You really don't need to ask, they'll start all of their replies with: in Sweden we are bestest. Ask a French person how glorious their culture is. Ask a person from China how extraordinary their nation is and about how it's going to dominate the world in the future. Ask a German who makes the best cars on earth (they'll volunteer that, you know, Americans should make better cars if they want to fix the trade deficit, snark snark, chortle). Ask a Canadian if their country provides for a superior way of life vs the US - they won't hesitate for a second to proclaim that as a matter of fact their way of doing things is superior. Ask a Japanese person, off the record, if they're superior to the Chinese.
America's exceptionalism, is that it's the only nation aggressively called out for believing it's exceptional.
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'Generally'.Also, a severe lack of commentary on those who live in other countries believing in their own exceptionalism. So not sure what you're responding to.
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There's no doubt that those were factors that aided. As always nothing in world history happened due to a singular factor or cause. But it is not mythology that a lot of brave and enlightened people fought an empire and have become a very successful country. What next? Are we to discount the Allies win over the Axis because well the Third Reich was worn down due to fighting in Russia? I am a US born citizen and criticize our country quite a bit, but it is insulting to say that the uprising here wasn't the main factor in us achieving our independence. reply
Until the levee en masse in France pretty much all European armies consisted of mercenaries, criminals, and various other people considered the dregs of society, rather than patriotic citizens devoted to the cause.Also the British Empire lasted significantly longer and a big factor in pulling out was protecting the Caribbean possessions from the French.
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Probably a bigger myth is that farmers hid out in trees and picked off stuffy Englishmen foolishly clinging to warfare in lines (so why was von Steuben important, then?), which only comes close to describing reality in places like Kentucky where a bunch of partisans were participating in what we might today call guerilla warfare. But even in that case it was less picking off soldiers and more killing your loyalist or patriot neighbors. Warfare in lines was completely logical given the weapons available at the time. reply
> There's no myth that we won it alone.Yes, there is.
> Elementary school texts on the subject lay it out fairly clearly that we did it with the French.
Textbooks are a mixed bag, but most I've seen at K-12 levels do mention that the French eventually were involved in some way, but very few give a real idea of the nature, extent (material or temporal), and criticality of French aid. E.g., approximately zero note that France started covertly arming and funding independence-minded Americans before the Declaration of Independence.
But even if the textbooks told the whole story, that wouldn't disprove the existence of a popular myth, it would just make it's persistence more remarkable.
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Even if it were factually accurate that we won it alone, the story of the revolutionary war has still taken on mythic status in our society. The revolutionary war is just as much a mythic story as many religious stories. reply
Another part of the American mystique is that every politician is for sale via legal bribery where companies donate to their campaigns and get them to do mostly whatever the company wants, totally contrary to the interests of the public. reply
They do, some folks.The idea is companies, caring only about their own revenue, are purer of heart than politicians who are interested primarily in their own social status.
... that a kind of bulk morality emerges from many individuals all working to maximize a single product's sales.
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It's reasonable and wise to distrust government. What is unreasonable is American blind faith in private industry.This tracking is a great example of the threat posed by industry to individual citizens.
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You leave out another option: Americans distrust government because we see it fail us every day. Corruption, police brutality, inefficiency, politician sleaze baggery...In general corporations provide a much higher quality service than the government in the US.
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It always boggles my mind how 1/2 the people that realize and complain about those things go on to recommend more government and that only they should have effective guns. reply
It's not half, it's a tiny percent who recommend those things.Saying half the country wants those things because they vote D is the same as saying half the country wants to ban Muslims because they vote R.
You can't treat populations as individuals. You can't take the many desires of a group of people and expect them to make sense as if they were one mind.
This mindset is the reason political discussion has broken down in this country. Rather than treat each other as individuals with diverse opinions, we treat each other as mini clones of the nonsensical amalgam of the worst aspects of half the country.
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You make a good point about the government, but I don't agree it extends to corporations. Corporations do much of the dirty work of the government.Defense contractors and mining concerns operate hand-in-hand with the government, training police, researching weapons, running prisons, crunching data. Look at the story of this article: it's corporations doing the dirty work the government isn't technically allowed to do.
Furthermore corporations only submit to greatly reduced requirements for attending to those with special needs, like in wheelchairs, deaf, etc. There are some valuable services provided to them, like closed captioning, but only under passioned support from idealists and with profit incentive.
If we left it all to corporations, only the most able-bodied and well-off people would run the country for the most able-bodied and well-off, forming tight-knit circles to maintain their power and never perceiving the world as a place for living, only protecting power.
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> ...There are some valuable services provided to them, like closed captioning, but only under passioned support from idealists and with profit incentive.It's worth noting that video closed captioning had to be mandated by law (Telecommunications Act of 1996) before it became universal[1]. Some broadcasters were ahead of the curve & implemented it prior to the legislation, but it was rarely comprehensive.
Of course, this just underscores your point that disabled consumers were not a large enough group to have their needs met by market forces alone.
The clever part is that the government in turn is allowed to purchase data from the other companies. reply
Also, if a government employee does a lookup in their spare time as a private person out of curiosity, it is ok? Or if they ask their friend to do the lookup? reply
Why? Releasing the data to the government creates Big Brother. I thought we were all against that? reply
Now you've created a corporate Big Brother, who is hell bent on pure profits and doesn't even have to answer to you in the elections. Is that better? reply
Yes? Government Big Brother can put me in jail just because a cell phone record said I was near a crime while being committed. Corporate Big Brother can only make money from me. reply
Here the difference shows pretty clearly, as I would trust the government more than any company. Government serves the people, while companies mostly care just about profit. Any of companies' privacy concerns are related to legal and PR risks.Being from Northern Europe, I do feel I have a good reason to trust the government. It's a machine that is working for my benefit, with my tax money, and is held accountable via my votes.
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''Here the difference shows pretty clearly, as I would trust the government more than any company.''What the?
''Government serves the people''
Wait seriously?
''Being from Northern Europe,''
OH. Yea, I'm pretty sure there is a cultural difference we just aren't going to agree on. I don't know what country you are from but I'm going to guess it's population is pretty small and what you effectively have is small government anyway.
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Whether or not they live up to that purpose is another discussion, but at a base level the government exists to serve the people while (for-profit) corporations exist to make money. Regardless of cultural differences. reply
What stops Corporate Brother from voluntarily sharing/selling/giving data to the government out of patriotism? Or for some help in exchange. Especially if done unofficially. reply
Well, such a release should of course be limited, regulated and with oversight. But I'd argue that at least police should have some possibility to get at customer data, even without opt-in.Release of privacy-sensitive data to other companies should strictly be by clear customer opt-in, with clear limits on its use. And even some of that should be forbidden for semi-monopolies such as telecom providers.
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Contrasted to Palantir, Facebook, cambridge analytica and private firms working for NSA?Ironically, governments are somewhat still under democratic control... somewhat.
Corporations are completely authoritarian, and by design.
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But that act says it's telecoms that can't sell it to the government. Doesn't the government purchase data from other 3rd party entities anyways? reply
What if I as an European visit the states? Am I protected by through some agreements with my local provider or even GDPR? reply
Maybe [1]. I wouldn't count on being protected while outside the EU.Art. 3 GDPR Territorial scope
Article 3(1) This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the Union, where the processing activities are related to:
Article 3(2)(a) - the offering of goods or services, irrespective of whether a payment of the data subject is required, to such data subjects in the Union; orArticle 3(2)(b) - the monitoring of their behaviour as far as their behaviour takes place within the Union.
Article 3(3) This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data by a controller not established in the Union, but in a place where Member State law applies by virtue of public international law.
[1] https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/
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Practically you're just going to get extra tracked because you're a foreigner. Also if the articles about TSA borrowing your phone to clone it real quick or forcing you to log into facebook are true, I wouldn't expect them to abide to GDPR. reply
Through FISA, all foreigners are legal monitorable, no matter what.This is part of how US mass surveillance works. We record everything and if it turns out to be a citizen, we're supposed to throw it out. Of course in reality, it goes to the Parallel Construction Department who uses the information to build a case against someone through other means, knowing the answer in advance.
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I'm shocked that anyone is shocked about this! Transportation departments have been buying this data since the late 90s.More creepy are the planning solutions for commercial development. You can buy datasets that will tell you the average income of drivers on larger highways in hourly buckets.
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So as a private citizen, I can pool some money and get the same level of tracking that American intellignece services have of individual cell hardware?Sounds like a win for the citizens.
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> Cook: What would he do if he were Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg? His answer: ''I wouldn't be in this situation.''Sounds like one of those situations to me...
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The article mentions banks tracking your credit card usage to detect fraud. Are there known instances of banks reselling this location data? reply
I tried location smart website said location accuracy was up to 14 miles off. They were really 4 miles off. So not that accurate. If it was 2 blocks like other poster I'd be worried. reply
Has anyone suggested a practical way that people can avoid being tracked? (Aside from Airplane Mode or keeping your phone in a Faraday Cage) reply
I see a lot of suggestions about reducing or shutting off your signals, but what about boosting them in certain directions? As far as I understand cell tower triangulation, having a stronger signal in one direction might offset your calculated position in that direction. I wouldn't expect that to decrease connectivity, just require special equipment and more battery life. reply
If it's happening at the carrier level (triangulation via towers) there's zero you can do at the client (your phone) besides stop transmission by turning it off or placing it in a faraday cage. reply
It sounds like GPS units are also involved: tower triangulation is inaccurate so by carrying a phone that has no GPS you would be able to claw back a few meters. reply
Out of all the solutions suggested - this is the most practical. This would actually fix the problem at hand. Make it illegal for them to either obtain and/or sell this data. reply
There's no way to do this without using your own antenna network. Even then, you need encryption just to anonymize your calls, but if you end up talking to people subscribed to the same carriers you're trying to avoid, you can trivially be de-anonymized by timing attacks. So there's no good solution, unless you're willing to turn your calls to voice mail.More practical solutions would include:
-(physically) Powered off radio unless you want to make a call. A clear drawback is that you can't receive calls.
-Satphones. I'm pretty sure satellite phone providers aren't in this yet. They could be, but my guess is that they wouldn't want to waste bandwidth triangulating their users. Also satellite-based triangulation would be much harder and less accurate, and if you use your own directional antenna and sat-tracking mount, you can avoid this altogether. Until they start installing phased array antennas or something.
-Finding a provider that doesn't sell your data to third parties. Probably the hardest of all, and you have to rely on their word.
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It used to be possible to buy prepaid SIM cards with cash and not have to provide any identification. AFAIK, this isn't possible anymore. Does anyone know for sure? reply
Laws are everywhere to prevent this, because without ID, a terrorist can buy a SIM card and put it in his GSM-controlled IED. Not sure how strong it is being enforced though, the terrorist can just give a homeless guy a few bucks to buy a SIM card for him. IIRC when I bought a SIM card in an Asian country I went to visit, the seller just entered her ID number into the system. reply
The real question being: How hard is it to bypass/cheat the identification requirement? Especially considering the US doesn't even have something like an official ID card.They also changed this in Germany. Now you have to fill out a form to activate your SIM, but afaik nobody ever checks if the information in the form is actually yours.
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The providers in our country require ID. I think there was an EU directive in 2006 that gradually forced all providers to require identification. Of course this doesn't stop criminals in the slightest, they just get second hand SIMs registered by homeless or just SIMs from outside the EU, so it was a pointless law with regards to reducing crime, but if the goal was more surveillance they did ok. reply
You don't have to use a Google powered phone. But the modern economy almost demands you have a cell phone. reply
Carrier IQ was far more invasive than just location. Their "Experience Manager" was supposedly tracking every app launch, time spent in that app, metrics on key & button presses within that app, and other misc interactions.They got accused of being a "keylogger" which they rightly said they weren't, but that ignores how invasive and creepy Experience Manager was (is?). Their whole argument was that carriers can use this app data to see what apps are draining battery, which is kind of bs since carriers are in no position to resolve battery issues or advise customers.
The reality is that carriers wanted more information on how customers were using their devices, Carrier IQ provided that raw data, and both got rich. They survived the scandal because the critics focused on keylogging, instead of the highly invasive usage analytics which it really was.
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Carriers are also selling your billing records. They offer a service to return the carrier billing address/name based on the mobile number.Not only this but late last year all 4 of the major US carriers are offering APIs to convert mobile IP to a billing record (name/address/phone number).
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It's so strange--I never would have expected the boot of tyranny to come from private corporations, but here we are. And what all this proves is that technology is value-neutral and can wipe us all out, or just make us incredibly miserable, if we let it.Hopefully there will be a way to opt out. Otherwise, I should start selling faraday bags for devices. Probably should anyways.
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This tracking abomination is an emergent phenomenon of the merger of private industry and government in the US. See for example both legalized bribery (a.k.a. unlimited campaign contributions by corporations thanks to Citizens United) and outright bribery (Cohen) by telecoms like AT&T, ensuring that they will have the flexibility to perpetrate such garbage as this tracking data sale.Why not distrust both government and industry? The rule "power corrupts" holds in either case.
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Why not? Both government and private industry bring innumerable benefits to humanity. But we can and should view them both with constant skepticism and exercise vigilance. Why should holding one accountable mean that we can't hold the other accountable?If you're looking for someone to root for, I'd suggest the individual citizen.
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> Hopefully there will be a way to opt outDon't use a cellphone.
See also: the FBI can't wiretap your phone lines if you never use a telephone.
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Live in a cabin in the woods and never have contact with anyone. Now your surveillance worries are solved. reply
I think it depends a lot on the kind of capitalism you have. There's what I think of as small-business capitalism, where business owners in a community naturally take the community's interest into account because that's where they live.I think that's distinct from American MBA capitalism, which is the increase-shareholder-value, up-and-to-the-right, maximize-short-term-cash-gains kind.
The former is positive-sum, the latter can easily be negative sum. And I think the latter, because it doesn't include any humanity in its calculus, is perfectly capable of profitable tyrrany.
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I've just started using Signal and was surprised by how good the call quality is. For those that aren't aware, Signal calls are encrypted, so you effectively give nothing to the cell carrier when you make a call through it (except that you used some data). reply
Unless I misunderstood, this has nothing to do with what apps you use to communicate. It has to do with connecting to the cellular network at all. I think the only way around this would be to run airplane mode with wifi only, and then taking lots of steps to keep your wifi use private too. reply
While it is true that Signal's call quality is great, this doesn't seem relevant to the fact that cell providers can track you regardless of what apps you use. reply
> Signal calls are encrypted, so you effectively give nothing to the cell carrier when you make a call through it (except that you used some data).Maybe not to your carrier, but presumably Google could capture some form of metadata.
With Google's near-monopoly on the internet, it can be difficult to get around in cyberspace without encountering at least some aspect of this monolithic, data-gathering giant. It usually takes a concerted effort, but it is technically possible to do. While [Mat] is still using some Google products, he has at least figured out a way to get Google Home to work with location data without actually sharing that data with Google, which is a step in the right direction.
[Mat]'s goal was to use Google's location sharing features through Google Home, but without the creepiness factor of Google knowing everything about his life, and also without the hassle of having to use Google Maps. He's using a few things to pull this off, including a NodeRED server running on a Raspberry Pi Zero, a free account from If This Then That (IFTTT), Tasker with AutoRemote plugin, and the Google Maps API key. With all of that put together, and some configuration of IFTTT he can ask his Google assistant (or Google Home) for location data, all without sharing that data with Google.
This project is a great implementation of Google's tools and a powerful use of IFTTT. And, as a bonus, it gets around some of the creepiness factor that Google tends to incorporate in their quest to know all the data.
My phone can now understand me but it's still an idiot when it comes to understanding what I want. We have both the hardware capacity and the software capacity to solve this right now. What we lack is the social capacity.
We are currently in a dumb state of personal automation. I have Google Now enabled on my phone. Every single month Google Now reminds me of bills coming due that I have already paid. It doesn't see me pay them, it just sees the email I received and the due date. A creature of habit, I pay my bills on the last day of the month even though that may be weeks early. This is the easiest thing in the world for a computer to learn. But it's an open loop system and so no learning can happen.
Earlier this month [Cameron Coward] wrote an outstanding pair or articles on AI research that helped shed some light on this problem. The correct term for this level of personal automation is ''weak AI''. What I want is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) on a personal level. But that's not going to happen, and I am the problem. Here's why.
Blindfolding AILike most people, my phone is now part of who I am. Although I spend hours a day using an actual desktop computer (that's the kind where the monitor and keyboard aren't one integrated part of the computer) much of my life passes though a 5.2'" touchscreen. Google is always watching but for now it's relegated to a small portion of what is going on. It sees those monthly bill notices I previously mentioned because I use gmail, but it doesn't watch my browser activity close enough to see me pay them.
Everything in life needs an impetus to happen. If there isn't a closed loop on my bill payments it's no surprise that I get deprecated reminders about them. This means my current automation is annoying rather than assistive. It can't see everything I do.
How to Look at Someone Without Creeping Them OutCayla is always listeningIn many cultures there is a social norm that you don't stare at people. That is to say, there are times when it is and isn't appropriate to look at people; there is a maximum amount of time you can continue gazing upon them; and the rules that make this work are a game of moving goal posts.
Yet almost all humans are capable of, and do learn this game. Even strangers who have never met you before can quickly recognize when you need help and if they should offer it or not. This is the keystone to unlocking useful personal AI. It's also an incredibly difficult task.
A much easier method is to watch absolutely everything the user does. This makes a lot more data available but it's super creepy and raises a ton of ethical concerns. Being observed the majority of the time is unprecedented '-- there's no human-to-human paradigm for this type of watchfulness. And the early technology paradigms have not been going well. Just last week authorities in Germany recommended that owners of a doll called ''Cayla'' destroy the microphones housed within. The doll's microphone is always listening, routing what is heard through a voice recognition service with servers outside of the country.
Creepiness aside, privacy is a major issue with allowing an system to watch everything you do. If that information is somehow breached it would be an identity theft goldmine. Would your AI need to know to shut itself down anytime you walk into a public restroom, hospital, or other sensitive environment? How could you trust that it had done so on every occasion?
My mind also jumps to a whimsical scenario where your personal AI gets a bit too smart and decides to blackmail you (a Douglas-Adams-like thought'... I will try to keep this discussion on the track of what is plausible). More likely, once your personal assistant knows you well enough and proves it can get you to do your work more efficiently it'll be promoted from your assistant to your manager. Are you still an effective team?
Machine Learning as a Social NormSeth Bling's neural network learning Super Mario WorldMachine learning is the key to doing amazing things. But gain a bit of understanding of how it works and you immediately see where the problem lies. A machine can learn to play video games at a very high level, but it must be allowed to see all aspects of the game play and requires concrete success metrics like a high score or rare/valuable collected items.
Yes, for a personal AI to be truly useful it must have nearly unrestricted access to collect data by watching you in daily life. But I think it goes even a step further. An AI can't speed-run your Monday over and over the way it would a level of Super Mario World. For machine learning to work in this case it needs to share data across large populations to get a useful set. It would definitely work, but that's a peeping-tom network of epic proportions. That's not an uncanny valley, it's a horror movie plot.
We have already seen the implications of this flavor of data collection. Social media is the machine learning without any of the AI benefits. Millions of people have published what might seem to them as innocuous information on innumerable platforms. But big data turns that innocuous information into predictions about the behavior of segments of the population.
If the dopamine drip of social media got people to share all of this data, what impact would effective personal AI have? It would be your friend, advisor, confidant, all in one. I tip my hat to Charles Stross who depicted a very scary AI in his book Accelerando. It takes the form of realistic robotic house cat. It's incredibly easy to underestimate abstract intelligence.
Given Access, AI Still Lacks VisionGoogle's 'Inceptionism' turned out some trippy images but it still doesn't know what it's looking at.The current state of the art could allow a unified data collection effort to watch everything on your various computers and portable devices. It could listen to the audio in your life. And even record video of limited use.
First things first, even given total digital access to your life it is a big task to make sense of everything you're doing. This is not an insurmountable challenge right now, but it would certainly require that the processing happen remotely to get the necessary horsepower. The same goes for audio data. This is already the case for many systems like the Amazon's Echo, Apple's Siri, Google's Allo, and for children's toys like the aforementioned Cayla and Mattel's Barbie.
Video recognition doesn't really exist right now. This is the real cutting edge of a lot of robotics research (think self-driving cars and military robots) so it is surely coming. As with voice recognition, there are services like Google Cloud Vision that depend on a system of constraints: orientation of the item to the camera, lighting levels, known sets to compare, and more. But in the foreseeable future I don't think that dependable computer vision will be a suitable data source for personal AI purposes.
This is a real problem for making sense of our lives. How will your AI know who you are talking to? Without a view of what you see, gathering context becomes very hard. And the most obvious route for this input would have been wearable cameras like Google Glass. We all know how that turned out. Perhaps Snapchat's entry into that field will change the landscape.
What We Could Get But Won'tOkay, I've done a lot of bellyaching about the problems. If those were all solved, what do I actually want? In a nutshell I want my intelligence augmented.
If my wife and I have a passing conversation about a musical coming to town I want my personal AI to remember and tell me when tickets go on sale. For that matter, I want it to know my seating and cost preferences for me and to check my calendar and my wife's calendar to choose the perfect day, simply asking me to pull the trigger on the purchase. I want it to know that we usually will pair a show with a dinner or with drinks afterward and the collate our restaurant visit history to guess which place we would most enjoy visiting this time around. I want the moon.
But I also want privacy. I want my humanity, and I want to live my own life. So I'll pull myself back from visions of a brave new world and appreciate what we have: access to information which was lunacy to imagine 30 years ago. Technology will continue its march forward and we will benefit from it. But for now that tech isn't and can't watch us closely enough to make an Artificial General Intelligence system part of your daily life. But people will try and that will be very interesting to read about on Hackaday.
Two thousand six hundred seventeen times a day. That is how often the average person taps, pokes, pinches or swipes their personal phone.
It all adds up to about 2 hours and 25 minutes, according to a study by mobile app research firm Dscout Inc. And a good chunk of that time comes during work hours.
Jason Brown had had enough of it. Two years ago, the chief executive of Brown, Parker & DeMarinis Advertising paused for a moment to look across the meeting room as he delivered a presentation. The majority of those gathered were fiddling with their phones.
''I lost it,'' says Mr. Brown.
In his anger, he issued a companywide edict: ''Don't show up at a meeting with me with your phone. If someone shows up with their phone, it'll be their last meeting.''
Many managers are conflicted about how'--or even whether'--to limit smartphone use in the workplace. Smartphones enable people to get work done remotely, stay on top of rapid business developments and keep up with clients and colleagues. But the devices are also the leading productivity killers in the workplace, according to a 2016 survey of more than 2,000 executives and human-resource managers conducted by CareerBuilder, an HR software and services company.
There is also some evidence that productivity suffers in the mere presence of smartphones. When workers in a recent study by the University of Texas and University of California had their personal phones placed on their desks'--untouched'--their cognitive performance was lower than when their devices were in another location, such as in a handbag or the pocket of a coat hanging near their workspace.
''I firmly believe that multitasking is a myth,'' says Bill Hoopes, an IT project manager at L3 Technologies Inc.
Mr. Hoopes put his convictions into practice at group gatherings when he took over a team of about 25 people at the aerospace defense company three years ago. ''Every time someone's phone went off, they had to stand for the rest of the meeting,'' he says. Before long, he asked the group to leave their phones at their desks when two or more people got together.
Over time, he says, he has noticed not only an improvement in the quality of conversation and ideas in meetings, but also that his people seem to show more respect and appreciation for one another's work.
Mat Ishbia, CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage, banned technology from meetings about two years ago and recently asked that his executive team and other managers not check their phones as they walk to and from meetings.
''Don't act like we're too important to say hello,'' he says he told them. ''Make eye contact with people.''
Mr. Ishbia is now piloting another solution to phone addiction. A group of about 250 workers are part of an experiment in which they refrain from all personal phone use at their desks. If they want to use their devices they must go to a common area designated for phone use and socializing. Forty-five days into the trial run, workers are checking their phones a lot less, he said.
Bryan Lee, a product manager at enterprise software company Docker Inc., suspected that his daily phone use was a problem, so last month he installed an app called Moment on his iPhone that tracks the total amount of daily time he spent on his phone. His first measurement revealed four hours in a day. Since early April, he's reduced that to roughly an hour.
At work, Mr. Lee persuaded his team of eight to download the app and post their daily phone hours on a whiteboard. The team member with the lowest time gets bragging rights.
''We're thinking of having a trophy we can pass around'--or maybe just shaming the loser,'' he says.
Handheld devices can be a valuable source of information during office gatherings. Shane Wooten, CEO of enterprise video platform company Vidplat LLC, recently surprised a group of corporate clients with a request that they leave their electronic devices outside. ''They didn't like it,'' he says.
Since January, Mr. Wooten has limited personal devices at meetings with his employees and faced some resistance. Workers argue their phones are vital for staying in touch with a sick child or researching information relevant to the meeting.
''I told them we're not in middle school,'' he says. ''I'm not collecting phones in a bucket. Just don't have it out faceup on the table.''
Google Inc. announced last week that the next version of its operating system for Android phones will include a feature that is meant to a help people who feel tethered to their devices. It will let users see how much time they spend on their phones, show which apps they use the most and display how often the phone gets unlocked.
Software may be the key, because not all workplace solutions work. The no-phones-at-meetings rule at Mr. Brown's ad agency lasted about two months, because it wasn't all that effective.
Instead of phones, staffers wore smartwatches to meetings or brought their laptops, which were just as distracting, he says, adding that workers said they were worried about missing calls and emails from clients.
Now, he tells his 40 employees not to attend meetings unless they really have to be there and strongly advises they fully engage.
Mr. Brown missed his phone too and likened the experience to outlawing alcohol during the Prohibition era: ''A theoretical state that almost no one wants to live in, including those making the rules,'' he says.
Facebook deletes millions of accounts every day, the social network revealed.
/ Getty Images Facebook is in a state of constant deletion.
The social network released its Community Standards Enforcement Report for the first time on Tuesday, detailing how many spam posts it's deleted and how many fake accounts it's taken down in the first quarter of 2018. In a blog post on Facebook, Guy Rosen, Facebook's vice president of product management, said the social network disabled about 583 million fake accounts during the first three months of this year -- the majority of which, it said, were blocked within minutes of registration.
That's an average of over 6.5 million attempts to create a fake account every day from Jan. 1 to March 31. Facebook boasts 2.2 billion monthly active users, and if Facebook's AI tools didn't catch these fake accounts flooding the social network, its population would have swelled immensely in just 89 days.
Facebook has been dealing with mounting pressure from lawmakers and public opinion over how powerful it's become. In April, CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress , promising greater transparency and responsibility from the social network. Facebook has gone under intense scrutiny over issues of disinformation campaigns from Russian trolls , as well as a data scandal involving 87 million people .
Fake and automated accounts plague other popular services too, including Twitter and YouTube. A Pew Research Center report in April said that two-thirds of tweeted links on Twitter came from bots, while a study last year from the University of Oxford showed that bots on social networks were a significant force in swaying political opinions .
Rosen also said that Facebook blocks millions of fake account attempts every day from even attempting to register, but did not specify how many.
A key tool in the fight against fake accounts: artificial intelligence. But AI isn't perfect. While it blocked more than 500 million fake accounts, Facebook estimates that about 3 percent to 4 percent of accounts on the website are fake.
Even at that low percentage, with Facebook's massive scale that's at least 66 million fake accounts hiding in plain sight on the social network.
Facebook's AI also went after 837 million spam posts in the first quarter, nearly all of which it deleted before anyone reported the posts.
CNET Daily News Get today's top news and reviews collected for you.Some other stats from the first quarter of the year: Facebook down 21 million pieces of adult nudity and sexual activity; took down or applied warning labels to about 3.5 million pieces of violent content; and removed 2.5 million pieces of hate speech.
The work won't be ending anytime soon -- if ever.
"We're up against sophisticated adversaries who continually change tactics to circumvent our controls, which means we must continuously build and adapt our efforts," Rosen said. "It's why we're investing heavily in more people and better technology."
Cambridge Analytica: Everything you need to know about Facebook's data mining scandal.
Blockchain Decoded: CNET looks at the tech powering bitcoin -- and soon, too, a myriad of services that will change your life.
Facebook took down almost 1.3 billion fake accounts in last six months - Recode
Facebook disabled nearly 1.3 billion ''fake'' accounts over the past two quarters, many of them bots ''with the intent of spreading spam or conducting illicit activities such as scams,'' the company said on Monday.
Facebook disabled 583 million accounts in Q1 2018, down from 694 million accounts in Q4 of last year, a decrease the company attributes to its ''variability of our detection technology's ability to find and flag them.''
Most of the accounts ''were disabled within minutes of registration,'' Facebook claimed in a blog post, but Facebook doesn't catch all fake accounts. The company estimates that 3 percent to 4 percent of its monthly active users are ''fake,'' up from 2 percent to 3 percent in Q3 of 2017, according to filings documents.
Those numbers are big, a reminder of what Facebook is up against just 18 months after it was learned that a Russian troll farm used Facebook to try and influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Facebook says it finds most of the accounts on its own using software algorithms, but a small percentage '-- about 1.5 percent of the disabled accounts '-- were discovered after they were flagged by Facebook users.
Facebook published the numbers for the first time on Tuesday, along with another set of numbers outlining the other kinds of content the company takes down on a regular basis.
Publishing the data is a way for Facebook to hold itself accountable, but it's also a chance for Facebook to show users that it's actually working on these problems in the background, something that's not always obvious to the average user scrolling through her News Feed.
''This is the start,'' said Guy Rosen, a Facebook product VP working on safety and security. ''People can report a lot more types of bad things [than we are updating here.] So we want to have more numbers to share [next time].''
The numbers Facebook is sharing this time focus on major content categories. The company removed 21 million ''pieces of adult nudity or porn,'' for example, the vast majority of which was discovered using software programs. It also removed 2.5 million pieces of ''hate speech,'' 56 percent more content than the 1.6 million pieces it removed in Q4.
Unlike nudity or terrorism-related content, though, hate speech is still primarily discovered by humans, not software programs. Only 38 percent of the hate speech Facebook removed in Q1 was first identified by algorithms. That's an improvement over 23.6 percent in Q4, but still much smaller than some of the other content categories Facebook looks for.
That makes sense, as ''hate speech'' is much more subjective than nudity. What one person might describe as hate speech, another might describe as free speech. The fact that Facebook still has trouble detecting it without human help shows that the problem won't go away anytime soon.
''Hate speech is really hard,'' said Alex Schultz, Facebook's VP of analytics, in a briefing with reporters. ''There's nuance, there's context. The technology just isn't there to really understand all of that, let alone in a long long list of languages.''
Facebook has been working to win back the trust of its users ever since the 2016 election '-- and the more recent Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal in which user data was collected by an outside research firm without users' consent.
Facebook rewrote its data policies, and also published the rulebook it uses for content policy decisions over the past few months. It plans to publish data around what types of posts it removes every six months or so moving forward.
''We hope we get better, but there is the interesting balance around what happens in the real world versus what happens on our site,'' Schultz said. ''It would be good for the world if wars ended, and I'm sure that would be good for the graphic violence number on Facebook. Also there could be another war breakout, and that would be terrible, and that would be bad for those numbers.''
''I think we should measure them well, and we should be good at explaining to you why they have moved,'' he added.
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Facebook Says It's Policing Fake Accounts. But They're Still Easy to Spot. - The New York Times
How do bots and trolls work to infiltrate social media platforms and influence U.S. elections? We take a closer look at these insidious online pests to explain how they work. Published On Oct. 31, 2017WASHINGTON '-- Executives of Facebook, Twitter and Google pledged to Congress this week to do more to prevent the fakery that has polluted their sites. ''We understand that the people you represent expect authentic experiences when they come to our platform,'' Colin Stretch, the general counsel of Facebook, told the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said the company was doubling its review staff to 20,000 and using artificial intelligence to find more ''bad actors.''
Mr. Stretch, meet Keven S. Eversley. Mr. Eversley's Facebook profile informs us that he is from Minneapolis. But a glance at the web address for his profile reveals a different name: Aleksandar Teovski. And nearly all of his Facebook friends, his family photographs, his alma mater and even his employer are in Macedonia, a center for internet fakery.
Despite months of talk about the problem of fraud facing Facebook and other tech companies, and vows to root it out, their sites remain infected by obvious counterfeits. The Russian influence operation during the 2016 election, which occasioned the three congressional hearings this week, is only one especially consequential sample of a far larger problem, in which the platforms are gamed for profit or political influence.
Image Colin Stretch, the general counsel of Facebook, testified this week before multiple congressional committees. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times Most experts say financial motives for the chicanery, in fact, are far more common than political goals. ''Keven Eversley'' is probably a case in point. Every few days, the Eversley profile posts on Facebook links to sensational, if fact-challenged, articles, all from the same obscure website, conswriters.com: President Trump has ended welfare for immigrants; the F.B.I. was ordered to halt its investigation into the mass shooting in Las Vegas; Hillary Clinton was ''hit with terrible news'' about Benghazi, Libya.
Conswriters.com, like hundreds of ''clickbait'' sites, pastes enticing headlines on articles that read like the work of time-pressed high school students. But it is packed with Google ads that generate revenue for every click, highlighting Google's foundational role in the ecosystem of online deception.
Jonathan L. Zittrain, who studies the internet and society at Harvard, said the companies are reluctant to aggressively purge bogus users and deceptive content because of their business model, which is built on signing up more and more people.
''These platforms are oriented to maximize user growth and retention,'' Mr. Zittrain said. ''That means not throwing up even tiny hurdles along the sign-up runway, and not closing accounts without significant cause. I suspect they figure there are enough accounts that are the subject of complaints to review without looking for more to assess.''
It takes no great technical expertise to spot the dubious accounts, and amateur sleuths around the country have taken up the task. Zachary Elwood, a technical writer and an author of poker books in Portland, Ore., who started tracking evidence of fake Facebook profiles this year, found dozens of impostors, including Keven Eversley.
He noticed that a dozen profiles, several clearly with Macedonian content, using the same photographs and other details of a single real person, a Virginia real estate agent named Harry Taylor. Mr. Elwood found a network of what appeared to be attractive pro-Trump American women, but older posts and other details revealed that the accounts originated in the Middle East.
''It's amazing how sloppy some of these accounts are,'' Mr. Elwood said. ''I hate liars and I'm drawn to understand stuff like this.''
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Red Flags: How to Spot Fake Content
Check out who a profile is ''friends'' with. Is the hometown listed on a profile similar to its friend base? For example, ''Keven Eversley'' claims to be from Minneapolis, but the majority of his friends are from Skopje, Macedonia.
Compare the profile's public name to its web address. For the Eversley profile, it has a different name in the address: Aleksandar Teovski.
Image If a profile seems suspicious, search for similar pages that draw on the same personal details or images.
Image______
With more than two billion users worldwide, Facebook relies on complaints to police its content. So, Mr. Elwood used Facebook's internal complaint tool to report the Keven Eversley profile and 27 others showing evidence of deception. In all but a couple of cases, Facebook responded with a standard message of thanks for the feedback but said the profiles did not violate its community standards '-- even though those standards require users to give their ''authentic identities.''
''The reporting process is frustrating,'' Mr. Elwood said. ''Facebook seems to be lagging way behind the problem.''
Facebook estimates that as many as 60 million accounts, 2 to 3 percent of the company's 2.07 billion regular visitors, are fakes. Sean Edgett, Twitter's general counsel, testified before Congress that about 5 percent of its 330 million users are ''false accounts or spam,'' which would add up to more than 16 million fakes.
''Spammers and bad actors are getting better at making themselves look more real,'' Mr. Edgett said.
Independent experts say the real numbers are far higher.
On Twitter, little more than an email address is needed to start tweeting. Facebook's requirement that users be their authentic selves means the company asks for a smattering of information to sign up '-- name, birthday, gender and email address. But few checks exist to verify that information.
''Part of the problem is that Facebook is a black box,'' said Michael Serazio, a professor of communications at Boston College. ''They do what they do, and we don't know to what degree their operations can even handle these issues '-- not to mention how handling them maps with their economic model.''
In fact, fighting too hard against deception may clash with the business models that have allowed the companies to thrive. Facebook, Google and Twitter all offer self-serve advertising systems allowing anyone in the world to buy, target and deliver ads for as much '-- or as little '-- money as they wish to spend. More scrutiny could hamper growth.
Facebook, for instance, reported record profits this week in its quarterly earnings even as executives testified about Russian exploitation of their services. Shares of the social network soared to an all-time high on Wednesday afternoon after the news. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, insisted in the earnings call that the company is prepared to sacrifice profits to crack down on illicit activity.
''Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits,'' he said.
Whether public concern about the manipulation of the platforms might at some point threaten the business remains to be seen. But many customers who run up against the fakery problem end up unhappy.
Kristofer Goldsmith, an assistant director for policy and government relations at Vietnam Veterans of America, noticed last summer a look-alike Facebook page calling itself Vietnam Vets of America that initially borrowed the real group's logo. Linked to a website hosted in Bulgaria, the upstart page pushed viral content, weighing in on N.F.L. players' protests of police shootings. It posted looping videos that were months or years old but presented them as breaking news, he said.
''Sometimes their grammar was off,'' Mr. Goldsmith said, but there was no way to know who was behind the page.
Soon, the look-alike page had 200,000 followers '-- more than the 120,000 than the page of the real group, which has a long history of service, a congressional charter and chapters around the country. Mr. Goldsmith said the linked website had few ads, so he suspected a political motive, probably in line with the Russian campaign to divide Americans.
In August, Mr. Goldsmith began complaining to Facebook. But officials there hesitated; hosting pages for millions of groups, they were hardly equipped to assess in detail whether a particular veterans group was worthy and another was not.
Finally, in late October, Facebook shut the newer page, deciding it had illicitly stolen the intellectual property of the older page. But Mr. Goldsmith said the experience was disturbing.
''I don't think they're taking a very proactive approach,'' he said of Facebook. ''There was a foreign entity targeting American vets and inserting itself into divisive debates. Someone could do this to us every month.''
Correction:An earlier version of this article misstated at one point Facebook's most recent report of its monthly average users. The correct number is 2.07 billion, not 2.3 billion. That earlier version also misstated how many users Facebook estimates are fakes. The company estimates that 10 percent of its accounts, or 200 million, are duplicates used by real people, and that 60 million accounts are fake.
Lilia Chang contributed to this article.
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Facebook Details Policing for Sex, Terror, Hate Content | Technology News
Facebook axed 583 million fake accounts in the first three months of 2018, the social media giant said Tuesday, detailing how it enforces "community standards" against sexual or violent images, terrorist propaganda or hate speech.
