Majorityrights News > Category: U.S. Politics

Technology Decisions, 12 July 2017:

“Donald Trump threatens net neutrality, says academic”

Internet neutrality and freedom of speech are under threat by Donald Trump’s administration, according to a QUT academic.

Matthew Rimmer from the Faculty of Law said that the Trump administration has been seeking to dismantle network neutrality rules as part of its deregulation agenda.

“There will be a massive online protest by a wide array of companies, including Amazon, Netflix, Shapeways, Kickstarter, Twitter and Reddit, along with organisations like the American Civil Liberties Union, Greenpeace and the American Library Association,” said Rimmer.

  Ajit Pai: the man who could destroy the open internet

“July 12 2017 is a Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality in the US, an event responding to plans by the Federal Communications Commission under the leadership of President Donald Trump’s chair, Ajit Pai, to repeal government rules which established net neutrality.”

Network neutrality started out as a philosophical concept, developed by Professor Timothy Wu from Columbia University, to address discrimination by broadband service providers. It was designed to preserve a free and open internet by preventing broadband providers from blocking, throttling or slowing internet services.

It ensures consumer rights are not undermined by internet service providers and that they do not suffer a dystopia of slow lanes and fast-paid lanes on the internet.

It also helps ensure the internet is a free and open platform which supports innovation. In particular, it ensures that start-up companies and new market entrants have an equal playing field. Without such protections, internet service providers could use their role as gatekeepers to reinforce their monopolies.

“We have not seen such a massive online action since the protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act, in which Wikipedia and other online sites staged a blackout against draconian copyright laws,” Rimmer said.

However, while the United States debates network neutrality, Australia still has not had a proper conversation about network neutrality.

“The issue has been periodically raised in the context of debates over the nbn, media convergence and competition reform. There are, though, concerns about the speed of broadband services in Australia and the problem of the data drought,” said Rimmer.

“At a time at which it is modernising its media laws, Australia would benefit from the introduction of the principle of network neutrality. The public interest doctrine would boost consumer choice, competition and innovation in Australia.”

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The End, Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington

When false opposition forces you to imagine lyrics/text different than theirs and supply protest lyrics authentic to your interests:

Back in the days before Internet, decades before in fact, we young folks didn’t have much outlet for protest via the media - TV, movies, newspapers and magazines, book publishing (((all controlled))). Music, concerts and festivals were ostensible outlets of protest expression - and even they were so (((controlled))) by pervasive liberalism that I had to change lyrics in my head to de-liberalize them and make them properly aligned to my grievances. Neil Young’s “Alabama” is a classic example of a song that had righteous passion totally misdirected into liberalism. Lynard Skynard noticed it in their song “Sweet Home Alabama”, citing Young and his song “Alabama” directly for criticism. But it wasn’t only they who objected and I could not relate to their southern patriotism either. No, I had my own protest lyrics in mind - lyrics, wouldn’t you know, that I can’t even spell out today, this protest remains so forbidden by the powers-that-be and their do-gooders mulatto supremacist gate keepers: it goes to show HOW FAR we have NOT come in some ways - ridiculously, you can’t even say the N word:

“Alabama”, Neil Young - Lyrics

Oh Alabama N-lover
Banjos playing
through the broken glass
Windows down in Alabama.
See the old folks
tied in white ropes
Hear the banjo.
Don’t it take you down home?

Alabama N-lover, you got
the weight on your shoulders
That’s breaking your back.
Your Cadillac
has got a wheel in the ditch
And a wheel on the track

Oh Alabama N-lover.
Can I see you
and shake your hand.
Make friends down in Alabama.
I’m from a new land
I come to you
and see all this ruin
What are you doing Alabama N-lover?
You got the rest of the union
to help you along
What’s going wrong?

Neil did a bit better with the lyrics to “Southern Man”, particularly in the last stanza, although I don’t think Neil was looking at it from the same angle that I have… that’s my imagination supplying the protest angle once again.

Southern Man, Neil Young – Lyrics
Southern man
Better keep your head
Don’t forget
What your good book said
Southern change
Gonna come at last
Now your crosses
Are burning fast
Southern man

I saw cotton
And I saw black
Tall white mansions
And little shacks.
Southern man
When will you
Pay them back?
I heard screamin’
And bullwhips cracking
How long? How long?

Southern man
Better keep your head
Don’t forget
What your good book said
Southern change
Gonna come at last
Now your crosses
Are burning fast
Southern man

Lily Belle,
Your hair is golden brown
I’ve seen your black man
Comin’ round
Swear by God
I’m gonna cut him down!
I heard screamin’
And bullwhips cracking
How long? How long?

Neil Young’s politics are well off the mark; no need to belabor that, but I’d like to caution that anybody trafficking in the emotion of sadness as much as Neil Young has is promoting a neutering kind of propaganda in that very sadness - it’s better to veer in the direction of anger.

Now, a primary outlet for rebellion against political tyranny has been largely co-opted again, this time it is the (((alternative-k*ke er, alternative-right))) that’s doing much of the co-opting.

And unfortunately, they are putting their (((brand))) on to some intelligent text, you might say, protest lyrics text.

