Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Trump Signed an Executive Order to “Protect” Medicare. Good Luck if You Have Any Other Type of Insurance.

In an apparent attempt to appeal to senior voters—and to divert attention away from the impeachment inquiry rocking the White House—President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that changes aspects of Medicare Advantage, the private-sector health plan that covers one third of the nation’s Medicare beneficiaries. During his speech, though, the president was far […]

Why the Left Needs To Stop Worrying and Learn To Love Impeachment

If you’re trying to build a mass political organization while ignoring the political issue everybody in the country is talking about, you’re doing it wrong.

Why in the world not impeach Donald Trump? You’re a socialist and you don’t want to see him impeached? Really? My friend Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of the socialist magazine Jacobin, acknowledges that Trump is reprehensible in the extreme, yet he dismisses impeachment as “squandering a historic opening to advocate for social reforms in exchange for some political theater.”

I disagree. This career draft dodger, tax evader, adulterer, debt-defaulter, chiseler, four-flusher and all-around gonif —Donald Trump, our fucking president—is the poster boy for everything we despise. And the entire Republican Party has stood foursquare behind him from the beginning.

Impeachment formalizes and emphasizes that the current Administration and all its works—its legislation, its deregulation, its judicial appointments—are fundamentally illegitimate. Impeachment does not only challenge current authority; it challenges its genesis.

A distinction between the current priorities of the Left—Medicare For All, the Green New Deal, etc.—and impeachment is illogical. For the foreseeable future, if not indefinitely, democratic socialists will have to work within the framework of the U.S. state. For this to be feasible, the State’s democratic processes need to be preserved, if not strengthened. We need to attack the legitimacy of the administration in order to defend our increasingly embattled democratic institutions. We need democracy to pursue all our priorities in social reform.

Democracy is not merely an identifier or assertion of bona fides for socialists. It is an operational requirement, both to attain power and to employ it.

Impeachment is not a substitute for a social justice agenda, or a positive electoral outcome in 2020. It is a facilitator. Immediately, it preoccupies the Trump administration and limits the damage it would do on other fronts. It dramatizes a wealth of detail on the administration’s malfeasance. It strengthens the case for whoever opposes Trump, against any Republicans who support him, and against any Democrats who fail to prosecute the case against him energetically.

There is a risk that the impeachment proceedings will be narrow and legalistic, and even worse, that they will feature neoconservative attacks on Trump for failing to support Ukraine against Russia. As with every other issue, the debate within the Democratic caucus in Congress on how to do impeachment will be ideological.

It is up to the Left to promote a progressive frame for impeachment. The chief prospective victim in the Ukraine affair was not Ukraine—it was our own democracy. The degradation of our democratic institutions, from voter suppression to gerrymandering to the stonewalling of Merrick Garland, is the source of Republicans’ current political advantage and prevents urgent reforms supported by strong majorities of the public.

A leading objection offered by Sunkara and others is that “no one thinks that this can happen given the current composition of Congress.” Everyone is aware that there are not enough Republican votes in the Senate to remove Trump from office. But the politics of impeachment lie more in the process than in the conclusion. And incidentally, if there is no chance of a Senate vote to remove Trump, there is nothing to fear in a President Pence. In any case, one useful way to broaden the impeachment inquiry is to rope Pence into it, not to mention the Secretary of State and the Attorney General. Trump has been helpful in this regard, in effect threatening to take his cronies down with him. This is a good thing!

Sunkara dismisses the upcoming hearings as “theater,” but politics substantially is theater. Picket lines and marches are theater. There is bad theater, and there is constructive theater. Impeachment can be constructive. Sunkara imagines the hearings will be boring. Tastes may differ on this, but watching guilty miscreants—and rest assured, they are all guilty—be abused by Members of Congress could prove to be very entertaining. For Members with a killer instinct, impeachment can be blood sport. Must-see TV.

Impeachment is a political weapon. The meticulous elaboration of charges and evidence in a due-process setting is the education that the country needs. Knowing something in general is never as compelling as learning all the gory details. If you think such a process would fall on deaf ears, you have to think there is no good case to make against Trump—a strange conclusion for any reader of In These Times.