Responding to calls for transparency after the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, Facebook said those closures came on top of blocking millions of attempts to create fake accounts every day.
Despite this, the group said fake profiles still make up 3-4 percent of all active accounts.
It claimed to detect almost 100 percent of spam and to have removed 837 million posts assimilated to spam over the same period.
Facebook pulled or slapped warnings on nearly 30 million posts containing sexual or violent images, terrorist propaganda or hate speech during the first quarter.
Improved technology using artificial intelligence had helped it act on 3.4 million posts containing graphic violence, nearly three times more than it had in the last quarter of 2017.
In 85.6 percent of the cases, Facebook detected the images before being alerted to them by users, said the report, issued the day after the company said about 200 apps had been suspended on its platform as part of an investigation into misuse of private user data.
The figure represents between 0.22 and 0.27 percent of the total content viewed by Facebook's more than two billion users from January through March.
"In other words, of every 10,000 content views, an estimate of 22 to 27 contained graphic violence," the report said.
Responses to rule violations include removing content, adding warnings to content that may be disturbing to some users while not violating Facebook standards; and notifying law enforcement in case of a "specific, imminent and credible threat to human life".
Improved IT also helped Facebook take action against 1.9 million posts containing terrorist propaganda, a 73 percent increase. Nearly all were dealt with before any alert was raised, the company said.
It attributed the increase to the enhanced use of photo detection technology.
Hate speech is harder to police using automated methods, however, as racist or homophobic hate speech is often quoted on posts by their targets or activists.
Sarcasm needs human touch"It may take a human to understand and accurately interpret nuances like... self-referential comments or sarcasm," the report said, noting that Facebook aims to "protect and respect both expression and personal safety".
Facebook took action against 2.5 million pieces of hate speech content during the period, a 56 increase over October-December. But only 38 percent had been detected through Facebook's efforts - the rest flagged up by users.
The posts that keep the Facebook reviewers the busiest are those showing adult nudity or sexual activity - quite apart from child pornography, which is not covered by the report.
Some 21 million such posts were handled in the period, a similar number to October-December 2017.
That was less than 0.1 percent of viewed content - which includes text, images, videos, links, live videos or comments on posts - Facebook said, adding it had dealt with nearly 96 percent of the cases before being alerted to them.
Facebook has come under fire for showing too much zeal on this front, such as removing images of artwork tolerated under its own rules.
In March, Facebook apologised for temporarily removing an advert featuring French artist Eugene Delacroix's famous work "Liberty Leading the People" because it depicts a bare-breasted woman.
Facebook's head of global policy management Monika Bicket said the group had kept a commitment to recruit 3,000 more staff to lift the numbers dedicated to enforcing standards to 7,500 at the start of this year.
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Twitter will begin using a wider range of signals to rank tweets in conversations and searches, hiding more replies that are likely to be abusive, the company said today. Comments from users that have often been blocked, muted, or reported for abuse will be less visible throughout the service, CEO Jack Dorsey told a group of reporters. ''We are making progress as we go,'' Dorsey said.
Twitter already ranks tweets in search and in conversations. But until now, it has not taken negative signals into account when ranking them. This has meant that replies could easily be gamed by bad actors, whether they're spammers hawking cryptocurrencies or bot networks attempting to influence elections.
Twitter will now begin examining a much wider variety of signals when ranking tweets in conversations and in search, Dorsey said. Some of those signals include number of accounts created by the person tweeting, IP address, and whether the tweet had led people to block the person tweeting it. Twitter won't remove the tweets from Twitter, it said, but they will now be moved to the ''see more replies'' section of a conversation, where they are hidden behind an additional tap.
A test of the new approach to ranking found that the number of abuse reports generated from conversations declined by 8 percent, the company said. ''The spirit of the thing is, we want to take the burden of the work off the people receiving the abuse or harassment,'' Dorsey said.
Relying on algorithmic signals could have several advantages for Twitter as it works to reduce abuse on the platform. They work without respect to the content of the tweet, sparing Twitter from having to make tricky decisions around the tone or intent of a message. And they work regardless of the language the tweet was written in, allowing the company to roll the changes out globally all at once.
At the same time, decisions made by algorithms can also go disastrously awry, and can be difficult for outsiders to understand. Dorsey said Twitter is conscious of that and would invest in making sure the product communicated about how it makes decisions. The company will also consider issuing reports on the enforcement actions it takes across the platform, said Del Harvey, the company's vice president of trust and safety.
''We want to take the burden of the work off the people receiving the abuse or harassment.''
The moves are meant to address Twitter's longstanding struggle to rein in abusive accounts. The company has made several high-profile moves over the past two years to make the service feel more civil, but continues to draw criticism for its opaque policies and inconsistent enforcement.
The changes, which will roll out to all users globally this week, come two months after Twitter issued a request for proposals from researchers and academics to help the company measure the health of public conversations on the site. The company received 230 such proposals, product manager David Gasca said, and Twitter will announce its next steps with those proposals within the next several weeks.
Twitter Shares Pricing on New Account Activity APIs, Some Third-Party Apps in Jeopardy - Mac Rumors
Twitter today unveiled new details on its upcoming
activity API changes, which will affect how third-party apps are able to access Twitter APIs and provide services to Twitter users who prefer to use apps like Twitterrific and Tweetbot.
Third-party Twitter app developers will be required to purchase a Premium or Enterprise Account Activity API package to access a full set of activities related to a Twitter account including Tweets, @mentions, Replies, Retweets, Quote Tweets, Retweets of Quoted Tweets, Likes, Direct Messages Sent, Direct Messages Received, Follows, Blocks, Mutes, typing indicators, and read receipts.
Premium API access, which provides access to up to 250 accounts, is priced at $2,899 per month, while enterprise access is more expensive, with pricing quotes available from Twitter following an application for an enterprise account.
At least some third-party apps have said they will not be able to afford access to the new Twitter APIs, including Twitterrific.
It's looking like it won't be financially possible for us to afford the new account activity API from twitter.
'-- Sean Heber (@BigZaphod) May 16, 2018
These APIs also will not include access to streaming connections, which Twitter says are used by only 1 percent of monthly active apps.
There's no streaming connection capability as is used by only 1% of monthly active apps. Also there's no home timeline data. We have no plans to add that data to Account Activity API or create a new streaming service. However, home timeline data remains accessible via REST API.
'-- Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) May 16, 2018
Twitter says it will be delaying the deprecation of its current APIs for three months to give developers time to transition over to the new platform. These APIs will be deprecated on Wednesday, August 16 instead of June 19, the original date Twitter planned to end support for the APIs.
It is not yet clear what impact all of these changes will have on major third-party Twitter apps, but we should hear updated details soon. Tapbots, the creators of Tweetbot for Mac and iOS, said on Tuesday that its apps will continue to function, but a few features could be slower or removed.
Tapbots says the worse case scenario on Mac is that notifications for likes and retweets will not be displayed, and notifications for tweets, mentions, quotes, DMs, and Follows could be delayed by one to two minutes.
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Twitter Announces New End-of-Life Date for APIs and Pricing That Affects Third-Party Apps '' MacStories
In April, Twitter delayed a transition to a new API that was expected to have a significant impact on third-party Twitter clients like Twitterrific and Tweetbot. The delay came in the wake of an outcry from users of third-party Twitter clients prompted by developers who banded together to encourage users to complain to Twitter about the API changes that were set to take effect on June 19, 2018. Today, Twitter announced that those changes would go forward on August 16, 2018 '' about two months later than originally planned.
Yesterday, in an interview with Sarah Perez of TechCruch, Paul Haddad of Tapbots, the maker Tweetbot, said:
''Twitter has a replacement API that '' if we're given access to '' we'll be able to use to replace almost all of the functionality that they are deprecating,'' he explains. ''On Mac, the worst case scenario is that we won't be able to show notifications for Likes and Retweets. Notifications for Tweets, Mentions, Quotes, DMs and Follows will be delayed one to two minutes,'' Haddad adds.
He also says that Tweets wouldn't stream in as they get posted, but instead would come in one to two minutes later as the app would automatically poll for them. (This is the same as how the iOS app works now when connected to LTE '' it uses the polling API.)
In addition to announcing transition date, Twitter announced pricing for its new API, and it's expensive. A subscription covering 100-250 users will cost $2899/month, which works out to over $11 per user for 250 users. Anyone with over 250 users, which would include all the major third-party Twitter clients, is advised to contact Twitter for enterprise pricing. However, the pricing on the API's lower tiers doesn't leave much room for optimism.
Third-party clients that can't or don't want to pay those prices will have to make do without timeline streaming and push notifications for likes and retweets. Other notifications will be delayed approximately 1-2 minutes according to statements by Haddad to TechCrunch.
For its part, Twitter has made it clear, that the functionality of the old APIs will not be coming to the new APIs:
''As a few developers have noticed, there's no streaming connection capability or home timeline data, which are only used by a small amount of developers (roughly 1% of monthly active apps),'' writes Twitter Senior Product Manager, Kyle Weiss, in a blog post. ''As we retire aging APIs, we have no plans to add these capabilities to Account Activity API or create a new streaming service for related use cases.''
We contacted The Iconfactory, the maker of Twitterrific, and Tapbots,1 the maker of Tweetbot, to ask about the impact of the API changes on third-party clients and Twitter users. According to Iconfactory developer Craig Hockenberry:
A lot of functionality that users of third-party apps took for granted is going away. That was the motivation for the apps-of-a-feather.com website - to soften the blow of this announcement.
Hockenberry elaborated that The Iconfactory has reached out to Twitter regarding enterprise pricing for the new APIs, but says that he doesn't anticipate the pricing will be affordable absent a significant discount.
On the one hand, this latest blow to third-party Twitter clients may be something that some users, including me, are willing to tolerate. On the other hand, this is yet another example of third-party client hostility demonstrated by Twitter stretching back at least five years that doesn't bode well for the long-term viability of those apps. I asked Hockenberry what he thinks the changes mean to third-party Twitter apps. His response:
Long term, I don't think there will be any apps other than the official one. I also don't think Twitter realizes that many long-time users, who are highly engaged on the service, are also the people who use third-party apps. These folks will look elsewhere for their social media needs.
Given Twitter's repeated hostility towards third-party clients, that's a hard sentiment to argue against and one that gets my attention more than Twitter's announcement. I can live with the latest changes to Twitter's API, but if third-party developers conclude that their time and resources are better spent elsewhere, I expect the end of the Twitter I know and use today is closer than I thought.
WASHINGTON '-- Former Trump campaign volunteer George Papadopoulos was closely surveilled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to official court documents.
The Trump campaign never quite knew who George Papadopoulos '-- a man who showed up to one campaign meeting on Russia '-- was.
Now, it is clear that Papadopoulos was monitored at essentially all times by the FBI during his interactions with the Trump campaign, based on the affidavit in United States of America v. George Papadopoulos (presented below) in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Here is the affidavit:
Papadopoulas FBI agent affidavit
Former FBI Special Surveillance Group member and Robert Mueller case whistleblower Chuck Marler explains the situation for Big League Politics:
''In the ''August 2017'' Senate Testimony of Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, it confirmed that he was told by Christopher Steele that he learned from FBI Agents that they had a source in the Trump Campaign. Steele had told Simpson this in September of 2016. The ''Affidavit in Support of Criminal Complaint'' filed in July 2017 by an FBI Agent against George Papadopoulos unwittingly shows that the FBI was monitoring Papadopoulos' communications in real time. ['...]
Read full story here
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Florida to monitor Broward election chief after judge finds 'unlawful' ballot destruction in Wasserman Schultz race
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's office said it had nothing to do with the decision to destroy the ballots. | AP Photo
MIAMI '-- The elections supervisor in Florida's second-most populous county broke state and federal law by unlawfully destroying ballots cast in Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's 2016 Democratic primary, a judge ruled Friday in a case brought by the congresswoman's challenger who wanted to check for voting irregularities.
In light of the ruling, Gov. Rick Scott's administration '-- which has expressed concerns with how Broward County Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes has handled the case '-- told POLITICO that he's reviewing the judge's order and will have her office monitored.
Story Continued Below
''During the upcoming election, the Department of State will send a Florida elections expert from the Division of Elections to Supervisor Snipes' office to ensure that all laws are followed so the citizens of Broward County can have the efficient, properly run election they deserve,'' Scott's office said in a written statement.
Snipes and her lawyer, Burnadette Norris-Weeks, did not return an email from POLITICO for comment, though a consultant working on the office's behalf confirmed its receipt. Snipes' predecessor was removed from office by former Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Senate for botching the 2002 Democratic gubernatorial primary.
Tim Canova, a Nova Southeastern University law professor who ran against Wasserman Schultz in 2016 and is challenging her again this year as an independent, said Scott should suspend Snipes for destroying the paper ballots while his lawsuit was ongoing. Snipes has said it was a mistake and has noted her office made copies of the ballots.
But federal election law and state public records laws clearly show the paper ballots should have been preserved by the office.
''The governor has the power to dismiss Snipes from office for malfeasance and misfeasance,'' Canova said. ''The judge also pointed to the supervisor's bad faith for continuing to litigate for months after admitting she destroyed the ballots, which will certainly run up the cost to taxpayers.''
Estimated attorney's fees for Canova's lawyer: More than $200,000 for more than a year of litigation.
In recent years, Snipes has faced a handful of controversies and lawsuits, one of which she recently won, over her handling of elections and voter information. A bipartisan group of election law experts told POLITICO last year that Snipes broke the law in destroying the ballots during the court case, but she kept fighting Canova in court.
The controversy unfolds as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has warned Florida election supervisors of the threat of hackers who could at least attack voter registration systems and undermine confidence in elections in the nation's biggest swing state. With nearly 1.2 million registered voters, heavily Democratic Broward County is second only to Miami-Dade County in population.
Canova has expressed concerns about elections integrity as well.
After Canova lost his Aug. 30, 2016 primary to Wasserman Schultz, Canova began voicing doubts when documentary filmmaker Lulu Friesdat posted a blog item calling the results of the primary race between Canova and Wasserman Schultz ''improbable,'' prompting the congresswoman to later accuse Canova of trafficking in conspiracy theories.
Wasserman Schultz's office said it had nothing to do with the decision by Snipes' office to destroy the ballots.
But Snipes' lawyer, Norris-Weeks, insisted in one hearing that she ''certainly could get [a sworn statement] from Debbie Wasserman Schultz'' to say that ''she knows that they're preparing a documentary, and they're running all around talking to different people trying to do that.''
Canova has denied the accusation but noted that it suggests communication between the two offices.
In March of 2017, Friesdat, acting as Canova's ''agent," made a public records request to inspect the ballots in the 2016 primary, according to the court ruling. At one point, Snipes' office wanted to charge $71,868.87 to sort and produce the ballots for inspection, according to documents filed in the case. In June of 2017, Canova sued.
As the suit dragged on, Snipes signed a Sept. 1 document to destroy the ballots '-- without informing either Canova or the court. The document she signed specifies that there should be no pending litigation.
''Nonetheless,'' the following month, Snipes filed an answer to one of Canova's motions and then ''the destruction of the original paper ballots was not revealed until November 6, 2017," Broward Circuit Judge Raag Singhal said in his ruling.
That wasn't the only problem.
Under longstanding federal law, ballots cast in a federal race aren't supposed to be destroyed until 22 months after the election. And under state law, a public record sought in a court case is not supposed to be destroyed without a judge's order. Also, state law says public records can't be ''for a period of 30 days after the date on which a written request ... was served.''
Snipes' office, however, contended that it made high-quality digital copies of the ballots, so the records weren't completely destroyed.
The judge wasn't persuaded.
''This Court finds the Defendant's violation is two-fold: (1) violation of state and federal retention requirements and (2) violation of the affirmative responsibility to preserve evidence,'' Singhal wrote. "This Court finds such premature destruction of the records unlawful and in violation of the Public Records Act."
Snipes argued in court that Canova made unreasonable requests and believed she ''has broad discretion in determining if a records request is reasonable,'' according to the suit. But Singhal said her argument was ''contrary to the statutory requirements and plain and ordinary meaning of the Public Records Act.''
''Defendant's lack of intent to destroy evidence while this case was pending is irrelevant,'' the judge noted.
Canova's attorney, Leonard Collins, said Snipes' intent in destroying the paper ballots would be a factor in determining criminal sanctions. He said the state attorney should investigate.
''We can't bring the ballots back. But there are consequences to violating the law,'' Collins said. ''There are provisions in the law that: A) allow for criminal penalties for doing something like this and B) allow Gov. Rick Scott to suspend a records custodian for this. And we have a supervisor of elections in Broward who has shown complete malfeasance in terms of her ability to function and run and operate an office.''
Collins said the official in her office in charge of disposing of public records wasn't able to easily distinguish between a state and federal election. That's a problem because ballots cast in state elections can be destroyed 10 months earlier than ballots cast in federal elections. The man is paid $87,000 yearly, Collins said.
Scott's office said he needs to know more about the case.
''We will review the order,'' spokesman Jonathan Tupps said in a written statement. ''The Secretary of State's office will continue to ensure that every Supervisor of Elections understands and follows the law.''
FBI surprises again, shares files on Bill Clinton pardon of Marc Rich
The FBI released documents concerning a questionable pardon Bill Clinton issued of a financier charged with tax evasion back in 2001. See how the investigation played out. USA TODAY NETWORK
The FBI gave the Hillary Clinton campaign another unpleasant surprise Tuesday, this time releasing 129 pages of documents from a 2001 investigation into Bill Clinton's controversial presidential pardon of fugitive Marc Rich.
The bureau initially released the heavily redacted files on Monday, but drew more attention to the documents in a tweet Tuesday. The Clinton team questioned the timing of the release, which comes one week before the election and just days after Director James Comey's stunning announcement that the FBI was looking into newly discovered emails related to its investigation of Hillary Clinton.
William J. Clinton Foundation: This initial release consists of material from the FBI's files related to the Will... https://t.co/Y4nz3aRSmG
'-- FBI Records Vault (@FBIRecordsVault) November 1, 2016"This initial release consists of material from the FBI's files related to the William J. Clinton Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization," reads a statement on the FBI records vault website. "The bulk of these records come from a 2001 FBI investigation into the pardon of Marc Rich (1934-2013), aka Marcell David Reich, by President Clinton in 2001; it was closed in 2005. The material is heavily redacted due to personal privacy protections and grand jury secrecy rules."
Rich, who died in 2013, was a financier who fled to Switzerland after being indicted on multiple federal charges, including tax evasion, in 1983. Clinton's motive for pardoning Rich on his last day in office was questioned because Rich's ex-wife, Denise Rich, was a wealthy Democratic donor who made a $450,000 donation to Clinton's presidential library foundation and more than $100,000 to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign.
In a statement, the FBI said that any material requested three or more times under the Freedom of Information Act is automatically made available to the public online on a "first in, first out basis."
"Absent a FOIA litigation deadline, this is odd," Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon tweeted before the FBI released its statement. "Will the FBI be posting docs on Trump's housing discrimination in '70?"
Absent a FOIA litigation deadline, this is odd. Will FBI be posting docs on Trump's housing discrimination in '70s?https://t.co/uJMMzX6rtI
'-- Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) November 1, 2016The FBI actually did release a file on Donald Trump's father, Fred, on Oct. 8. The bureau also tweeted a link to those documents, along with links to files from 20 other cases '-- including the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server '-- from its Records Vault account on Sunday. Prior to that, the last tweet from that account was in October of 2015.
David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Obama, said the document release is another case of the FBI intervening in the election.
"Whatever the reasoning behind it, this latest release further brands the @FBI as the Federal Bureau of Intervention," Axelrod said in a tweet. "It's a head-scratcher!"
Whatever the reasoning behind it, this latest release further brands the @FBI as the Federal Bureau of Intervention. It's a head-scratcher!
'-- David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) November 1, 2016The majority of the pages in the documents are completely redacted and they do not appear to shed any new light on the case. Comey took over the FBI probe into the Rich pardon in 2003 and the case was closed in 2005 with no charges filed.
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EXCLUSIVE: James Comey's Leaker Friend - Guess Who His Neighbor Is? - Big League Politics
James Comey's friend, Columbia University professor Daniel Richman, leaked classified information that Comey gave him. During this leaking period, Richman was apartment-building neighbors with a partner at the law firm that strategized with Fusion GPS operative Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian plant who set up Don Jr. in Trump Tower.
''Yes, he is my neighbor,'' Amy Wenzel, a partner at Cozen O'Connor, confirmed in a phone conversation with Big League Politics, confirming that they spoke. They live near each other in a Brooklyn high-rise.
Cozen O'Connor managing partner Howard Schweitzer is listed here on a DOJ form from an investigation into the breaking of lobbying laws by Russians trying to repeal the Magnitsky Act '-- which was just a front to get Russians in the room with Don Jr. It turns out that Natalia Veselnitskaya was actually operating out of the Cozen O'Connor offices.
Trending: EXCLUSIVE: White House Leaker Identified As Trump's Former Scheduler Caroline Wiles
The Washington Post reported on Cozen O'Connor. Read the firm's ties to Natalia:
Akhmetshin was a controversial figure. In a letter this spring to U.S. government officials, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) described Akhmetshin as a person who ''apparently has ties to Russian intelligence.''
Akhmetshin said he never worked as an intelligence agent, but he did say he was drafted as a teenager and served for two years in a unit of the Soviet military that had responsibility for law enforcement issues as well as some counterintelligence matters. He immigrated to the United States in 1993 and gained citizenship in 2009.
''I was not an intelligence officer. Never,'' he said.
In the spring of 2016, as the presidential race was heating up, Akhmetshin and lobbyists he hired sought meetings on Capitol Hill to make their case against the sanctions law. Akhmetshin hired former Democratic congressman Ron Dellums, along with a team of lobbyists from the law firm of Cozen O'Connor.
Steve Pruitt, a business colleague speaking on Dellums's behalf, said his involvement was brief and ended when he determined that Congress was unlikely to change the law.
In June, after visiting Trump Tower in New York, Veselnitskaya came to Washington to lend a hand in the lobbying effort.
She attended a meeting of the team at the downtown offices of Cozen O'Connor, where she spoke at length in Russian about the issues but confused many in the room, who had not been told previously about her involvement, according to several participants.
A spokesman for Cozen said the firm had been hired by the nonprofit. But in a statement, the firm said that the role and involvement of the Russian lawyer was ''not at all clear.''
While Veselnitskaya was not allowed to testify in Congress, she did secure a prime, front-row seat for a June 14 hearing in the House on Russia-related issues.
Her high-profile spot in the room gained notice this week with the circulation of a photo in which she looms over the shoulder of former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, an adviser to President Barack Obama and a witness before the panel. Some conservative blogs this week have said the photo suggests she had accompanied McFaul and was a Democratic plant.
CYBER!
US identifies suspect in leak of CIA hacking tools-KIDDIE PR0N
WASHINGTON '' The U.S. government has identified a suspect in the leak last year of a large portion of the CIA's computer hacking arsenal, the cyber tools the agency had used to conduct espionage operations overseas, according to interviews and public documents.
But despite months of investigation, prosecutors have been unable to bring charges against the man, who is a former CIA employee currently being held in a Manhattan jail on unrelated charges.
Joshua Adam Schulte, who worked for a CIA group that designs computer code to spy on foreign adversaries, is believed to have provided the agency's top-secret information to WikiLeaks, federal prosecutors acknowledged in a hearing in January. The anti-secrecy group published the code under the label ''Vault 7'' in March 2017. It was one of the most significant and potentially damaging leaks in the CIA's history, exposing secret cyber weapons and spying techniques that also might be used against the United States, according to current and former intelligence officials.
Schulte's connection to the leak investigation hasn't been previously reported.
Federal authorities searched Schulte's apartment in New York last year and obtained a personal computer equipment, notebooks, and hand-written notes according to a copy of the search warrant reviewed by The Washington Post. But that failed to provide the evidence that prosecutors needed to indict Schulte with illegally giving the information to WikiLeaks.
''Those search warrants haven't yielded anything that is consistent with [Schulte's] involvement in that disclosure,'' Matthew Laroche, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, said at a hearing on Jan. 8, according to a court transcript.
Laroche said at the time that the investigation ''is ongoing,'' and that Schulte ''remains a target of that investigation.''
Part of that investigation, Laroche said, was analyzing whether a technology known as TOR, which allows Internet users to hide their location, ''was used in transmitting classified information.''
In other hearings in Schulte's case, prosecutors have alleged that he used TOR at his New York apartment, but they have provided as yet no evidence that he did so in order to disclose classified information. Schulte's attorneys have said that TOR is used for all kinds of communications and have maintained that he played no role in the Vault 7 leaks.
Schulte is currently in a Manhattan jail on charges of possessing, receiving, and transporting child pornography, according to an indictment filed last September. He has pleaded not guilty.
A former federal prosecutor, who is not connected to the case, said that it's not unusual to hold a suspect in one crime on unrelated charges, and that the months Schulte has spent in jail doesn't necessarily mean the government's case has hit a wall. The former prosecutor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation, also said that if government lawyers acknowledged in a public hearing that Schulte was a target, they probably believe he acted alone.
In documents, prosecutors allege that they found a large cache of child pornography on a server that was maintained by Schulte. But he has argued that anywhere from 50 to 100 people had access to that server, which Schulte, now 29, designed several years ago in order to share movies and other digital files.
Schulte worked in the CIA's Engineering Development Group, which produced the computer code, according to sources with knowledge of his employment history as well as the group's role in developing cyber weapons.
At the time of the leak, people who had worked with that group said that suspicion had mainly focused on contractors, not full-time CIA employees like Schulte. It's not clear whether the government is pursuing contractors as part of the leak investigation, but prosecutors haven't mentioned anyone other than Schulte in court proceedings.
Schulte, who also worked for the National Security Agency before joining the CIA, left the intelligence community in 2016 and took a job in the private sector, according to a lengthy statement he wrote that was reviewed by the Post.
The CIA declined to comment.
Schulte said in the statement that he joined the intelligence community to fulfill what he saw as a patriotic duty to respond to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Schulte also claimed that he reported ''incompetent management and bureaucracy'' at the CIA to both that agency's inspector general as well as a congressional oversight committee. That painted him as a disgruntled employee, he said, and when he left the CIA in 2016, suspicion fell upon him as ''the only one to have recently departed [the CIA engineering group] on poor terms,'' Schulte wrote.
Schulte said he had also been planning a vacation with his brother to Cancun, which may have given the appearance that he was trying to flee the country.
''Due to these unfortunate coincidences the FBI ultimately made the snap judgment that I was guilty of the leaks and targeted me,'' Schulte said.
Related Articles Dell EMC hit for $2.9 million as feds say it paid Bay Area women less than men Driver: Tesla's autopilot engaged during Utah crash Google staff rebel as company embraces military links Elon Musk: Tesla 'flattening' its management structure Amazon Go targets Chicago, San Francisco for new stores Schulte, who has launched a webpage to raise money for his defense, claims that he initially provided assistance to the FBI's investigation. Following the search of his apartment in March 2017, prosecutors waited six months to bring the child pornography charges.
The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.
Shut Up Slave!
Lie detectors with artificial intelligence are future of border security
Aaron Elkins, a professor at the San Diego State University, is working on a kiosk system that can ask travelers questions at an airport or border crossings and capture behaviors to detect if someone is lying.
International travelers could find themselves in the near future talking to a lie-detecting kiosk when they're going through customs at an airport or border crossing.
The same technology could be used to provide initial screening of refugees and asylum seekers at busy border crossings.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security funded research of the virtual border agent technology known as the Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessments in Real-Time, or AVATAR, about six years ago and allowed it to be tested it at the U.S.-Mexico border on travelers who volunteered to participate. Since then, Canada and the European Union tested the robot-like kiosk that uses a virtual agent to ask travelers a series of questions.
Last month, a caravan of migrants from Central America made it to the U.S.-Mexico border, where they sought asylum but were delayed several days because the port of entry near San Diego had reached full capacity. It's possible that a system such as AVATAR could provide initial screening of asylum seekers and others to help U.S. agents at busy border crossings such as San Diego's San Ysidro.
"The technology has much broader applications potentially," despite most of the funding for the original work coming primarily from the Defense or Homeland Security departments a decade ago, according to Aaron Elkins, one of the developers of the system and an assistant professor at the San Diego State University director of its Artificial Intelligence Lab. He added that AVATAR is not a commercial product yet but could be also used in human resources for screening.
The U.S.-Mexico border trials with the advanced kiosk took place in Nogales, Arizona, and focused on low-risk travelers. The research team behind the system issued a report after the 2011-12 trials that stated the AVATAR technology had potential uses for processing applications for citizenship, asylum and refugee status and to reduce backlogs.
High levels of accuracyPresident Donald Trump's fiscal 2019 budget request for Homeland Security includes $223 million for "high-priority infrastructure, border security technology improvements," as well as another $210.5 million for hiring new border agents. Last year, federal workers interviewed or screened more than 46,000 refugee applicants and processed nearly 80,000 "credible fear cases."
The AVATAR combines artificial intelligence with various sensors and biometrics that seeks to flag individuals who are untruthful or a potential risk based on eye movements or changes in voice, posture and facial gestures.
"We're always consistently above human accuracy," said Elkins, who worked on the technology with a team of researchers that included the University of Arizona.
According to Elkins, the AVATAR as a deception-detection judge has a success rate of 60 to 75 percent and sometimes up to 80 percent.
"Generally, the accuracy of humans as judges is about 54 to 60 percent at the most," he said. "And that's at our best days. We're not consistent."
The human elementRegardless, Homeland Security appears to be sticking with human agents for the moment and not embracing virtual technology that the EU and Canadian border agencies are still researching. Another advanced border technology, known as iBorderCtrl, is a EU-funded project that aims to increase speed but also reduce "the workload and subjective errors caused by human agents."
A Homeland Security official, who declined to be named, told CNBC the concept for the AVATAR system "was envisioned by researchers to assist human screeners by flagging people exhibiting suspicious or anomalous behavior."
"As the research effort matured, the system was evaluated and tested by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate and DHS operational components in 2012," the official added. "Although the concept was appealing at the time, the research did not mature enough for further consideration or further development."
Another DHS official familiar with the technology didn't work at a high enough rate of speed to be practical. "We have to screen people within seconds, and we can't take minutes to do it," said the official.
Elkins, meanwhile, said the funding for the AVATAR system hasn't come from Homeland Security in recent years "because they sort of felt that this is in a different category now and needs to transition."
The technology, which relies on advanced statistics and machine learning, was tested a year and a half ago with the Canadian Border Services Agency, or CBSA, to help agents determine whether a traveler has ulterior motives entering the country and should be questioned further or denied entry.
A report from the CBSA on the AVATAR technology is said to be imminent, but it's unclear whether the agency will proceed the technology beyond the testing phase.
"The CBSA has been following developments in AVATAR technology since 2011 and is continuing to monitor developments in this field," said Barre Campbell, a senior spokesman for the Canadian agency. He said the work carried out in March 2016 was "an internal-only experiment of AVATAR" and that "analysis for this technology is ongoing."
Prior to that, the EU border agency known as Frontex helped coordinate and sponsor a field test of the AVATAR system in 2014 at the international arrivals section of an airport in Bucharest, Romania.
People and machines working togetherOnce the system detects deception, it alerts the human agents to do follow-up interviews.
AVATAR doesn't use your standard polygraph instrument. Instead, people face a kiosk screen and talk to a virtual agent or kiosk fitted with various sensors and biometrics that seeks to flag individuals who are untruthful or signal a potential risk based on eye movements or changes in voice, posture and facial gestures.
"Artificial intelligence has allowed us to use sensors that are noncontact that we can then process the signal in really advanced ways," Elkins said. "We're able to teach computers to learn from some data and actually act intelligently. The science is very mature over the last five or six years."
But the researcher insists the AVATAR technology wasn't developed as a replacement for people.
"We wanted to let people focus on what they do best," he said. "Let the systems do what they do best and kind of try to merge them into the process."
Still, future advancement in artificial intelligence systems may allow the technology to someday supplant various human jobs because the robot-like machines may be seen as more productive and cost effective particularly in screening people.
Elkins believes the AVATAR could potentially get used one day at security checkpoints at airports "to make the screening process faster but also to improve the accuracy."
"It's just a matter of finding the right implementation of where it will be and how it will be used," he said. "There's also a process that would need to occur because you can't just drop the AVATAR into an airport as it exists now because all that would be using an extra step."
WATCH: Researchers say they've created an automated test that can tell if you're lying by tracking your eyes
Emotional Support Mamals
Collared: New laws crack down on fake service dogs
Move over, Rover. Your time in the grocery store, the movie theater and pizza parlor is running out.
Twenty-one states have in recent months mounted a major crackdown down on people who falsely claim their pets as service and support animals so they can bring them into restaurants, theaters and other public places where Fido and Fluffy aren't typically allowed '-- and the movement has picked up speed in the last few weeks.
Last month, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, signed into law a bill making it illegal for people to misrepresent their pets as service animals, under which pet-loving perps are subject to a $100 fine and a misdemeanor charge. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, signed a nearly identical bill, under which those who "fraudulently misrepresent" service animals can be fined $250.
"I couldn't go into a store or an airport or even an office without seeing some disorderly four-legged creature dragging its owner around, wearing a vest that said 'service animal,'" Republican Arizona state Sen. John Kavanagh, who sponsored the Arizona bill, told NBC News. "I would see people in the supermarkets with animals in the shopping cart or walking around sniffing all the food."
Exactly how big a problem the use of fake service animals isn't clear. No organization keeps records of illegitimate service animals. But people who work in the service, hospitality and entertainment industries have seen it all.
A contingent of NEADS Service Dog teams and others gather to show support for House Bill 2277, an act relative to misrepresentation of service animals, outside of the Massachusetts State House in Boston on Sep. 12, 2017. David L. Ryan / Boston Globe via Getty ImagesAndrew Hendrickson, a northern Vermont resident who volunteers regularly at a local performance venue, has seen it all too often.
"We've had dogs bark through the whole show, sit in the middle of the aisle,'' said Hendrickson, who added that he once even saw one "hump the legs of a stranger."
The venue allows people to enter with animals they say are for service or support.
"It's kind of hard to question though," he said. "We have very little grounds on which to challenge a patron who claims the animal as a support."
Animal and legal experts say that the explosion of reported problems is due to several factors.
There is no uniform nationwide certification or registration process for legitimate service animals '-- which receive up to several years of specialized training '-- making it easy for people to scam a non-existent system. And the easy availability online of "service dog" harnesses and vests is all too tempting for animal-owners who want company running errands and going out.
Most prominent, however, is that a new generation of animal-lovers are seeking notes from their doctors declaring that their pet helps soothe anxiety or ease depression and that the animals should be deemed "support animals." Support animals, however, don't qualify as service animals, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act '-- the governing law of all service animals, according to experts.
Under the ADA, only dogs can be considered service animals '-- with an exception for miniature horses.
Business owners, according to the federal law, can only ask two questions of anyone who says they have a service dog.
"They can ask only if it is a service animal, and what is it trained to do," explained David Favre, a law professor at Michigan State University's College of Law, whose expertise is animal law. They cannot ask for documentation and they cannot ask about the disability, under the law, Favre said.
That makes abuses difficult to enforce.
More than 20 states have cracked down on those who falsely claim their pets as service animals so they can bring them on planes, or into stores, restaurants, theaters and other public places. Laura Fay / Getty Images"Are business owners and restaurants really going to go after people who claim their dog is a service or support animal? If it has a vest of if the owner says it's helping them? They won't. They don't want to get sued," said Curt Decker, the executive director of the National Disability Rights Network.
Likewise, business owners don't want to delve into whether the animal is a "service" animal '-- protected under the ADA '-- or a "support" pet. Support animals are not protected under the ADA, with exceptions for those that comfort veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
"It's compounded by the confusing terminology around this," said Amy McCullough, the national director of research and therapy programs at American Humane, an international animal rights nonprofit. "People prey upon that with the purpose of gaming the system."
The new laws largely do not apply to "support" animals, because businesses already have the legal right to turn away almost all of them.
But because most business owners won't risk a suit by asking about specifics, legislators and advocates are simply hoping that their laws will discourage support and service animal scammers.
"Keep some posters up...a few timely prosecutions and good media coverage of those could serve as a good deterrent and a good reminder that people shouldn't do this," said Decker, of the National Disability Rights Network.
The new state laws would likely crack down on people like David Chin, a visual designer from San Francisco. Chin said he visited a psychiatrist to get letters deeming his dogs, a four-year-old Cockapoo named Theo and a seven-year-old Bichon Frise named Bailey, as support animals that helped him with anxiety.
"None of the times was it for a true emotional need, it was for bending the system," Chin admitted, explaining that he enjoys being able to take his pups to otherwise restrictive patio restaurants and on airplanes.
It's that kind of scenario that prompted Republican Minnesota state Rep. Steve Green to sponsor his state's recently passed bill. Green said he drafted the legislation after several disabled constituents told him that their own legitimate service dogs had been fatally attacked by other dogs whose owners had illegitimately claimed them as service dogs.
Chiner$
White House can't explain how Chinese financing of Trump-linked project doesn't violate Constitution '' ThinkProgress
Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah cannot explain how the Trump Organization's involvement in a project in Indonesia partially financed by the Chinese government adheres to the Constitution's emoluments clause and Trump's personal promise not to pursue new foreign business deals while he's president.
''The Trump Organization is involved in a project in Indonesia building hotels, golf courses, residences '-- it is getting up to $500 million in backing from the Chinese government,'' Noah Bierman of the Los Angeles Times said during Monday's press briefing. ''Can you explain the administration's position on A, how this doesn't violate the emoluments clause; and B, how this wouldn't violate the president's own promise that his private organization would not be getting involved in new foreign deals while he was president?''
Shah didn't even attempt to answer Bierman's question. ''I'll have to refer you to the Trump Organization,'' he said.
Bierman pushed back, pointing out to Shah that ''the Trump Organization can't speak on behalf of the president as the president '-- the head of the federal government, the one who is responsible, who needs to assure the American people, and they don't have that responsibility.''
But Shah wouldn't budge.
''You're asking about a private organization's dealings that may have to do with a foreign government. It's not something I can speak to,'' he said, before calling on another reporter.
Watch the exchange:
A National Review report about the Chinese government's involvement in financing ''an Indonesian theme park that will feature a Trump-branded golf course and hotels'' came just one day after Trump posted a bizarre tweet on behalf of the Chinese phone company ZTE '-- a company that had been hit hard by the Commerce Department for violating a ban on American companies ''selling components to ZTE for seven years after it illegally shipped goods made with U.S. parts to Iran and North Korea,'' according to Reuters.
President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!