I feel the same yearning as co-opted passions and thoughtful consideration could be deployed for our authentic protest, and not for the (((alternative-k*ke))), when I read Melissa Meszaros’ article about the suicide of Linkin Park frontman, Chester Bennington.

The strikeouts of “alt-rights” and “the left” in one place are strictly my wish and of course not how Melissa wrote the article - as she did, in order to brand it for the (((Alt-Right))). In one place I have to comment where, typical of right wing misguidance, the negative significance and anti stance she registers for the homosexual issue is disproportionate. Everything else remains as she has written it.

Melissa Meszaros

Alt-Right, “What The Alt-Right Can Learn From The Death Of Chester Bennington, 24 July 2017:

Linkin Park touched the millennial generation’s frustrations with modern society like no other band could. For this reason, it’s worth spending a few moments looking into the life of frontman Chester Bennington and seeing what we can learn after his suicide.

Sexually molested from the age of seven, divorced parents, a steady cocktail of drugs from the age of eleven, with alcoholism and depression entering later on — these are the things that framed the childhood of Linkin Park’s frontman Chester Bennington.

Unable to overcome his traumas and subsequent addictions, he chose to use them as a painful source of inspiration in his lyrics. His suicide is unfortunate, especially for his children and wife, and whether we listened personally to the band or not as we were growing up, Linkin Park held a central position representing the millennial generation’s frustrations with life and all the associated mental effects relating to the increase of broken homes and fragmenting communities. The band spoke of problems most of us experienced as teenagers, back when we were confused and distrustful of the direction our supposedly fantastic and free society was heading. Now, as adults in the Alt-Right, with infinitely more resources and knowledge at our fingertips, we are dedicated to overcoming and fixing these issues within ourselves and our societies. But still, for many of us, Linkin Park was the herald awakening millions of teens to the realization that the world is messed-up and it was time to prepare for a long battle. For this reason, I believe it’s worth spending a few moments looking into Bennington’s life of inescapable addiction and seeing what we in the Alt-Right can learn from it.

For me, I remember Linkin Park being the most popular band in my freshman year of high school in Central New Jersey. It was the last year I’d spend in the United States before moving to Hungary with my parents. My friends would carry around the Hybrid Theory CD and hold it reverently during recess while talking about the lyrics. We’d sit with crossed-legs in a circle in the shady corner of a grassy lot while spawns of diversity hollered and beat each other on the nearby basketball courts.

I only got into the band later, for a few months when my father was in the hospital in Hungary, dying from terminal lung cancer. The music is not positive and it does not remind me of a good place. Rather, I envision a constant delirious struggle with myself, getting caught in a loop over thinking various problems and feeling uncertain of ever being able to overcome the odds and live in peace. These are the very thought processes Chester Bennington described himself dealing with, in an interview with 102.7 KIISFM radio in February of this year. After a while, I realized the music was keeping me from moving past my own issues, so I grew out of it.

When it comes to Bennington himself, there are three things worth highlighting. First, there is the molestation by an older male friend. In his own words, Bennington described:

“It escalated from a touchy, curious, ‘what does this thing do’ into full-on, crazy violations. I was getting beaten up and being forced to do things I didn’t want to do. It destroyed my self-confidence. I didn’t want people to think I was gay or that I was lying. It was a horrible experience.”

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Justine Damond called 9-11 for help.

Star Tribune, 18 July 2017: Justine Damond, 40, who called 911 to report a possible assault behind her south Minneapolis home Saturday night, was fatally shot by a police officer. No body cams were running at the time.

The death of Justine Damond, who called 911 to report a possible crime only to be killed by a responding Minneapolis police officer, has left her grieving family, neighborhood and nation demanding answers in the latest police-involved shooting to thrust Minnesota into the international spotlight.

The Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed a 40-year-old woman in the alley behind her home Saturday night has been identified as Officer Mohamed Noor. State investigators have confirmed that they did not find any weapons at the scene.

Fast twitching Noor, first Somali to patrol 5th precinct of Minneapolis.

Noor, 31, joined the department in March 2015 as the first Somali police officer to patrol the 5th Precinct in southwest Minneapolis, according to a city newsletter. He holds a degree in Economics and Business Administration from Augsburg College. Before joining the department, he worked in property management in commercial and residential properties in Minneapolis and St. Louis, Mo.

Noor has been sued once in his short career with the police department, stemming from a May 25, 2017 incident, in which he and two other officers came to a woman’s home and took her to the hospital, which the woman alleges constituted false imprisonment, assault and battery. According to the recently filed and ongoing lawsuit, the officers claimed they had reason to believe the woman was suffering a mental health crisis — which she denied — and Noor “grabbed her right wrist and upper arm,” exacerbating a previous shoulder injury in the process.

An exchange between police from the night of the shooting, posted by website Minnesota PoliceClips, shows one officer indicating a “female standing behind a building” on Washburn Avenue. Seconds later, another officer reports “shots fired” and “one down” in the same location, and then an officer says he’s performing CPR. An officer also notes that there’s no suspect at large. It’s unclear if the audio is edited or compressed for time.