Another reservation on the Left is that impeachment lets Democrats off the hook for their numerous deficiencies. Professor Samuel Moyn would like the Left to use impeachment to indict both parties, as well as their roles in the growth of the “imperial presidency,” a growth which certainly raises the likelihood of misbegotten military adventurism. But such a posture would surely render the Left irrelevant to this debate, which is grounded in partisan party conflict.

As noted at the outset, when the nation’s attention is focused on a thing, it does little good to say you really should be listening to me talk about something entirely different. A failure of the Left to take up impeachment leaves the field to lowest-common-denominator neocon/neoliberal politics, with which after all we are competing. Every presidential candidate with a lick of sense understands they can’t let the likes of Joe Biden monopolize the anti-Trump franchise.

The root of the case against Trump is the struggle for democracy. As Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski say in The People’s Republic of Walmart, “Democracy is the beating heart of socialism.” Democratic socialists must become serious about democracy: It should be more than merely a means of distinguishing ourselves from some other dudes.

In political competition with craven Republicans and assorted weak-kneed Democrats, democracy is our super-power.

The Plastics Industry’s Long Fight to Blame Pollution on You

The plastics industry has been promoting recycling and shaming “litterbugs” while fighting legislation that would limit plastics production.

The post The Plastics Industry’s Long Fight to Blame Pollution on You appeared first on The Intercept.

#Scotland becomes first country in #UK to #ban #smacking of #children | UK news | The Guardian

Good thing too.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/03/scotland-becomes-first-country-in-uk-to-ban-smacking-of-children

EITC or $15 Minimum Wage? Why Not Both?

The Earned-Income Tax Credit is one of the largest social welfare programs run by the federal government. It’s available only to people who work—primarily those with children—and takes the form of a tax refund that generally amounts to a few thousand dollars each year. Conventional wisdom has long held that the EITC motivates people to […]

Facebook Just Gave Trump Permission to Lie

President Donald Trump is taking advantage of a Facebook exemption that allows politicians to lie in advertisements to spread disinformation about former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2015 diplomatic trip to Ukraine. Even though the ads contain misinformation, a Facebook spokesperson says they did not violate their company’s advertising policy because of carveout for politicians. The […]

Trump Admin Is Scrubbing Information About Services for Migrant Children From Government Websites

Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF) has systematically altered language and removed information about unaccompanied migrant children from the website of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the agency that oversees the children’s custody after they are transferred from the Department of Homeland Security. The changes are detailed in a new report by the Sunlight Foundation, a transparency watchdog organization. The ORR website changed how it refer to unaccompanied children, instead calling them unaccompanied “alien” children, or UACs. The website also reduced its emphasis on services and benefits available to children and refugees, and made frequent alterations—apparently in response to media enquiries and criticisms, according to the report.

Researchers at the Sunlight Foundation’s Web Integrity Project compared a snapshot of the ORR website from January 19, 2017 to how it appeared at various time points up until early August 2019. Before Trump’s inauguration, the ORR website included the term “alien” 103 times. As of this August, the word appeared 720 times. The additions often occurred in the context of changing the term “unaccompanied child” to “unaccompanied alien child.” That shift was most notable in a policy guide about unaccompanied children; across the guide’s nine URLs, nearly all uses of the phrase “unaccompanied child” were removed, and instances of the word “alien” increased to 553. Prior to Trump’s inauguration, “alien” appeared in the guide just 10 times, according to the report. Many of these changes occurred between June and August 2017, when the agency’s family separation policy was being widely criticized.

Sarah John, the director of the Web Integrity Project, said one reason ORR has jurisdiction over unaccompanied children, rather than immigration agencies or Homeland Security, is “because of the unique vulnerability of children and the need to ensure they are properly cared for.” But the Trump administration’s hardline attitude towards immigrants while the number of unaccompanied children seeking asylum was increasing led to a failure to provide the children proper care, she explained. The administration’s zero-tolerance policy toward migrants seeking asylum resulted in the separation of at least 2,235 families between May 5 and June 9 of 2018 alone, according to one analysis. “On the website, we see this tough position manifest as a harshening of the language to align with the administration's view, a reeling back of language about the scope of services children are entitled to, perhaps to lower expectations about care, and an extreme defensiveness about agency actions in response to public outrage," John explains.­   

In a statement emailed to In These Times, the ACF said that the agency “inherited” its use of the term “alien” from the former Immigration and Naturalization Service. But the WIP report noted that as of May 2017, the ORR website’s definitions page still said that “ORR uses the term unaccompanied child instead of the term UAC.”