'-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 13, 2018
During Monday's briefing, reporters repeatedly grilled Shah about what prompted Trump's tweet promising to help ZTE '-- especially since the tweet came on the heels of a campaign in which Trump accused China of ''the greatest single theft in the history of the world,'' saying things like, ''we can't continue to allow China to rape our country.''
Shah had no good answers for them.
''This is part of a complex relationship between the United States and China that involves economic issues, national security issues, and the like,'' Shah said at one point, in response to a question about what motivated Trump's tweet.
Later, another reporter asked Shah why Trump wants the Commerce Department to review sanctions on ZTE in the first place.
''The president has asked Secretary Ross to look into the matter,'' Shah said, adding that ''the issue has been raised at many levels by the Chinese government with various levels of our administration.''
''So just raising the issue is enough to spawn a presidential tweet and directive?'' the reporter pressed.
''It's a significant issue of concern for the Chinese government, you know, and in our bilateral issue there's a give an take,'' Shah replied.
Shah has no explanation for Trump's weird tweet on behalf of a Chinese company pic.twitter.com/CbVZBqe7CQ
'-- Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 14, 2018
The emoluments clause is a provision in the U.S. Constitution prohibiting presidents from leveraging their office into gifts from foreign governments. Trump is the only modern president to refuse to divest from his business interests upon taking office.
Despite promising before his inauguration not to profit from foreign governments, there is little evidence Trump has followed through on his commitment. Meanwhile, foreign governments and diplomats have made a show of spending money at his properties.
Angola's Chinese oil debt-trapAngolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Photo: Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty Images
Angola repays its $25 billion debt to Beijing with crude oil, creating a host of problems for its economy, reports Yinka Adegoke, Quartz's Africa editor, in his weekly brief.
Why it matters: That means Angola's ability to repay debt is dependent on the price of oil. And it leaves the country with lower volumes of oil to sell to other trading partners.
Fur Babies
Men in their 30s hit by impotence epidemic as half suffer from erectile dysfunction - Mirror Online
Half of men in their 30s struggle to get an erection, studies have shown.
Surprise polling reveals this age group is most likely to struggle keeping it up, with 49% blaming stress and 24% blaming boozing too much.
Almost a third have broken up with their partner as a result.
Nearly half (43%) of men aged 18-60 across the UK are suffering impotence, with four in ten men blaming stress, followed by tiredness (36%), anxiety (29%) and boozing too heavily (26%).
Almost a third have broken up with their partner as a result (Image: Getty) Read MoreHow to last longer during sex - the best ways to keep yourself going in bedResearchers polled 2,000 men for Coop Pharmacy and found largest affected age group of men with erectile dysfunction is those in their thirties, with half (50%) reporting difficulties getting or maintaining an erection.
This compares to 42% in their 40s, 41% in their 50s, and 35% of under 30s.
TV doctor Hilary Jones said: ''Erectile dysfunction is a taboo in our society that needs to be broken.
''In an age when many people are happy to share intimate details of their lives on social media, it is a huge cause for concern that men today do not feel confident enough to discuss openly their struggles with impotence.''
A third of men aged 18-60 surveyed say they have not told anyone about their erectile dysfunction.
Only 28% have gone to their GP and just 9% have discussed it with another man in the family.
Worryingly 43% of those affected by impotence say they could not discuss the issue with friends and 23% would feel uncomfortable discussing it with a GP.
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A third of men aged 18-60 surveyed say they have not told anyone about their erectile dysfunction (Image: Getty) Read MoreHow our bodies react when we DON'T have sex revealedAn incredible 27% of men say they would rather break up with their partner than talk to their GP about being unable to get an erection.
Of those affected in their 30s one in five said they had brought viagra from a source other than their GP.
Adrian Wilkinson, spokeswoman for Coop Pharmacy said: ''The results of the survey clearly show that erectile dysfunction is something that's having a huge impact on almost half of the male population in the UK.
''It's with this in mind that we want to de-stigmatise any negative misconceptions and start talking about impotence and normalising it, to help men feel good, know they're not alone and know they're not being judged.''
The pharmacy has launched a social media campaign called #Whatdoyoucallit to combat the stigma of impotence.
American women are having children at the lowest rate on record, with the number of babies born in the U.S. last year dropping to a 30-year low, federal figures released Thursday showed.
Some 3.85 million babies were born last year, down 2% from 2016 and the lowest number since 1987, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. The general fertility rate for women age 15 to 44 was 60.2 births per 1,000 women'--the lowest rate since the government began tracking it more than a century ago, said Brady Hamilton, a statistician at the center.
The figures suggest that a number of women who put off having babies after the 2007-09 recession are forgoing them altogether. Kenneth M. Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire, estimates 4.8 million fewer babies were born after the recession than would have been born had fertility rates stayed at prerecession levels.
''Every year I expect the number of births to go up and they don't,'' said Prof. Johnson.
This dearth of births could exacerbate the problems of America's aging population. Many baby boomers are in or are near retirement, leaving a smaller share of young workers to pay into Social Security and Medicare. That is creating a funding imbalance that strains the social safety net that supports the elderly.
The postrecession baby lull appeared to be ending when births ticked up in 2014. But they've now fallen for three straight years, and last year's fertility-rate drop was the largest one-year decline since 2010.
Even women in their 30s'--a group that had increasingly carried America's childbearing in recent years'--saw their fertility rate decrease in 2017. For women age 30 to 34, there were 100.3 births per 1,000 women, down 2% from the prior year. Among women age 35 to 39, the birthrate was 52.2 births per 1,000 women, down 1% from 2016.
The only age group that had babies at a higher rate in 2017 was women in their early 40s, with those age 40 to 44 having 11.6 births per 1,000 women, up 2% from the prior year.
One bright spot in Thursday's figures, which are preliminary, is a continued sharp decline in teen births, which fell 7% last year. Since 2007, the teen birthrate has declined by 55%, and is down 70% since its peak in 1991. Children born to adolescents are more likely to have poorer educational, behavioral and health outcomes throughout their life.
''I'm absolutely astounded at the continuing decline in teen birthrates,'' Mr. Hamilton said.
Public health advocates credit the broader use of long-acting birth control such as intrauterine devices with helping drive down these rates, though many factors are likely at play.
Mr. Johnson estimates that lower teen fertility accounts for about one-third of the overall decline in births among U.S. women.
The increase in women attending college is another force behind the birth decline, researchers say. Those with more skills face a greater trade-off if they interrupt their careers to have children.
''People are coming out with a lot of debt,'' said Jennie Brand, professor of sociology and statistics at UCLA who has studied the impact of education on fertility. That gives them an incentive to keep working. ''It's another thing they have to grapple with before they might think about starting a family.''
Write to Janet Adamy at janet.adamy@wsj.com
Israel
From Knight
I like it best when you DON'T
talk about Israel. Obviously anything I say on the subject is very biased. I am
unapologetically a Zionist and a supporter of my country (I wouldn't have
immigrated here from Australia and stayed 30 years if I wasn't). I don't think
we are perfect, but I also think we are very often unfairly maligned in the
media. It was actually JCD who once said something which I think is quite
accurate - i.e. the media is controlled by self-loathing Jews.
Love you guys,
--
Best Regards,
Sir Jono
Elder of Zion
Opinion | Falling for Hamas's Split-Screen Fallacy - The New York Times
Mr. Friedman, a journalist, is the author of the memoir ''Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier's Story of a Forgotten War.''
May 16, 2018 Sheikh Ismaeil Haneiya of Hamas flashed the victory sign on Tuesday near the border with Israel in the east of the Gaza Strip. Scores of demonstrators had been killed by Israeli soldiers the day before. Credit Mohammed Saber/European Pressphoto Agency, via Shutterstock JERUSALEM '-- During my years in the international press here in Israel, long before the bloody events of this week, I came to respect Hamas for its keen ability to tell a story.
At the end of 2008 I was a desk editor, a local hire in The Associated Press's Jerusalem bureau, during the first serious round of violence in Gaza after Hamas took it over the year before. That conflict was grimly similar to the American campaign in Iraq, in which a modern military fought in crowded urban confines against fighters concealed among civilians. Hamas understood early that the civilian death toll was driving international outrage at Israel, and that this, not I.E.D.s or ambushes, was the most important weapon in its arsenal.
Early in that war, I complied with Hamas censorship in the form of a threat to one of our Gaza reporters and cut a key detail from an article: that Hamas fighters were disguised as civilians and were being counted as civilians in the death toll. The bureau chief later wrote that printing the truth after the threat to the reporter would have meant ''jeopardizing his life.'' Nonetheless, we used that same casualty toll throughout the conflict and never mentioned the manipulation.
Hamas understood that Western news outlets wanted a simple story about villains and victims and would stick to that script, whether because of ideological sympathy, coercion or ignorance. The press could be trusted to present dead human beings not as victims of the terrorist group that controls their lives, or of a tragic confluence of events, but of an unwarranted Israeli slaughter. The willingness of reporters to cooperate with that script gave Hamas the incentive to keep using it.
The next step in the evolution of this tactic was visible in Monday's awful events. If the most effective weapon in a military campaign is pictures of civilian casualties, Hamas seems to have concluded, there's no need for a campaign at all. All you need to do is get people killed on camera. The way to do this in Gaza, in the absence of any Israeli soldiers inside the territory, is to try to cross the Israeli border, which everyone understands is defended with lethal force and is easy to film.
About 40,000 people answered a call to show up. Many of them, some armed, rushed the border fence. Many Israelis, myself included, were horrified to see the number of fatalities reach 60.
Most Western viewers experienced these events through a visual storytelling tool: a split screen. On one side was the opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem in the presence of Ivanka Trump, evangelical Christian allies of the White House and Israel's current political leadership '-- an event many here found curious and distant from our national life. On the other side was the terrible violence in the desperately poor and isolated territory. The juxtaposition was disturbing.
The attempts to breach the Gaza fence, which Palestinians call the March of Return, began in March and have the stated goal of erasing the border as a step toward erasing Israel. A central organizer, the Hamas leader Yehya Sinwar, exhorted participants on camera in Arabic to ''tear out the hearts'' of Israelis. But on Monday the enterprise was rebranded as a protest against the embassy opening, with which it was meticulously timed to coincide. The split screen, and the idea that people were dying in Gaza because of Donald Trump, was what Hamas was looking for.
The press coverage on Monday was a major Hamas success in a war whose battlefield isn't really Gaza, but the brains of foreign audiences.
Israeli soldiers facing Gaza have no good choices. They can warn people off with tear gas or rubber bullets, which are often inaccurate and ineffective, and if that doesn't work, they can use live fire. Or they can hold their fire to spare lives and allow a breach, in which case thousands of people will surge into Israel, some of whom '-- the soldiers won't know which '-- will be armed fighters. (On Wednesday a Hamas leader, Salah Bardawil, told a Hamas TV station that 50 of the dead were Hamas members. The militant group Islamic Jihad claimed three others.) If such a breach occurs, the death toll will be higher. And Hamas's tactic, having proved itself, would likely be repeated by Israel's enemies on its borders with Syria and Lebanon.
Knowledgeable people can debate the best way to deal with this threat. Could a different response have reduced the death toll? Or would a more aggressive response deter further actions of this kind and save lives in the long run? What are the open-fire orders on the India-Pakistan border, for example? Is there something Israel could have done to defuse things beforehand?
These are good questions. But anyone following the response abroad saw that this wasn't what was being discussed. As is often the case where Israel is concerned, things quickly became hysterical and divorced from the events themselves. Turkey's president called it ''genocide.'' A writer for The New Yorker took the opportunity to tweet some of her thoughts about ''whiteness and Zionism,'' part of an odd trend that reads America's racial and social problems into a Middle Eastern society 6,000 miles away. The sicknesses of the social media age '-- the disdain for expertise and the idea that other people are not just wrong but villainous '-- have crept into the worldview of people who should know better.
For someone looking out from here, that's the real split-screen effect: On one side, a complicated human tragedy in a corner of a region spinning out of control. On the other, a venomous and simplistic story, a symptom of these venomous and simplistic times.
/ behind the scenes May 13, 2018 05/13/2018 9:00 pm By Olivia Nuzzi The call to the White House comes after ten o'clock most weeknights, when Hannity is over. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Sean Hannity broadcasts live at 9 p.m. on Fox News, usually from Studio J in midtown, where the network is headquartered, but sometimes from a remote studio on Long Island, where he was raised and now lives.
All White House phone numbers begin with the same six digits: 202-456. Hannity calls the White House switchboard, a number listed publicly, and reaches an operator. The operator refers to a list of cleared callers, a few dozen friends and family members outside the administration who may contact President Donald Trump through this official channel '-- among them his adult sons, Eric and Don Jr.; private-equity billionaire Stephen Schwarzman; media billionaire Rupert Murdoch; real-estate billionaire Tom Barrack; Patriots owner and also-billionaire Robert Kraft; and Hannity.
The operator then dials the president, who leaves the Oval Office around 7 p.m. and who, by this point in the evening, is almost always by himself on the third floor of the executive residence (the First Lady reportedly sleeps in a separate bedroom). He tells the operator to put Hannity through.
Their chats begin casually, with How are yous and What's going ons. On some days, they speak multiple times, with one calling the other to inform him of the latest developments. White House staff are aware that the calls happen, thanks to the president entering a room and announcing, ''I just hung up with Hannity,'' or referring to what Hannity said during their conversations, or even ringing Hannity up from his desk in their presence.
Trump and Hannity don't usually speak in the morning, which the president spends alone, watching TV and tweeting. During the first months of the administration in particular, the tweets launched at the beginning of the day landed like bitchy little grenades directed at the programming and personalities that angered him on MSNBC and CNN. ''Early on, usually we could count on the president watching Morning Joe first thing, at 6 a.m.,'' one White House official told me. ''He'd watch an hour of that. Then he'd move on to New Day for a segment or two. Then he'd move on to Fox.''
Senior staffers worried about this pattern of behavior: By the time his day was formally under way with the daily intelligence briefing in the Oval Office '-- scheduled as late as 11 a.m. '-- the whole world was often thrown off course, wondering whether there were ''tapes'' of his conversations with a fired FBI director (May 12, 2017, 8:26 a.m.) or if a TV host had been ''bleeding badly from a face-lift'' at Mar-a-Lago (June 29, 2017, 8:58 a.m.).
With the hope of calming him down, then''chief of staff Reince Priebus and then''press secretary Sean Spicer began a subtle campaign. ''It got to the point that they were just like, 'We need to get him off these channels and onto Fox & Friends or else we're going to be chasing down this crazy-train bullshit from MSNBC and CNN all day,'' '' one former White House official said.
Like all other ideas, this had the highest chance of implementation if Trump believed he'd thought of it on his own. Priebus and Spicer worked talking points about the network's high ratings and importance to his base of supporters into conversation until, eventually, it stuck, so that the president's television consumption is today what the current White House official called ''mainly a complete dosage of Fox.'' The former official added, ''Trump's someone who loves praise more than he likes hate-watching Morning Joe.''
But the current official acknowledged that it has created a different set of problems: ''Sometimes on Fox, a lot of stories are embellished, and they don't necessarily cover the big news stories of the day. When they cover the smaller stories, if that gets the president riled up, then that becomes an issue. Whenever he tweets, all of us do a mad dash or mad scramble to find out as much information about that random topic as possible. We're used to it in a lot of ways, so it's part of our morning routine.''
More than most politicians, Trump abides by the Groucho Marx law of fraternization. He inherently distrusts anyone who chooses to work for him, seeking outside affirmation as often as possible from as vast and varied a group as he can muster '-- but Hannity is at the center. ''Generally, the feeling is that Sean is the leader of the outside kitchen cabinet,'' one White House official said, echoing other staffers (current and removed). I was told by one person that Hannity ''fills the political void'' left by Steve Bannon, a statement Bannon seemed to agree with: ''Sean Hannity understands the basic issues of economic nationalism and 'America First' foreign policy at a deeper level than the august staff of Jonathan Chait and the fuckin' clowns at New York Magazine,'' he said. The White House official assessed the influence of White House officials and other administration personnel as exactly equal to that of Fox News.
The TV PresidentA brief history of Trump taking his cues from Fox News.
Unlike on Fox & Friends, where Trump learns new (frequently incorrect) information, Hannity acts to transform Trump's pervasive ambivalence into resolve by convincing him what he's already decided he believes and what he's decided to do is correct. After the New Year, Hannity went on air with what he said was ''breaking news'': a list of Trump's accomplishments, which scrolled by on the screen like song titles from an infomercial for Hits From the '70s. His accomplishments included things like ''drafting a plan to defeat ISIS,'' signing individual executive orders, and the separate accomplishment of having ''signed 55 executive orders.'' The former White House official called the trouble caused by Hannity, and Fox more broadly, ''a fucked-up feedback loop'' that puts Trump ''in a weird headspace. What ends up happening is Judge Jeanine or Hannity fill him up with a bunch of crazy shit, and everyone on staff has to go and knock down all the fucking fires they started.''
But for the most part, policy has taken a back seat on Hannity; regardless of the news of the day, the overarching narrative of the show is the political persecution of Trump, and by extension of Hannity and Hannity's viewers, at the hands of the so-called deep state and the Democratic Party, and the corrupt mainstream media, a wholly owned subsidiary of both. Everything comes back to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's involvement in the 2016 election, a phony, petty diversion from what should be the real focus: prosecuting Hillary Clinton. Hannity admits to advising Trump, but on the air, he's repeatedly mocked suggestions that he functions as an unofficial chief of staff and criticized the ''fake-news media'' for not bothering to reach out to him for the truth (a spokesperson for Fox News declined multiple interview requests for this article on Hannity's behalf). More than any other figure of the right-wing infosphere, Hannity has behaved as if he were an extension of the Trump communications department, his daily stream of assertions serving to prop up Trump and, in real time, define what Trumpism is supposed to be.
On the phone, he and the president alternate between the ''witch hunt!'' and gabbing like old girlfriends about media gossip and whose show sucks and who's getting killed in the ratings and who's winning (Hannity, and therefore Trump) and sports and Kanye West, all of it sprinkled with a staccato fuck '... fucking '... fucked '... fucker. ''He's not a systematic thinker at all. He's not an ideologue,'' one person who knows both men said of Hannity. ''He gives tactical advice versus strategic advice.''
The talks may be more important for Trump than for Hannity in a therapeutic sense, even if it's nearly impossible to accept what we're seeing from the president reflects any kind of therapy. ''He doesn't live with his wife,'' one person who knows both men said of Trump, explaining that he lacks someone ''to decompress'' with at the end of the day. When they spoke a few hours before Trump welcomed home the newly freed Americans who'd been held hostage in North Korea, he and Hannity told each other how proud they were, how happy the news made them. ''You can't function without that,'' this person said, adding that Hannity ''actually likes him'' even though ''he knows how nuts he is. He's decided that you're all in or you're not.''
At 2:46 p.m. on April 16, Hannity was on Long Island preparing for a three-hour stretch of radio. ''Let not your heart be troubled,'' he says at the start of each program, a line from John 14:1''6, his favorite Bible verse.
Thirty miles away from his circulatory organs, half the reporters in America had joined Stormy Daniels to look on as lawyers representing Trump's longtime lawyer Michael Cohen argued, before U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood, that thousands of pages of records seized from Cohen's home, office, hotel room, and safe during an FBI raid a week earlier were protected under attorney-client privilege. As were the identities of his clients, which, he admitted, amounted to a grand total of three. (''A shockingly low number of clients for a lawyer to have unless they're right out of law school,'' Michael Avenatti, the extraordinarily tan lawyer for Daniels, who seems to be conducting our current news cycle by force of will and witchcraft, told me.)
Cohen's lawyers released the identities of only two of them: Trump and former Republican National Committee deputy finance chairman Elliott Broidy, for whom Cohen reportedly negotiated a nondisclosure agreement involving a love child with a Playboy model '-- an agreement some now speculate was in fact on behalf of the president, who may have been the actual father. At the time, Cohen was still presenting himself as a fairly conventional lawyer and these as fairly conventional clients. But on May 8, after Avenatti somehow obtained Cohen's financial records, we learned that he'd been paid more than $1 million in total by several large corporations '-- among them Novartis; AT&T; and Columbus Nova, an investment firm whose biggest client is the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg '-- for unclear reasons.
At 2:52 p.m., the world learned that Cohen's secret third client was Sean Hannity '-- meaning that he was, at least for a moment, one of four players, including Trump, at the very center of multiple investigations he had been railing against on-air for the better part of a year. ''It was like a bomb went off in the courtroom,'' Avenatti recalled. Several reporters described how, at the mention of his name, there were gasps. CNN, MSNBC, and momentarily even Hannity's own network, Fox News, covered the development as if it were a missing plane. Fox News anchor Shepard Smith referred to Hannity as ''the elephant in the room.''
It wasn't as though nobody had suspected the president's relationship with Hannity went beyond the symbiotic chumminess traditional to the social-climbing media figures and egomaniacal politicos of the Northeast Corridor (you don't become a ''media elite'' by abiding). Anyone who watched Hannity's show or listened to his radio broadcast '-- together they add up to four hours of talking each day, for which he is paid a reported $36 million a year '-- would have suspected exactly that. But its obviousness was almost too much to take in without something snapping; it was ridiculous, in the way that Law & Order can seem ridiculous if you don't suspend your critical faculties: The same few detectives are present and central at every pivotal moment of each case, as though there were no other cops in all of New York.
At three o'clock, Hannity came on the radio as scheduled. It was ''very strange,'' he said on-air, describing the moment he read his own name on his own network as a breaking-news chyron. He joked about how ''all these media people'' had to listen to his show that day. ''I actually think it's pretty funny,'' he said. He explained that Cohen wasn't his lawyer but had offered legal advice as a friend, and Hannity had assumed their conversations '-- companies connected to Hannity own more than 870 homes in seven states, the Guardian quickly reported '-- which he said were related to real estate, were privileged.
His new phone vibrated, the hum of every friend and colleague and reporter alive going straight to the source to figure out what the hell was happening. ''I am on-air,'' he said later on the show. ''I wish everyone would stop calling me.''
At other networks, on-air personalities failing to disclose their personal relationship with a leading figure in a major news story, a figure whom they repeatedly defended, would surely suffer some kind of consequences. At Fox, things were different. ''It didn't even register. The real sin is false advertising,'' said the person who knows Hannity and Trump, adding that both have gotten away with a whole lot by being seemingly up front about it. (Fox issued a statement of full support the next day.) ''People can't deal with hypocrisy and lying, but they can deal with everything else. When the Stormy Daniels story broke, it was like: Are you surprised, really? Are you kidding? He told us that. We know who he is. Was the Cohen thing like, 'I can't believe it?!' It was like, Yeah, of course. Hannity says that kind of thing on-air. He's totally transparent. You didn't know about that, but was it plausible? Does he have dinner over there? If he wife-swapped with Melania, would you be shocked? No, of course not. If Chris Hayes was doing that, you'd be like, 'Wait a second, what?' This, you're like, They probably have a vacation house in Punta Gorda.''
Earlier this year, Smith dismissed the ''opinion side'' of Fox News as strictly entertainment: ''They don't really have rules on the opinion side. They can say whatever they want,'' he said. But the fact that the network took no action over its host's very intimate, very strange relationship with the president and his chief fixer also reflects just how much autonomy Hannity has managed to carve out for himself since his friend took the White House.
Hannity is the designated prime-time survivor from the Roger Ailes era. But at the outset of Fox's new post-Ailes age, there were reported speculations that James Murdoch '-- Rupert's son and chief executive of 21st Century Fox, who is known to hold some liberal views '-- had intentions of pushing the network closer to the center, or at least bringing it back from the edge of the cliff (the Murdoch sons have said publicly they have no plans to alter the editorial direction of Fox News). Over the summer, rumors began to circulate that Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, who was fired from Fox in April 2017, were talking to Sinclair Broadcast Group, the largest owner of local TV stations in the country, about the company's plan to purchase a cable channel and position itself as a far-right competitor to Fox. To those who knew Hannity, the rumors didn't look like an accident. ''It's really simple: If you're in prison and someone cuts in front of you in the chow line, you bite his nose off,'' says the source. ''You do that not because you care about your place in the chow line, but because if you don't, you're gonna get raped in the showers. You need to establish that there's a massive cost to messing with me, and so why don't you go mess with someone else. There are lots of people to pick on and micromanage, and there are a lot of weak people here, and go have fun wrecking their lives, but if you touch me, I will make you regret it. You have to say that right away.''
Today, a year into a very harmonious relationship with the president and despite being something like the face of Fox News, Hannity doesn't entertain calls from network leadership, according to a source, though they rarely try to call him anyway. He's only met James Murdoch once, at a baseball game. His relationship with Fox News management is nonexistent, according to the source. (A Fox News representative says Hannity has an excellent relationship with management.) If he wants to defend the president's lawyer every night without telling anyone the president's lawyer is also his lawyer, he can do it. And if he wants to broadcast from inside his own house, a few feet away from a golden retriever and a White Russian, he can do that, too.
The political divides of the Obama years were good for Hannity, but the Trump administration has been even better. In April, on average, he aired in more than 3 million homes across the country each night, according to Nielsen, a wider audience than Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon, although you'd never know it, watching or listening to him; central to Hannity's storytelling about himself, which is a big part of what he does every night, is maintaining the sense that he's the underdog.
Sean Hannity has never been about the news; he's a specific form of entertainment, a high-energy delivery device for a simplistic far-right worldview that is less about ideology and policy outcomes and more about winning. Hannity is a space in which all conversations are debates and all debates are winnable by the protagonist, Sean Hannity. When he does make news, it's usually by accident, as when, earlier this month, Rudy Giuliani appeared on the program to throw several months of consistent lying off course by announcing that Trump had reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 he paid Stormy Daniels. ''Oh, I didn't know,'' Hannity said. ''He did?''
''Hannity was always someone where, if you were a Republican and you went on his show, it would be the easiest interview possible,'' a person who worked on the campaign of one of Trump's Republican-primary rivals told me. ''It was legitimately impossible to get jammed up by Sean Hannity. It wasn't even something you'd consider. It was the softball of softball interviews.''
But almost as soon as Trump announced his candidacy, in June 2015, Hannity's reputation changed: ''I think it was just the star angle. He was just wowed by Trump's star factor more so than anything else. Sean Hannity's the world's biggest starfucker. It was just kind of crazy how he went from being someone who everyone tried to have at their launch events to have a full-hour puff piece to someone who people were like, Oh, we can't really go on. We're not gonna get a fair shake because he's so pro-Trump.''
That fandom may also explain Hannity's otherwise inexplicable ''legal'' relationship with Cohen '-- an unlikely counsel for someone of Hannity's wealth and status. ''Why would anybody be nice to Cohen?'' asked a person close to the president. ''Because he was 'Trump's lawyer,' so Hannity sees that and he assumes, If Trump thinks he's smart, then he's smart!'' The person who knows Hannity and Trump agreed. ''I think the obvious answer is the answer: He's a total suck-up. It's almost like getting a lock of Elvis's hair or something.''
Even before the campaign and the FBI raid connected them through martyrdom, Trump and Hannity were men of similar habits and preoccupations, both outward-facing, projecting to the world all day long and yet prone to stretches of retreat, to a little bit of weirdness that accompanies any comparable level of fame. Both golf, both diet by cutting out carbs. (Hannity adheres to a version of the ketogenic diet, cooking often for himself, while the president removes the buns from the two Big Macs and two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches he gets from McDonald's, according to a book written by his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.)
Although Hannity shills a custom pillow on his radio show that he says cured his insomnia, it didn't; both he and the president are night owls who sleep for only a few hours, and however differently their days begin, they arrive to the same comfortable sense of freedom after dark, as highly visible people who are temporarily unseen. ''One reason they click is because of being celebrities,'' John Gomez, Hannity's friend since elementary school, told me. ''In broadcasting, you live and die by the ratings. I think they have that in common, and they're competitors, you know? They're competitive.''
They were born 15 years apart '-- Trump at Jamaica Hospital to rich parents and Hannity at Metropolitan Medical in upper Manhattan to a county-jail official and a family-court officer '-- and they were raised 12 miles from one another, in Jamaica, Queens, and Franklin Square, Long Island, respectively.
Hannity leans on his personal narrative 70 percent like a person running for office and 30 percent like someone just dumbfounded by his luck, or his ''blessings,'' as he characterizes it. He was an uninspired student who found outlets for his restlessness and need to connect with others through odd jobs during his childhood and early adulthood: paperboy, busboy, line cook, bartender, housepainter, dishwasher, finishing one shift only to walk into the next, like so many other men and women for whom better fortune never comes.
Trump, meanwhile, was getting into the casino business in Atlantic City, where he would stiff guys like young Hannity left and right. Only in America could they end up in the same green room, convinced they look at the world the same way. At the Cheesecake Factory in Islip, Gomez told me he didn't think Trump would've fit in with him and Hannity growing up. That they were different types of guys. ''I do not see those two guys growing up together. I don't see it,'' Gomez said. ''He just wouldn't be attracted to us.'' He added, with a laugh, ''You could fit Hannity's plane inside his plane. He's a helluva lot more flamboyant than Hannity is.'' Hannity had been using the same beat-up old grill, which he lit with newspaper, for decades, he said, taking it with him from modest house to bigger house to mansion to compound. He always drove the same model car, an Escalade. ''It would be nice if Hannity, you know, forked over a few bucks for an Aston Martin or something,'' Gomez said. ''That I would borrow.''
''He really didn't have a pot to piss in, pardon the expression, and he did everything on his own,'' Lynda McLaughlin told me. McLaughlin's been the executive producer of Hannity's radio show for the past eight years and his sidekick for 12 (''People refer to me as his Robin,'' she said). Of Hannity's listeners, she theorized, ''I think they get him. He was their dream, you know?''
As a dropout 29 years ago, Hannity was hired as a shock jock on a college-radio station, KCSB, in Santa Barbara, hosting a show called ''The Pursuit of Happiness.'' Listeners protested when Hannity, on-air, said gays were ''disgusting people'' who were ''brainwashing'' the public. When he was fired, he enlisted the ACLU to defend his right to free speech. The case, which he won, brought him publicity, and he moved to Alabama to accept a job with WVNN, and then to Georgia to work for WGST. In 1996, Roger Ailes hired him. (Hannity, married for 25 years, has a 19-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter; when he was asked, by Playboy, how he would feel if one of his children were gay, he said he would love them unconditionally and would only be upset if they were Democrats.)
Hannity first met the future president during his early years at Fox. In 2011, he provided Trump with a platform to discuss birtherism, the racist conspiracy theory that Obama wasn't born in America and therefore was not a legitimate president. ''The issue could go away in a minute,'' Hannity said to Trump. ''Just show the certificate.'' During the campaign, as Trump attempted to argue that he'd been against the Iraq War from the beginning, even though he was on the record as initially having supported it, Hannity came to his aid, claiming that, after his shows back then, Trump would call him to argue.
But Gomez told me he didn't think Hannity and Trump were truly friends before 2016, when Hannity helped Trump get elected and Trump helped Hannity become the most popular person on cable news '-- an entanglement that has now made Hannity a secondary character in the drama of a major federal investigation.
Every morning, Hannity meets Glenn Rubin, a man he calls his ''sensei,'' who coaches him through two hours of ''street martial arts.'' He does this for fitness and, despite carrying a firearm (which he once reportedly took out and pointed at Juan Williams on set), for self-defense. On his show, he once aired footage of his training session with former UFC heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell. ''This is my fist,'' he said, pointing it at the camera. ''You can pan in on that.'' The shot got tighter around his balled-up hand. On Twitter, he proved an easy mark for trolls who detected a weak spot: ''Do you even lift, bro?'' one asked. ''Street martial arts for 5 years. A lot of core work,'' he said flatly in response. Another time, he listed the number of push-ups (100) and sit-ups (100) he does each day. He's discussed this hobby with such frequency that, in 2016, he inspired the Washington Free Beacon to create a 2:23 supercut titled Sean Hannity Karate Update. (Applying the term karate to his workouts greatly agitates him. ''Why does everyone say karate? Not even close to what I do,'' he tweeted once. A year later, he tweeted again: ''Oh and by the way, I never did 'karate' in my life. Another lie.'')
When he's not doing karate, he's golfing, but the rest of the time, he's often alone, fussing over his dogs: a Bernese mountain dog, Gracie, and an English cream golden retriever, Marley. (''I love dogs!'' he once said in a tweet.) He's trying to breed Marley, whom he got from Majestic Manors, a high-end breeder in Indiana, and if he doesn't renew his contract when it's up, he dreams of moving to a farm full of dogs. He maintains constant contact with a million people all at once, texting his friends as compulsively as he vapes (he likes Njoys) all throughout his radio show and even on TV during commercial breaks and whenever the camera isn't on him. At home, he watches movies (GoodFellas, Braveheart, Schindler's List) and TV (Homeland, Billions). He drinks White Russians or Coors Lite or vodka with Sprite Zero or, if he's at Del Frisco's, a frozen concoction of vodka and pineapple juice that they describe as a martini (it is not). He cooks for himself, and is especially proud of a dish he calls ''turkey chop'' '-- a ''Hannity special.''
But he's not entirely bunkered in, out on Long Island '-- he has bursts of manic sociability, too. Gomez told me of a typical invite to lunch at Peter Luger '-- the Great Neck spinoff, of course, not the Brooklyn original '-- with all signs suggesting it'd be just the two of them and their steaks. Somehow, in the few hours between the end of their call and the beginning of lunch, Hannity would accumulate 23 additional guests, having invited seemingly every living being to cross his path, such is his inability to turn off the thing that drives him to connect with others. ''' 'You hungry? You like steak?'' '' Gomez said, impersonating his friend's distinct, cheerful bark. ''' 'Meet me at Luger's!'' ''
Privately, Hannity has expressed openness to a different kind of retirement, far removed from a dog farm: running for office, something he hadn't considered in the past. Gomez, whose own unsuccessful congressional race Hannity advised on, said he thought the only way he'd do it is if he didn't think there was anybody else for the job '-- something, incidentally, Trump used to say before the beginning of his political career. McLaughlin burst out laughing when I asked about Hannity 2024; she doesn't believe he has any interest. But on the show, the two of them joke often, lately, about how Hannity might as well run, since he's ''being vetted more than Obama.''
''The job itself creates such intense isolation that you'd go crazy if you didn't have '... people do go crazy. They all go crazy,'' said the person who knows both Trump and Hannity.
''You have two choices: You can either go insane, or you can create your own separate world. And that's what he's done. He hired his brother-in-law as his producer. And people look on at that and they're like, 'Oh, that's nepotism.' No, that's his effort to build a world that he's safe in, because it's so crazy that you have to do that.'' The only thing you could compare it to, this person said, would be the presidency.
*This article appears in the May 14, 2018, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!
The Strange Cocoon of Donald Trump and Sean Hannity
Warshington
Amazon, Starbucks Furious After Seattle Passes Controversial "Homeless Tax" | Zero Hedge
Update: Amazon is not alone in its anger at Seattle's plans. Starbucks took a moment away from signaling its virtue and lashed out at the city's new tax. John Kelly, senior vice president, Global Public Affairs & Social Impact at Starbucks, said in a statement.
"This City continues to spend without reforming and fail without accountability, while ignoring the plight of hundreds of children sleeping outside.
If they cannot provide a warm meal and safe bed to a five year-old child, no one believes they will be able to make housing affordable or address opiate addiction.
This City pays more attention to the desires of the owners of illegally parked RVs than families seeking emergency shelter."
Ouch! How long before we hear a new round of boycott starbucks?
* * *
Despite Amazon's decision to halt construction on a new tower and threats to sublease space in another newly built downtown skyscraper, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and the City Council have passed a controversial "homelessness tax" that will require the city's largest companies to pay an additional $300 a year per full time employee based in the city.
And while the law has been significantly watered down from the version introduced last month by the city council, Jeff Bezos still isn't happy about it.
To wit, the company said in an official statement that it's still "apprehensive" about expanding the number of employees it has based in the city, as Fortune reports.
"We are disappointed by today's City Council decision to introduce a tax on jobs," Amazon said in a statement. "While we have resumed construction planning for Block 18, we remain very apprehensive about the future created by the council's hostile approach and rhetoric toward larger businesses, which forces us to question our growth here."
Amazon has resumed construction on its 17-storey Block 18 tower, but we imagine the company now has even more incentive to shift employees to its planned HQ2, though, as CNNMoney warned in a recent piece, Amazon's strident reaction to the proposed tax in Seattle might give some of its suitor city's reason to reconsider (as foolish as that might seem from an economic development perspective).
The law will require employers who generate more than $20 million in gross revenues within the city limits to pay roughly 14 cents per man hour per employee every year - which comes out to roughly $275 per employee. Roughly half of the money collected by the tax will be paid by Amazon.
So, at the end of April, the Seattle City Council released draft legislation that would force companies with revenues of over $20 million in the city to pay 26 cents for each hour worked by a Seattle-based employee, or roughly $540 per head per year. This "head tax" was to apply over 2019 and 2020, generating $86 million a year for social programs, before turning into a 0.7% payroll tax. (The annual proceeds of the tax were originally calculated at $75 million before the council revised its estimates.)
However, with Mayor Jenny Durkan threatening to veto the tax because she was concerned about its impact on employment, the measure had to be watered down to pass.
In the end, the version that passed - unanimously - will see large employers pay 14 cents per head per hour, or $275 per head per year. The tax will now generate $47 million a year, and it will run for five years, rather than turning into a payroll tax after a two-year run.
For what it's worth, Amazon says it has independently done more to ease homelessness than the city government, touting a corporate initiative to donate space to shelter 200 homeless people in one of Amazon's new buildings.
The company said it recently contributed $40 million to a city managed fund for affordable housing.
As Fortune points out, Amazon isn't the only company angry about the tax, which will impact more than 500 businesses. Starbucks, which hosts its headquarters in the city, slammed the city council, calling it incompetent and incapable of taking care of the city's homeless.
Three-fifths of the money raised will go to building new, affordable housing, while the rest will fund emergency services for the homeless.
Amazon wasn't the only company left grumbling. Starbucks also responded, with public affairs chief John Kelley saying Seattle "continues to spend without reforming and fail without accountability, while ignoring the plight of hundreds of children sleeping outside."
"If they cannot provide a warm meal and safe bed to a five year-old child, no one believes they will be able to make housing affordable or address opiate addiction," Kelley said.
And while that statement should of course be taken with a grain of salt given that it's obviously in Starbuck's interest to do everything it can to pressure the city, the company's spokesman may have a point.
The roughly $50 million raised by the tax would go toward affordable housing initiatives that help the homeless find permanent shelter - while some of the money would go toward an emergency response program for people at risk of homelessness.
But the city has other options that might be more effective at alleviating the city's housing shortage, like changing restrictive zoning regulations.
