So we’ve been noting how the Trump administration has been helping Larry Ellison wage war on Netflix’s proposed merger with Warner Brothers. Not because they care about antitrust (that’s always been a lie), but because they want Larry Ellison to be able to dominate media and create a safe space for unpopular right wing ideology. […]
Kash Patel, FBI Director, is not very good at his job. There are plenty of examples to demonstrate that notion, from him apparently completely misunderstanding the purpose and protections of the 2nd Amendment and Minnesota gun laws (whatever your thoughts on gun rights might generally be), to his gathering of barely trained castoffs to serve […]
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. As the operations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement have intensified over the past year, politicians and journalists alike have begun referring to ICE as a “paramilitary force.” Rep. John Mannion, a New York Democrat, called ICE “a personal paramilitary unit of […]
Support us on Patreon » On a recent episode of our other podcast, Ctrl-Alt-Speech, Mike was joined by guest host Konstantinos Komaitis for a far-reaching discussion about online speech. One point that was briefly raised in that discussion was the question of whether AI tools are good or bad for user agency, and since Mike and […]
The administration’s racist goon squads have absolutely been steamrolling the Constitution since Trump’s return to office. When ICE et al started roving throughout the nation looking for anyone non-white enough to be foreign, all rights were considered expendable. The DHS made swift work of the Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendments by denying arrestees due process […]
For years, we watched Silicon Valley executives perform elaborate corporate theater about “values” and “belonging” and “bringing your whole self to work.” If you were skeptical that any of that was real, well, congrats. Aaron Zamost, a longtime tech communications exec, has a piece in the NY Times that should be required reading for anyone […]
Learn Raspberry Pi and start building Amazon Alexa projects with The Complete Raspberry Pi and Alexa A-Z Bundle. Catered for all levels, these project-based courses will get you up and running with the basics of Pi, before escalating to full projects. Before you know it, you’ll be building a gaming system to play old Nintendo, […]
No doubt this will be spun as some form of Minnesota-specific obstruction, but until that happens, let’s just appreciate the fact that not all cops are willing to be appendages of the Trump administration’s bigoted migrant purge. Here are the details, courtesy of Minnesota Public Radio: MPR News has learned that the police chief in […]
So for years we pointed out how the trend of news websites killing off their comment section (usually because they were too cheap or lazy to creatively manage them) was counterproductive. One, it killed off a lot of local community value and engagement created within your own properties. Two, it outsourced anything vaguely resembling functional conversation with […]
In any war, information is power. Be it kinetic wars, cyberwarfare, or information wars, data is everything. And since RFK Jr. has clearly declared war on vaccines in America, it’s not a huge surprise that he is looking to control information about vaccines. Or, as it turns out, simply sweep that information away. Nearly half […]
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last week posted a photo of the arrest of Nekima Levy Armstrong, one of three activists who had entered a St. Paul, Minn. church to confront a pastor who also serves as acting field director of the St. Paul Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office. A short while later, the White […]
Let’s just clear the air right up front: this is just the government mugging Somalis because they’re currently at the top of Trump’s shitlist. Prior to last month’s escalation (and subsequent murder) because some white MAGA shitbird became famous for supposedly uncovering a whole lot of Somali-based fraud in Minneapolis, Minnesota, it’s possible ICE would […]
Remember last summer when everyone was freaking out about the explosion of AI-generated child sexual abuse material? The New York Times ran a piece in July with the headline “A.I.-Generated Images of Child Sexual Abuse Are Flooding the Internet.” NCMEC put out a blog post calling the numbers an “alarming increase” and a “wake-up call.” […]
Trump’s going to win the election he lost, no matter what he has to do to make that happen. Surrounding himself with a better set of sycophants this time around has really allowed him to gain some ground in his “be the despot you wish to see in the world” efforts. His top appointees are […]
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We called bullshit when Republicans tried to order websites to carry content. We’re calling bullshit now when Democrats are trying to do the same. We spent years explaining to politicians across both parties why the government can’t dictate how private platforms moderate content. During the Biden admin, GOP governors seemed most aggressive about trying to […]
We’ve long noted how the 2021 infrastructure bill included $42.5 billion for broadband grants dubbed the Broadband, Equity, Access And Deployment (BEAD) program. The program wasn’t without its warts, but it had the potential to be truly transformative for U.S. broadband access. But Republicans illegally rewrote the program to redirect money away from stuff like affordable, gigabit, […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Raphael with a comment about Trump demanding billions from the IRS: This reminds me, Trump loves to rant and rave about how poorly and dysfunctionally the countries of origin of many migrant to the USA are run, and how bad things look like there. […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2021, we looked at the future of net neutrality under the new interim FCC boss, and at how broadband monopolies continued to get money for networks they never fully deployed. Twitter got immunity from a banned user’s lawsuit thanks to Section 230, while dozens of human rights groups were […]
Last week, a federal magistrate judge told the DOJ it could not arrest journalist Don Lemon. The DOJ appealed and lost that appeal too. The legal system said no. So the DOJ arrested him anyway. On January 18th, protesters interrupted services at a Minnesota church after discovering its pastor leads a nearby ICE field office. […]
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