John said that while the new language is technically in line with the wording of the Homeland Security Act, which created the ORR program for unaccompanied children in 2002, the ORR had not used that term before. “It’s much harsher; ‘alien’ has certain connotations,” John said. “It makes people who are suffering seem less like people.”

Mason Kortz, a clinical instructor at the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic, who was not involved in preparing the report, said the changes are indicative of a general agenda by the Trump administration to dehumanize immigrants. “It’s a clear sign of how the administration wants the American public to view immigrants, as something very much other, literally alien to themselves,” he said.

The report also describes how ORR removed references to services it provides to children. Among other changes, a fact sheet on services provided to unaccompanied children removed information about legal aid available to children, the conditions children experience in HHS-funded facilities, and procedures for allowing children to communicate with their parents all disappeared.

In its statement to In These Times, the ACF said, “We treat the children in our care with dignity and respect.” But language alluding to this position was also removed from the website: A passage about treating children with “dignity, respect, and special concern for individual needs” disappeared from the Services Fact Sheet in 2018.

Kortz said the reduced emphasis on services and benefits may indicate that the stated purpose of the ORR—which, according to the agency, includes “linking [immigrants] to critical resources”—is being subverted by a larger, anti-immigrant agenda that exists within the Department of Homeland Security. “Making services and benefits harder to find, harder to access, is reflective of that,” Kortz said.

According to the report, the ORR has also reacted quickly to media reports on conditions in its facilities by changing and adding new sections to its website. Months before its family separation policy was announced in June 2018, the agency removed a staff directory from the website, perhaps anticipating likely blowback. And in the weeks after Trump signed an executive order on June 20, 2018, ending family separations, the ORR made repeated changes to its Unaccompanied Children Frequently Asked Questions page. It removed information about non-governmental organizations that accept donations to help refugee families. And it added a statement alleging that “in recent days, a great deal of misinformation about the UAC program” had been “intentionally” perpetuated, presumably by the media. It also added  images of clean and spacious classrooms and dormitories at ORR facilities around the same time. Elsewhere, the agency added content related to sexual abuse to the website around the same time a ProPublica report exposed a pattern of such abuse at more than 70 ORR shelters.

Kortz said he thinks the changes in response to media scrutiny “directly reflects not just the attitude of the [Trump] administration, but the personality of the president—specifically, his sensitivity to media criticism.”

John said that the language government agencies use on their websites matters. “It can affect how citizens view their rights, policy issues, and others in society,” she said. “If the agency in charge of caring for unaccompanied children uses less and less humanizing language about children on its website it may contribute to changes in how Americans talk, think, and feel about immigrant children, especially their level of empathy or sympathy toward unaccompanied children.”

Victory! EFF Wins Access to License Plate Reader Data to Study How Law Enforcement Uses the Privacy Invasive Technology

EFF, ACLU SoCal Successfully Sued Los Angeles Police and Sheriff’s Departments For ALPR Data

San Francisco—Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California (ACLU SoCal) have reached an agreement with Los Angeles law enforcement agencies under which the police and sheriff’s departments will turn over license plate data they indiscriminately collected on millions of law-abiding drivers in Southern California.
The data, which has been deidentified to protect drivers’ privacy, will allow EFF and ACLU SoCal to learn how the agencies are using automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems throughout the city and county of Los Angeles and educate the public on the privacy risks posed by this intrusive technology. A weeks’ worth of data, composed of nearly 3 million data points, will be examined.
ALPR systems include cameras mounted on police cars and at fixed locations that scan every license plate that comes into view—up to 1,800 plates per minute. They record data on each plate, including the precise time, date, and place it was encountered. The two Los Angeles agencies scan about 3 million plates every week and store the data for years at a time. Using this data, police can learn where we were in the past and infer intimate details of our daily lives such as where we work and live, who our friends are, what religious or political activities we attend, and much more.
Millions of vehicles across the country have had their license plates scanned by police—and more than 99% of them weren’t associated with any crimes. Yet law enforcement agencies often share ALPR information with their counterparts in other jurisdictions, as well as with border agents,  airport security, and university police.
EFF and ACLU SoCal reached the agreement with the Los Angeles Police and Sheriff’s Departments after winning a precedent-setting decision in 2017 from the California Supreme Court in our public records lawsuit against the two agencies. The court held that the data are not investigative records under the California Public Records Act that law enforcement can keep secret.
“After six years of litigation, EFF and ACLU SoCal are finally getting access to millions of ALPR scans that will shed light on how the technology is being used, where it’s being used, and how it affects people’s privacy,” said EFF Surveillance Litigation Director Jennifer Lynch. “We persevered and won a tough battle against law enforcement agencies that wanted to keep this information from the public. We have a right to information about how government agencies are using high-tech systems to track our locations, surveil our neighborhoods, and collect private information without our knowledge and consent.”
The California Supreme Court ruling has significance beyond the ALPR case. It set a groundbreaking precedent that mass, indiscriminate data collection by the police can’t be withheld just because the information may contain some data related to criminal investigations.
For more on this case:
https://www.eff.org/cases/automated-license-plate-readers-aclu-eff-v-lapd-lasd
For more on ALPRs:
https://www.eff.org/pages/automated-license-plate-readers-alpr