Instead, by passing the tax, Seattle's mayor and city council have only provided further proof that the city is willing to do whatever it can to combat homelessness, short of actually building more homes.
NA-Tech News
Attention PGP Users: New Vulnerabilities Require You To Take Action Now | Electronic Frontier Foundation
A group of European security researchers have released a warning about a set of vulnerabilities affecting users of PGP and S/MIME. EFF has been in communication with the research team, and can confirm that these vulnerabilities pose an immediate risk to those using these tools for email communication, including the potential exposure of the contents of past messages.
The full details will be published in a paper on Tuesday at 07:00 AM UTC (3:00 AM Eastern, midnight Pacific). In order to reduce the short-term risk, we and the researchers have agreed to warn the wider PGP user community in advance of its full publication.
Our advice, which mirrors that of the researchers, is to immediately disable and/or uninstall tools that automatically decrypt PGP-encrypted email. Until the flaws described in the paper are more widely understood and fixed, users should arrange for the use of alternative end-to-end secure channels, such as Signal , and temporarily stop sending and especially reading PGP-encrypted email.
Please refer to these guides on how to temporarily disable PGP plug-ins in:
Thunderbird with Enigmail Apple Mail with GPGTools Outlook with Gpg4win These steps are intended as a temporary, conservative stopgap until the immediate risk of the exploit has passed and been mitigated against by the wider community.
We will release more detailed explanation and analysis when more information is publicly available.
Robert J. Hansen rjh at sixdemonbag.org Mon May 14 14:27:44 CEST 2018 Previous message (by thread): Mailpile on Efail Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
EFF Wins Final Victory Over Podcasting Patent | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Back in early 2013, the podcasting community was freaking out. A patent troll called Personal Audio LLC had sued comedian Adam Carolla and was threatening a bunch of smaller podcasters. Personal Audio claimed that the podcasters infringed U.S. Patent 8,112,504, which claims a ''system for disseminating media content'' in serialized episodes. EFF challenged the podcasting patent at the Patent Office in October 2013. We won that proceeding, and it was affirmed on appeal. Today, the Supreme Court rejected Personal Audio's petition for review. The case is finally over.
We won this victory with the support of our community. More than one thousand people donated to EFF's Save Podcasting campaign. We also asked the public to help us find prior art. We filed an inter partes review (IPR) petition that showed Personal Audio did not invent anything new, and that other people were podcasting years before Personal Audio first applied for a patent.
Meanwhile, Adam Carolla fought Personal Audio in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas. He also raised money for his defense and was eventually able to convince Personal Audio to walk away. When the settlement was announced, Personal Audio suggested that it would no longer sue small podcasters. That gave podcasters some comfort. But the settlement did not invalidate the patent.
In April 2015, EFF won at the Patent Office. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) invalidated all the challenged claims of the podcasting patent, finding that it should not have been issued in light of two earlier publications, one relating to CNN news clips and one relating to CBC online radio broadcasting. Personal Audio appealed that decision to the Federal Circuit.
The podcasting patent expired in October 2016, while the case was on appeal before the Federal Circuit. But that wouldn't save podcasters who were active before the patent expired. The statute of limitations in patent cases is six years. If it could salvage its patent claims, Personal Audio could still sue for damages for years of podcasting done before the patent expired.
On August 7, 2017, the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB's ruling invalidating all challenged claims. After this defeat, Personal Audio tried to get the Supreme Court to take its case. It argued that the IPR process is unconstitutional, raising arguments identical to those presented in the Oil States case. The Supreme Court rejected those arguments in its Oil States decision, issued last month. Personal Audio also argued that EFF should be bound by a jury verdict in a case between Personal Audio and CBS'--an argument which made no sense, because that case involved different prior art and EFF was not a party.
Today, the Supreme Court issued an order denying Personal Audio's petition for certiorari. With that ruling, the PTAB's decision is now final and the patent claims Personal Audio asserted against podcasters are no longer valid. We thank everyone who supported EFF's Save Podcasting campaign.
Da Cloud
Pentagon Wants Cloud Secure Enough to Hold Nuke Secrets - Nextgov
The Defense Department's Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud will be designed to host the government's most sensitive classified data, including critical nuclear weapon design information and other nuclear secrets.
The Pentagon is expected to bid out the controversial JEDI cloud contract this week, and new contracting documents indicate the winning company must be able to obtain the full range of top secret government security clearances, including Department of Energy ''Q'' and ''L'' clearances necessary to view restricted nuclear data.
In response to questions from Nextgov, Defense Department spokeswoman Heather Babb confirmed ''JEDI cloud services will be offered at all classification levels.'' Babb said military and defense customers ''will determine which applications and data migrate to the cloud.''
Amazon Web Services, considered a front-runner to win the JEDI contract, is already able to host some Defense Department classified data in a $600 million cloud it developed several years ago for the CIA.
JEDI, however, represents a massive jump in size and scale. The contract could be worth as much as $10 billion over 10 years, with Defense officials describing it as a ''global fabric'' available to warfighters in almost any environment, from F-35s to war zones. Because government customers could use the cloud for almost anything, it must be built to host almost everything, Steven Aftergood, head of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, told Nextgov.
''It sounds to me like the government is covering all their bases,'' Aftergood said. ''Everything we've got might be part of this system, therefore you need to be potentially cleared for everything. And 'everything' includes information on weapons systems, operations, intelligence and nuclear weapons.''
Aftergood said the Defense Department's requirement for individual ''Q'' clearances for personnel at the contractor that wins JEDI suggests the cloud may be able to ''host information pertaining to nuclear weapons or classified information pertaining to the deployment and utilization of nuclear weapons.''
Q clearances originated in the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. They are typically granted to contractors or scientists involved in the management or maintenance of the nuclear weapons complex and national laboratories. Q clearances would be a rarity among employees at the tech companies bidding on JEDI, though Aftergood said investigative requirements can be shortened through ''reciprocity'' arrangements if contracted personnel have attained similar clearances. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and General Dynamics have indicated interest in JEDI.
The Pentagon has said it plans to award the JEDI contract in September and to begin migrating Pentagon systems early next year. Bloomberg, however, has reported that several companies have vowed to protest the contract and potentially take the Pentagon to court over its decision to award JEDI to a single cloud provider.
Alternative Universe
Opinion | Liberals, You're Not as Smart as You Think - The New York Times
Mr. Alexander is a professor of political science at the University of Virginia.
May 12, 2018 Credit Illustration by Alvaro Dominguez; Photographs by ZargonDesign/E+, via Getty Images, and Renaud Philippe/EyeEm, via Getty Images I know many liberals, and two of them really are my best friends. Liberals make good movies and television shows. Their idealism has been an inspiration for me and many others. Many liberals are very smart. But they are not as smart, or as persuasive, as they think.
And a backlash against liberals '-- a backlash that most liberals don't seem to realize they're causing '-- is going to get President Trump re-elected.
People often vote against things instead of voting for them: against ideas, candidates and parties. Democrats, like Republicans, appreciate this whenever they portray their opponents as negatively as possible. But members of political tribes seem to have trouble recognizing that they, too, can push people away and energize them to vote for the other side. Nowhere is this more on display today than in liberal control of the commanding heights of American culture.
Take the past few weeks. At the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, the comedian Michelle Wolf landed some punch lines that were funny and some that weren't. But people reacted less to her talent and more to the liberal politics that she personified. For every viewer who loved her Trump bashing, there seemed to be at least one other put off by the one-sidedness of her routine. Then, when Kanye West publicly rethought his ideological commitments, prominent liberals criticized him for speaking on the topic at all. Maxine Waters, a Democratic congresswoman from California, remarked that ''sometimes Kanye West talks out of turn'' and should ''maybe not have so much to say.''
Liberals dominate the entertainment industry, many of the most influential news sources and America's universities. This means that people with progressive leanings are everywhere in the public eye '-- and are also on the college campuses attended by many people's children or grandkids. These platforms come with a lot of power to express values, confer credibility and celebrity and start national conversations that others really can't ignore.
But this makes liberals feel more powerful than they are. Or, more accurately, this kind of power is double-edged. Liberals often don't realize how provocative or inflammatory they can be. In exercising their power, they regularly not only persuade and attract but also annoy and repel.
In fact, liberals may be more effective at causing resentment than in getting people to come their way. I'm not talking about the possibility that jokes at the 2011 correspondents' association dinner may have pushed Mr. Trump to run for president to begin with. I mean that the ''army of comedy'' that Michael Moore thought would bring Mr. Trump down will instead be what builds him up in the minds of millions of voters.
Consider some ways liberals have used their cultural prominence in recent years. They have rightly become more sensitive to racism and sexism in American society. News reports, academic commentary and movies now regularly relate accounts of racism in American history and condemn racial bigotry. These exercises in consciousness-raising and criticism have surely nudged some Americans to rethink their views, and to reflect more deeply on the status and experience of women and members of minority groups in this country.
But accusers can paint with very wide brushes. Racist is pretty much the most damning label that can be slapped on anyone in America today, which means it should be applied firmly and carefully. Yet some people have cavalierly leveled the charge against huge numbers of Americans '-- specifically, the more than 60 million people who voted for Mr. Trump.
In their ranks are people who sincerely consider themselves not bigoted, who might be open to reconsidering ways they have done things for years, but who are likely to be put off if they feel smeared before that conversation even takes place.
It doesn't help that our cultural mores are changing rapidly, and we rarely stop to consider this. Some liberals have gotten far out ahead of their fellow Americans but are nonetheless quick to criticize those who haven't caught up with them.
Within just a few years, many liberals went from starting to talk about microaggressions to suggesting that it is racist even to question whether microaggressions are that important. ''Gender identity disorder'' was considered a form of mental illness until recently, but today anyone hesitant about transgender women using the ladies' room is labeled a bigot. Liberals denounce ''cultural appropriation'' without, in many cases, doing the work of persuading people that there is anything wrong with, say, a teenager not of Chinese descent wearing a Chinese-style dress to prom or eating at a burrito cart run by two non-Latino women.
Pressing a political view from the Oscar stage, declaring a conservative campus speaker unacceptable, flatly categorizing huge segments of the country as misguided '-- these reveal a tremendous intellectual and moral self-confidence that smacks of superiority. It's one thing to police your own language and a very different one to police other people's. The former can set an example. The latter is domineering.
This judgmental tendency became stronger during the administration of President Barack Obama, though not necessarily because of anything Mr. Obama did. Feeling increasingly emboldened, liberals were more convinced than ever that conservatives were their intellectual and even moral inferiors. Discourses and theories once confined to academia were transmitted into workaday liberal political thinking, and college campuses '-- which many take to be what a world run by liberals would look like '-- seemed increasingly intolerant of free inquiry.
It was during these years that the University of California included the phrase ''America is the land of opportunity'' on a list of discouraged microaggressions. Liberal politicians portrayed conservative positions on immigration reform as presumptively racist; Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, once dubiously claimed that she had heard Republicans tell Irish visitors that ''if it was you,'' then immigration reform ''would be easy.''
When Mr. Obama remarked, behind closed doors, during the presidential campaign in 2008, that Rust Belt voters ''get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them,'' it mattered not so much because he said it but because so many listeners figured that he was only saying what liberals were really thinking.
These are the sorts of events conservatives think of when they sometimes say, ''Obama caused Trump.'' Many liberals might interpret that phrase to mean that America's first black president brought out the worst in some people. In this view, not only might liberals be unable to avoid provoking bigots, it's not clear they should even try. After all, should they not have nominated and elected Mr. Obama? Should they regret doing the right thing just because it provoked the worst instincts in some people?
This is a limited view of the situation. Even if liberals think their opponents are backward, they don't have to gratuitously drive people away, including voters who cast ballots once or even twice for Mr. Obama before supporting Mr. Trump in 2016.
Champions of inclusion can watch what they say and explain what they're doing without presuming to regulate what words come out of other people's mouths. Campus activists can allow invited visitors to speak and then, after that event, hold a teach-in discussing what they disagree with. After the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that states had to allow same-sex marriage, the fight, in some quarters, turned to pizza places unwilling to cater such weddings. Maybe don't pick that fight?
People determined to stand against racism can raise concerns about groups that espouse hate and problems like the racial achievement gap in schools without smearing huge numbers of Americans, many of whom might otherwise be Democrats by temperament.
Liberals can act as if they're not so certain '-- and maybe actually not be so certain '-- that bigotry motivates people who disagree with them on issues like immigration. Without sacrificing their principles, liberals can come across as more respectful of others. Self-righteousness is rarely attractive, and even more rarely rewarded.
Self-righteousness can also get things wrong. Especially with the possibility of Mr. Trump's re-election, many liberals seem primed to write off nearly half the country as irredeemable. Admittedly, the president doesn't make it easy. As a candidate, Mr. Trump made derogatory comments about Mexicans, and as president described some African countries with a vulgar epithet. But it is an unjustified leap to conclude that anyone who supports him in any way is racist, just as it would be a leap to say that anyone who supported Hillary Clinton was racist because she once made veiled references to ''superpredators.''
Liberals are trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle. When they use their positions in American culture to lecture, judge and disdain, they push more people into an opposing coalition that liberals are increasingly prone to think of as deplorable. That only validates their own worst prejudices about the other America.
Those prejudices will be validated even more if Mr. Trump wins re-election in 2020, especially if he wins a popular majority. That's not impossible: The president's current approval ratings are at 42 percent, up from just a few months ago.
Liberals are inadvertently making that outcome more likely. It's not too late to stop.
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#MeToo
Brian Graden Sued for Alleged Sexual Abuse '' Variety
A self-described Hollywood ''It boy'' has sued producer Brian Graden, alleging that the former MTV executive used the lure of a potential reality TV series to extort sex.
Rovier Carrington filed the suit in New York Supreme Court. It accuses Graden, a former head of programming at MTV, of destroying his career and stealing his idea for a gay reality dating show. The suit states that Carrington and Graden had a two-year sexual relationship, during which time Graden promised to help produce various reality shows that Carrington was working on.
Carrington also alleges that he was sexually assaulted by Brad Grey, the late CEO and chairman of Paramount Pictures. He contends that Grey blacklisted him from working at Viacom after Carrington refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Carrington said he initially agreed to have sex with Graden because Graden agreed to help him work at Viacom again.
''Graden indicated to Carrington that if he wished to move forward with his reality show, and come off Viacom's banned list, that he would be required to have sex with Graden, Carrington agreed, as having sex with Graden was now his only option if he wanted to work in the entertainment industry,'' the lawsuit states.
In the suit, Carrington describes himself as ''Hollywood royalty'' because he is a great-grandson of Moe Howard, one of the Three Stooges. He says that in 2010, he began pitching various reality shows drawn from his life, including one called ''The Life of a Trendsetter.'' The show would feature ''good looking kids from wealthy families, living together in a home, spending theirparents' money.'' He also pitched a ''dark comedy'' called ''Inheritance,'' and a gay dating show.
Carrington accuses Graden of stealing his idea for the dating show and turning it into ''Finding Prince Charming,'' which ran on Logo and featured Lance Bass. Graden left MTV in 2009, five years before the alleged sexual misconduct took place. He has since been an independent producer.
Carrington is seeking $100 million in damages from Viacom. The suit also names Grey's estate as a defendant.
Viacom issued this response: ''We take allegations of this sort seriously, and are reviewing the complaint.''
Graden's attorney Larry Stein issued a statement Wednesday, writing: ''This sensationalized and meritless lawsuit is particularly egregious as it attacks two respected executives, one of whom is an industry icon whose death prevents him from defending himself, and the other, who has had a long, sterling and unblemished career free of any implication of inappropriate behavior personally or professionally.
''The complaint, which reads more like fiction than fact, seems to be based more upon Mr. Carrington's entitled belief that he is 'Hollywood royalty' with a 'pedigree of a star' because he claims his great grandfather was one of the Three Stooges, than on facts.
''It is unfortunately too common for wannabes to hold on to their entitlement, but uncommon for such claims to make headlines by use of hyperbole and baseless allegations of rape and conspiratorial extortionist conduct.
''The complaint ends just as it started, wildly untethered to reality, seeking damages in the hundreds of millions of dollars. We are confident that Mr. Graden will be fully vindicated and Mr. Carrington will be exposed for what and who he truly is.''
Updated at 4:06 p.m. PT with statement from Graden's attorney.
POPULAR ON VARIETY.COM:
A self-described Hollywood ''It boy'' has sued producer Brian Graden, alleging that the former MTV executive used the lure of a potential reality TV series to extort sex. Rovier Carrington filed the suit in New York Supreme Court. It accuses Graden, a former head of programming at MTV, of destroying his career and stealing his ['...]
A self-described Hollywood ''It boy'' has sued producer Brian Graden, alleging that the former MTV executive used the lure of a potential reality TV series to extort sex. Rovier Carrington filed the suit in New York Supreme Court. It accuses Graden, a former head of programming at MTV, of destroying his career and stealing his ['...]
A self-described Hollywood ''It boy'' has sued producer Brian Graden, alleging that the former MTV executive used the lure of a potential reality TV series to extort sex. Rovier Carrington filed the suit in New York Supreme Court. It accuses Graden, a former head of programming at MTV, of destroying his career and stealing his ['...]
A self-described Hollywood ''It boy'' has sued producer Brian Graden, alleging that the former MTV executive used the lure of a potential reality TV series to extort sex. Rovier Carrington filed the suit in New York Supreme Court. It accuses Graden, a former head of programming at MTV, of destroying his career and stealing his ['...]
A self-described Hollywood ''It boy'' has sued producer Brian Graden, alleging that the former MTV executive used the lure of a potential reality TV series to extort sex. Rovier Carrington filed the suit in New York Supreme Court. It accuses Graden, a former head of programming at MTV, of destroying his career and stealing his ['...]
A self-described Hollywood ''It boy'' has sued producer Brian Graden, alleging that the former MTV executive used the lure of a potential reality TV series to extort sex. Rovier Carrington filed the suit in New York Supreme Court. It accuses Graden, a former head of programming at MTV, of destroying his career and stealing his ['...]
A self-described Hollywood ''It boy'' has sued producer Brian Graden, alleging that the former MTV executive used the lure of a potential reality TV series to extort sex. Rovier Carrington filed the suit in New York Supreme Court. It accuses Graden, a former head of programming at MTV, of destroying his career and stealing his ['...]
BTC
This German Bank Uses Bitcoin to Make Low-Cost Int'l Loan Payments
Bitbond, an online bank founded in Germany in 2013 by German Radoslav Albrecht, has found an innovative use case for bitcoin's borderless nature: international loan payments.
It was the first to use bitcoin to transfer credit in currency internationally, not only as loan collateral, and it's currently processing about $1 million in loan payments per month.
As the company explains on its website:
''By innovating in the fields of payments and credit scoring, Bitbond makes financial inclusion a reality around the world. All payment transactions on Bitbond are conducted via the bitcoin blockchain. Therefore our service is available worldwide via the internet and is independent of banks.''
While many outsiders (and even hodlers) see bitcoin as only a highly speculative asset, Bitbond has found a business model that competes with traditional systems. Using bitcoin came as a smart move for Albrecht as an alternative to the Swift payment system, which is slower and more expensive.
''Traditional money transfers are relatively costly due to currency exchange fees, and can take up to a few days,'' Albrecht told Reuters TV in his office in Berlin's fashionable neighborhood Prenzlauer Berg. ''With Bitbond, payments work independently of where customers are. Via internet it is very, very quick and the fees are low.''
Source: ShutterstockThe downside, according to Albrecht, is the coin's volatility.
As CCN reported in December, businesses are reluctant to accept bitcoin as payment because of its wildly shifting exchange rates. Bitbond avoids this issue because clients only posses the tokens for their loans for a few seconds or minutes until it's ready to be exchanged to the national currency that they prefer.
Bitcoin's core premises of cheap transfer and low fees drive the business' success.
Since 2013, Bitbond has grown in popularity. The company has been mentioned in Forbes and Lend Academy. The news has been stayed positive, with VC funding Currently, Bitbond employs 24 people from 12 countries. The lean team takes care of the bank's 100 clients, which bring in $1 million each month.
The clients are mostly made up of small businesses and freelancers who do not exceed loans over $50,000. The company also became officially licensed as a bank in 2016, solidifying its longevity and successful track record
Germany is a global forerunner in Bitcoin adoption. While other countries remain skeptical and enact anti-crypto regulation, such as India, Germany, along with the United States, is open to crypto-related businesses. Germany is second to the United States, according to Bitnodes, a service that tracks the transfer information broadcast by Bitcoin nodes.
Images from Shutterstock
Russian government mulls law to register and identify cryptocurrency users - report '-- RT Russian Politics News
The Russian government plans to fight money laundering by only allowing members of the state-run ''register of crypto-investors'' to mine for and use digital currencies, a popular daily reported.
Mass circulation daily Izvestia quoted its unnamed sources ''close to the Russian Central Bank and Finance Ministry'' as saying that the bill regulating all cryptocurrency operations is already in the works and it could receive an assessment from the State Duma Committee for Legislative Work as soon as this week. The head of the body, MP Pavel Krasheninnikov (United Russia), confirmed the news.
''We aim to minimize the existing risks of using digital objects for transferring assets into an unregulated digital environment for legalization of criminal incomes, bankruptcy fraud or for sponsoring terrorist groups,'' the lawmaker said.
Read more
On Wednesday, Krasheninnikov told reporters that the bill introduces the definition of 'cryptocurrency' or 'digital money' into Russian law, along with the provision that such means of payment cannot be considered legal tender. He did not, however, rule out future amendments to the law that would allow the use of cryptocurrencies in Russia on certain conditions.
The existing draft requires anyone who intends to conduct operations with a cryptocurrency on Russian territory to undergo state certification and get on the special state register of crypto-investors, according to Izvestia. The register will be maintained by the Finance Ministry or the Central Bank.
Any crypto-wallet will be associated with personal data of its owner, such as passport number and individual taxpayer identification number. The bill could allow investors' identification by biometric data, such as fingerprints.
The draft has received support from the self-regulating group Russian Association of Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain (RAKIB). Its president, Yuri Pripachkin, said that regulating bodies all over the world opposed the anonymity of Initial Coin Offering (ICO) operations and the state register can be as good a solution as the broadly used Know Your Client (KYC) screening.
However, some industry experts, such as the head of the IT department of the Russian Otkritie Bank, Sergey Rusanov, noted that the draft in its existing form does not contain any punishment for those who violate it and the trans-border nature of crypto-currency operations makes it very difficult for state agencies to enforce the regulations.
According to RAKIB Russia currently has about 2 million crypto-investors and the group foresees this number as reaching 3 million by the end of the year and 4 million in 2019.
SCOTUS Makes Sports Betting a Possibility Nationwide, State by State | New Hampshire Public Radio
The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a federal law that bars gambling on football, basketball, baseball and other sports in most states, giving states the go-ahead to legalize betting on sports.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to strike down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. The 1992 law barred state-authorized sports gambling with some exceptions. It made Nevada the only state where a person could wager on the results of a single game.
One research firm estimated before the ruling that if the Supreme Court were to strike down the law, 32 states would likely offer sports betting within five years.
"The legalization of sports gambling requires an important policy choice, but the choice is not ours to make. Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each state is free to act on its own. Our job is to interpret the law Congress has enacted and decide whether it is consistent with the Constitution. PASPA is not," Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court.
The court's decision came in a case from New Jersey, which has fought for years to legalize gambling on sports at casinos and racetracks in the state. Then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said after arguments in the case in December that if justices sided with the state, bets could be taken "within two weeks" of a decision.
On Monday, after the ruling was announced, Christie tweeted that it was a "great day for the rights of states and their people to make their own decisions." The state's current governor, Democrat Phil Murphy, also cheered the ruling, saying he was "thrilled" to see the high court strike down the "arbitrary ban." He said he looks forward to working with the legislature to "enact a law authorizing and regulating sports betting in the very near future."
It's possible that the first to market with sports betting in New Jersey will be a racetrack at the Jersey shore. Monmouth Park has already set up a sports book operation and has previously estimated it could take bets within two weeks of a favorable Supreme Court ruling.
Tony Rodio, president of Tropicana Entertainment, said his Atlantic City casino will "absolutely" offer sports betting once it can get it up and running. "It's been a long time coming," he said.
More than a dozen states had supported New Jersey, which argued that Congress exceeded its authority when it passed the law barring states from authorizing sports betting. New Jersey said the Constitution allows Congress to pass laws barring wagering on sports, but Congress can't require states to keep sports gambling prohibitions in place.
All four major U.S. professional sports leagues, the NCAA and the federal government had urged the court to uphold the federal law. In court, the NBA, NFL, NHL and Major League Baseball had argued that New Jersey's gambling expansion would hurt the integrity of their games. Outside court, however, leaders of all but the NFL have shown varying degrees of openness to legalized sports gambling.
The American Gaming Association estimates that Americans illegally wager about $150 billion on sports each year.
New Jersey has spent years and millions of dollars in legal fees trying to legalize sports betting at its casinos, racetracks and former racetracks. In 2012, with voters' support, New Jersey lawmakers passed a law allowing sports betting, directly challenging the 1992 federal law which says states can't "authorize by law" sports gambling. The four major professional sports leagues and the NCAA sued, and the state lost in court.
In 2014, New Jersey tried a different tactic by repealing laws prohibiting sports gambling at casinos and racetracks. It argued taking its laws off the books was different from authorizing sports gambling. The state lost again and then took the case to the Supreme Court.
___
'--Jessica Gresko, Associated Press
War on water
Desalination plants still not ready | CapeTown ETC
The City of Cape Town has fallen short on their commitment to deliver desalinated water to the supply system, to help ease the strain of the water crisis.
To date, not a single one of the three desalination plants is in full operation. The plants located in Monwabisi, Strandfontein and V&A Waterfront remain disconnected from the main water supply.
The plant in Strandfontein was expected to go online on March 21, Monwabisi was meant to start production on April 6 and V&A is already suppose to be pumping out potable water.
On Wednesday, EWN asked Acting Mayor Ian Neilson what the status of the desalination plants were and he could not confirm when the project would be actively working to supply water.
''The one at the V&A Waterfront is producing water. There were some issues around the water quality that's getting attention now before we connect that into the system. The other two at Monwabisi and Strandfontein are far advanced, and we expect them to start producing water quite soon,'' he told EWN.
In March, work at the aquifer drilling sites were halted due to theft of equipment. No mention of the aquifer sites have been made. Dam levels are sitting at 20.9% full and Level 6B water restrictions still apply.
The city of Cape Town's desalination plans have run over budget and there is no money to pay suppliers ready to deliver a huge desalination plant to Cape Town's harbour, which would deliver 50-million litres of water a day.
The project, likely to be awarded to Fluence Corporation, was put on ice after the R1.4-billion budget was depleted on three other plants, water reuse systems and boring into aquifers.
The technology costs billions of rands, and Cape Town residents may have to foot the bill if the national government doesn't step in.
In addition, the completion of the first desalination plant, at Monwabisi near Khayelitsha, by Proxa Water Solutions has been delayed for a month.
Despite this, the city still plans to get 25% of all its water from desalination by 2020, with billions more rands needed for a long-term plant. Currently, less than 5% of the city's water comes from the desalination at Strandfontein, near Mitchells Plain, but the city's target is not unreasonable, according to Xanthea Limberg, the city's water and waste services mayoral committee member.
Professor Mike Muller of the University of the Witwatersrand's school of governance said: ''If you throw enough money at the problem, you can get what you want.But Capetonians will have to pay and I would be concerned that it will increase water costs dramatically.''
Desalination took up the largest portion of the R1.4-billion budget for the drought relief projects, primarily going to Proxa's projects at Monwabisi and Strandfontein.
Proxa was also meant to construct a plant at the V&A Waterfront but Nomvula Mokonyane, then the water affairs minister, announced the project would be taken over by the Umgeni Water Board, at a cost of R400-million.
Mokonyane's announcement, made at the Cape Town Press Club at the end of January, surprised Western Cape Premier Helen Zille, who said it flouted procedure because the city had already designated the site for the Proxa project. Zille has, however, accepted the national government's intervention.
The city is locked in a billion-rand deal with Proxa for the Monwabisi and Strandfontein plants, which are to each produce seven million litres of water a day.
Proxa was meant to pay penalties because the Monwabisi plant was a month behind schedule, but was exempted after claiming that the residents had held up construction.
''They weren't directly responsible for that delay; the community blocked them from accessing the site at one point,'' Limberg said. ''Proxa did make themselves readily available to the community to find a solution and where possible they have tried to accelerate components of construction.''
Now Australian company Fluence Corporation wants to know why the contract for the Cape Town harbour project has been shelved. The two-year contract was expected to cost just under R1-billion.
Fluence Corporation chief executive Henry Charrab(C) flew to South Africa last week to meet city officials after the company was announced as the lowest bidder for a contract to supply 50-million litres from large containers modified to hold the technology.
Charrab(C) said the equipment is already in South Africa. ''We've been announced as the lowest bidder in December already. We've been here for a week and trying to reach officials but no one is talking to us. They have just gone silent.''
Limberg said the Cape Town harbour contract was still in the procurement stage and a decision had not yet been made but she did confirm that the money meant for the project had been depleted.
Proxa, which will also operate the Strandfontein and Monwabisi plants, was paid R500-million to build them. The plants will contribute 14-million litres to the 500-million litres that Cape Town uses in a day. It will charge the city close to R500-million a year for this water. The deal runs for two years, after which the plants will be closed down.
Limberg said Cape Town had been left to fund its own desalination plants yet a plant at Richards Bay, KwaZulu-Natal, was built at no cost to the local municipality.
''We have made a request for additional resources but other than R20.8-million from Cogta [the department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs], we've received no support.''
She acknowledged the high price of the technology but said ''this is the cost of this kind of infrastructure globally and we must obtain this infrastructure at global market rates''.
Limberg said the city is intent on long-term desalination.
''We want to review the long-term approach to desalination by taking on external advice. The World Bank indicated we should be opting for plants [of] no more than 150 megalitres because, beyond that, you need additional marine works,'' she said.
''The objective is long-term permanent desalination on a large scale as well as underground water reuse. We're looking at a long-term target of 25% contribution from desalination,'' she added.
The national water strategy states that conventional water treatment uses up to 10 times less electricity than desalination, and warns of the potential negative effects of large-scale plants.
''The sustainability of desalination projects can be advanced if such projects are implemented in a carbon-neutral manner. This can be achieved by developing desalination projects in parallel with nuclear energy and renewable energy projects,'' the strategy states.
Muller said: ''It is dangerous trying to do big projects like this quickly '-- not least because it can be very expensive. It would have been best to do cheaper things first, such as groundwater, water reuse and the Volvlei expansion [pumping water from the Berg River into the Volvlei Dam] in a carefully prepared, sequenced way.''
Muller warned that, in Barcelona, only 10% of a 200-million litre desalination plant has been used since it was unveiled 10 years ago and Australia has had a similar experience. ''[Desalination plants] make everyone feel comfortable, but they've cost a huge amount of money to build and to maintain '-- even when they are not producing anything.''
Tom Wolfe BornThomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. ( 1930-03-02 ) March 2, 1930Richmond, Virginia, U.S.DiedMay 14, 2018 (2018-05-14) (aged 88)New York City, U.S.OccupationJournalist, authorLanguageEnglishNationalityAmericanEducationWashington and Lee University (BA) Yale University (PhD) Period1959''2016Literary movementNew JournalismNotable worksThe Painted Word, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, A Man in Full, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, The Bonfire of the Vanities, I Am Charlotte Simmons, Back to BloodSpouseSheila WolfeChildren2Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. (March 2, 1930 '' May 14, 2018)[1] was an American author and journalist, best known for his association with and influence in stimulating the New Journalism, in which literary techniques are used extensively.
He began his career as a regional newspaper reporter in the 1950s, but achieved national prominence in the 1960s following the publication of such best-selling books as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (a highly experimental account of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters), and two collections of articles and essays, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers and The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. In 1979, he published the influential book The Right Stuff about the Mercury Seven astronauts, which was made into a 1983 film of the same name directed by Philip Kaufman.
His first fiction novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, published in 1987, was met with critical acclaim, and also became a commercial success. It was adapted as a major motion picture of the same name, directed by Brian De Palma.
Early life and education [ edit ] Wolfe was born on March 2, 1930 in Richmond, Virginia, the son of Louise (n(C)e Agnew), a landscape designer, and Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Sr., an agronomist.[2][3]
Wolfe grew up on Gloucester Road in the Richmond North Side neighborhood of Sherwood Park. He recounts childhood memories in a foreword to a book about the nearby historic Ginter Park neighborhood.
Wolfe was student council president, editor of the school newspaper, and a star baseball player at St. Christopher's School, an Episcopal all-boys school in Richmond.
Upon graduation in 1947, he turned down admission to Princeton University to attend Washington and Lee University. At Washington and Lee, Wolfe was a member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity. He majored in English, was sports editor of the college newspaper, and helped found a literary magazine, Shenandoah, giving him opportunities to practice his writing both inside and outside the classroom. Of particular influence was his professor Marshall Fishwick, a teacher of American studies, educated at Yale. More in the tradition of anthropology than literary scholarship, Fishwick taught his students to look at the whole of a culture, including those elements considered profane.[citation needed ] Wolfe's undergraduate thesis, entitled "A Zoo Full of Zebras: Anti-Intellectualism in America," evinced his fondness for words and aspirations toward cultural criticism. Wolfe graduated cum laude in 1951.
While still in college, Wolfe continued playing baseball as a pitcher and began to play semi-professionally. In 1952 he earned a tryout with the New York Giants but was cut after three days, which he blamed on his inability to throw good fastballs. Wolfe abandoned baseball and instead followed his professor Fishwick's example, enrolling in Yale University's American studies doctoral program. His PhD thesis was titled The League of American Writers: Communist Organizational Activity Among American Writers, 1929''1942.[4] In the course of his research, Wolfe interviewed many writers, including Malcolm Cowley, Archibald MacLeish, and James T. Farrell.[5] A biographer remarked on the thesis: "Reading it, one sees what has been the most baleful influence of graduate education on many who have suffered through it: It deadens all sense of style."[6] Originally rejected, his thesis was finally accepted after he rewrote it in an objective rather than a subjective style. Upon leaving Yale, he wrote a friend explaining through expletives his personal opinions about his thesis.
Journalism and New Journalism [ edit ] Though Wolfe was offered teaching jobs in academia, he opted to work as a reporter. In 1956, while still preparing his thesis, Wolfe became a reporter for the Springfield Union in Springfield, Massachusetts. Wolfe finished his thesis in 1957.
In 1959 he was hired by The Washington Post. Wolfe has said that part of the reason he was hired by the Post was his lack of interest in politics. The Post's city editor was "amazed that Wolfe preferred cityside to Capitol Hill, the beat every reporter wanted." He won an award from The Newspaper Guild for foreign reporting in Cuba in 1961 and also won the Guild's award for humor. While there, Wolfe experimented with fiction-writing techniques in feature stories.[7]
In 1962, Wolfe left Washington D.C. for New York City, taking a position with the New York Herald Tribune as a general assignment reporter and feature writer. The editors of the Herald Tribune, including Clay Felker of the Sunday section supplement New York magazine, encouraged their writers to break the conventions of newspaper writing.[8] During the 1962 New York City newspaper strike, Wolfe approached Esquire magazine about an article on the hot rod and custom car culture of Southern California. He struggled with the article until his editor, Byron Dobell, suggested that Wolfe send him his notes so they could piece the story together.
Wolfe procrastinated. The evening before the deadline, he typed a letter to Dobell explaining what he wanted to say on the subject, ignoring all journalistic conventions. Dobell's response was to remove the salutation "Dear Byron" from the top of the letter and publish it intact as reportage. The result, published in 1963, was "There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby." The article was widely discussed'--loved by some, hated by others. Its notoriety helped Wolfe gain publication of his first book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, a collection of his writings from the Herald-Tribune, Esquire, and other publications.[9]
This was what Wolfe called New Journalism, in which some journalists and essayists experimented with a variety of literary techniques, mixing them with the traditional ideal of dispassionate, even-handed reporting. Wolfe experimented with four literary devices not normally associated with feature writing: scene-by-scene construction, extensive dialogue, multiple points of view, and detailed description of individuals' status-life symbols (the material choices people make) in writing this stylized form of journalism. He later referred to this style as literary journalism.[10] Of the use of status symbols, Wolfe has said, "I think every living moment of a human being's life, unless the person is starving or in immediate danger of death in some other way, is controlled by a concern for status."[11]
Wolfe also championed what he called ''saturation reporting,'' a reportorial approach in which the journalist ''shadows'' and observes the subject over an extended period of time. ''To pull it off,'' says Wolfe, ''you casually have to stay with the people you are writing about for long stretches . . . long enough so that you are actually there when revealing scenes take place in their lives.''[12] Saturation reporting differs from ''in-depth'' and ''investigative'' reporting, which involve the direct interviewing of numerous sources and/or the extensive analyzing of external documents relating to the story. Saturation reporting, according to communication professor Richard Kallan, ''entails a more complex set of relationships wherein the journalist becomes an involved, more fully reactive witness, no longer distanced and detached from the people and events reported.''[13]
Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is considered a striking example of New Journalism. This account of the Merry Pranksters, a famous sixties counter-culture group, was highly experimental in Wolfe's use of onomatopoeia, free association, and eccentric punctuation'--such as multiple exclamation marks and italics'--to convey the manic ideas and personalities of Ken Kesey and his followers.
In addition to his own work, Wolfe edited a collection of New Journalism with E.W. Johnson, published in 1973 and titled The New Journalism. This book published pieces by Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Gay Talese, Joan Didion, and several other well-known writers, with the common theme of journalism that incorporated literary techniques and which could be considered literature.[14]
Non-fiction books [ edit ] In 1965, Wolfe published a collection of his articles in this style, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, adding to his notability. He published a second collection of articles, The Pump House Gang, in 1968. Wolfe wrote on popular culture, architecture, politics, and other topics that underscored, among other things, how American life in the 1960s had been transformed by post-WWII economic prosperity. His defining work from this era is The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (published the same day as The Pump House Gang in 1968), which for many epitomized the 1960s. Although a conservative in many ways (in 2008, he claimed never to have used LSD and to have tried marijuana only once[15]) Wolfe became one of the notable figures of the decade.
In 1970, he published two essays in book form as Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. "Radical Chic" was a biting account of a party given by composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein to raise money for the Black Panther Party. "Mau-Mauing The Flak Catchers" was about the practice by some African Americans of using racial intimidation ("mau-mauing") to extract funds from government welfare bureaucrats ("flak catchers"). Wolfe's phrase, "radical chic", soon became a popular derogatory term for critics to apply to upper-class leftism. His Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine (1977) included Wolfe's noted essay, "The Me Decade and the Third Great Awakening."
