This is a sample of headlines from the past day. This is what the initial version of Machination.org looked like during President George W. Bush’s term. The tagline was “devices of trade and war.” It gained some traction among a subset of other like-driven link loggers during those early days. Eventually I couldn’t keep up with the pace I had set and didn’t foresee (or desire) how to monetize this habit.
I had day jobs, a life, and started seeing other professional publications and blogs, even Harper’s Weekly Review email that were doing it faster and better than I was.
Then, RSS and Twitter really eliminated this… this… act of OCD-as-calling-for-others’-focus, for me. It seemed like everyone who would, could see what I saw just as fast.
But I still do this in my head as I scan the news, actively seeking out multiple news sources through various direct access methods, social media, and other mechanisms. I imagine many of us do.
The Indian Health Service Is Flagging Vaccine-Related Speech. Doctors Say They’re Being Censored.
Officials have deemed terms like “immunizations” and “vaccines” risky “buzzwords” that require approval to be used in social media posts, pamphlets and presentations.
They’re really throwing a blanket on things, huh?
Trump calls Democrat video to troops ‘seditious behaviour, punishable by death’ Trump calls for Democratic lawmakers to face trial for ‘seditious behavior’
The six Democrats later panned Trump’s reaction, writing in a joint statement that “no threat, intimidation, or call for violence” would deter them from defending the Constitution.
“What’s most telling is that the President considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law,” they said. “Our servicemembers should know that we have their backs as they fulfill their oath to the Constitution and obligation to follow only lawful orders. It is not only the right thing to do, but also our duty.”
Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out
If you use Gmail, you need to be aware of an important change that’s quietly rolling out. Reportedly, Google has recently started automatically opting users in to allow Gmail to access all private messages and attachments for training its AI models. This means your emails could be analyzed to improve Google’s AI assistants, like Smart Compose or AI-generated replies. Unless you decide to take action.
Home Prices on a Warming Planet
Violent ‘storms’ hidden under Antarctica’s ice could be speeding its decline “When ice freezes and melts, it creates vortices that drag warmer waters from the depths to the surface, where they eat away at the continent’s rapidly degrading ice shelves.”
More than 250 arrested in Charlotte as immigration crackdown escalates
Charlotte is the latest US city that Trump has targeted with federal troops, following similar measures in bigger cities like Chicago and Los Angeles earlier this year. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told the BBC that those arrested are criminals and gang members.
But local lawmakers and residents have railed against the detainments, which the federal government has dubbed “Operation Charlotte’s Web”. The state’s Democratic governor has alleged people are being targeted because of their race.
In a statement released on Wednesday, a DHS spokesperson said the operation has led to the arrest of “some of the most dangerous criminal illegal aliens”, including gang members.
…
“We’ve seen masked, heavily armed agents in paramilitary garb driving unmarked cars, targeting American citizens based on their skin colour, racially profiling and picking up random people in parking lots,” Stein said on Sunday. “This is not making us safer.”
Border Patrol leaving Charlotte, sheriff and local officials say
Masked federal agents in paramilitary gear worked out of large SUVs arresting people, prompting businesses to close, especially in east Charlotte, and families to keep children out of school. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said over 370 people have been arrested in the Charlotte area as of Thursday. DHS has declined to provide many details, and would not release the names or information on most of the people arrested or taken. It remained unclear what has happened to them. Federal agents targeted grocery stores, churches, and residential areas. At night, they flew drones. Throughout the week, agents faced opposition from protesters and community activists who tracked their movements and blew whistles to alert people to their presence, shouted in their faces, and filmed them.
Cops Used Flock to Monitor No Kings Protests Around the Country “A massive cache of Flock lookups collated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) shows as many as 50 federal, state, and local agencies used Flock during protests over the last year.” See also: How Cops Are Using Flock Safety’s ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists
Grand jury investigating potential misconduct in probes of Trump critics “You guys are like the Keystone Cops,” Bish said she told the investigators. “You’re investigating each other.”
“Shitshow:” Greg Bovino’s Zero Success Rate
Bovino, I noted, was batting just 9% on his claims that protestors had engaged in violence.
Well, yesterday, the case of Dana Briggs, a 70-year old Air Force veteran charged with assault when he fell as officers were pushing him back, was dismissed too. He had planned to call Bovino as a witness at his December trial. Bovino’s success rate at substantiating his claim there were any rioters from that day is now zero.
Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with ‘suspicious’ travel patterns
The predictive intelligence program has resulted in people being stopped, searched and in some cases arrested. A network of cameras scans and records vehicle license plate information, and an algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Federal agents in turn may then flag local law enforcement.
Suddenly, drivers find themselves pulled over — often for reasons cited such as speeding, failure to signal, the wrong window tint or even a dangling air freshener blocking the view. They are then aggressively questioned and searched, with no inkling that the roads they drove put them on law enforcement’s radar.
Once limited to policing the nation’s boundaries, the Border Patrol has built a surveillance system stretching into the country’s interior that can monitor ordinary Americans’ daily actions and connections for anomalies instead of simply targeting wanted suspects. Started about a decade ago to fight illegal border-related activities and the trafficking of both drugs and people, it has expanded over the past five years.
Nursing Excluded as ‘Professional’ Degree By Department of Education We wouldn’t want any professional nurses, now, would we? And we certainly don’t want to smooth out access to bolster a flagging workforce. This is how much Trump hates his own voters.
New US rules say countries with diversity policies are infringing human rights
How a French judge was digitally cut off by the USA “The reason for the US sanctions are the arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. They were indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the context of the destruction of the Gaza Strip.”
CAIR sues Texas governor over ‘unconstitutional’ terror designation
“The lawsuit we have filed today is our first step towards defeating Governor Abbott again so that our nation protects free speech and due process for all Americans,” Masri said. “No civil rights organisations are safe if a governor can baselessly and unilaterally declare any of them terrorist groups, ban them from buying land, and threaten them with closure,” she said.