Contact:  Jennifer Lynch Surveillance Litigation Director jlynch@eff.org

Today in the Fever Swamp: China!

This morning’s big impeachment-related news is that President Trump publicly called on China to investigate Hunter Biden over— Well, it doesn’t matter what it’s over, does it? As usual, there’s no evidence that either of the Bidens did anything wrong except in the fever swamps of Sean Hannity and Foxland. But Trump marinates in that […]

Northern forests have lost crucial cold, snowy conditions

Winter conditions are changing more rapidly than any other season and researchers have found clear signs of a decline in frost days, snow covered days and other indicators of winter that could have lasting impacts on ecosystems, water supplies, the economy, tourism and human health.

House Democrats Are So Focused on Ukraine That They’re Overlooking Another Impeachable Offense

This is the way things work now: Donald Trump is credibly reported to have given aid and comfort to an enemy that attacked the United States—and this allegation, several days later, is not part of the news cycle or the scandal that is fueling the impeachment drive on Capitol Hill. The story of the most […]

Elizabeth Warren Just Released a Wide-Ranging Plan to Give Power Back to Workers

Just two weeks after she joined the picket line outside a General Motors assembly plant in Detroit, Senator Elizabeth Warren on Thursday morning released a wide ranging labor plan, which promises to tackle an overarching problem: “American workers don’t have enough power.” The 14-page document, significantly longer than both Vice President Joe Biden’s and Senator Bernie Sanders’ […]

#Ocean cleanup device successfully collects #plastic for first time | #Environment | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/03/ocean-cleanup-device-successfully-collects-plastic-for-first-time

#Pollution #Waste #Plastics #FossilFuels

Golden ratio observed in human skulls

The Golden Ratio, described by Leonardo da Vinci and Luca Pacioli as the Divine Proportion, is an infinite number often found in nature, art and mathematics. It's a pattern in pinecones, seashells, galaxies and hurricanes.

Impeachment Scandal Shows Why Congress Desperately Needs to Reform What’s Kept Secret

The Trump administration is again potentially abusing government secrecy — this time in an effort to distract from impeachment and punish rivals.

The post Impeachment Scandal Shows Why Congress Desperately Needs to Reform What’s Kept Secret appeared first on The Intercept.

Climate Change, Migration, and Militarization in Arizona’s Borderlands

The swirling mix of far-right politics and the actual threats posed by the climate crisis raises questions about what’s happening in the Arizona desert.

The post Climate Change, Migration, and Militarization in Arizona’s Borderlands appeared first on The Intercept.

#Abortion: #NI law 'breaches #HumanRights’ - BBC News

#NorthernIreland may at last be falling in line with the rest of the #UK and civilization.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49900668

The Silencing of Kashmir: Arundhati Roy on India, Modi, and Fascism

The renowned novelist joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss her country's drift toward authoritarianism.

The post The Silencing of Kashmir: Arundhati Roy on India, Modi, and Fascism appeared first on The Intercept.

Credit Where it’s Due

Hitler chimes in on Trump’s desire to shoot migrants and build a moat and border wall topped with spikes.

Donald the Boy President Gets Impeached

A parody of the beloved Calvin and Hobbes featuring the much less beloved Donald Trump.