In 1979, Wolfe published The Right Stuff, an account of the pilots who became America's first astronauts. Following their training and unofficial, even foolhardy, exploits, he likened these heroes to "single combat champions" of a bygone era, going forth to battle in the space race on behalf of their country. In 1983, the book was adapted as a successful feature film.
In 2016 Wolfe published The Kingdom of Speech, a controversial critique of the work of Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky. His take on how humans developed speech was described as opinionated and not supported by research.[16][17]
Art critiques [ edit ] Wolfe also wrote two critiques of and social histories of modern art and modern architecture, The Painted Word and From Bauhaus to Our House, published in 1975 and 1981, respectively. The Painted Word mocked the excessive insularity of the art world and its dependence on what he saw as faddish critical theory. In From Bauhaus to Our House he explored what he said were the negative effects of the Bauhaus style on the evolution of modern architecture.[18]
Made for TV movie [ edit ] In 1977 PBS produced Tom Wolfe's Los Angeles, a fictional, satirical TV movie set in Los Angeles. Wolfe appears in the movie as himself.[19]
Novels [ edit ] Throughout his early career, Wolfe had planned to write a novel to capture the wide reach of American society. Among his models was William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, which described the society of 19th-century England. In 1981, he ceased his other work to concentrate on the novel.
Wolfe began researching the novel by observing cases at the Manhattan Criminal Court and shadowing members of the Bronx homicide squad. While the research came easily, he encountered difficulty in writing. To overcome his writer's block, Wolfe wrote to Jann Wenner, editor of Rolling Stone, to propose an idea drawn from Charles Dickens and Thackeray: to serialize his novel. Wenner offered Wolfe around $200,000 to serialize his work.[20] The frequent deadline pressure gave him the motivation he had hoped for, and from July 1984 to August 1985, he published a new installment in each biweekly issue of Rolling Stone.
Later Wolfe was unhappy with his "very public first draft"[21] and thoroughly revised his work, even changing his protagonist Sherman McCoy. Wolfe had originally made him a writer but recast him as a bond salesman. Wolfe researched and revised for two years, and his The Bonfire of the Vanities was published in 1987. The book was a commercial and critical success, spending weeks on bestseller lists and earning praise from the very literary establishment on which Wolfe had long heaped scorn.[22]
Because of the success of Wolfe's first novel, there was widespread interest in his second. This novel took him more than 11 years to complete; A Man in Full was published in 1998. The book's reception was not universally favorable, though it received glowing reviews in Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. An initial printing of 1.2 million copies was announced and the book stayed at number one on the New York Times bestseller list for ten weeks. Noted author John Updike wrote a critical review for The New Yorker, complaining that the novel "amounts to entertainment, not literature, even literature in a modest aspirant form."[23] His comments sparked an intense war of words in the print and broadcast media among Wolfe and Updike, and authors John Irving and Norman Mailer, who also entered the fray.
In 2001, Wolfe published an essay referring to these three authors as "My Three Stooges."[24] That year he also published Hooking Up (a collection of short pieces, including the 1997 novella Ambush at Fort Bragg). ,
He published his third novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004), chronicling the decline of a poor, bright scholarship student from Alleghany County, North Carolina, after attending an elite university. He conveys an institution filled with snobbery, materialism, anti-intellectualism, and sexual promiscuity. The novel met with a mostly tepid response by critics. Many social conservatives praised it in the belief that its portrayal revealed widespread moral decline. The novel won a Bad Sex in Fiction Award from the London-based Literary Review, a prize established "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel".[25] Wolfe later explained that such sexual references were deliberately clinical.[citation needed ]
Wolfe has written that his goal in writing fiction is to document contemporary society in the tradition of John Steinbeck, Charles Dickens, and mile Zola.
Wolfe announced in early 2008 that he was leaving his longtime publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. His fourth novel, Back to Blood, was published in October 2012 by Little, Brown. According to The New York Times, Wolfe was paid close to US$7 million for the book.[26] According to the publisher, Back to Blood is about "class, family, wealth, race, crime, sex, corruption and ambition in Miami, the city where America's future has arrived first."[27]
Critical reception [ edit ] Critic James Wood disparaged Wolfe's "big subjects, big people, and yards of flapping exaggeration. No one of average size emerges from his shop; in fact, no real human variety can be found in his fiction, because everyone has the same enormous excitability."[28]
Recurring themes [ edit ] Much of his later work addresses neuroscience. He notes his fascination in "Sorry, Your Soul Just Died," one of the essays in Hooking Up. This topic is also featured in I Am Charlotte Simmons, as the title character is a student of neuroscience. Wolfe describes the characters' thought and emotional processes, such as fear, humiliation and lust, in the clinical terminology of brain chemistry. Wolfe also frequently gives detailed descriptions of various aspects of his characters' anatomies.[29]
White suit [ edit ] Wolfe adopted wearing a white suit as a trademark in 1962. He bought his first white suit, planning to wear it in the summer, in the style of Southern gentlemen. He found that the suit he purchased was too heavy for summer use, so he wore it in winter, which created a sensation. At the time, white suits were supposed to be reserved for summer wear.[30] Wolfe maintained this as a trademark. He sometimes accompanied it with a white tie, white homburg hat, and two-tone shoes. Wolfe said that the outfit disarmed the people he observed, making him, in their eyes, "a man from Mars, the man who didn't know anything and was eager to know."[31]
Views [ edit ] In 1989, Wolfe wrote an essay for Harper's Magazine titled "Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast". It criticized modern American novelists for failing to engage fully with their subjects, and suggested that modern literature could be saved by a greater reliance on journalistic technique.[32]
Wolfe supported George W. Bush as a political candidate and said he voted for him for president in 2004 because of what he called Bush's "great decisiveness and willingness to fight."[33] Bush reciprocates the admiration, and is said to have read all of Wolfe's books, according to friends in 2005.[34]
Wolfe's views and choice of subject material, such as mocking left-wing intellectuals in Radical Chic and glorifying astronauts in The Right Stuff, sometimes resulted in his being labeled conservative.[35] Due to his depiction of the Black Panther Party in Radical Chic, a member of the party called him a racist.[36] Wolfe rejected such labels. In a 2004 interview in The Guardian, he said that his "idol" in writing about society and culture is mile Zola. Wolfe described him as "a man of the left"; one who "went out, and found a lot of ambitious, drunk, slothful and mean people out there. Zola simply could not'--and was not interested in'--telling a lie."[35]
Asked to comment by the Wall Street Journal on blogs in 2007 to mark the tenth anniversary of their advent, Wolfe wrote that "the universe of blogs is a universe of rumors" and that "blogs are an advance guard to the rear."[37] He also took the opportunity to criticize Wikipedia, saying that "only a primitive would believe a word of" it. He noted a story about him in his Wikipedia bio article at the time, which he said had never happened.[37]
Personal life [ edit ] Wolfe lived in New York City with his wife Sheila, who designs covers for Harper's Magazine. They had two children: a daughter, Alexandra, and a son, Tommy.[38]
Wolfe died in Manhattan on May 14, 2018, at the age of 88.[39]
Influence [ edit ] The historian Meredith Hindley credits Wolfe with introducing the terms "statusphere", "the right stuff", "radical chic", "the Me Decade", and "good ol' boy", into the English lexicon.[40][dubious '' discuss ] He is sometimes credited with coining the term "trophy wife" as well, but this is incorrect. He described extremely thin women as "X-rays" in his novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, but did not use the term "trophy wife".[41] According to journalism professor Ben Yagoda, Wolfe is also responsible for the use of the present tense in magazine profile pieces; before he began doing so in the early 1960s, profile articles had always been written in the past tense.[42]
List of awards and nominations [ edit ] 1961 Washington Newspaper Guild Award for Foreign News Reporting1961 Washington Newspaper Guild Award for Humor1970 Society of Magazine Writers Award for Excellence1971 D.F.A., Minneapolis College of Art1973 Frank Luther Mott Research Award1974 D.Litt., Washington and Lee University1977 Virginia Laureate for literature1979 National Book Critics Circle Finalist General Nonfiction Finalist for The Right Stuff1980 National Book Award for Nonfiction for The Right Stuff[43][a]1980 Columbia Journalism Award for The Right Stuff1980 Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award of the American Institute of Arts and Letters1980 Art History Citation from the National Sculpture Society1983 L.H.D., Virginia Commonwealth University1984 L.H.D., Southampton College1984 John Dos Passos Award1986 Gari Melchers Medal1986 Benjamin Pierce Cheney Medal from Eastern Washington University1986 Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence1987 National Book Critics Circle fiction Finalist for The Bonfire of the Vanities1987 D.F.A., School of Visual Arts1988 L.H.D., Randolph-Macon College1988 L.H.D., Manhattanville College1989 L.H.D., Longwood College1990 St. Louis Literary Award from Saint Louis University Library Associates[44][45]1990 D.Litt., St. Andrews Presbyterian College1990 D.Litt., Johns Hopkins University1993 D.Litt., University of Richmond1998 National Book Award Finalist for A Man in Full[46]2001 National Humanities Medal2003 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for Lifetime Achievement2004 Bad Sex in Fiction Award from the Literary Review2005 Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award2006 Jefferson Lecture in Humanities2010 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters[47]Television appearances [ edit ] Wolfe was featured as an interview subject in the 1987 PBS documentary series Space Flight.In July 1975 Wolfe was interviewed on Firing Line by William F. Buckley Jr., discussing "The Painted Word".[48]Wolfe was featured on the February 2006 episode "The White Stuff" of Speed Channel's Unique Whips, where his Cadillac's interior was customized to match his trademark white suit.[49]Wolfe guest-starred alongside Jonathan Franzen, Gore Vidal and Michael Chabon in The Simpsons episode "Moe'N'a Lisa", which aired November 19, 2006. He was originally slated to be killed by a giant boulder, but that ending was edited out.[50] Wolfe was also used as a sight gag on The Simpsons episode "Insane Clown Poppy", which aired on November 12, 2000. Homer spills chocolate on Wolfe's trademark white suit, and Wolfe rips it off in one swift motion, revealing an identical suit underneath.Bibliography [ edit ] Non-fiction [ edit ] The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1965)The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)The Pump House Gang (1968)Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (1970)The New Journalism (1973) (Ed. with EW Johnson)The Painted Word (1975)Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine (1976)The Right Stuff (1979)In Our Time (1980)From Bauhaus to Our House (1981)The Purple Decades (1982)Hooking Up (2000)The Kingdom of Speech (2016)Novels [ edit ] The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987)A Man in Full (1998)I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004)Back to Blood (2012)Featured in [ edit ] The Sixties (2014)Smiling Through the Apocalypse (2013)Salinger (2013)[51]Felix Dennis: Millionaire Poet (2012)Tom Wolfe Gets Back to Blood (2012)A Light in the Dark: The Art & Life of Frank Mason (2011)Bill Cunningham New York (2010)Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008)Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006)Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens (2006)Breakfast with Hunter (2003)The Last Editor (2002)Dick Schaap: Flashing Before my Eyes (2001)Where It's At: The Rolling Stone State of the Union (1998)Peter York's Eighties: Post (1996)Bauhaus in America (1995)Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992)Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990)Spaceflight (1985)Up Your Legs Forever (1971)Notable articles [ edit ] "The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson. Yes!" Esquire, March 1965."Tiny Mummies! The True Story of the Ruler of 43rd Street's Land of the Walking Dead!" New York Herald-Tribune supplement (April 11, 1965)."Lost in the Whichy Thicket," New York Herald-Tribune supplement (April 18, 1965)."The Birth of the New Journalism: Eyewitness Report by Tom Wolfe." New York, February 14, 1972."The New Journalism: A la Recherche des Whichy Thickets." New York Magazine, February 21, 1972."Why They Aren't Writing the Great American Novel Anymore." Esquire, December 1972."The Me Decade and the Third Great Awakening" New York, August 23, 1976."Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast", Harper's. November 1989."Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died." Forbes 1996."Pell Mell." The Atlantic Monthly (November 2007)."The Rich Have Feelings, Too." Vanity Fair (September 2009).See also [ edit ] Creative nonfictionHysterical realismWolfe's concept of fiction-absoluteNotes [ edit ] References [ edit ] ^ Bloom, Harold. Tom Wolfe, Infobase Publishing, 2001, ISBN 0-7910-5916-2, pg. 193. ^ Rolling Stone interview on May 2, 2007 samharris.org (Retrieved November 15, 2008) ^ Weingarten, Marc (January 1, 2006). "The Gang that Wouldn't Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, and the New Journalism Revolution". Crown Publishers '' via Google Books. ^ Available on microform from the Yale University Libraries, Link to Entry ^ Ragen 2002, pp. 6''10 ^ Ragen 2002, pp. 9 ^ Rosen, James (2006-07-02). "Tom Wolfe's Washington Post". The Washington Post . Retrieved 2007-03-09 . ^ Mclellan, Dennis (July 2, 2008). "Clay Felker, 82; editor of New York magazine led New Journalism charge". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2008-11-23 . ^ Ragen 2002, pp. 11''12 ^ Wolfe, Tom; E. W. Johnson (1973). The New Journalism. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers. pp. 31''33. ISBN 0-06-014707-5. ^ "A Guide to the Work of Tom Wolfe". contemporarythinkers.org. ^ Wolfe, Tom (September 1970). "The New Journalism". Bulletin of American Society of Newspapers: 22. ^ Kallan, Richard A. (1992). Connery, Thomas B., ed. "Tom Wolfe". A Sourcebook of American Literary Journalism: Representative Writers in an Emerging Genre. New York: Greenwood Press: 252. ^ Ragen 2002, pp. 19''22 ^ "10 Questions for Tom Wolfe". Time. August 28, 2008 . Retrieved May 25, 2010 . ^ Coyne, Jerry (2016-08-31). "His white suit unsullied by research, Tom Wolfe tries to take down Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky". The Washington Post . Retrieved 2016-09-01 . ^ Sullivan, James (2016-08-25). "Tom Wolfe traces the often-amusing history of bickering over how humans started talking". The Boston Globe . Retrieved 2016-08-26 . ^ Ragen 2002, pp. 22''29 ^ "Tom Wolfe's Satirical Look at Los Angeles". The Daily News of the Virgin Islands. Daily News Publishing Co., Inc. January 25, 1977. p. 18 . Retrieved October 20, 2017 '' via Google News Archive. ^ Ragen 2002, pp. 31 ^ Ragen 2002, pp. 32 ^ Ragen 2002, pp. 30''34 ^ Updike, John (2009). More Matter: Essays and Criticism. Random House Publishing Group. p. 324. ISBN 978-0307488398 . Retrieved 2018-05-15 . ^ Shulevitz, Judith (2001-06-17). "The Best Revenge". The New York Times . Retrieved 2018-05-15 . ^ Rhind-Tutt, Louise (2017-11-27). "Celebrating 25 years of the worst sex scenes in literary history". The i Paper . Retrieved 2018-05-15 . ^ Rich, Motoko. "Tom Wolfe Leaves Longtime Publisher, Taking His New Book", The New York Times, January 3, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2008. ^ Trachtenberg, Jeffrey A. "Tom Wolfe Changes Scenery; Iconic Author Seeks Lift With New Publisher, Miami-Centered Drama", The Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2008. ^ https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2018/05/15/tom-wolfe-chronicler-and-satirist-american-culture-dies ^ "Muscle-Bound". The New Yorker. 15 October 2012. ^ Ragen 2002, pp. 12 ^ Freeman, John (18 December 2004). "In Wolfe's clothing". The Sydney Morning Herald. ^ Wolfe, Tom (November 1989), "Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast", Harper's Magazine ^ Rago, Joseph (March 11, 2006). "Status reporter". Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones and company, Inc. WSJ . Retrieved 15 May 2018 . ^ Bumiller, Elisabeth (February 7, 2005), "Bush's Official Reading List, and a Racy Omission", The New York Times. Retrieved May 15, 2010 ^ a b Vulliamy, Ed (November 1, 2004), " 'The liberal elite hasn't got a clue ' ", The Guardian ^ Foote, Timothy (December 21, 1970). "Books: Fish in the Brandy Snifter" '' via www.time.com. ^ a b Varadarajan, Tunku (July 14, 2007), "Happy Blogiversary", The Wall Street Journal ^ Cash, William (November 29, 1998). "Southern Man". San Francisco Chronicle. Hearst Communications . Retrieved December 12, 2015 '' via sfgate.com. ^ "Tom Wolfe, Pyrotechnic Nonfiction Writer and Novelist, Dies at 87". New York Times. May 15, 2018. ^ Tom Wolfe '' Jefferson Lecturer Biography, Meredith Hindley, National Endowment for the Humanities,2006 ^ Safire, William (May 1, 1994). "On language; Trophy Wife". The New York Times. ^ Yagoda, Ben (2007). When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It. Broadway Books. p. 228. ISBN 9780767920773. ^ "National Book Awards '' 1980". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-11. ^ "Saint Louis Literary Award". slu.edu. Saint Louis University. ^ "Recipients of the Saint Louis Literary Award". slu.edu. Saint Louis University Library Associates . Retrieved July 25, 2016 . ^ "National Book Awards '' 1998". nationalbook.org. National Book Foundation . Retrieved 2012-03-11 . ^ "Distinguished Contribution to American Letters". nationalbook.org. National Book Foundation. Includes Wolfe's acceptance speech . Retrieved 2012-03-11 . ^ Scura, Dorothy McInnis (January 1, 1990). "Conversations with Tom Wolfe". Univ. Press of Mississippi '' via Google Books. ^ "The White Stuff". March 8, 2006 '' via IMDb. ^ Bond, Corey (November 30, 2005). "Crisis on Infinite Springfields: "Tom Wolfe Is Screaming " ". ^ "About Tom Wolfe". Bloom, Harold, ed. (2001), Tom Wolfe (Modern Critical Views), Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, ISBN 0-7910-5916-2 McKeen, William. (1995), Tom Wolfe, New York: Twayne Publishers, ISBN 0-8057-4004-X Ragen, Brian Abel. (2002), Tom Wolfe; A Critical Companion, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, ISBN 0-313-31383-0 Scura, Dorothy, ed. (1990), Conversations with Tom Wolfe, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, ISBN 0-87805-426-X Shomette, Doug, ed. (1992), The Critical Response to Tom Wolfe, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, ISBN 0-313-27784-2 External links [ edit ] Wikiquote has quotations related to: Tom WolfeOfficial websiteTom Wolfe papers, 1930-2013, held by the Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library.George Plimpton (Spring 1991), "Tom Wolfe, The Art of Fiction No. 123", The Paris Review. Article about Wolfe's recent public appearance at the Chicago Public Library from fNews (a publication of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago)"The Word According to Tom Wolfe": Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, and Episode 5 from National ReviewThe Future of the American Idea: Pell-Mell in The Atlantic Monthly (November 2007)June 2006 interview from friezeTom Wolfe author page by Guardian UnlimitedNational Review 100 Best Non Fiction Books 20th centuryTom Wolfe's 2006 Jefferson LectureSorry, but Your Soul Just DiedWorks by or about Tom Wolfe in libraries (WorldCat catalog)TOM WOLFE'S STEAMY PORTRAIT OF COLLEGE LIFE: an interview about 'I Am Charlotte Simmons' " in BookPage (December 2004)Appearances on C-SPANIn Depth interview with Wolfe, December 5, 2004"Should Tom Wolfe Still Hate The New Yorker?" in Construction Magazine (January 9, 2012).
Florida School Shooting
Nikolas Cruz violated Obama's Promise diversion program, but never sent to court - Washington Times
Confessed mass shooter Nikolas Cruz had no criminal record despite dozens of disciplinary infractions, but there was one case in which Broward County school administrators were obligated to send him before a judge '-- and didn't do it.
After trashing a middle-school bathroom in 2013, Mr. Cruz received a three-day referral to a newly created diversion program called Promise designed to help kids who had committed misdemeanors avoid arrest and stay out of the ''school-to-prison pipeline.''
He didn't show. At that point, school policy dictated that he should have been hauled before Judge Elijah Williams of the Broward County Delinquency Division, and yet there is no record that it ever happened, based on what the district has released, according to Timothy Sternberg, a former assistant principal who helped run Promise from 2014-17.
''There's possible negligence here if no one ever followed up,'' Mr. Sternberg told the Washington Times.
Since the deadly Feb. 14 school massacre in Parkland, Florida, Broward County officials have been accused of creating a lax disciplinary climate in their drive to reduce suspensions, expulsions and arrests, an environment that allowed Mr. Cruz to act out for years without serious consequences.
Files obtained by the Orlando Sun Sentinel show that Mr. Cruz committed 58 infractions from 2012-17 at Westglades Middle School and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, even though he was enrolled in 2015 at another school, Cross Creek, for students with emotional and behavioral disorders.
After nearly every episode, Mr. Cruz received the same type of punishment '-- detention, an in-school suspension or out-of-school suspension for one to three days'--which also went against district policy.
A repeat offender like Mr. Cruz should have been brought before the district's Behavior and Intervention Committee to decide ''whether this student is appropriate for another setting,'' Mr. Sternberg said.
''When you look at the discipline data, it's not progressive,'' said Mr. Sternberg, who sat on the committee. ''It's a one-day [suspension], and then he does the infraction again, and he gets another one-day. There's no progression of discipline whatsoever.''
As a result, ''With the child, it does create a false sense of 'I can do this and nothing's going to really happen to me,' '' he said.
The district was lambasted after reversing its story on Promise, admitting last week that Mr. Cruz was once referred to the counseling-intensive program even though superintendent Robert Runcie had insisted for months that he wasn't.
The district also said that Mr. Cruz underwent the intake process on Nov. 26, 2013, at Pine Ridge Education Center, but that he did not complete the program.
For Mr. Sternberg, the problem wasn't that Mr. Cruz was referred to Promise'--the problem is that district failed to follow its own rules.
''There was a breakdown in communication,'' said Mr. Sternberg, who arrived after the Cruz referral. ''Normally, when a student doesn't complete the program, the district is supposed to tell the school, which then refers him to Judge Williams, but it doesn't appear that ever happened.''
Under the protocol, the judge first tries to convince the student to participate in the program, an approach that usually works.
''They're sitting in front of the judge, and the judge tries to reengage the student, telling them that, 'If you don't go to Promise, you have to go before the state's attorney and further criminal action will take place,''' said Mr. Sternberg. ''And 95 percent of the time, the student goes back into the program.''
Even if Mr. Cruz had refused, he would have at least landed on the juvenile-justice radar.
''He would have had some kind of contact with law enforcement,'' said Mr. Sternberg. ''Whether or not he would have been arrested'--it's discretionary always with law enforcement. Sometimes they'll arrest you, sometimes they'll give you a warning. But the school would have had the responsibility pre-Promise to call the police on that incident to report it and file a police report.''
Critics have pointed out that if Mr. Cruz had a criminal record, he would have been barred from purchasing the AR-15 used in the shooting at Stoneman Douglas, which left 17 dead.
Broward County schools declined to comment, saying the district continue to review Mr. Cruz's disciplinary record and noting that an independent firm is also investigating.
''Rather than speculate about the possible reasons for his not returning, we feel it's important to wait until we have the facts associated with his specific circumstances,'' said the district in a statement.
Mr. Runcie was on the cutting edge of the Obama administration's 2014 guidance warning schools to reduce racial disparities in discipline or face a civil-rights investigation, which has prodded hundreds of school districts to reduce their suspensions, expulsions and arrests.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is reviewing whether to rescind the directive amid complaints about rising school chaos from parents and teachers.
Even before the shooting, Mr. Sternberg, who left his job at the district's Pine Ridge Education Center last year, had been urging the school board to investigate the ''broken'' disciplinary system.
While Promise has come to symbolize for some parents the district's disciplinary failures, Mr. Sternberg continues to support the program, saying it provides resources to disruptive students with dysfunctional families that they might not otherwise receive.
''If Nikolas Cruz had gone through the program, he would have at least met with that counselor and gone through the DAP [Developmental Assets Profile],'' he said. ''They may have looked further into his home background. He would have gotten definitely another level of support.''
Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter Alaina Petty was killed at Stoneman Douglas, said the problem in Broward County schools is bigger than Promise.
''Students need a second chance. They need another opportunity, and I think that's the intention of the Promise program,'' Mr. Petty told the Miami New Times. ''I think the issue is the overall discipline policies within the school district.''
Of course, even if the school system had followed its own protocol with regard to Mr. Cruz, there's no guarantee it would have changed anything.
''Who knows whether what happened would have happened,'' Mr. Sternberg said. ''But at least he would have seen somebody else.''
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CLIPS
VIDEO - We Made a Tool So You Can Hear Both Yanny and Laurel - The New York Times
The internet erupted in disagreement on Tuesday over an audio clip in which the name being said depends on the listener. Some hear ''Laurel.'' Others hear ''Yanny.''
We built a tool to gradually accentuate different frequencies in the original audio clip. Which word or name do you hear, and how far do you have to move the slider to hear the other? (The slider's center point represents the original recording.)
Let us know when you hear the words change and help us learn where Yanny people become Laurel people (and vice versa).
The clip and original ''Yanny or Laurel'' poll were posted on Instagram, Reddit and other sites by high school students who said that it had been recorded from a vocabulary website playing through the speakers on a computer.
One detail may frustrate some and vindicate others: The original clip came from the vocabulary.com page for ''laurel,'' the word for a wreath worn on the head, ''usually a symbol of victory.''
Frequency, in kilohertz
6
5
4
3
2
1
L
A
U
R
E
L
(The controversial audio clip)
Y
A
N
N
Y
The source ''laurel''
A spectrogram of a vocabulary.com clip of the word '' laurel '' shows strong lower frequencies and relatively faint higher frequencies.
An ambiguous recording
Playing the ''laurel'' clip over speakers and re-recording it introduced noise and exaggerated the higher frequencies.
Those higher frequencies may have led to confusion over whether the word was Laurel or Yanny .
A simulated ''Yanny''
For comparison, a spectrogram of the same vocabulary.com voice saying '' Yanny '' shows a similar pattern of strong high frequencies.
The spectrogram was created by merging clips of the voice saying ''Yangtze'' and ''uncanny.''
Frequency, in kilohertz
6
5
4
3
2
1
L
A
U
R
E
L
(The controversial audio clip)
Y
A
N
N
Y
The source ''laurel''
A spectrogram of a vocabulary.com clip of the word '' laurel '' shows strong lower frequencies and relatively faint higher frequencies.
An ambiguous recording
Playing the ''laurel'' clip over speakers and re-recording it introduced noise and exaggerated the higher frequencies.
Those higher frequencies may have led to confusion over whether the word was Laurel or Yanny .
A simulated ''Yanny''
For comparison, a spectrogram of the same vocabulary.com voice saying '' Yanny '' shows a similar pattern of strong high frequencies.
The spectrogram was created by merging clips of the voice saying ''Yangtze'' and ''uncanny.''
L
A
U
R
E
L
The source ''laurel''
A spectrogram of a vocabulary.com clip of the word '' laurel '' shows strong lower frequencies and relatively faint higher frequencies.
(The controversial audio clip)
An ambiguous recording
Playing the ''laurel'' clip over speakers and re-recording it introduced noise and exaggerated the higher frequencies.
Those higher frequencies may have led to confusion over whether the word was Laurel or Yanny .
Frequency, in kilohertz
6
5
4
3
2
1
Y
A
N
N
Y
A simulated ''Yanny''
For comparison, a spectrogram of the same vocabulary.com voice saying '' Yanny '' shows a similar pattern of strong high frequencies.
The spectrogram was created by merging clips of the voice saying ''Yangtze'' and ''uncanny.''
One way to understand the dynamics at work is to look at a type of chart called a spectrogram '-- a way to visualize how the strength of different sound frequencies varies over time. The spectrograms above show that the word ''laurel'' is strongest in lower frequencies, while a simulated version of the word ''yanny'' is stronger in higher frequencies. The audio clip shows a mixture of both.
By using the slider to manipulate which frequencies are emphasized, it makes one word or the other more prominent.
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VIDEO - Nestle falls behind as millennials warm up to frozen meals | Reuters
Solon, OHIO (Reuters) - At Nestle's $50 million research center outside Cleveland, food technicians and packaging experts set out three years ago to remake its frozen food lineup and appeal more to busy, health-conscious adults in their 20s and 30s.
Nestle (NESN.S ) may have gotten the menu right, but its timing was off. When young consumers came back to the frozen food aisle last year, the company's supply chain wasn't ready. The result: It lost market share to rivals.
Jeff Hamilton, who heads Nestle's U.S. food business, said in an interview the company did not have the manufacturing capacity ready to meet extra demand for its Stouffer's Fit Kitchen and Lean Cuisine meals. He described it as ''sudden, significant and beyond our expectations.''
To catch up, Nestle recently increased capacity at several of its U.S. factories, including making adjustments to its plants and adding a new line in its factory in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Hamilton said.
''That doesn't mean we're not close to the edge, but I think we're one step ahead from where we were,'' he said.
Investors have long pressed Nestle to improve the performance of its frozen food business, leading the company to bring consultants, focus groups and international chefs to its Ohio research facility to help overhaul its menu. Today, the lineup includes items such Coconut Chickpea Curry and Sweet Earth Veggie Lover's pizza, advertised as organic or high in vitamin C.
Much of its effort revolved around a pitch to millennials, the young adult demographic that executives believed would purchase frozen meals if they were offered healthier, more modern choices at the right price point.
So when demand began rising a year ago, it should have offered Nestle a chance to quickly quiet critics. Instead, it marked a missed opportunity.
After several flat years, frozen food sales in the United States rose 1.4 percent in the last year, according to Nielsen, the market research firm. Young adults helped drive the surge. In 2017, millennial homes spent 9 percent more than average households per trip on frozen foods.
Yet since September, retailers have sold fewer Nestle frozen entrees than during the same period the prior year, hitting a low point in January when Nestle volumes were about 5 percent down from last year, according to Bernstein analysts who reviewed data from Nielsen.
Competitors filled the gap. Frozen entree sales rose for both Conagra Brands Inc (CAG.N ) and Pinnacle Foods Inc (PF.N ), two key rivals, according to the data. Conagra's volumes were up about 10 percent in March, compared with a year ago.
Nestle's retail sales have started to pick up, but are still well below last year's levels, Bernstein said.
Slideshow (20 Images) INEXPENSIVE AND EASY Frozen food is a relatively small part of Nestle's sprawling portfolio, which also includes Nescafe instant coffee and Pure Life bottled water. It is one of the reasons some investors have called on it to sell the business, saying it would free the Swiss company to focus on more important or higher-growth businesses.
''Nestle will never be able to convince me that management attention on a business like frozen is the same as what they're giving to high-growth businesses,'' said one Nestle investor, who declined to be named.
Frozen meals and pizza accounted for 14 percent of Nestle USA's $27 billion sales in 2016, or around 4 percent of the company's global sales of about $89.35 billion. More recent figures were not available.
Instead of divesting the business, Nestle joined other food makers in revamping its product line to win over a new generation of consumers. Frozen food aisles, once dominated by frozen pepperoni pizzas and meat lasagna, now feature meals with trendy ingredients such as cauliflower and quinoa.
The newer entrees cater to a wider variety of cultures and dietary requirements, including people who eat gluten-free, organic or want antibiotic-free meat. They also offer a relatively inexpensive meal choice for younger, cash-strapped shoppers.
''Something as simple as buying frozen food is really just symptomatic of the trends we're seeing at large,'' said Allie Aguilera, Policy and Government Affairs Manager at Young Invincibles, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group.
''When you're seeing $400 dollars come out of each paycheck to pay a student loan, that's certainly going to impact your ability to go grocery shopping in a way that people more traditionally used to.''
Rachel McCarthy, a 26-year-old translator based in Austin, Texas, is among those sought-after millennials turning to frozen meals. Over the past year, she has started buying more Nestle Lean Cuisine entrees, in part because of tight finances.
''They're inexpensive and require no prep,'' McCarthy wrote in a Twitter message. ''I make $30,000 a year and have lots of student debt that I'm trying to pay off while also trying to afford to live in Austin where rent prices are rising.''
To ensure it can also cater to wealthier millennials, willing to pay more for higher-end ingredients, Nestle plans to roll out its frozen bowl brand Wildscape to 3,000 stores around the country in the coming weeks. The bowls have taken over a year to develop using millennial focus groups.
Thomas Russo, whose firm Gardner Russo & Gardner has a stake worth more than $1 billion, said he was confident that the company would deliver on the frozen food business, despite the recent supply chain issues.
But, he added: ''It's conceivable that they've taken their eye off the ball temporarily.''
Reporting by Richa Naidu in Solon, Ohio and Melissa Fares in New York; Editing by Vanessa O'Connell and Paul Thomasch
VIDEO - Licking County offering free Naloxone kits | WSYX
NEWARK, OHIO '-- Health officials in Licking County said they can't fight the heroin epidemic alone so they are trying to get everyone to carry Naloxone, the heroin antidote.
The county health department put up billboards encouraging people to carry it even if they don't know anyone struggling with heroin addiction.
"Most people don't know where to go or what to do," said Karey Dyer whose daughter struggles with addiction. "They don't know what the resources are."
Dyer said there's still a stigma about heroin addiction. She hoped billboards like that will start to change that.
"That billboard is the Health Department saying, 'it's okay if we have a conversation about this' and people need to know that," she said. "People need to be willing to talk and maybe change their mind."
The Licking County Health Department has 300 Naloxone kits to give away for free. They also offer free training on how to use it.
"Some of our own staff have pulled into a strip mall and seen somebody slumped over a wheel and knew they were in trouble," said Mary Beth Hagstad with the Licking County Health Department. "Time is everything so if people have a kit they can quickly get this nasal spray Naloxone into them until the medics arrive. That could save a life right there."
Dyer said she hears maybe people question why they should save an addict. She said each time someone addicted is saved, it gives them one more chance to get clean.
"That gives her another opportunity, instead of burying her, I get a chance for her to choose recovery again," Dyer said.
Dyer is part of a Facebook group for the parents whose children are struggling with addiction.
VIDEO - Tesla Loses Energy Leaders as Musk Reorganizes - Bloomberg
PrintTesla Inc.'s energy unit has lost two leaders, adding to departures at the electric-car maker while CEO Elon Musk readies a reorganization of the top management team, according to people familiar with the matter.
Arch Padmanabhan, the product director for Tesla's stationary storage unit, and Bob Rudd, a former SolarCity vice president who led North American commercial and utility sales, have both left the company, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they aren't authorized to speak publicly. Tesla didn't immediately comment on the departures. Padmanabhan confirmed that he left last month and is working on a new venture, declining to comment beyond that. Rudd couldn't be reached for comment.
Several of the money-losing company's top leaders have been leaving. Matthew Schwall, Tesla's primary contact with U.S. regulators, left to join Waymo, the self-driving-car company started by Google. Jim Keller, head of the driver-assistance system Autopilot, left last month for Intel Corp. Two top financial executives left in March, and sales chief Jon McNeil defected to Lyft Inc. in February. Musk told employees in an email on Monday that he's ''flattening'' Tesla's management structure to improve communication.
Tesla listed only four executive officers in its recent proxy statement: Musk, Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahuja, Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel and engineering chief Doug Field, who's taking a break from the company.
The automaker's stock fell for a fourth straight day as the drumbeat of bad news persisted, including a bearish note from Morgan Stanley about Tesla's manufacturing struggles. With a drop of 2.7 percent, Tesla's losing streak is now the longest since March 20, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Read more: Model 3 woes and another fatal crash sink Tesla shares
Tesla has used its lithium-ion battery technology to position itself as a key player in the emerging energy-storage market that supplements and may ultimately threaten the traditional electric grid. Musk first announced that Tesla was working on a home battery -- now known as the ''Powerwall'' -- during an earnings call in February 2015. Since then, Tesla has acquired solar-panel installer SolarCity Corp., where Musk was also chairman. The combined company was approaching headcount of 40,000 employees at the end of 2017.
States including California and New York see energy storage as a critical tool to better manage the electric grid, integrate a growing amount of solar and wind power, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Tesla has partnered with Southern California Edison to provide batteries at the utility's Mira Loma substation.
VIDEO - Couric investigates campus culture in 'America Inside Out'
Tuesday night on "The Why," Newsy airs its full interview with Chelsea Manning. The former Army intelligence analyst convicted of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks is now running for U.S. Senate in Maryland.
Bianca Facchinei talks to Manning about her candidacy, the ethics behind government secrets and more.
"The Why" airs Monday through Thursday at 7 p.m. on the Newsy channel. You can find local listings here.
VIDEO - ''Yanny'' or ''Laurel'': the audio clip that's tearing the internet apart
Like a dress that's either gold and white or blue and black, the two seemingly unrelated words ''Yanny'' and ''Laurel'' are threatening to split the internet in half.
On Tuesday, Cloe Feldman, a social media influencer and vlogger, posted a seemingly obvious question on her Instagram story, which she then cross-posted to Twitter: ''What do you hear? Yanny or Laurel,'' accompanied by a recording of a computerized voice that is clearly saying ''Laurel.''
Some maniacs, some of whom I work with, swear they hear ''Yanny'' even though the recording, in the plainest English, says the word ''Laurel.'' Some even claim to be able to hear both words at once.
Because the internet is a place where opinions are given equal weight, some generous people have tried to understand what would cause an ostensibly logical person to think they're hearing ''Yanny'' '-- and the answer seems to boil down to frequency. According to a theory posited by one redditor, what you hear depends on the amount of bass that's being produced from the device you're listening on.
By manipulating audio and changing the pitch of the voice, we upstanding citizens who hear ''Laurel'' can, for brief seconds, hear what the world sounds like through the ears of a maniac.
I'm playing with the audio in Audacity so I can hear both Laurel and Yanny because I'm a normal person with a normal brain
'-- Russell Steinberg (@Russ_Steinberg) May 15, 2018But even though the generosity of these strangers is proof that the internet is an open and weird and great place where we can connect with people who don't see or hear the world the way we might, the voice is clearly saying ''Laurel.''
VIDEO - Swedes are embedding microchips under skin to replace ID cards - Business Insider
A microchip implant as shown in this photo with "body-hacker" Jowan Osterlund of Sweden. James Brooks/AP
About 3,000 Swedish people have inserted a microchip into their bodies to make their daily lives easier.People with the implants can wave their hand near a machine to unlock their office or gym, rather than taking out a key card.So-called biohacking is on the rise as more people depend on wearable technology and interconnected devices.Many microchip users are not concerned with hacking or surveillance at this point. Thousands of Swedes are having microchips implanted into their bodies so that they don't need to carry key cards, IDs, and even train tickets.
About 3,000 people in Sweden have inserted a microchip '-- which is as tiny as a grain of rice '-- under their skin over the past three years, Agence France-Presse reported. The technology was first used in the country in 2015.
The implants have already helped replace the need for a host of daily necessities. Ulrika Celsing's microchip, which is in her hand, has replaced her gym card and office key card. When she enters her workplace, the 28-year-old simply waves her hand near a small box and types in a code before the doors open, AFP said.
Last year, the state-owned SJ rail line started scanning the hands of passengers with biometric chips to collect their train fare while on board. See how it works around the 2:24 mark in the video below.
There is no technological reason the chips couldn't also be used to buy things just like a contactless credit card, but nobody appears to have started testing that yet.
'A slight sting' The procedure is similar to that of a piercing and involves a syringe injecting the chip into the person's hand. Celsing, who obtained her injection at a work event, told AFP she felt just a slight sting.
But the chip implants could cause infections or reactions in the body's immune system, Ben Libberton, a microbiologist at MAX IV Laboratory in southern Sweden, told AFP.
This clip from 2015 shows a microchip being inserted into a person's hand:
The rise of 'biohacking' Biohacking '-- the modification of bodies with technology '-- is on the rise as more and more people start using tech wearables such as Apple Watches and Fitits.
About four years ago, Swedish biohacking group Bionyfiken started organising "implant parties" '-- where groups of people insert chips into their hands en masse '-- in countries including the US, UK, France, Germany, and Mexico.
Some 50 employees at Wisconsin vending-machine company Three Square Market voluntarily agreed to insert microchips into their hands, which they could then use to buy snacks, log in to computers, or use the photocopier.
Tony Danna, a vice president at Three Square Market, receives a microchip at his company headquarters in Wisconsin in August 2017. Jeff Baenen/AP
Swedes seem more willing to try the technology than most other nations.
The country's 10 million-strong population is generally more willing to share personal details, which are already recorded by the country's social-security system and readily available. According to AFP, people can find each others' salaries by simply calling tax authorities.
Many of them also don't believe the microchip technology is advanced enough to be hacked. Libberton, the microbiologist, also said the data collected and shared by implants are too limited for users to fear hacking or surveillance.
Bionyfiken founder Hannes Sj¶blad told Tech Insider in 2015:
"The human body is the next big platform. The connected body is already a phenomena. And this implant is just a part of it. [...]
"We are updating our bodies with technology on a large scale already with wearables. But all of the wearables we wear today will be implantable in five to 10 years.
"Who wants to carry a clumsy smartphone or smartwatch when you can have it in your fingernail? I think that is the direction where it is heading."
An X-ray of a hand with a microchip between the person's thumb and index finger. Mark Gasson
More: Internet of Things Microchip Sweden News UK Powered By Sailthru
VIDEO - VIDEO: NAACP President Claims He Was Profiled On Stop, Then Chief Releases Video - Blue Lives Matter
Timmonsville, SC - The South Carolina NAACP president posted about how he was racially profiled on a traffic stop, and now the police chief has responded by releasing bodycam video and calling him a liar (video below.)
NAACP President Rev. Jerrod Moultrie posted to Facebook on April 13 about how he was just racially profiled on a traffic stop.
The allegations in his account are disturbing, and would indicate profiling by the officer - except none of it was true.
Below is a transcript of the interaction as posted by Rev. Moultrie:
Me: hello sir how can I help you
Officer: I am stopping you cause you fail to put on a turn signal and do you have any drugs in the car
Me: sir how would you know If I used my tum signal when you was approaching me as I turn and is there any drugs in your car?
Officer: License and registration
Me:sir can I take off my seat belt and get it
Me: (as i open glove box i said )sir this is a new car i just purchased and all ! have is bill of sale, insurance card and registration from car I am transferring tags
Officer: ok where you work and who car is this and why you in this neighborhood
Me: sir I am a pastor and I live in the house on the left
Officer:And I guess I am the bill gates
Me: sir what's the problem
Officer: I ask who car for the last time and why you in this neighborhood
Me: I told you for last time who car and where I live.( as my neighborhood starts to come out there house) By the way sir can I speak to your supervisor
Officer: walks away with my information When he returned he said did you know your tags comes back to another vehicle
Me: sir I just explain this to you
Officer: you need to park this vehicle and never drive it till you get this straight with DMV
Me: sir I have purchased multiple vehicles and never heard this now officer and I start fussing cause I said well i will be driving my car sir and anyt time I want
Officer: I am waming you to not drive this car till tags get straight and just know I am doing you a favor tonight not taking you to jail or writing you a ticket
Me: sir you might be doing your Self a favor but you certainly not doing me a favor.
The reverend finished off his post by saying that his wife and baby were in the back seat, but still he was profiled and accused of having drugs.
"Guess I can't be a pastor and can't drive a Mercedes Benz and live in a nice neighborhood," Rev. Moultrie said. "...someone needs to answer for this behavior and this officer will."
After seeing the post, local community activist Timothy Waters went down to the police department to look at the bodycam and dash camera footage, according to WPDE.
He was shocked to see that everything the reverend said was a lie.
"Once I got a copy of that body cam, it's as if he made the whole story up. And I felt like he set us back 100 years, because think about all of the racial profiling cases (that) are true," Waters told WPDE.
WPDE reports that Timmonsville Police Chief Billy Brown said that Rev. Moultrie even went so far as to contact him the next morning to claim that he had been racially profiled and mistreated.
"He made a comment that the officer accused him of having drugs in the car. He said that his wife and grandchild was in the car. He asked them not to move because the officer looked as if he might shoot them or something. He also made mention that the officer continued to ask him about his neighborhood. Why was he in that neighborhood? And threaten(ed) to put him in jail in reference to something dealing with the registration to the vehicle," Chief Brown told WPDE. Except all of those accusations were lies.
"When I saw the video, I was shocked that someone who is supposed to be a community leader, a pastor, and head of the NAACP would just come out and tell a blatant lie. It bothered me. It really bothered me, thinking about the racial unrest it could've cost in the community and it's just troubling to me that someone who held a position like that would come out and just tell a lie," Brown told WPDE.
Rev. Moultrie refused to comment to the news station, and instead referred them to Timmonsville NAACP officers Kenneth McAllister and Henry James Dixon.
Both men told the station that they didn't need to see the video because they support Rev. Moultrie, and know that he's a man of integrity who wouldn't lie.
You can see the video of the traffic stop below:
VIDEO - First Lady Melania Trump Underwent Medical Procedure To Treat Kidney Condition : NPR
First Lady Melania Trump Underwent Medical Procedure To Treat Kidney Condition First Lady Melania Trump underwent an operation Monday at a military hospital just outside of Washington, D.C. Her office said it was to treat a benign kidney condition.
First Lady Melania Trump Underwent Medical Procedure To Treat Kidney Condition Download Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/611145067/611145425" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
First Lady Melania Trump underwent an operation Monday at a military hospital just outside of Washington, D.C. Her office said it was to treat a benign kidney condition.
VIDEO - Financial Svcs Dems on Twitter: "Yesterday, on the House floor, RM @RepMaxineWaters had #notonesecond for Republican efforts to undermine anti-discrimination policies. Watch '¬'... https://t.co/r8r1qngOXG"
In Osmington, a town of just 135 people in southwest Australia, seven people were killed in what could be the largest shooting the nation has seen in more than two decades.
According to the Associated Press, when police were called to the home at approximately 5:15 a.m. local time Friday, they found the bodies of three adults and four children.
"The bodies of two adults were located outside. Five bodies were located inside a building on the rural property," said Western Australia Police Commissioner Chris Dawson.
"It appears that ... gunshot wounds are there, but I don't want to go further than that, as two firearms have been located at the scene," Dawson added.
9 News Perth spoke with a family friend, Felicity Haynes, who claims to have heard multiple gunshots coming from the property in the early morning. The network quoted Dawson, who stated that a man made the emergency call that brought police to the property. However, the man's identity has not been revealed.
The commissioner was circumspect about the incident, refusing to release the names and ages of the deceased, only revealing that officials were attempting to contact family members.
Additionally, Dawson stated: "At this point in time, we don't have any information to raise further public concern." The commissioner's statement may indicate that the crime was a murder/suicide, according to multiple outlets, but authorities have not released details to that effect.
Following the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre in which 35 people were killed, Australia tightened its gun laws and instituted a buyback program. According to The Council on Foreign Relations, however, only one-sixth of the "national stock" of "assault weapons" were recovered during the buyback:
The National Agreement on Firearms all but prohibited automatic and semiautomatic assault rifles, stiffened licensing and ownership rules, and instituted a temporary gun buyback program that took some 650,000 assault weapons (about one-sixth of the national stock) out of public circulation. Among other things, the law also required licensees to demonstrate a ''genuine need'' for a particular type of gun and take a firearm safety course.
In 2002 and 2003, following a shooting in which multiple handguns were used, the Australian government further restricted the nation's gun laws, and instituted another buyback.
The Library of Congress writes:
... in November 2002, various resolutions were agreed to, which included restricting the classes of legal handguns that can be imported or possessed for sporting purposes, changing licensing requirements for handguns, and exploring options for a buyback program for those guns deemed illegal. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) endorsed the resolutions in December 2002, and these formed the National Handgun Control Agreement. ...
The federal Parliament also enacted the National Handgun Buyback Act 2003, which provided for financial assistance to be granted to states in connection with the implementation of a buyback program for handguns that did not comply with the new restrictions. The buyback program, which was implemented by the individual states and territories, resulted in about 70,000 handguns and more than 278,000 parts and accessories being surrendered.
The Daily Wire will provide further information regarding the Osmington shooting as it become available.
VIDEO - Hotep Jesus on Twitter: "This white woman is anti-Semitic.
The creamery, Don Curry Chelsea divorce is your award winning combination media 7:30 for this is No, Agenda. Yes, if you can still find the role of quarters anywhere from the bank.
Who who has rolls of quarters laying around? Nobody know it laying around you should Nicholas also kind of work. Do you have a roll of quarters just in case you get into a fist? I have one in each pocket. Is that a roll of quarters in your pocket? Oh ma'am. We went into Collective Insanity overdrive with that Danny Laurel thing. Oh my I you know, if you noticed my clipless, there's no mention of it. Yeah. I had I wasn't going to be the one I had to mention it because I by the way the dress is white and gold. Yeah, whatever it was. I want to know who did this. That's what that's what is not a part of any reporting who did it. It was no it is a part of the recording in fact our local local station. And I think I heard they talked about that that got there trying to track this guy or woman down and they can't do it. They don't know who it is, but it is part of the reporting. Oh, oh
Okay. Well so we don't know who it is. No mystery. Well, these are two computer synthesized voices and you hear different versions of the either Laurel or Yanni based upon the device you're listening to your own hearing range and you know a whole bunch of different things and I have a little filter setup. I just want to demonstrate I'm going to filter as low as Maids highs in and out move it back and forth and you will hear the two different names.
I'm hearing Laurel. Now what you hear I can already hear it. Yeah. Yeah not done. So you probably are very Annie and Laurel at one point on the exactly what you heard because that's what you're playing. Yeah.
But show some examples and I think they're pretty rare of someone to people listening to the exact same feed and getting two different things that I I guess there's some in-between moment. There were that's a possibility but generally speaking. This is a function of the frequencies. Yeah. So what so why is this a big deal? It's not but I just wanted to slow things down to or play it backwards and you're the devil you've done that a number of yes, exactly.
I just wanted to give you some sanity because everyone I mean I was accused of being a liar in my own a house. Yes. Okay. Now this is the story Tina's daughter. She's with a healbot know. She's not a whole lot. That's the other one.
No, neither of them are healbot, but it was you know, she was very surprised. You know, you just lying to me. What yes is you lying to her about what because I I said I hear this and she said no I hear this they can't be true.
It's ripping the fabric of our of our culture apart. Okay?
Damn, Daniel oral, at least we got a nice little newscycle out of it.
It was brought up on the NBC Nightly News. I believe it's the mother of these big reports and it was just annoying. I finally was like a Brother's it was worse than the dress thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Anyway done just changed frequencies. Although it is kind of you know, you might be able to use that to to put stuff into people's ears, you know have have a a different frequency. Donate to No, Agenda don't need an attendant own 8 to No, Agenda. It could be done donate to No Agenda. I prefer the catchy Tunes myself. I agree. Yeah, they work that she gets the earworm. All right. Well, we have to start off with the good news as Mike West End. This is continuing morning. I'm Rachel Martin American Airlines is getting stricter about emotional support animals are the creatures that provide Comfort to people suffering from extreme anxiety now passengers traveling with animals will have to fill out paperwork 48 hours in advance in the airline is going to double-check notes from doctors. Some animals are not totally ban. No insects spiders chickens or Hawks or any animal that smells miniature for
That are apparently still available this morning Edition any animal. This is smells. That's the criteria. Yeah good.
Damn, it's only win. Yeah, well, I'm going to head did you see the video of the little YouTube video that came out as kids, you know decides got a service animal and he decides to feign a heart attack. Yeah and the dogs. Hard on his head. Why does that never happen on the plane? That would be entertainment that I would be okay with ya sub Euless.
Well, the fur babies are definitely having the other us births have hit the lowest since 1987. I don't know if that's significant or not. But I thought it was it. Was it Thirty Year 30 years a psycho. Yeah, it goes up goes down. Yeah. Well, where is the dog cycle? How do those where's the VIN diagram? How do those two intersects? You have to deal with psychoanalysis? I also read and this was odd. Maybe it's related. And I personally I think it's a native ad for some Pharmacy. This is in the UK, but it is from let's see.
Yeah, Martin Baggett health and science correspondent pasta Moon half of almond, I guess in the UK in the 30 struggle to get an erection.
49% blame stress 24% blame losing too much so nearly half that's 43% of men age eighteen to sixty across the UK are suffering impotence four and ten men blaming stress tiredness anxiety. And then the the boozing too heavy. Wow, that's all new. Well, they were happened in the history of America. Well, this is you can't blame the women. Okay? Yeah do tell no it's just it I mean, you know
You just blame the women? Okay. Yeah, she's easier. Okay.
Well, maybe I should just play this little clip from Jordan Peterson quickie forty six seconds tennis. That's the the frame for everything. We're dealing with ins and it's in a way kind of related to Jenny and Laurel but not really more The Fallout from it. One of the things that I've come to understand about political arguments. Well say people say well, you know, the person on the other side of the India logical Continuum has different opinions that I do it's like no they don't or maybe they do but they don't see the same tax.
Because the filter they use to select from among the infinite number of available fact preferentially present them with the facts that are relevant to them and that's already built into their ethics. And so one of the horrible things about political discussions is that you're actually having a discussion about what the facts are. You say. Well the facts of the same for everyone it's like yeah, it's like saying I have an Infamous library of books.
Can you can come into it? It's like when you're going to pick out the same book seems highly improbable. I think there's an element of Truth to that if I can just pick it back and that's what he said. I was low and he said is there so many facts will take Trump frightening. For example, there's so many facts but let's just here's an easy one ZTE and the only reason why that story kind of stuck out for me is because I got a ZTE phone, you know to try it as an OTG phone failed miserably but it's a Chinese piece of junk. And so that company was out, you know, you couldn't I guess they couldn't export any phones cuz there was some technology that have been passed on or stolons kind of irrelevant to the story. So if not, no ZTE phones in America, and then the president comes back and says we got to change this. This is about jobs. We can't be screwing these Chinese this way.
And if you take that fact with another fact that the Chinese are funding some huge project of which there will also be a 500 million dollar Trump Hotel. I doubt that the Trump organization is building it. But yeah, so people immediately take those facts connected Occam's razor say, oh it's a quid pro quo that he's getting 500 million for his building cuz that's what he means. Of course. That's what he's all about. And so he's going to give something back by letting ZT, you know, trying to fix the ZTE problem. That's just picking some facts and turning it into your truth and it's happening. That's the story this real.
And yeah, all right, I'm sold. All right. Now we go to and I'm glad I'm glad I was able to get a recording of this happening. Am I told you about the the woman who been pulled over by a cop and then she's the face bag video and she was all you know, like he he was a racist and all this stuff and nothing could be further from the truth according to the body impd bodyslams. Yeah. So there was a pastor also n-double-acp president from South Carolina Reverend Jared Moultrie, and he posted the following on the face back as he was even pulled over for a traffic stop which he considered to be profiling is what he posted on the face bag. So it's the officer and him. Hello, sir. How can I help you officer? I'm stalking you because you failed to put on his turn signal and do you have any drugs in the car, sir? How do you know if I use my turn signal when you were approaching me is I turned are there any drugs in?
Your car why you asking that license and registration sir? Can I take off my seatbelt and get it sure as I open the glove box. So this is new car just purchased in all I have is bill of sale insurance and registration from a car. I'm transferring tags. Okay. Were you working whose car is this? And why are you in this neighborhood sir? I'm a pastor. I live in the house on the left. Oh, I guess I'm Bill Gates then says the officer sure. What's the problem? I asked you who for the who the car whose car? This is for the last time and while you're in this neighborhood me I told you for the last time this is my car and this is I live right over there. By the way, sir. Can I speak to your supervisor officer walks away with my information when he returns you said did you know your tags came back to on the vehicle, sir? I just explain this to you sir. I purchased multiple Vehicles never heard this now and the adoption corrupt. You need to park this vehicle and never drive it till you get this straight with the DMV. I'm warning you not to drive this car till the tags get straight and just know I'm doing you a favor tonight not taking you to jail or writing the ticket. So you might be doing yourself a favor, but you
Certainly not doing me a favor and it just contains a little bit on like that. So he was racially profiled and he was treated like he didn't belong in that neighborhood and the copper least the body cam video which I cut down removing all the silences. Hey, how are you? Come around my house or my house. What time does Ville Police Department?
The reason why I'm coming in contact with you is whenever you to glare Frontier didn't see okay if I want to come in contact with you.
It goes back to his car and drive to call him one. Can you get the coffee doctor taking this registration has come in till 1992. Okay GMC truck but what I'm saying, you got to have the proper registration everything in insurance and all that stuff to Ashley and the case that plate come back to this motor vehicle. Cuz when I run the plates are still coming back to this not coming back to your car. Okay. I understand the look. I just bought the car the other day who is the probably need to go to the DMV and ask them? How come it's not registering the state South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles still coming back to that's Road.
How does a man listening to switch the tags from the truck to the car? They told me the Aviv?
The dealer put that on there. They showed up the times it will be transferred. Right and all I need to do to keep this registration disability. They told you wrong you got to have the proper documentation in your motor vehicle that actually matches the car that you're operating South Carolina Highway in order Fred to operate on Highway. They told Jerome. Okay. All right. So the driver's license unless she raced it better all the time for operation motor vehicle South on highway to drive safe. Okay. There you go. Tire exchange. I missed the whole Bill Gates the drugs thing.
So the guy will besides being an obvious liar. If this this is guy was you have to do a hell of an edit job on the tone. When I haven't quite extraordinary and it wouldn't make sense besides being an obvious liar and then then kind of a provocateur by putting a bull crap thing out there on the face bags, the guy switching tags around his cars. I mean everybody knows that's the only going to let him and Bull story all the dealer told me to do it. Yeah. I just need the guys full of crap sounded in the Facebook post yet. He sounded kind of drunk too. But you know now is it possible that he have this kind of he felt threatened which is possible didn't feel comfortable and he came up with kind of this story and then I'll just post this. I mean how does this happen faster and n-double-acp president this brings the organization into question.
The North Carolina or South Carolina might have been South. Let me see. Yeah see the guy should see the cop South Carolina, South Carolina. How does this happen? Do you think perhaps the guys just delusional internationally know I think that this happens this is the nature of the Socialist. This is what you do you lie about everything whether you either lie about how great your life is an awesome your food how much you love your fur babies or you show that your true victim. There's almost no in between did we play that clip about the diction? I think we did the addiction to Facebook several of them with the more recent one where the guy says he had to produce a lie.
He felt that it was important that he made his life look better than it was and he said the whole thing was bull crap. I don't remember which yes, we did play that but I don't remember we hang on and on about this and maybe there's some element that that may be an element, you know, the people who are see themselves, even though it's not necessarily true, but they see themselves as losers because they have this standard to uphold and other people that are on Facebook showing their wonderful life and they even had that with that series of which we haven't talked about but this was years ago, I know it was loaded around this series of douchebags on Facebook whatever it was called and there's all these kids with you know, would just too much bling. I don't know. That's the Rich Kids of Instagram, which is also face bag, honestly. Yeah, Rich Kids of Instagram, right? And there's just all douchebags, you know, and it was just ridiculous. And so people have this different standards. I don't know. Maybe that's all it is. I mean, this is a pet peeve yours for you.
Yeah about the about the cell C and you can't you have to take a thousand pictures to get the one jet actually if you're in the picture with women cuz they all have to zoom and check make sure it's my arm fat and okay. All right. Yeah good all of that and it results in this study by Blue Cross Blue Shield has found that the number of Americans diagnosed with severe depression has jumped by 33% from 2013 to 2016. The study found that Depression was likely linked to other issues that the patient was dealing with has 85% of people diagnosed who are also suffering from another chronic condition. There were more alarming finding such diagnosed. She's an adolescent Rose 63% and in Millennials 47% positions noted that the increasing use of electronics and social media may be playing a role think
There you go. Depression on the rise up 33% Magic number must be true.
Interesting. I did receive a a nice note from a millennial producer. Nikhil. Hey guys, great show. I wanted to share my experience with social media screen addiction. I'm a twenty-two-year-old slave and get more nation and I recently had two things happen that it made me realize how bad social media is for us. I stopped using my iPhone in favor of a cheap flip phone and my laptop died. I've noticed withdrawal symptoms not unlike those of the use of benzodiazepines Xanax Klonopin both of which I have abused in the past 22 and quite similar of that a large quantities of THC is really helpful to me and I'd recommend it to anyone who has struggled with mental health if used issues is quite likely I was substituting online communication with the real thing.
Life saving tips are on the No, Agenda show life savings saved another kid saved another one not as beautiful, you know, if we've learned that it's very important or your longevity you would live longer if you have more social interaction integration with people in real life. So talking to the guy that gives you your coffee smiling and someone on the street holding a door open whatever it is, but yesterday on the way to the spin class and back it occurred to me that people are not only substituting social networks for this type of life-saving interaction, but when they're out among other people, they're still carrying and holding and looking at their phones. Yeah, they have the phone in hand in hand if they walk down the street. That's just you know, ever since we made that observation, although I think we're not the first they're holding the phone instead of having in their purse or someplace. They're actually literally holding on to it for
Your life all the time juggling bang looking at it constantly juggling it whether they worked out this way too. And also you need if you're real Pro if you're really addicted then you have one of those knobs on the back so you can slip your fingers past that so you have a Groupon. Oh, yeah what nobody has that? What you say and never seen? Oh my God, these things are rampant. I've never seen. Okay go to the mall.
And they got hands straps. They got yeah, it's like a little knob on the I think they should have I think we should cash another product idea. All right, here we go right idea product idea. So we should have some sort of a it should be this phone should be on on a tether that is got a kind of a spring-loaded tether. So then if you drop the phone and mediately sucks back and then you ain't going to use yeah, it should be like on a key thing. Have you drop it back? And then when you're fumbling you have to carry it all the times you can hold in your hand. I think moves you got to dig around your person actually, let it go. I think I think there's a better product which I've been thinking about. I think we need the Bob Dylan harmonica neck brace and you need to change that so you can hang that over your head and you just glanced down and you can see exactly what's coming in on the search meds Associates. So Schmitz
It's good to know something like that. I think my I think that you like your idea together. Okay, sounds good. I will say that as a as a part of my OTG experience. I have removed the talking to from Amazon from the home and replaced it with the open source, Microsoft.
Yes Mycroft the brother of Sherlock Holmes. That's what apparently the box is named after and the Microsoft is an open-source. You can download it and run it on your if you have a Linux box. You can run it on that goes straight the CIA. No, it's actually self-contained. It's within your own control.
Yeah, I mean, yes, it's open source. So this is been looked at. And anyway, I've had a lot of fun. I'm agreeing with you all. Yeah, sounds like you're mocking me.
Maybe just a little so and and I set out to get it to do all the things I had to talkin to do which is whether shopping list and how old is the celebrity that's pretty much all we ever uses for and it's fun to look at what they call a i cuz it works the same as these talking tubes. It's all about audiences and what it can pick up and you have to put in all these vocabulary trigger words Alternatives instead of add to the shopping list put on my shopping list. It's it's all skip logic there's no intelligence in this whatsoever.
Yeah, there's no intelligence in any of them. No know exactly but it's just monitoring you but it's well this this one monitoring devices one monitors only what I wanted to Monitor and doesn't spend anything if I don't want it to send anything it doesn't so, what do you use it for? The the your Polk Audio has a box that was just at this event and
talkin the Polk Audio people and they had a they have a thing. It's I guess you can turn it into any one of these boxes. I don't know if it would work with that might.
Very nice little speaker microphone array. Yeah, that's so this one actually supposed to Raspberry Pi it comes in an enclosure. Then of course the thing they don't have just a fantastic microphone array. It's okay and it works but not grey I think why hasn't anybody I'm just going to ask why hasn't anybody yes. Well, I looked into that what happened? They hacked Alexa. Yeah acted out and you just take electric chair it apart and hack out just pull out the microphone array and use it elsewhere cuz microphone arrays of that sort. Very advanced technology. Very cool. Apparently the the echo the Amazon talking to runs on its own operating system.
And I was looking around for it for a couple of reasons. I also found out with the nest does holy crap that things the next to go.
The The Nest Thermostat, you know, you know the nest thermostat when you walk by it. It turns on the display comes on. So it has a sensor and knows that you're walking by therefore knows you're home all this information to send back to Google who purchase the company a couple of years ago. There's tons of information they're sending
Yeah, they needed to send you the criminal syndicates so they can ask you not home your home and I always down hope it's not all men still get him. And then the final thing that came in since last show is this everybody was talking about all this this location sharing company and everybody's location is commercially available. Did you see any of this was the New York Times? Everybody was writing about I saw none of it. So the name of the company is let me see. It must have it here somewhere like locations securos or something and they have a little web form and you fill out the web form with your phone number. They send you a text message you you reply to the text message with yes, you know, it's okay to track me for this test only and then the web page that you were on changes and says, okay, here's where this phone is located in many people are said right down to their front door almost and the claim is that this
Company is getting this data from the phones themselves through the carriers and it's available commercially and things like your GPS chip and and other processing information is handing off your your location data continuously. And therefore is somehow is available. The great thing is I tried it with the Nokia E71. Both times cannot locate this phone.
So either it's because there's no spy ships in this particular phone will probably know spy ships in the phone. Those are recent or it could also be that I had to do the
So maybe it tries to correlate the two cuz I'm very wary that and I don't think so. Anyway, I got there's a I mean right now I could say the same thing about my phone though. Well, you should try it. You should try that forms in the show notes. You should try that excited for him. But I mean the phone of course is is is usual Situation off and in a cabinet that I keep in a faraday cabinet. No, I don't need well, I mean you could but I don't believe it's being remotely turned on. I mean, I think I suppose as possible. Although I think it's like anyone worried about that. I mean, yes, you can put a piece of aluminum foil over to your own really need a faraday anything. But cuz I tested the aluminum foil after I wore the hat for a while.
And and by the way, and for all you Apple users, if you really think you know, they're going to turn your phone on and off automatically State the battery always our winner this joke. Anyway, I was very happy, you know, like okay. This is another benefit of this phone.
And then it kind of hit me that you know, a lot of people who believe and if it's not happening, I'm sure it is somewhere and it will be in the future. You know, your phone is listening to you people so many stories if people saying I was talking with someone about dog toys and I got all these ads for dog toys for this. I just part of it this probably that I give up on and I'll tell you why I have had more people especially the last few months butt dialed me.
And I listen in right? I know it's a bundle cuz I can hear the mumbling and grumbling going on in the background and the guide is oblivious or sometimes all yelling. But now I'm asking you because you know, it's in the pockets and it's on the desk. I don't know where the phone is. I could never been able to hear a conversation. That's intelligible. It's impossible.
Right. Well, there are we've been through this idea that hold on just going to push back again. Like I did the last time you said this the GSM cell quality is very different from a high-end digital transmission over data, very different quality. I'm not saying that that's was happening. But this actually different you'll agree with me on that. I hope
I am going to blame this on the little microphone. The iPhone has five mics. I mean, there's a lot more technology in these things anything realized.
But I would like to see a demo I'll be a believer not after the hypothetical argument. I'll be a believer in somebody shows me that I've got this concept in action, but I don't think that's not really and a word and what anyone saying I don't think that's actually where they're getting it from.
I'm thinking now, especially Google spend so much time mapping out. The number everything is about location with these fuckers. You know, the the Google Earth was one of their main products early on are they sitting there? Are they are they literally fuckers? Yeah. They are. They are little fuckers. Yes, they are sorry and you know remember when they they were doing the maps driving around by the way. We're also collecting all your wife. I know and all that will do that. Yeah. Oh that was just a mistake. Now it wasn't they still do it. As far as I can tell. I'm sure the exact it's gotten worse to the point where if you want to use Google Maps, which I did a whole, about how you sign your life away and that kind of very little play but people don't care. But anyway on your life. Yeah the way when you use Google Maps literally sign your life away and and all the stuff. Now you're giving away this these if you use the product demand you turn on the wifi thing.
So I why we can't do the job unless you've got the whole thing turned on and all your information. Oh, yeah, you can't use it. And if you don't agree to the terms or apps for you, correct? I've been using I don't know Maps actually look at the map. It's easy. It's very good way to get the lay of the land is to have an actual married map. But here's what's happening. And after I read a story about a father whose son wanted a one one of those those fan Wings. What do you call it? You know, you strapped to the big fan on your back and you've got a para para motor. There it is. So it's a paraglider with the motor and the kids. Like I really want this, you know, these twelve years old whatever and then the father all of a sudden YouTube videos start to show up suggesting paramotoring.
He's like, hold on a second. Of course, you'd never looked at that to how does this happen? And he came up with a whole man. He's like contact list that could be it but I think proximity Is what is that is where is that? If there are two people who are identified as being in the same place. I think that's when they start to merge interests.
You know, so maybe the kid also got some videos his dad was watching. He might not have noticed and probably goes unnoticed a large percentage of the time but you know if someone's
You know looking at certain types of content and then they're in close proximity for x amount of time to someone else.
Then give them some of that content they may be interested or they may have just talked about that and it would be interesting to see what happens when it shows up. I think they're doing it with location proximity.
Well, we have to come to one of two conclusions here cuz I'm hearing a contradiction of our basic thesis, which is that they keep advertising to us stuff that we already bought different different out and they're completely they're completely different out there the most advanced. No. No, I don't think that's Advanced at all. How was that advanced? Do you have the location continuous real-time location data from everybody except for me. It's like advance to have that information and be able to use it for anything. But as I started off they've had this for for decades. This is this is the core of their company.
And so now all they have to do is say hey, these guys are in the same room. Maybe we should share some content. They're looking at I don't think that's incredibly Advanced. I think it is. Wow. Well, someone's going to write in and they'll know if it's happening or not.
I don't think it's happening and I am this was a while ago. I got a a suggested friend of someone who I've never I've never even communicated with digitally, but they were in my proximity several times. So how do they know and this person has no relationship to me. No family. No other friends. It was not a definitely not a friend related walked by them know we were eating proximity several. I understand. It's been in class. All right, you're not taking me seriously. You think I am taking you very seriously and I think your experiments with the OTG Off. The Grid mechanism is definitely part of the show now, but it's it's a little bit much for me. Like I said, I've heard these I think it's more believable than we heard what you said I'm with you on that much more. I mean I
Hello. Google is is sometimes the impressive but let's get back to the microphone erase that are used in the Alexa. Yeah box talk. Is anybody out there is anybody out there just torn this box apart and stolen those Mike's I think that the the cost of the those mics I wanted to use the box and put my own stunning. If you could you people there's all kinds of $2,000 reward. If you can hack the box, it's not floating around. You mean were you change the name? I saw that I'm not changed know thousand dollar reward to have the story right here is if you can change the name you've already done that I know. Yes. Why don't you to click your money? I'm not going to anyway talking about I don't think
I think a better system maybe some better speakers. I think there's not any I don't care what anybody thinks but that's it's those microphones those microphone or raise costs thousands of dollars. If you go try to buy one, they're very high tech especially if you can get it, you know getting them to work is another thing they're used for all kinds some recordists will use them for very Advanced recording techniques and they're very expensive now. I don't know what maybe there's just cheap little electric condensers. Would you be my guess it's set up in an array with some software that makes it work so it can hear everything still you can't it's not the kind of thing that's for sale is there's your little box that you put together from scratch have a microphone array in it. Like they're just willing Mike one. Mike. Yeah. Yeah, of course. I mean it also know of course, it doesn't have that and I would love to have a microphone array on it.
Now that I control it now that it's now that does yes and the nest is next and then I think we're pretty clear here. Although I'm not so sure about my TV. I got to check that thing to now cuz I'll get it. Yeah, so with all of this going down Facebook has come out in the past week talkin about fake accounts. They've been deleting and I've always questioned their numbers and it's just it's like one of those things we don't even question anymore. It's so embedded Facebook has two billion people. It was only a billion a couple of years ago. But okay two billion people. Yeah, they deleted one point three billion fake accounts in the last six months. So does that mean they deleted half their userbase does it mean they miscounted their userbase or are they so good that they actually 3.3 billion users and they had always discounted the one point three billion phakic
I mean someone has to ask the question and I'd like to have an answer.
But where's Wall Street on this if I was investing in this have you hold on a second? They have the revenue per user the are poos. That's what they they live on that you deleting hundreds of millions of accounts. So, what is it?
I don't know. I'm just surprised that it won't hear it. Everyone just know and there's a money's rolling. Where's the media? Where are people asking these questions?
We are I think actually Twitter is a little bullish on Twitter. Well, they're doing they have the right idea the executing it very poorly. They just announced the big change in their API, which changes I've always said that their API is is what they should be charging money for but okay, they've decided they will now be to tears you will have the free tier which you can use for your app, but likes and favourites or retweets
Quoted tweets will be delayed up to about two minutes before those come through on the API, which I guess is just horrific for people.
I don't know if I'm like yet. I have to wait two minutes.
And if you want to buy access to the full streaming API, it will be 4 if you have an app that has up to 250 accounts you can have access to the API for $2,899 per month. That's not a bad deal.
Well it is if you're twitterrific between deck or any of these types of commonality it is for them. I'm saying for a marketing guy. Yes, I think it's actually very smart. They should have done this a long time ago. They need to have different price structure structure in place. Something else is going on too because they have apparently the Library of Congress gave up, you know, the Prada all we're going to get right. I said we can't do it too much too much work too much work. It's too much crap. It is just now we're not doing it. So I guess that whole project project project is dead. Yeah. The only thing that is officially archived as far as we know is this show in the Royal Dutch archives. Yes, and I want to remind people of that because we tried tried to use it as leverage to get people. Now, you're there one who said call out to their mom is now forever archive for all right, we're all of history the annals of time cuz I'm a thousand years from now. Your mother will be remembered death.
It was a good point. Let's guys are archives. Don't go away. No, they don't.
Giant books and they they're always doing these, you know history investigators. Whatever is on PBS they dig around they go into to the lead some Old Town in England and they go into the darkest big giant books huge and they flip I'm open and there's no in 1410. There's word Dorsey married, Jim, you know that goes on and on. Yeah, that's what you're getting with the No Agenda show and you get life saving tips.
That's just how to not go stir crazy from being on continuously pained by your phone. There was a story in the Wall Street Journal about some some get to you know, going back to the woman or the women wasn't men too. But mostly when walking around the phone in their hand and then they separated every what are they checking is for for dopamine hits?
And it's an addiction. It's for a dopamine hit that's what it's for. There is no reason it's been so is this so nice although I walk outside and I'm looking at everybody and no one's looking back cuz they're all hunched over there all bent down. So you can't do your hello. How you doing know some of them, you know people I'm going to do a videos or walk out my building and I'll do a video cuz it's always and eventually did the video before you do. Have you ever sort of like slowly moving toward them then kind of all the could you see they're completely distracting you jump in front of them and you just look like you're walking and then they Pollo into you have you done that? I've considered it. I've done it a number of that you can get away with it. You know me the pic of fight. Thank God he had some quarters in his pocket kicked that Curry's ask the boss at some company. What is it?
I don't know what company it is, but he internal surveys big story on it the time people spend on their phone during the workday is is an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes. Think about that 2 hours and 25 minutes. That's a lot.
That's a lot what you do a video use the video. Oh, I'm going to walk out the building and I'll show all of the women walking around with the phones with the knobs on the phones real exam. And by the way, it's mainly women wear a lot more susceptible to this. I'm not sure why I have not seen any research on that but it should be some research on it needs to be studied or given the lack of research. Yeah, all these sociology departments all over the country and all these colleges and they don't do the work that they should be doing. Right? I mean come on people instead we have
Silicon Valley doing things like this and got a note from the Z one of our producers I assist it was taking notes in Microsoft Word while at work. She noticed the red underline indicating and misspelled word different from the green on the line from grammar mistakes when she right click the word the word was maternity is a part of maternity leave Microsoft Word suggested. She use more gender-neutral language such as parental leave Family Leave Child Care leaves.
So this is not creeping into the software that wasn't that couldn't have been with a red line.
I have a picture of it right here because it's a red red dotted line a red dotted line that have red underline underline. It's red underline but it's dashes. I would say little short dashes.
So that seems to be the behavior never I use word all the time and I've never seen anything like this is some other AD in this is not this is not know do you think maybe she got some kind of macro or something because it seems to be coming from the dictionary right clicks that no idea. I'd like to do Q4 read that letter. I want to follow up on this. Yeah or them for me. If it's true. Well, hold on a second using my old PC World story, which I've told on the show at least twice. Oh somebody's calling while you're looking at all so I can hang up the phone. Okay, I'm opening up Microsoft Word is a part of The Office 365 sweet. Let me see. I'm going to open blank document and we should hoops.
We should tell them to go on maternity leave and let me see. I have no spelling errors.
All right. Well, that's very interesting. I don't know what I did. It doesn't show up that way for me. You're right. It will show for anybody. I don't know what's going on there. Well, so I'd like she's got a screenshot. So all right. I'll forward you to follow up on I wonder it might have been you might have been some kind of plug in and has to be some we'll find out if that's true. I mean, that's pretty spectacular.
Unless you're just being bullshitted possibly but it's it's a it's actual shot of the screen. So it's not a screenshot screenshot. I can use Photoshop to wow. Okay. All right. Sure. I know why would you do it doesn't make any sense that used to have a bone to pick with politically. Correct language. Yeah, and this is an example. I mean you could I can see somebody too much work, but it was one of our producers sister. So that's why I put some weight on it.
We have news. Yeah, we got stormy's lawyer stories. But let's do the North Korea. So cuz that's the most interesting to me. It's coming up now. I have two different cuz I've got I've got a clip of follow-up and then I have a point to make which is not being discussed in these clips. And I'm I'm asking the question of you. Why do you think that is let's start with the ABC North Korea bags off reported in dealing with something else North Korea will the U.
President Trump is rattled by the latest threats from North Korea. He's not showing it to see what happens. Sandra name is no surprise something that we needed by North Korea's Chief negotiator saying he's totally disappointed by the extremely unjust recent comments by us officials singled out the American demands that North Korea give up all its nuclear weapons before getting anything in return. We want to see the denuclearization process. So completely under way that it's irreversible North Korea now says such talk could Scuttle the Senate if the U is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment.
We will no longer be interested in such dialogue North Korean seem particularly upset by National Security advisor. John Bolton called on them to do what Libya did more than a decade ago. We have very much in mind the North Koreans call Bolton human scum day. They add quote. We do not hide our feelings of repugnance towards him. They may also be aware of the mused about winning and no very nice. I just want to get the job done. That's not that's not Trump musing about when there's no
I think he's sitting there going. Let me drink some more Sherry and think about the Nobel Prize. It's a crowd chanting noble noble.
Which is not presented that way by the report which I'm pretty sure was sparked by the m v m media to start with I think it was as it has in he's not went. Oh my God, you don't think the ahold of orange clown will win a Nobel Peace Prize? Yeah. Yeah. Now there's a follow-up to this which which this is the story continues does ABC North Korea bags off report to this is kind of how the report ends and it's almost as anti-climactic because what it tells me is that you know, they're mixing they're making the story more dramatic than it needs to be if what they're now going to say is true. So let's get the Giancarlo. He's living room there inside the White House.
Just throw it off or so for now David at least it is all systems. Go right John Carl. There's always next tonight. What was that? All systems go. Anyway. Yeah. I mean it's as though that this is just a story that the media is creating in. Yeah, of course, they are targeting Bolton, which is I think a positive thing the guys Gerald the first the first time I saw the story I immediately thought we have a full three weeks maybe even a little more before the meeting we got to keep it on the radar because it's ratings you just keep some tension. It could have been launched by any of the negotiating parties, but more likely launched by the media itself. That's kind of what I'm guessing but the media is not covering it accurately. There is some issue and I came from The Economist cuz I have their get their newsletter and on May 16th Wednesday, they sent out a bulletin and I was going to read this today and I'm going to read this and then I want to play The Next Step from n
G and I wanted you to try to find me in this report, which was yesterday or this was Friday. So this is like two days later find any mention of what I'm about to redo you. Okay, North Korea now so that it was canceling high-level touch with the South it also threatened to pull out of a summit with America the reasons that cited by the way, they cancel both the talks which are the ones for the peace agreement and and and the meeting the reason sides were long scheduled military exercises between America and South Korea.
Yeah, are we doing that Erica's insistence that it must unilaterally for now. The argument is a well we've already talked about they were going to still do these exercises. But North Korea says yeah you were going to do them, but now you're bringing in all the stealth bombers and you're going to practice a decapitation and I'm sorry, so
well, that's not very nice. That's what not very neighborly of us know not very neighborly at all. And I don't even know if Trump knows this is going on. But meanwhile, they're not going to even mention this on the mainstream media and I think that it was a mistake that the economist pushed it out there because I don't think they want us to know this. So let's play the NBC version of the story which has no mention of this any of this after weeks of parents over whether that face-to-face meeting between President Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong on will even happen at all North Koreans are barking over demands about their nuclear weapons program president Trump is not backing down NBC's Peter Alexander now has the latest thank you very much. It's like the summit and we haven't seen anything. We haven't heard any
Yeah, we will see what happens that will be all and make you a one-sided demand National Security advisor to the president. He's going to run this the way he sees fit. We're one hundred percent confident North Korea's Defiance dancer steps including
Please you last week but experts warned Kim jong-un's gamesmanship looking for maximum Leverage is nothing new to our freedoms are very good at surprising us. But if we had any sense of History, we would have understand that this is a page for their sentencing.
Yeah, American citizens are now first of all pushing these two stories into each other which chickenshit which is typical ABNB so cuz it didn't have anything bad to say. They don't mention the fact that they're still going kind of ahead as scheduled even though it was kind of pushed at the beginning of that story, but they bring in the guy was says, oh this is nothing news the North Korean Playbook, even though we're the one driving them to to this Playbook is our Playbook more than it is there it seems to me and then they call it a summit standoff adding some sort of drama to assault. I run guys had a little time because they've done all the Stormy Daniels.
Sakai wrong so they needed a new slogan and it's it's the summit standoff good work Kyron department. And then we have this bolt in character shouldn't even be in that job. He's got to be he's got to be in there to get kicked out or something. Well, he's going to get kicked out but he's just stood for the neocons and he drops his little gem and there we all knew that it was and I hate to use the word. I'm going to start using it we knew it was a dog whistle this idea of oh, yeah, just like we did with Libya Brian Libby was the biggest double-cross. The West has ever pull on any of these countries, you know suckering keeping his best buddy and then all of a sudden, you know,
Just brutalizing. I'm in the streets and you know murdering. I mean this I mean that is the land of confirmed that it is we came we saw he died good work, So there was no this is really this is a there's something off here with this little story and they're dealing with the neocons in particular and I think and obviously the industrial military industrial complex does not want this to happen on our seeing evidence of the only to kill sales of armaments. Yes, and I'm pretty sure that in the more I listen to you and and those clips and this is obviously the the media making this tension, you know, not dissimilar to what have we seen. Oh, yeah. It's the poll numbers Democrats are not as far ahead as they thought keep watching for updates. You know, it's just it's all the same and so they can't Young.
On his press Department gave one statement and quite honestly, even the way Trump started off by saying and if I don't like what else see I walk from the table. So the guys that well we don't like it. We're going to walk from the table more or less.
It's kind of the same thing. We're not going to they don't give us what we want weird. Of course, so the cockfight big deal. But what I'm looking for is are we seeing elements from the intelligence Community or from the Pentagon who are actively undermining with the same with the same message. I have not seen that yet. Then we'll know you would expect them to want to do that.
They're the ones that don't don't really want this to happen. So I would think that put their Stooges in I haven't seen him really. It's just a lot of people who just talk.
I roller personally. Well not dissimilar and boy, I think we nailed it with the opening of the embassy in Jerusalem. I was questioning why am I seeing the Palestinians on TV the at the in Gaza and fighting and burning tires for two weeks and you never see it it hasn't been on for a long time and then all of a sudden the Rams. Oh, yeah, of course the embassies opening and yeah every news report every publication to New York Times. Here's people dying. Here's the Ivanka tears people use an old lady covered in dirt throwing rocks at heavily-armed IDF. And here's Jared and Ivanka. I mean, come on.
That was that was I mean, I don't care who you do that too. That was just mean the less list. I have a two clips. Okay, but you got well, first of all, I got a clip from some guy. He was on CNN or MSNBC. This is the I can't remember this guy, but he was just some black guy and he was his the guy on Hamas again dog whistle CNN and this I just want to be with to hear. This has been floating around this little guy that sucked about the desks and he blamed it on Trump, of course foreign policy is generating uncertainty deep uncertainty, right that is testing the Congress.
The House and Senate are going campaigning on right now. They need to campaign on domestication where they have a stamp. So while Donald Trump is doing this and may look for a deflection. It's not necessarily going to help the midterm. Hold of important a little babies are dead. People are dead. I did and we're talking about racehorses. So I mean the politics I mean a lot of folks were dead today for what I'm sorry. This is me being a moralist. I understand the White House today their response to that was it is his fault and they're using them as tools for for propaganda flexing the children and The Children's March of Birmingham. Loop was their fault the bull counter-attacks.
Cool, who is this guy? I don't know. I forgot his name. I didn't write it down. I made a mistake but it's just this kind of near false equivalency. Bull Connor didn't kill a bunch of babies and how many babies were killed. They were these are the people that were attacking the Border were their babies. They're attacking the Border. I mean this whole thing is just like completely Twisted. It's almost sickening of these people now, let's listen to Richard Engel who is Astra that intelligence community. And when I hear this report, I would say that I don't know if it's the works for CIA or if he works for I don't know who he works for CIA is my suspicion based on his you know, when he was asked during that year. I remember when Feinstein was being spied upon by the agency when she was trying to do this towards your report and she did the torture report and if they wanted to release it to the public and then Richard Engel was one of the guys no, no, no, you shouldn't do it. I actually pay attention to all the guys.
She said they shouldn't do it. Those are all people that are on the payroll you need it would be illegal according to the Cuomo kid for you to read it. It's only for news people. And so the point is is that if you're a news person
Why would you want to repress anything that is of interested that that can help you develop new stories? Why would you be against Wikileaks? If you're a news person? Why would you be honest if you're a news story called they were all for Wikileaks when Snowden was out there and everyone thought it was great. But then when it started doing stuff that turned out to be favorable to Trump people started to hate Wikileaks. That's what happened. I remember how politics that one element didn't play but now they were totally he leaves but but going back to the Feinstein documents y as a newsman would you say it's not it shouldn't be really because he's probably in the document will Engel is really sitting there. He's just getting gas. He's pulling one of those. I forgot it the guy that used to be on CNN with it when Bush senior was bomb and the Rockies and he was the roof and he's done. Oh, yeah. He had the helmet on he was the one his phone.
And the phony studio in the basement. Yeah. Yeah, someone Israel will know and used to be the rocket jockey or so. They had some nickname for him cuz it hunk and Geraldo some other guy. He's long gone Richard Arnett. I know Richard wasn't Richard are Peter or now. You don't I mean he told British guy. Anyway, this thing goes like being gassed and he has to do the report and put on the gas valve. Yeah last time we were all this and then it's a very end of this report. He's visibly angry about the fact that the Palestinians are getting gas and shot at
And I don't know what he wants for the alternative. Does he want the Palestinians to invade Israel? I don't know what the alternative to this is, but he he's irked by the whole thing display this dork new fall out this evening for most deadly clashes between his rally forces and Palestinians protesting the opening of the new US Embassy in Jerusalem that region already on edge.
In Gaza angry funerals today till 7:16 to keep you never knew when cats are not letting up city is there is out no condition that President Trump is an Arbiter for the peace process. They're considered the peace process.
Without for negotiated seized extremist have a free hand to fuel Palestinian anger the leader of Hamas which one is militant supporters. Text Richard. Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. I fix the report for them to did you hear that fixed a little bit.
No, sorry. No, I fix this report. Yeah, I had this this bid here or at hand to fuel Palestinian militant supplies.
You've been like to see if he could have done that why they're doing fan. And now he didn't sweeten. It not asked the number of our producers living in his really a couple of nights there, you know since the feedback about the media and how the you know, what is going on why why all of this all of a sudden and I did well, I got the different stuff from Sir Brian of London, but sir, Jonah Elder of Zion I said, hey, okay, I'll answer your question. I like it best when you guys don't talk about Israel, but obviously anything I say on the subject is very biased. I am unapologetically a Zionist and supporter of my country. I wouldn't have immigrated here from Australia and stayed thirty years. If I wasn't I don't think we are perfect. But I also think we are often unfairly maligned in the media. I believe it was John C. Dvorak one said something like this and I think it was quite accurate quote the media is
Controlled by self-loathing Jews. Love you guys at Sergio. Now, that's the best. I don't I don't recall you actually saying that precise like that, but I'll take credit for anything. That's good. Yeah, so that would be it then.
I need is some truth to that. And with that I'd like to thank you for your car. Just say in the morning to you John deceased as far can I get an array Dvorak and the money to you? Mr. Anime in the morning all ships in the ground feet in the air Subs in the world name is nice out there in the morning to the troll room No Agenda stream., I had a thought the other day and you have some people upload the show to YouTube. They'll take the recording. Yeah, I think it would be if you're going to do that. Anyway, why don't you do a screen recording synchronized with the show of the troll room?
That's an idea. I mean, I've seen it before it's not like it's really hard to do. Just do a screen grab without rolling by you can actually see how much information comes from the troll room.
Which is more than than people think probably they're very helpful.
I think that's great idea. Well, of course you would be a good idea. Can you use your the podfather? Yes disputed now at times disputed but okay also want to say in the morning to Nick the rat. He brought us the artwork for episode 1033 the title that was Swagger and Nick knows he's been around for a long time with the show. So he knows on Mother's Day. We just want a big heart that says mom in it.
And he was right. That's exactly what we wanted and it turned out beautiful very happy with it.
Yeah, it stands out know what you're not out Yes, No Agenda are generator.com. We appreciate all the work that artists do and I'm telling you. It makes a difference for the show. If you use any type of certainly the new will the iPhone app, but I think overcast does it as well. You see a whole bunch of shows and then all of a sudden your eye falls aren't oh, wait a minute that's different cuz it's a different piece of artwork unlike the rest which remains pretty static either throughout the show's lifetime or change, you know, sporadically, I think it entices listening. I'm very grateful for it. So no agenda are generator.com. Thank you Mark. It looks very slick. When you go to the Roku No Agenda. Oh, you got a channel there, right? There's two things one that you can click on streaming and a blast this dream or two. You can click on the show and it shows the show is it has I think I have about two old shows and each one with the different parts very attractive.
Is it come swap in up at you different art? Oh, yes on the Roku interface out of look good. I'll check it out.
Okay. Well, let's tank if you feel for being executive and Associate executive producers.
Show 1034 I believe that's number came back and Pennsylvania. It's 550 $550 or a PA. It could be anything finally breaking my donation absence after the unbelievable BOGO night episodes. I had to sit three don't do anything.
You got triggered by Eric's half-price rings and I had to send my silence and at least the fury within before are named cancer, before Aaron military needs needs cancer, before Erin need cancer, Okay idea Knighthood is a special one.
I know I remember this. We we you actually had emailed his wife complained. Yeah, he has a complaint his complaint was he felt that are buy one get one off which was not entirely that but it was you know, if you donated it would count double towards a Knighthood on our tenth anniversary. He felt that that was a rip-off and we sold out we sold out. I'm not quite sure to whom as you pointed out. I asked him a letter to we sold out. We saw at The Who and then he said something back that had nothing to do with that question. I said again we sold out we saw The Who and he still hasn't responded to that that I know of I may have maybe did I didn't hear it, but he I still on who we sold out to. I think he just wanted to air his grievance and and if you send us a donation with as executive producer go for it. Yeah, you can grieve all you want or even Saul you also thinks we're splitting well over seven figures.
Yeah, maybe in the next life. When is the event to a person showing Beyond human support for a monarch or had been here for longer available. Now if you're skiing or answers giving out knighthoods to coupon Cutters and stable boys doing happen to scrape up enough change to turn in with his stamp book. He's been filling it is very insulting to everybody took part in the 10th anniversary celebration. I will say but we thank you for your $550. Thank you for your courage and I hope everything gets better here. Is your requested F cancer Karma.
Can you Scott, Henry Cunningham $333.33 in the morning John and Adam? It's been a while but the donation should bring me the night. Wooden if you're still offering to throw in the extra penny and I think I got one here from Philly. I don't have a roll of quarters in my pocket last I donate it was back in 2016 to bully add him into giving going on the night attack show with the jury and salty touch would seems that bush would seems that it was a success that you did go on the show. I do wanting to a recent broadcast. They have to move to a larger space because of all the weed on the show Yeah. I broke their Studio that reference to the episode reminded me that I had become a douchebag when that Donut for nearly two year old boy.
This indeed brings a nice status. I'd like to be knighted at act night the night attack night who might attack night attack nice light in life. I look forward to that Henry. We shall makes you so good, sir. Thank you for your support.
I wasn't ready. You never really haven't been ready recently for these guys Thomas Nussbaum don't know my trailer dental and then finally, okay the final one that answer. Yeah, and that's bomb. That's Mom. What more do you want Virginia Beach, Virginia $314.59 when you put radius, I'm driving from Virginia to st. Louis love and light. I was in kisses finish antibiotics, even those symptoms do not persist. Okay, you do the same sir, Nussbaum one of our big
Big supporters here on the Shelf. We don't drive and text not as soon as $33.34. This should bring me the Knighthood. If all is well, please the, commemorative Lee night me as Sir 10:34 for sure 10:34. Okay, keep it up Jen. She's got the accounting. I messed up my notes ending for the 10th anniversary and didn't feel like pestering you about it. Thanks for keeping it Anonymous though this year donation should at least bring me over Canadian Knighthood, which in turn makes you feel less cheap have a listing today. So you're good to go and thank you.
And then another anonymous from Denver Colorado comes in with two hundred bucks. I all Anonymous from Denver who loved the show of course. So here's a couple hundred that I owe Nando's.
A couple of Hondo's Yeah couple of hundreds that I we should all use Hondo. I hope will be spent on booze Mike, to your last segment on furry kids in urban Millennials is pretty on point. But let's not forget that men are putting off children because they're putting off marriage read here is high and budgets are tight. Not to mention the dating scene in the city is bizarre and off-limits to Any Man Who Dares not declare himself up fam and he'll wait a minute who's fault. Is it then the men?
I don't believe it's them installed. It shouldn't have to declare themselves any time. I am myself. You're not a feminist. I'm not going to date you loser.
Is that is that an Android phone or an Apple phone an Android? You're a loser? No, no. No, I heard if if one of the universities if you have if you don't have an iPhone people wonder if you're on welfare, yeah. Yeah, if your text shows up in green instead of blue, you're clearly a loser. We talked about this about two years ago when the the Millennials in the house here mentioned that they can't you can't get a date in San Francisco unless you use it unless you show an iPhone a car. I mean the ain't got no money.
Yeah, I think it's I think it's bogus. I think it's probably true. But I think it's a bogus. That was very bugs or a minute but it says it determine it is a terrible thing. It's materialistic and very shallow. Even that start with Nike. What is the one that the real rage over?
Cheap items made in China over with a brand logo when I think he's probably the progenitor of it sure. I mean the other the thing I always buy tennis shoes that are comfortable and sit. Well, yes different has to be reboxed in my case. We just given up on the Speedos.
Knows I don't wear Speedo. I wear Speedos Crocs. Yeah, hold on. Hold on a second 10 years. I finally say Speedos instead of Crocs.
Cuz whenever I would say Crocs you would say their Speedos now I say Speedos and now you say know the Crocs. No I said they're essentially yeah. Well, okay. Never mind. I don't get where those anymore they when they went out of style. Yes, they went out. Okay, this is Nick tasted a smart man only has a child with a woman he married and thanks to Tinder and whatever dating apps. There aren't a lot of learned a lot out here looking to settle down with all of this uncertainty is only natural for her to forgo baby-making to your thirties at the earliest enter dog children. Also pay attention to Colorado is HP 108-101 and just passed and now marijuana companies can finally have ownership from entities based outside of the states. This is a
Huge is huge and going to result in nice Pages for many in the industry that got in on the ground floor, finally. So, how about some jobs cover for my Colorado MMJ peeps? No Jingles needed. Do you got it odd jobs jobs and job. That's low for jobs you Scott, By the way, the name you were looking for earlier was Arthur Kent also known as the scud stud. Yeah. This guy does good. That was the yes. Yeah. He's lucky duck. And he's he's looking left. He's looking right shooting at him. Do we we need to be prepared? I think we'll have to be doing more of our our little facsimile bits.
Where are you? I'm out in the field putting on my my gas mask. Yeah, stay tuned.
It happened. Anybody want to think along I was yeah, that was it. I was hung around for a for a nice long winter's nap. No such luck to associate executive producers and one two three the execs and thank those folks for helping make the show work. Thank you very much and will be thinking more people who came in fifty dollars or above in the second thank-you segment and this is our value for Value model. You can just listen to the show do whatever you want. If you want to support us go to Dvorak dot org and a another show coming up on Sunday with your chance to do that. Org slash and in the meantime.
I've got an interest couple of interesting little stories that revealed kind of maybe some changes in the way things are going to be the way we're going to be told things. Okay. We had a bombing in Southern California where yes, I believe somebody's somebody who hated this woman who ran a studio it wasn't like what kind of Studio he was like an exercise plays young and so give me some background was anyone cuz this really didn't make the media was killed and by three other people were injured by a bomb. Okay, we don't know who did it know, they think it was the ex boyfriend, but they can't prove that so they don't know right now. Okay, they'll figure it out maybe but let's just listen the way the stories presented cuz I got some stuff here those kind of interesting. So this is the bombing in SoCal kill people this the first let make sure I got the right one here.
That was thank you and tonight to the explosion inside a building in chaotic scene cooling 8:40 our packages blow up randomly. And this this genius says we think it was caused by a device. Yeah, which I find was kind of interesting.
Let's go to clip to at this point Ferry is this caused by a device storage liminary indicators are that the device inside a package that was dropped off at the business at this time. We do not know how the how the device arrived at the location the Black Killing krajnak and injuring three other one hundred children evacuated from a daycare across the street babies wheel to Safety in their cribs.
I know that's another little the little clue, but let's play clip 3 and I want you to identify what has me very concerned told us they do not believe there's a possibility of any other devices at this point.
They do not believe there's a possibility for any other devices at this point and she didn't answer it. No, I didn't it was an important. Okay dancer was no, right.
What's your concern? My concern is the sudden use of the word device instead of bomb. If you listen to this entire record, it was no never bomb the word bomb was never used that as started with a package that blew up her.
And then it became the device a device a device. It was a device. Yeah, I never bought you compare that to the way they talk about rifles and just you have a rifle not a rifle. It's in a saltwater. How about even the the bombs that exploded in Austin those we're called bombs? Yeah, the bomb is out.
The word bomb in his entire report. It was a bomb. Yeah.
The word bomb was never used one. In fact the word device kind of underplays the destruction of it.
Yeah, it's a device is a dildo. That's that's a toy John. That's not a device. That's a choice the vice. There's a lot of devices out here. I mean all kinds of devices. The computer is a device a printer device. Everything is out anything that has mechanical workings is a device to me a bomb is not a device. It's a it's a bomb but I give you yeah, I give you a complete to give you points for that good catch and I was listening to you already mentioned again. Well, but now when they keep doing it that is interesting. The bomb is out. Well understand. Why is that it's all part of disarming the country, you know, there's no no, no just don't draw attention to the fact that people can make bombs and they're a little more deadly generally speaking cuz they're so Random then and assault weapon.
Keep an eye out for that little I like that. Yeah, I get it starts up with a package that blew up here. Oh, yeah package blew up. Yeah, they had to happen. I had a package blow up.
Yeah, you got the Trump rotation there in front of the list. I don't it's okay, but I have to have the new there the list with the new one on it picked up an addition kind of an expansion of one of the the Trump rotation memes which was on NPR Senator Mark Warner was speaking and I'm just going to let this play it's about a minute-and-a-half and you'll you'll hear it pop up when it happens and you would hear how they're addressing these standard analysis of Putin's motivation is that he really couldn't stand Hillary Clinton. He saw Bill Clinton as the man who helped expand NATO and he saw Hillary Clinton has the Secretary of State in couraging anti-putin anti-regime protests and so on but what could possibly be the motivation to want to have Donald Trump president, by the way, I think that's a nice question finally from NVR say so well if this guy's unhinged
Why did Putin want him to win master of chaos Russians? There you go. I talked right over it.
But what could possibly be the motivation to want to have Donald Trump president? The master of chaos Russians are rushing for Auntie chaos these not. It's not just chaos John. He is the master of chaos master of chaos. That's what I can I will put we got chaos is on the list. I will put master of in parents next to it. I think it's important because this may come back because this chaos is throughout this whole report but it all comes from the master of chaos, which I guess is just something he does natural history of chaos Russians are Russians are antique chaos. That's that's certainly characteristic of Putin Auntie chaos anti-revolutionary. Why want Donald Trump as president United States?
Well, I think there are some people that have made guesses Matt area and I'm not going to get into get into questions around finances around there's certain people have asserted. So he's assertion is they've got the screws on them cuz the money all right Senator Warner but I have an order is the worst. He's one of the real bad Stooges. They might be beholden to Russia. I'm again, there are are stories on those accounts. But again, I'm not validating or invalidating anything until we're finished with the investigation, but there's obviously been press speculation, but the thing I would might disagree with you on your premises you
I don't think the Russians were necessarily Pro one party or another by any means but they see the chaos in the west is good for Putin both in terms of reasserting Russia's attention and also pointing out to their own his own people. Look see how these democracies they're not really functioning that well and if you want America's democracy not function that well to bring in somebody with mr. Trump's unusual style. And if you see the kind of chaos and dysfunction that's happened since that time I would argue with their goal was to few further Splinter America pretty good investment on the ruble my goodness.
So Putin, he somehow knew the Trump would just cause chaos. So that's why that's why he wanted him.
Okay, and brother Master of chaos, like mess your kids. So here's Tucker on hedis guys. I got to Tucker Clips. I'm sorry for that. But I do one of them he drops the ball completely on it on the on the topic. But this one here, he's discussing the Russia assertions basis this little segment on the fact that the Daily Beast I believe for one of those online news magazines says that the Democrats never wanted to discuss Russia ever and so he thought he'd mock that for good seeing as Democrats enemy in the world.
Democratic what you really wanted to talk about with the issues. You didn't really want to talk about Russia. You just happen to talk about it non-stop for here. Nobody's going to believe that because it's a lie. Well, it's the until I saw the segment. Yeah. Well, I dropped the ball on this could be a it should have had part one of the one with I had it I had I don't know why it's not here with all the bits. Yeah, that is a bit. That's what I put for somehow I screwed up to. Okay, nevermind. Now, let's go with this though. This is more interesting. This is Tucker dropping the ball on what I consider to be the most under-reported started. Annie reporter could just have a ball with if they really wanted to do anything but nobody's doing anything and he doesn't even care on top of it. So Russia Russia investigation the key aspect of it the Russia troll indictment. It's now being turned into an opportunity for the Russian intelligence operations to go on in federal court and demand evidence for Mister Miller.
About what they have on Russian intelligence operations mainly intervention in our elections. What is this asked how quickly but I mean correct me if I'm wrong the whole point it but independent counsel is to assure the rest of us that the investigation is on the level that is not tainted by potential conflict given that why didn't Mueller try harder to at least seem bipartisan maybe hiring one registered Republican ads in the Vesta Gator. He didn't bother to do that.
Isn't isn't giving Mulder Republican, but he might be but that's beside the point. She was handed this little story which nobody's picking. I mean couple of talk show guys to talkin about it, but the troll indictment it turns out and of course he didn't even hear this with the guy just said, I don't know if anybody did but the troll indictment it turns out that the troll Farmers decided to fight it so they're coming over here. Yeah, man. Are you sure are you sure I have heard this and has been reported very I did a bunch of different groups and one of the groups is coming over but it's the one it's not the troll Factory. It's another one but it doesn't matter not one of them are calling the justice department on it and they said well, we need six months to get everything ready cuz they indicted without thinking that would ever show up exactly. They indicted without thinking anybody was going to show up her fight. It was just it was a it was an indictment for show it was they look at this. We're in dining.
Is Russian so I guess it can't come over to fight the indictment. We're just at the you know, give him find him guilty. But at the court level know they're coming over to fight which means now the justice department and the and molars group has to provide documentation. So they're going to just get Discovery on these guys. They don't have time for this. You know, they don't want it but this is like a huge story cuz it's an amazing embarrassment for the for the whole operation this whole Rush investigation. They're going to fight it they're going to find it going to come over and fight it. Yeah Tucker's just let's just slide right by well, he's busy man other things to do busy to talk about that. He was prepping for his Thursday night quiz with the other anchors.
Yeah, well, I have heard this and I'm not sure where I heard it but they will be interesting because they're not playing it out. Nobody wants wrong alone deal. Hello. Oh my God. What do we do now? How do we play this? We don't know let's not do a report on it. That's like this other story. Although it wasn't Rolling Stone magazine this I thought this was pretty outrageous. So there was they one of these antifa rallies. There was this guy who wall up some kid with a bike lock, you know a U-shaped bike lock and he goes. Oh, yeah, he cracked his skull turns out will the internet went to work for Chen. You know, really I guess they were able to do better than Special Victim Unit CSI, whatever but they were able to figure out who the guy was turns out. He's a professor.
Hold on. Let me see. Where is he from? What school is he from?
Not just a professor keys in ethics Professor who taught philosophy and critical thinking at Diablo Valley College in the East Bay suburb of Pleasant Hill. That is that's who's out there track and skulls as part of an accounting professor. How about that? Well, I think that's big news.
But no I didn't is local news, and I never heard this story.
Then I got to pick up this this clip from Rachel Maddow, which I you know, I'm watching MSNBC it Rachel matter is pretty hard to watch like a very hard to wash it never gets to a point. You know, she's always like everything's the cheese and everything is a long story and she's always so anxious. She's just culture creep special. She's this, you know, she's not she's she's she's in your face of that kind of a creepy She's creepy. What is what is the definition of unctuous? I like the war unless look you down goes read it from we did from the from the thing from the thing Oh, you mean the Book of Knowledge?
Monkeys, are you in spell it to UNC ious? Unk's know you UNC.
Okay, she's ingratiating. It was flattering. She's obsequious finding just fining fonder Valley. All right servile. Yeah, she's got it's just crazy crushing there at his gushing. Well, that's what I think as I should use. She's she she got these guys. She's you know, she's to creep come from okay, she had on Professor Jed Sugarman and this story is it's a little hard to follow which is typical Rachel Maddow the idea is that there was a deal done and again to benefit the Trump Empire in this case Jared and
The going to explain how Qatar was the roped into this scheme where Jarod ultimately would wind up with hundreds of millions of dollars in loans that he needed for some reason estate property, but there was another company mentioned in here which really made my ears perk up and we should see if we can detect what's going on here. So there are a lot of moving Parts on this timeline and it's true cutter keeps popping up various weird moments along the story. So let's start really briefly with the Steele dossier. Okay alleged that there was going to be a plan to sell 19% of this giant oil company that Russia does the state oil company and to still 19% and generate commissions to pay off the Trump people know with the Trump people. The only time I've heard of this we actually last on It
Because it was alleged The Carter page was going to get the the commission from this 19% sale of rosneft.
So so there's you know, there's your there's our point of reference is that we we know this this did come up in the Steele dossier as in this was with Carter page was going to get I think before even worked for the Trump organism campaign, but now we find out according to this professor that it was intended for the Russians to give this money to April to pay off everybody in the Trump campaign. I supposed to lower the sanctions oil company and to sell 19% and generate commissions to pay off the trunk people as a quid pro quo for lifting sanctions. So then jump to after the election December 2016. First of all, you've got Kushner and Flynn trying to set up the secret line with the Kremlin on December 1st, then December 7th. This is the key event Qatar and another company called glencore from Switzerland. They actually go
Go ahead and buy 19.5% of that Russian company rosneft. I found this is why I was interested glencore isn't that Marc Rich's old company before he kicked the bucket. That sounds like it was yes. That's what I'm thinking too, which is a complete Clinton operation then yeah totally Clinton. So now I'm thinking hold on give me a collision there seems to be a plan that is connecting the dots and then one month later we get the Steele dossier that that shows that this is this this plan was coming together. It turns out when that purchase was made we didn't know it was cut it was only revealed later. My speculation is that cutter was in on this deal to be the intermediary between Russia and Trump they needed a way to get that money to the Trump World. But then once the dossier it gets published in January Qatar gets cold seats. Okay. Okay, then when they
For backing out there is a gulf crisis with the Saudi Arabia and with the United Arab Emirates and the reporting it is allegedly Kushner. Try to escalate that crisis. That's April. Then you have the coup that what
how does he what kind of powers does he have to do that like the Rubicon Steven over there? I'm Jared Kushner. I'm going to make everybody pay for this mess. This guy can't draw the conclusion that glencore's involved. This was actually a Clint in operation. Thank you. How come you can't do that? How does all of a sudden Trump get associated with Marc Rich's glencore? Well, if he's very interesting that the FBI released I haven't read it yet a whole bunch of papers about Bill Clinton's pardoning of Marc rich
The minute this news breaks. I just thought that was coincidental. I don't know why all of a sudden the FBI does that why do why all of a sudden do we have this information about Bill Clinton and his pardon of Marc Rich of glencore could be related. I don't know and the reporting it is allegedly Kushner. Try to escalate that crisis. That's April Daniel. Stop. Stop stop.
He makes he uses the word allegedly in properly. He says the reporting was alleged. The reporting is recording or reporting. Yes. You're right. I don't know what he's talking about his early. So he's pretty control. He's unhinged when they get start backing out. There is a gulf crisis with the Saudi Arabia and with the United Arab Emirates and the reporting it is allegedly Kushner. Try to escalate that crisis. That's April. Then you have this these Qatari officials trying to get back in the good graces with people like Bannon and eventually several months later. Finally. There's a 184 million dollar loan that cutter backs to give to Kushner. So my speculation is that this deal was in place cutter plays an intermediary role and December then it gets published they freak out and then ultimately when
The screws are turned bathe and deliver alone. I mean I thought I was crazy man. That's off the hinges wild while she's just sitting there with her funky self. Yeah gushing going God. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that one looked at recording is always sure but you know, that's their truth. You can't stand the middle of it. It's just it just it's not possible. We broken truth. That's what's happened. Here. We have we broken it broken truth.
Yeah, somebody broke it. I don't think we did the apparently the the guy who stole the
CIA hacking tools. Oh, yeah, the tools actually having it wasn't wasn't the nsa's hacking tools. I don't remember whose tools they were I think don't remember so I'll look it up and see if I can figure it out. Apparently a former CIA employee.
I was now currently being held in Manhattan jail on unrelated charges G. You know, what happened to this guy? So they they're accusing him of of stealing the hacking tools and then all of a sudden he's in jail on charges of possessing receiving and transporting child pronography. Yes. He had a server years of Washington Post headlines suspect in Major League of CIA hacking tools. I thought it was only a hacking. Okay now adults seven of WikiLeaks. Yeah.
Well seven. Yes, that's it. I thought that was an estate. But anyway and everything. I'm looking at a whole I saw CIA Dennis is good to go know they were making tools or index know there was a huge story in the New York Times about the nsa's hacking tools being stolen. Okay while they could be wrong. They read jiggered the story. So it doesn't matter cuz the guy is Katie porn all we need to know man, you know, you keep saying the White House is bugged.
Oh, yeah, I got to think you're really right about this and this the story about actually it was in New York New York Magazine Donald Trump and Sean Hannity like to talk before bedtime. And it's it's his whole typical New York Magazine very long story about how Trump you know after you've done it seven he goes up, you know separate room Alani is not even near him. She sleeps in a separate bedroom and he calls Sean Hannity after show he gets up in the morning. I know exactly what he's doing know exactly what he's saying.
This camp. This is not just some leak. I'm with you now. I'm with you now. There's definitely something bugged the whole place is does detail. Is this pretty amazing? I'm not saying it's not drink more than one agency. That's a joke of it's probably two or three guys and they better keep looking. This is a roll of grey Vans in front of the White House pay attention to us. We're just hanging out here Wi-Fi FBI surveillance and one of those again, yeah. See I've got we did. Oh, yeah, this is back. We've actually just took place yesterday. Do we Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan says a vote on a measure to reinstate net neutrality rules could come as soon as Wednesday the regulations that required internet service providers to treat haul web traffic equally will end in June after an FCC repeal hasn't met yesterday with new hampshire-based organic yogurt.
Stonyfield Farm to hear concerns the end of net neutrality could affect small Dairy Farmers in the region who are operating. I'm pretty small margin sounded even more to get the kind of speed on the internet that they need to be competitive. This could really be debilitating to them during from thousands of constituents who are in support of restoring net neutrality. I mean, I thought I heard all the examples. You got me on this one as I restore wipe think of the Dairy Farmers. Yeah, I think of the dairy front registering what nothing has changed there was no net neutrality. No. No, they want to restore it. Oh, okay. I'm all in on that one. Yeah, they should restore it you're referring to was the fact that nothing was ever implemented in everything just hobbled along quite nicely. Thank you very much. Yeah, there's never nothing was ever established. It was never established. I just love the the dairy farm.
You know, they're going to get screwed over net neutrality cuz they can't.
Function fast enough. I don't know what they can't maybe the cow milking machines are all the remotes in my remote. I don't what are they doing? What do they make any sense is the stupid story, but it's not just a story. There's a representative in the story.
She's bringing it. She's bringing the Dairy Farmers. Don't worry. I'm going to save you will get net neutrality on track and you'll you'll flourish. Yeah, it's just an anti Trump story. So it is so I have a couple of Clips just play. Well. First of all, let's get one news story out of it was the 500 million dollar Michigan State one. Yeah settlement. Wait a minute this this 334 women. I believe in Boston. They're all going to get over a million dollars at least and
Pretend the problem and the story goes away. What do you think about this? Well, I'll play the whole story then I'm going to still ask this question. What do you think? It is about this story that has me perturbed, but you have to settlement half a billion dollars for hundreds of young women many of them gymnast who say they were targeted by a predator doctor a man. They trusted to take care of him and these and Thompson has details in the new payout from Michigan State University is the paint experience flashbacks Nightmares of the abuse Detroit Michigan State University to reach a half billion dollar settlement with 332 women who say they were sexually abused by dr. Larry Nassar former employee Masters victims overwhelmingly young female gymnast. We're in after I hate you like 15 year old, and Miller. I'm just glad that I'm a few is finally starting to work.
With us tonight against us for my sister survivors. I'm just hoping that this will bring them some peace other women say they told the university about Nasser as far back as Twenty-One years ago, but in the survivors will split 425 million dollars individual payouts to be determined by a mediator for victims who have yet to come forward MSU calling it responsible and Equitable having they are working every day to prevent sexual misconduct. But Rachael denhollander, the first woman to publicly accused Nasser in his statement says she's deeply disappointed at the missed opportunity for Meaningful reform at the University and I can test it lawsuits remain for the other groups Master worked with USA Gymnastics. The US Olympic Committee coach is Bella and Marta. Karolyi does the pain Money Can't Erase NBC News
Well, I did didn't bother me. But but there's just mm. Well first of all that the way the story goes it's almost as though they're just paying off a bunch of whores and it's just a million dollars to getting a lot of money for their sexual work. That's one of the things I think there's an undercurrent. Well, yeah, there's no other blow back against the school or any of the the people on that and then which is what one of the girls said and I think that's very important but would really kind of perturbs me just ignoring all the rest of it this public institution. They have a half a billion dollars to throw away on one of these in a situation like this and they're always begging for money and asking oh, you know, we need we need the alumni to step up and then this sort of thing happens, it would always bothers me this happens at the city level. It happens at the especially with taxpayer money this happens when you know, you have a corrupt police department and some guy, you know, it's just like a bad actor and then
City has to pay out 10 million dollars to some victim and the top goes away and gets a job someplace else. They make him pay.
Yeah, it's it's the same with the with the rules in Congress. They still never worked that out. Did they ever fix it? They have their say they sell know. Yeah, the US taxpayer is still paying when it Congressman does some some horn thing that it needs to be bought off. You have to pay someone off we're paying for that. What is the car has been paying for it this whole thing just bucks man. Cuz I have this University of California is over here and there, you know, they keep building new buildings and getting new buildings and new buildings. They keep building and building and building and then and then turns out that the gentle pot Napolitano was reported recently has a 184 million dollars slush fund. I can't be accounted for and there's nothing that's still nothing's coming back. That's California. It's a whole other country you live in some weird country might as well live in a Banana Republic with nothing by corrupt officials. I'm telling you man.
Do you well, I'm not going to say it anymore. Send them all here to Austin. So you'll be safe and I'll have to leave Austin then now the funny. Yeah, I keep saying it's ending with Austin now not to mention this kind of fleeing from problem areas. I want I have an interpretation of a story that really didn't get much play in American Media, but the Rockefeller David rockefeller's family sold off the entire nearly a billion dollars worth of Art in their Manhattan house compound. I was just one house, right? It wasn't the one who was their entire collection was just one house. Yeah. Well, it was a big collection though. It was Dave as collection. It was a monster but let's play just play the clip in that to tell you what I'm thinking the greatest maquis to come to Market in fifty years sold for over eighty million dollars and this Monet from the impressionist water lily series running more than
84 million dollars on the same night rental survey Geniuses up a single night or something. I never imagined don't happen their Fame and Fortune David and Peggy Rockefeller amassed. One of the greatest art Collections and filled their family homes with rare Treasures top lot was Picasso's Masterpiece young girl with a Flower Basket which hung for decades in the families New York Library dispatched 115 million dollars other highlights included this early portrait of George Washington and furniture and precious porcelain including an ice cream bowl that belong to Napoleon his high-profile sale attracted the biggest collectors and newcomers. It shows the continued strength of the Art Market, but also the enduring power of the Rockefeller name meta tell CBC News, New York. Well,
Okay.
I'm looking at this and I'm seeing that there's no reason to sell any of these pieces money laundering know they're get in cash. This is they could say they have different access to information that we don't have they see a bank account of a situation where cash is King and they take it heart is not and you know art is a boom-bust business it goes up. It goes down it goes up right now. If you have art, I'd sell it now unless you know you're waiting for I was thinking of selling the No Agenda our generator for that. Very reason get some cash. So this for you don't know when they are generator, of course, but we have it's just I'm just seeing this is all standard cache data cache was telling you that it's
Yeah, see and I see I'm seeing the Rockefeller family this part of the family at least jumping nearly a billion dollars worth of fantastic art which things keep going the way they're going should be worth twice as much in five years dumping it for cash, I'm just looking at that as as it's kind of a signal to maybe rethink your you remind me all the times. You keep telling me to sell my properties. Yeah, but it may be a time to start thinking about going, you know, well, do you do you think the property is in danger if they'll actually property property real estate real estate here is like a fixed amount of it and I don't believe it has the same, you know, it's not the same as as Bitcoin or stock Edwards a physical thing. It's a physical thing. It's like gold gold be another pause when you say cash like actual physical cash or just cash.
I'm thinking wow. Do you need me to put that into bonds or they may do something else with it? Obviously just did a bunch of cash, maybe not but they were definitely getting out of Art and going into what looks like a show. That's a big signal to the market. It's a big deal to me. I don't know but then already else played this at all. So you re aren't they sold? You've got heart.
Yeah, I do. I do. I don't have any of its a million dollars, but I have a couple pieces. I'm probably going to sell and I guess I'm lying that I'm going to sell. Oh man, but it's not that much.
I can't believe you're going to sell some wine before I've tasted it. I got a lot of wine to sell. I love that about you. You know, these collects art collects wine. Where's frocks? I mean, you're just an amazing man. Yeah, I got the crime and why don't you stop for one second while I go get the note from Anonymous who this should bring me tonight Hood as well or wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, very very rare know I get this while you're getting my oh you read you read this person. I would get to note from the okay the guy. All right. The first one we have is Zachary stanko.
Yes, no, no exactly Steve. I need to know hang I have my I have my Note 2. We both received a note and we got gift from Zachary. Haha. Yep, he told me was playing a lot of it. Yes. Do you crack pot in buzzkill now exactly by the way lives in Omaha Nebraska's and it's $150 for the show and they said any I got a nice care package the other day crackpot in both skill previously sent some Russian paraphernalia, including a 1936 Constitution and still get postage stamps of challenge coins plus a few other items. I found some more random items that they'll be fun to send to you to if we're Adam and I have received these and I love San Antonio pin, which is not something you wear in Austin, but I appreciate it state of Texas pin. Yep. 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games pen a brief Illustrated guide to understanding Islam, which I will be reading from this. It's a it's a very it's a small very fun book and
1996 MTV Video Music Awards swag bag watch which is great cuz we never got any of the swag. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, you always I got the same thing that we might list the second but when I was a PC Magazine and these other magazines zip code, they always have these legs that the swag guys they gave the people, but if you if you
If you work you you never get anything, that's like on the face bag MTV Alum group from time to time to go. Look I found all these watches from the video musical. Oh, look. I've got the leather jacket all that and these are all rain turns, you know, they're only like jerk-offs in the studio and they've got all the cool stuff that's ridiculous when he goes up for me. Send me a John F Kennedy pin oak noisemaker, which I'll bring up the ring to class next time. It's cheapest junk. You've ever seen tenet Healthcare Salvation Army Corps when it gets a quite a Desert Storm coin Teen Vogue Hillary. Is that how I got the team very strange. Yes. I'm not what you'd expect. Oh, okay. Very strange. Got Morgan Island. You got a lot more gifts. I got better to guess I think.
I got a 64 UC Berkeley pamphlet populism nostalgic or Progressive. This is more than a pan for this is a small publication. I have to read this will be good for the book. Now. The rest of the stuff is junk. There's a condom he does mention. He's got a shipping envelope for you to send the previously sent Baghdad airport challenge going to me. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, I don't remember this point. Okay, but I have all these coins. I'll look and see if I see a bag that challenge going I'll send it to you. Yes, then he worth cash one day. So I think so. I think what we should do because of all these little things took a lot of work to package this. I was confused that he sent me your stuff. I'm glad you got a note up him to associate executive producer for this show. Oh, okay. Good. We'll put them right there beautiful.
Thank you very much. And thank you for the for the check. This is fantastic. We eat again with my pin on.
John Coffey in Annandale Northwest Australia, the $120.12. He's got a birthday shout-out to his beautiful blonde princess Cheryl. Yeah, is it listed? Yes on the list. Oh, yeah.
Kyle Allen Owen man Armand in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 118:24 of goggle gokal, maybe in Fresno $101 Sir Mark Magpie. Oh my bio $100, even he needs an F cancer. We can do that at the end lost a friend.
Where's we don't know either by the way for people wondering what a challenge coin is. Why don't you explain it? Yeah this started I think really started in the military where your unit would have a coin and it's just the more the pretty of the coin looks the better and people would swap these out amongst themselves. But the original Mission is original intent was you would after you were in your unit and you went away you would keep this challenge coin and if you ever wand up in a bar with someone else from the unit or from the club or the group they could challenge you and you have to show your challenge coin. Whoever does not have the challenge coin has to buy the drinks. That is the way I understand the original challenge coin. And and I think that is the way is mostly purpose and we've had many of them just we don't have being being noisy as a salary didn't sell but we we had a bunch of people make them for Eric the shielded of two of them. We had crazy coins. I don't I have some of them. I don't even think I have all of the one
We're out there. Yeah, we got the Geocache coin at all kinds of stuff and then a bunch of you'll send the CIA coin. I don't know if I have the energy piggy bank to now that was a gift. Yeah that I didn't get one of those.
But yeah, that's what a challenge coin is and they're very collectible kind of I don't know if there's ever worth millions in cash one day. Yeah. Sure So Mad Hatter $100. He is a donation work you do. Okay. Wait, where are you? Oh you missed the whole bunch. And I said sure Magpie 100 bucks. And then I went to Sir Mad Hatter. How do I miss anybody? I thought you missed a portable go call in front. Oh, no, I said him. Okay. I'm sorry if I pronounce his last name two different ways.
Go Caldo, right? All right be 12:00. Sure Mad Hatter. She's there's anything in there. He's good. Thank you for your courage. She says Gerald Preston boob 808 there was a boob in there was actually a nice boob growing the newsletter in the newsletter one guy, maybe nobody caught it Baron Craig kuttner in Norwalk, Connecticut. 6969 bizarre Mad Hatter said one important task a belated. Happy Mother's day to day me my wonderful wife and he needs jobs, Okay. Yep. Got it. Good. Catch Baron Craig Cotner in Norwalk, Connecticut. 6969 Nicholas Wallace and Mom or mole.
Don't know which the probably moment could be. Mommy 6450.
All loving Mechanicsville, Virginia, the one that goes on the 95 the Minutemen donation.
So many men donation right sir, Robert Pinder 5510, sir, Luke bhairon of London 5330 Slammer belated Mother's donation know Dame bang bang. We don't hate you from Slammers for Andrew. Ladies Simona and master and must be some final Bill Johnson. Also 5130 great. Happy Mother's Day to my mom Betty Johnson. Also my wife Jennifer you never fully appreciate parents until the until you become one. Dogs are much easier for the dog a lot easier.
Kayla wood in Manchester New Hampshire 5130 and she has a something like that. When I first donated to Breanna made a comment about how awesome the nuclear nuclear family is AKA we listen to No, Agenda, except my mom try to hit her in the mountain today. She'll find they have to given with this donation. I love my Millennial stay woke and continue jobs cover for his both that she graduates with their masters next week. All right, come on doomed.
Keith Yarbrough and Austin, Texas down the street from you and fifty bucks and these are all $50 donors name and location if available for Eric Van Buren into the valley and Van Nuys Trevor Hoagland in Portland, Oregon Eric Mackay in Lawrenceville, Georgia, John Halloran, Missoula, Montana. I have Matthew Hardy and Gold Coast Queensland Chris Lewinsky sir, Chris Lewinsky to use Sherwood Park Alberta Micah Miller in Bethel, Pennsylvania, the John Camp in Antlers, Oklahoma Joel the ruin where I think it's a sir in, Savannah, Georgia.
I will let zanguzen in Bellevue Washington sore Jerry wingenroth in Saugus California that's concludes our list of of mentionable produces richoux 1034 want to think it each and every one of them and remember we got a show coming up on Sunday quickly. Yes, and we also want to thank everybody under $50 for anonymity reasons or maybe on that. One of our many programs. Also mention is most recent newsletter. I believe for the upcoming month will be promoting the our subscriptions which are great way to support the show. Again. It's a value for value proposition. You just send us whatever you think the show was worth that you have a good time. If not send nothing. It's very simple and remember us.
Before our son de Chao dvorak.org/na odd jobs jobs and job, that's low for job.
Scott
Karma we have Let's see. We have two knighting. So this is good if you could
You can put that you can put down the the recorder and get it grab your blade. Thank you.
You get your ring and they give you something to reach Witte.
and I apologize to him for that change and his peerage if you want to check out all the
and since we don't do much advertising, it's always fun to see what's going on with the world doing advertising.
the big up fronts are coming for the television networks. And The Upfront is where they try to do deals with big advertisers get him, you know giving great deals support the show so they can actually know if there's enough money to run the show and apparently all of the big networks are chopping their commercial time per hour some up to 50%
In order to keep the quote Millennials watching because the Geniuses at NBC and fox and ABC and CBS have decided that the reason why Millennials are not watching is because they're watching everything on the streaming services and don't mind waiting a week until it pops up on Hulu or or on the Amazon or on Netflix.
And I think this is I think this is very significant development. It's not like they're going to up their prices by 50% I presume.
I don't know. I found the whole thing battling battling.
Yeah, y baffling. I mean right from the get-go why Millennials don't watch T. Exactly. This has they should be doubling down. The only people who are watching T are well over 50. I think that's I mean except for the dwindling 1824 demo, but this gone you've lost it.
And it's these Geniuses think they can do it. They think they can recapture. I think they you know, they've lot of like we said on the show The Reason old people watch Network news is because Network news has ads for old people. It's compelling. So they've they've catered to old people because they want to sell these drugs. Obviously. They're charging top dollar for these ads and
They probably figure they can turn on a switch and all of Macaulay Millennial suddenly want to watch the news but I think they they let him slide for so long. I think you might be right they've lost and maybe offer it's going to take a lot. You know, there's an old rule of marketing. It's easier to keep a customer than to regain a lost customer or get a new one. Well, no getting a new one is easier. It's easier to get a new customer or regain or maintain a customer then regaining a loss customer. You lose a customer's the harder to get them back than anything else and they've lost his whole group. And the thing is it's a technological loss. I mean, when will they not see this or when will they see this?
It's it's it's purely the technology that is overruled them.
I mean, it's the same shows. Yeah, but they don't get that either but there seems to be some messaging going on a debt to this crowd and I want to play this clip cuz I've been carrying it for a while. This is the anti College message that all of a sudden is showing up on end. And this is an example Junior High marks on College Board what the seventeen-year-old says, she's better suited for something else for two-year technical programme to become a diesel mechanic and then try to push me towards of for your school. And you said not for me Raley's passion is fixing old cars. I like Puzzles. I like figure out where pieces test and I like taking things apart and figuring out how they work well with her now advising some students to think hard. It's a four-year degree is right for them 40% of those to enroll sale to graduate in six years.
Pretty pathetic in different jobs that don't require a bachelor's and 28% with a two-year degree more than the average college graduate in jobs, like computer programming an airplane mechanics things are good jobs about half of our labor market is jobs like this and it's kill jobs and many of them pay quite well disappointed at first but really as mother says she's not anymore. I said rather have her do something that she enjoys that she won't get tired of and be happy with her life. Really Nicholson has a large degree of confidence. I want to go sit in a classroom for another four years. I'm going to be out working. She's on the right track NBC News, Charleroi, Pennsylvania
On that very peculiar report. Well just is a follow up regarding the jobs. I wanted to get crab cakes the other day.
And there were no crab cakes and like you're broseph. What's up with your crab cakes? We won't have any until the end of next month at the earliest. I'm like what because you know, they make them at the supermarket and then I've had them before they're good. So why don't we don't have a lot of crab really?
And we also don't have certain nuts and certain fruits and berries like what's going on. This is Whole Foods, I'll point out. So what's going on will because of the actually the way it came out was well because of trump the H1 H2 be visas are being either slow down or held up and they they do not have enough workers to get these these particular jobs done that somehow deliver crab cakes and nuts and berries, and and I think it's there's even some striking going on this unionized stuff. And anyway, it's the bottle and we have to look into this. We need to know more but the bottom line is produce is not showing up because of immigration policy.
And I guess how jobs are distributed or what jobs people want to do.
Have you heard any of this? No, no, we get plenty of fruit and vegetables hear you guys lived there. That's where that's where it all is when you want me to move out. No send me some nuts. Katie Couric has a new show on MSNBC its really do is just have greater podcast. Well, she had to I mean they've they've lost their Superstars, you know, they lost Matt, you know, they they got to be careful what's going on there. Then they need some names and need some faces these things. So Starpower celebrties, and she's got this thing called.
And what is the name? Is it America inside out I think is the name of the show. It's a long form and she went to see what was going on with this concept of white privilege in colleges.
I'm going to do is I'm going to read a series of statements and the statements will ask you either move forward or move backward or something applies to you. I should say they're all standing side-by-side on a white line in an auditorium and they have to close their eyes while they do this and then any statement they agree with either walk forward one step if they agree or if they if it's not them or they don't agree step back. Please take one step forward if your parents told you you could be anything you wanted.
In your hands after we see members of your religion was unemployed. And then I'm going to ask you to open your eyes. You can look around the room now and Katie Couric up front right up. People are very, you know, like ten Paces behind her and I want you to think about how you're feeling right now. Okay, he was really and I love that Montage of the questions. He's kind of mix it all together, you know, did your ancestors here? Were they were here involuntarily? Yeah. So that's it you go your white privilege at work. Yeah. It is in a nutshell lyrics the worst immediately not people love Katie Couric.
Let's see pick this up on Jeopardy before after 2006.
here's the catch this up with something. I've been pet peeve of mine emerges from this clip pedestrian deaths. I wonder what it has anything to do with OTG the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released a new report this week showing an alarming rise in pedestrian deaths nearly six thousand people were heading killed my vehicles and 2016. That's a 46% jump since 2009 and the highest number since 1990 Chris Van Cleef look,
In March and woman in Tempe, Arizona was killed by a self-driving Uber while crossing the street the SUV sensors detected her but failed to react in time. I knew i i h s refined it's part of a larger Trend pedestrian deaths jumped 46% since 2009 more locations. All righty.
The impacts I see lots of dead children in our future.
There's a couple of things to besides the fact they have to in this gratuitous slam. I guess Uber which had nothing to do with the story is when I was a kid and they make this, 75% of these accidents happen at night. I don't know about you but driving around especially in like a city area 75% It happens at night because people are wearing all black outfits. They just wearing all black Jay head-to-toe black black black. You can't see these people now when I was a kid there used to be all these public service announcements wear white at night. Don't wear white at night. Nobody wears white. They all wear black and so you can't see him know when there's all these accidents. I mean, give me a break. You can't see a person wearing all black on a very dimly lit Street at night if my problem is they want to solve part of this at least with technology and
I've been against this ever since I saw the Cirrus Airplane which has a ballistic parachute because it may right right. It makes people complacent. It's just like the Tesla it makes you complacent the technology will take care of it. And you know, if I run it a gas I can always pull the Chute this fine. So now we're going to be driving on my car is going to keep everybody safe. But Professor Ted knows better. This is not how it will end.
Well, you'd have your complaint. I have mine combined there one good complaint. So we had to gripe about Uber. There's stuff going on with Tesla. They can't want it came late Friday when Bloomberg confirmed that Doug's field who is one of them just for you know senior executive officers named and test the proxy is on some kind of leave of absence and we're not quite sure how long he will be on leave but that's a really big deal Doug's been in charge of manufacturing and his really just going to keep layer at Cecil for all of these years today. We got Memo from Elon Musk. He's announcing some kind of reorganization of the company. And this was something that he alluded to on the last earnings call, but there aren't any details yet as to what that really means and I think that you know, if you look at Tesla over the past year or year-and-a-half there just been a string of departure that continue and you know, typically when someone leaves they announce the replacement but that hasn't happened recently. So we have Doug field on leave and Matthew small who was the key person on autopilot team is now WeMo and then this rear
Has everyone asking like well what you know, what are the changes next? You know one thing that's very difficult about Tesla is that a lot of people don't really know who the executives are. There's no listing on the website of who the named executives are and there's not a lot of transparency to what positions people are filling. Yeah, no nothing.
Well, I noticed that waymo is poaching a lot of the test the folks. Yeah, but they're gone at a time when I don't think it's very handy for the for the organization for people like that. I'd be leaving and we'll see must as a pretty good job at keeping things under control The Royal Wedding is this Saturday? I'll be watching. Oh sure you will. I have one clip because I thought this was kind of funny and it's about two half brother and that and the poison pen letter. He wrote. Oh, yeah, he he he was telling the prince don't do it. Don't marry this woman. She's no good. But let's play this clip the way and tonight who will walk Meghan Markle down the aisle. Will it be her mother? Will it be someone else as we now learn her father has undergone a procedure here is ABC's James along in from London again tonight?
And I getting ready for the mounting TMZ. He's now had three sentences it in his blood vessels following all the tax week the website saying he's a lot and coherent but it's still unclear if he'll make it to the wedding, you know, everything about him being under an incredible amount of stress is true local telling TMZ. He believes his heart attack brought on by Alexa Megan from 10 to Prince Harry allergy him to call off the wedding cooling Megan shallow and conceited just one of the attacks lost for her half-siblings to make an entire War experts say the queen is likely taking it all in stride clean has more experience than anyone in the world of the negative media. This is not something that's going to ruffle her feathers the pilots now revealing from you details about the way to George and princess schala.
Who sold and reprising their roles still speaking through official channels? Hello David. Thanks to you again tonight. I failed to understand how in this age of
Empowerment for women this is still something where people get all GT with it, especially anyway, I was stunned. I was stunned that he would call her shallow and conceited and she's an actress. Why would it hackers ever be that way? I will tell you when someone warned you not to marry someone who's an actress you should listen to them. But seriously, I would let me read a paragraph from the
I have the letter in front of me is pretty funny. This guy he see now he denounces to letter this brother half hour really cuz my father will never recover financially just hates his sister cuz she's somewhat successful in a family of apparently trailer trash. It seems friendly financially from Megan's from paying Megan's way nor emotionally from disavowing meum Mega showing her true colors. It is very apparent that her and this is a caddy part is very apparent from her. Tiny bit of Hollywood Fame has gone to her head change your into a jaded shallow conceited woman that will make a joke of you in the royal family heritage.
So yeah again that everyone's going on Nutty over this and by the way, the royal wedding is the British royal wedding. I'm sure there are other Royal weddings. But okay good point good point but it was a decision of empowerment. I mean, we all know the life she's going to live the life of a princess the life of just sit at home. He bon-bons and shut up and dress up pretty where's the empowerment and why are we all giddy over this?
It's revised and it flies in the face of everything women have been fighting for its flies in the face of americanism hated the the Royals and they we don't we love the Royals but we technically should be hating them cuz they're the ones who were like dumb, you know, we had to rebell against to get get her own thing going on. Yeah, we kicked their ass. Yeah. Well now we now we're going to
Till they came back in 1812 and burn down the White House, but that was Canada to if if five years ago, I had come to you gone on CNN and started talking about Bohemian Grove and secret societies. What do you think? What happened?
I don't know. Do you think I would get kicked off the air?
Cuz you were nearest if you were conspiracy theories. Well, you got kicked off the air for dining but the death of Michael Jackson right? But but how about specifically about five years ago know ten years ago, maybe five years ago, not so much. What if an anchor from CNN was talking about what if an anger from CNN wrote a book about it about what Joey Ambrose Jake Tapper wrote a book called The hellfire club. It's fictional but seems like it's based on some beliefs of Jake's, you know a lot about what's going on in Washington other you think secret societies in Washington. I'm not talking about, you know from college days or anything along those lines. I don't know of any I mean, I know the ones that you've heard of, you know, the Gridiron is not a secret society the Alfalfa Club has done a secret society, but there's Bohemian Grove there's Bilderberg. I mean there are those but what I know of wealthy men, I can't imagine that there are not
Secret societies the hellfire club in the book and in real life was originally in in the 1700s in England. It was a very real secret society in which they engaged in the most debaucherous tax people in the royal family and politicians and business people would go to this estate about an hour outside of London and engage in boxing Mystic rituals and orgies and they would also, you know create these alliances where they all had dirt on each other because they were all part of the secret society while they also forwards these friendships. And when I heard the Benjamin Franklin had actually attended one of these hellfire club Origins, I thought to myself this is the Genesis of the book. Well, what if Ben Franklin then took that back with him to the United States knowing that he had something of a business attitude towards life and also that maybe he saw some functionality to to such an organization and then what if that extended and lasted longer
Then just a 17 hundreds but actually was presence in in the twentieth century. So that's that's how that started there have to be these clubs there have to be how could there not be what we know every time I pick up a newspaper. There is some rich man being brought down for some horrific Behavior. Why would we not think that the really well-connected in the really wealthy are not doing this but you know in private places where they can't go, Jake Tapper back up co-host I would I would wonder where you know for one thing. There was a Hellfire Club in New York, which is a crime bar and the 80s that you could go to that if you knew about it. There was no way.
You said they give you a very detailed instructions and it was an S&M place and there was a Plato's retreat in New York City. That was a necrophiliac plays. No, no the necrophiliac club which was which was a club and I believe I think Tennessee Williams was the progenitor of that that thing it was it was based on a it was in the back of of a mortuary. The the Plato's retreat was this just a zuora g was a 24 year and Buck Henry wrote a long article about it. I think in Playboy visited that and there's these other events but these are all sex clubs and they many of them kind of disappeared after the AIDS crisis showed up and then all of a sudden these sex clubs all disappeared along with the bathhouses Power Station, San Francis is a whole slew of these if you want to, you know a lot about them. I know too much it seems
But they've always you know, Capra's either either plugged into this and you wouldn't use the hellfire club. This is not the same as a bunch of guys plotting something or other. I mean, I don't associate the bilderbergers with the drinking, They are a drinking Club. I don't he's not touching that maybe there is something he he claims. There's this there's got to be the secret clubs. I don't think so.
You don't think they're secret clubs. I don't I think there's a lot of clubs then I think some of them are kind of under the under the radar but I don't think any of them are like totally secret like it used to be with the clan going bones is it's not secret we know about it. We don't know exactly what they do and their little smell regard what they do and it's kind of creepy kind of creepy and gay nothing wrong with it. No, I'm not saying anything wrong with it, but you know involves a lot of masturbation in public supposedly, but we know a bunch of yeah, I don't know if anything's so secret. I mean name show me somebody that's in one of these thing is bullcrap.
Okay, it's my opinion. Okay. I just don't see any evidence of it. I mean there are places that you have, you know, not a secret Club, but you have like some some group like that that that character from India that took over that Southern Oregon area rajneesh whatever his name was and he had all these rolls-royce's any they just you know, they took over at townspeople can do that Orange County's got all kinds of interesting weird corruption that's based on a click and there's a book that was written by one of our local guys Tom base and some other left-wingers. I think it was written in the sixties very impossible to get a hold of called the wealth of cities do well to kind of joke a joke on the on the other book cuz it well the city The Wealth of Nations will also City shows how I left a bunch of left-wingers and I've seen this in in play if you get enough people together, you can just go into a small area start.
Running for office take over the town bring your buddies in and start stealing the money get more government grants is just steal the money. And this was this was this book was all about it was how to do it. And I think that's going on in a number of places in California filled with little towns that have stolen the money. They put people extremely overpaid jobs Vallejo is a good example when it went broke and they saw what they were paying everybody else. Yeah. Well, I think the sex thing is, you know, get everybody into the same weird sex stuff and then you all kind of protect each other that seems to be a common denominator. Yeah speaking of a broad forehead a final argument to yes.
Tom Wolfe passed away. Yes, man. We we knew we had a writer since like Tom Wolfe.
I mean I get the biggest kick out of town, but I ran into a couple of times he just as hard for people don't know he wrote the bonfire of the vanities the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. He wrote a lot of very important books. Yeah, but I remember when bonfire of the vanities came out it was a big controversy. I remember too is it was some editor who's publishing, you know, the guys can't write and I had to rewrite everything it was terrible until I got ahold I remember this very distinctly and then somebody got into a it was an online thing the early on line and it was the eighties I think and I looked at all that you wrote out the whole book and The New Yorker magazine chapter by chapter and if you compare the magazine to the book the difference the edits aren't that profound and then now he's been calling they most creative writers and everything when we're dead and gone will be called the geniuses.
Yeah, the pain yes way way ahead of their time the Milton Berle. There you go. There is a serious threat though for a dude's name. Then I wanted to just discuss this briefly. I have a memo here importance. Hi, it is to all i t is so she is in this particular organization.
And I find this somewhat concerning and I think any organization that does this needs to think twice as part of task to improve our security. We have selected a new cloud-based antivirus tool called Falcon from crowdstrike security. You remember those guys. This is a next-generation Anton to this is a next-generation antivirus solution that uses behavioral analytics and machine learning to block malware attacks. The Ops team will be starting the development of Falcon this week with the UK in South Africa already underway will be using URS CCM environment to roll out the crowdstrike sensor, which is a small lightweight agent that has no client interface the management and configuration of the sensor is done by the cloud management portal by the Ops Team.
I do not foresee. Any major performance degradation issues with this deployment? However, if you do suspect Falcon is impacting a computer, please raise an incidence an incident via that get help page but not using it at all. Well, not only first all centralizing your your entire malware protection seems like a bad idea but these got very bad idea, but they're also deploying it with something that is effectively malware. And what are the dudes name been going to do? They just sit back. All everything's now deployed by crowdstrike.
I don't see as disaster waiting. I agree with you. This is a this is a big big mistake, especially these guys with their humor humor threat Matthew few people crap. Are they stealing all over everybody? And what and what is Ben people hate major surgery center. So he's going after Amazon CEO Jeff face us watch according to Time Magazine from January 1st through May 1st of this year, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon saw his wealth increased by two hundred and seventy-five million dollars every single day for a toll increase in wealth of $33 billion dollars in a 4 months.
For three on food stamps Medicaid in public housing because their wages are just too low America Bernie, but everyone hates because now have you been following the Seattle homeless tax know so the Amazon and Starbucks are mad course because now the city is saying you have to pay a tax per employee, which I think turns out to be around 500 five or $600 per employee per year.
So that they can generate 86 million dollars for social programs.
Which originally was $75 but I guess they raised it up a little bit which of course Amazon and Starbucks are mad.
But you don't think you don't think Amazon saw this coming when they decided to look for their second. Newly. Oh, totally, that's they're going to bail out on it. Yeah, and they're going to come to Austin know. We're in the top three. It can be in the top one and you're not going to Austin. Why why do you say this one is troublemakers same kind of drift off that are in Seattle that will cause trouble how many, you know one anything to do with them. They've not hard workers. They're all a bunch of like types. They want to go into some place where they can get a lot of hard workers and a worksheet because the cost of living isn't what it is in Austin and Seattle and San Francisco and Los Angeles. So the likelihood of being Austin is Neil. It's not I prefer them not to come. I don't know you're going to get your wish.
Good junking about you know, he's getting bad PR. I have an example of bad PR, you know, he can hire people to turn this around but apparently he doesn't care cuz he owns the Washington. Why should he care? He can do whatever he wants. Yeah, he can write his own good publicity in the Washington Post, but he told me how this is not screwed up. This is a this is a bad report. I mean in terms of publicity play The Gap t-shirt.
Cisco base Gap is apologizing over shirts that featured what China calls and in complete map of its country. The people's daily and China posted this photo of the shirt. You'll notice the map of China doesn't include Taiwan, which is off the eastern coast. Mainland China claims the island as part of its territory, but Taiwan, of course, it's not see it felt that way. It should a statement this batch of products have been pulled off shelves in the Chinese market and destroyed we are now conducting an internal inspection within the group to correct this mistake as soon as possible.
Well, first of all kind of China is Taiwan thing is they get a reprint of the things but you don't take their shirts off the market and Destroy them you take them off the market and give them to the homeless know that's not going to happen. What was the other thing we have that they destroy them didn't give them to the homeless. Oh, there was I was also a t-shirt thing wasn't it and remember but it just doesn't make sense to me that you take it out to Marga me cuz one thing about it and there must be destroyed because they do not could Taiwan. Well, they would you bitch if you gave them to the homeless and say well the homeless are getting t-shirts that don't include Taiwan. They're not going to complain it. I can't say anything. So it's like it's good. It sounds good for Gap boneless wasn't they were going to burn them for energy? Yeah. Yeah. They were going to burn for energy.
And when was it the same gaps story? I wonder I don't think it was but whatever it is. You don't destroy quality you a quality. You don't destroy a good product. They can be used by somebody and this environment where you have especially the San Francisco base company that is crawling with homeless. Nothing else. They can poop in them. Yeah situation Francisco. It's almost funny to watch now and I'd love seeing it all the California law people's
Know yeah, they're concerned about making sure DACA gets taken care of not about their own homeless.
Exactly. I have I have three clips left and I do want to play them. The first is you know, hi. Oh and interesting. We named County Licking County.
And they have like most of the world now, but certainly Ohio of a huge opioid abuse problem. And so now there's Billboards throughout the entire County and the county is giving away naloxone the anti overdose drug.
The Licking County Health Department started putting up these Billboards around the county. They say the heroin epidemic here has gotten to the point where everyone needs to get involved. Not just people with friends and family for struggling with addiction. Unfortunately, you can't ignore it. Knows what it's like to have a family member struggle with Heroin addiction. That's people don't know where to go or what to do. They don't know what the resources are. She says, there's still a stigma about heroin addiction but to use the locks. I actually have a kid they can quickly get this nasal.
Screen locks on into someone until the Medics arrived so that that can save a life right there.
And saving a person's life could be what they need to get clean for good right now. The Licking County Health Department is giving away free naloxone kits. They also have free training. So people know how to use it. So typical of us here in America. It's like just put a Band-Aid on it. Just shoot them in the nose. That's all good. Give the nasal spray. Let's not figure out why this is actually happening.
He has a pet peeve yours and I think it's a good pet peeve. Yeah, this don't fix the problem, you know Hatchett basket with some nasal spray. There is a pot holes that you know, you start filling the pie hole up is the patch. It just becomes a pothole it does. It does another pothole.
About the deals that Iran has with Western politicians and countries and somewhere. There was a number of reports that if if they didn't like how the the new new negotiations were going with Trump apparently around was threatened to out individuals who wanted the deal to happen and we're kind of Kickbacks they got which would be fantastic deceit. But in the meantime, I would like to see that I wonder whether this report is true, but I hope it is but the part that I think is true is all the deals that were done as a part of the around deal which the previous administration did President Trump ditching that is all stressed out on ukulele and now they're trying to keep it alive. Of course, they dress it off as high principle, but the truth is then it's about more money for that big business cronies. Yes, the swamp is truly.
Dog poop. Britain has pushed numerous business interests in Iran, Sofia bottom of your lifting sanctions including that telecoms company Vodafone partnering with Iranian internet firm. Hi web to help mobilize this network and in 2017 British officials agreed to seven hundred and twenty million dollar deal to create a solar energy parking around with investors from Asia Europe and the Middle East Germany is even more swampy after sanctions were lifted call make a Volkswagen reached an agreement with Aaron's member cover to sell to their models that and German manufacturing joined Siemens signed a contract with at least one point five billion years to build rail coaching and upgrade train tracks in there on but here's the swamp ears German and Vic is truly shocking. One of the biggest impacts of new sanctions would be on energy and Russia in particular giant Russian State oil and gas companies rosneft and gas pump both have interest in Iran. Guess who is now head of the executive board at rosneft and also chairman of the board of directors.
North Street to it's absurd you guys protest Angeles as chancellor of Germany the format German leader is on the border Russia biggest energy companies since Russia's got practically no economy apart from energy. That's basically like being on the border of Russia and the Alica keys don't Trump of collusion, but perhaps that country deepest in there on Swamp as far as in December 2016 French airplane manufacturer Airbus either deal with Rana episode 100 planes around nineteen billion dollars another French aircraft making a t are stalking 536 million dollar deal with Ron at 4:20 planes French oil giant total sa under twenty years five billion dollar contract with Enron and a Chinese oil company to develop an Iranian natural gas field and French, composure got a deal to open in the rainy and plumm producing two hundred thousand Vehicles a year. It turns out that 1/5 / Joe's entire Global Market is in Iran.
You'll also be interested to discover that the format works on Banker who once worked on a bailout exposure his none other than Emmanuel macron now president. I think we don't take these globalist Elite politicians a bit more seriously when they condemn Total Truck for pulling out of the nuclear deal if they themselves want up to their necks in their own swamp deals that they're on this is nice little overview. Wow. I'm going to give you a clip of the day for that good information. I was actually kind of blown away when I saw him like, holy crap.
Schroeder but Micron with Peugeot and I mean it really and and then he bitched about Trump, you know owning a few hotels. Well, according to the Bitcoin and Ron Theory no reason to be worried as Bitcoin is down. Again, we're 81 8200. So it doesn't seem like there's much worried in the market, but I do keep receiving reports that all of Europe is now dealing with Iran in euros.
Not the dollar and it's and there's got to be some energy stuff in there, which is not what we like, so it's not going to go over.
I don't know why people can't figure this out. Well, what are we what what are you going to die? It's always unfortunate. If you got to pay in Euros, please don't take any hot tubs.
And then I belong interesting Millennial report which is funny and sad at the same time since your aunt since you mentioned did their rent and you might as well play my this thing's been sitting here. We need catch up with the tayron protests. Just so where you found us that test against America. Yeah, just general approaches. Yeah America is mostly I was in the stick to the streets to denounce the US following president Trump withdraw from the nuclear deal, which will need a new run of economic sanctions. Pomeranians are cut off and not just with Washington.
After Friday prayers hardliners get the street. I know even demonstration by now desires one that wants to Dick's 140 regime loyalists would daresay an American reporter buttons are Furious and angry and it's already
I was going to CSU then there was this today around supreme leader use social media to troll the president Ayatollah Ali how many posted a picture of himself reading a book?
Yet in there. I can do that kind of report and work on it. All right, Millennials Millennials. It's sad and funny at the same time it has to do with what they eat frozen food once frowned upon as unhealthy uninspired and paste. This has recently become immensely popular among busy Millennials with some even willing to pay more for healthier frozen options friend who joins Nestle and its rival spending millions of dollars ramping up production goes and food with fewer preservatives in simpler and more attractive packaging Reuters correspondent reason, I do see the market is looking for healthier convenience easy to cook meals. They're also trying to be fashionable. We can reuse like avocados the market however is incredibly competitive and has been for several years, but now most of the temper as system on has, you know, gotten a lot of company today and brightest
Despite being the number one food company in the world. Last name was not prepared for the frozen food crates. And let's say NASA has trailed behind ConAgra General Mills and Pinnacle Foods in releasing high-priced premium meals that are also perceived as how they they're falling forward. The small batch crop is working. And the other thing is they messaged like fewer freezer is frozen foods have very little preservatives in general because that's the idea but here's my prediction. Okay, the next thing can food craze. I like it.
Yes, small batch canned food can food. It's healthier know you're eighteen and we return on Sunday. We're of course, we'll have a report or whatever happened at the Royal Wedding, but maybe some serious be plenty of it to you twice weekly remember us at Dvorak. Org slash paneris Wilson Danny Louis and you kpmx for the end of show mixes until next time.
this was a really a one-off it only used for that episode Done by cesium-137. It was just the best was on his knees bent over with. All right, now we can even 7 a.m. Through every day. We pay the price.
I haven't really nice old through usually I mean the cabin, or your index finger the time is now for us to be both football and gravity.
This is for every single show. You're going to burn out if you want actually just lyrics for me, but if you will be those either what were you doing? I got anybody wants to do is I got that he got my lyrics.
Good. Gotcha. I love doing the show going to do a couple of checks. You might be going to do a couple of little you might be an organization I found.