“I know the neighborhood well” said Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, shown here with her husband.

On Monday, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension confirmed that officers were responding to a 911 call of a “possible assault.” “At one point an officer fired their weapon, fatally striking a woman,” the news release said. “BCA crime scene personnel located no weapons at the scene.”

The BCA confirmed that an autopsy has been completed. After confirming yesterday that there was no body camera or dashcam footage of the incident, the agency said the investigation “does not determine whether a law enforcement agency policy was violated. That would be reviewed through the agency’s internal affairs process.”

  Friends of Justine Damond mourn.

The BCA has not officially named Noor, but a source confirmed that he was the shooter. Attorney Tom Plunkett is representing Noor, but declined to identify him.

At the same time, a neighborhood has continued to struggle for answers as to what caused the shooting. Family members said Damond called 911 that night to report a possible assault in the alley behind her home.

The morning afterward about 200 people gathered Sunday to mourn Damond. Loving messages remain written in chalk on the sidewalk near the scene, at the end of the alley on W. 51st Street between Washburn and Xerxes avenues S. in the city’s Fulton neighborhood.

See also: ‘White privilege’ as a warrant for expropriation; Christianity as the executing jurisdiction.

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Independent, “Climate change denier Scott Pruitt’s appointment to run EPA would be ‘unprecedented assault’ on its work,” 7 Feb 2017.

One issue that state discretion would Not handle better is the overseeing and coordination of environmental matters, which are, by definition, of interrelated systems that do not heed political bounds, especially not smaller ones.

Trump’s crass assault on our earthly home was launched with his appointment of business plant and climate change denier, Scott Pruitt, as head of the EPA: fox in charge of the hen house. The assault is now going into overdrive.

Daily Caller, “House Republicans Lay Out Their Plan To Rein In The EPA”, 18, 2017:

House Republicans released their proposal to balance the federal budget in 10 years, which included their plans to rein in the regulatory power of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Republicans plan three broad reforms for the EPA: reduce its funding, cut global warming and programs and eliminate the agency’s policy office.

“The Environmental Protection Agency has long overreached in its duties,” the House budget resolution reads, released Tuesday.

“While everyone supports protecting the environment and promoting clean air and clean water, the states are better positioned to address their individual environmental concerns and balance those responsibilities with the concerns of workers, small-businesses, and manufacturers,” the resolution adds.

However, the House’s plan for the EPA would cut the agency’s budget 80 percent less than what the White house recommended in its May budget proposal.

A House appropriations bill introduced days ago gives the EPA a $7.5 billion budget in 2017, or $528 million less than the agency’s 2017 budget. The bill also ignored many Trump administration requests to cut dozens of EPA programs. That bill is still making its way through committee.

The House appropriations bill would give $31.4 billion to federal environmental programs at the EPA, Department of the Interior and other agencies. That’s $824 million below 2017 levels, but $4.3 billion less than the White House’s request.

The White House recommended cutting the EPA’s budget $2.6 billion, or more than 30 percent, along with eliminating dozens of programs, particularly those enforcing Obama-era regulations and climate programs.

The budget proposal also included plans to eliminate duplicative energy programs and wasteful spending to help get “federal government out of the way and allow the private sector to do its job and flourish.”

That effort largely focuses on reducing Energy Department spending energy subsidies and stopping the agency from issuing any more loan guarantees — the same program that funded Solyndra.

“Eliminating these Obama-era pet programs will help us reduce federal spending in the energy sector and promote private-sector energy production and innovation,” the House budget document reads.

Republicans claim that their plan would balance the federal budget within 10 years.

Democrats and environmentalists are already pushing back on the Republican resolution.

House lawmakers will mark up the budget resolution Wednesday, and it’s expected to pass the chamber. Senate Democrats could pose problems for the budget resolution’s path to President Donald Trump’s desk.

The web connecting the Trump administration to Russia

From Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to former campaign director Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s allies have business and personal connections to Russia. As Congress and the FBI look into Russia’s involvement with the 2016 election, those connect (Natalie Fertig and Patrick Gleason McClatchy).

McClatchy DC, “Trump-Russia investigators probe Jared Kushner-run digital operation”, 12 July 2017:

WASHINGTON

Investigators at the House and Senate Intelligence committees and the Justice Department are examining whether the Trump campaign’s digital operation – overseen by Jared Kushner – helped guide Russia’s sophisticated voter targeting and fake news attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Congressional and Justice Department investigators are focusing on whether Trump’s campaign pointed Russian cyber operatives to certain voting jurisdictions in key states – areas where Trump’s digital team and Republican operatives were spotting unexpected weakness in voter support for Hillary Clinton, according to several people familiar with the parallel inquiries.

Also under scrutiny is the question of whether Trump associates or campaign aides had any role in assisting the Russians in publicly releasing thousands of emails, hacked from the accounts of top Democrats, at turning points in the presidential race, mainly through the London-based transparency web site WikiLeaks.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told McClatchy he wants to know whether Russia’s “fake or damaging news stories” were “coordinated in any way in terms of targeting or in terms of timing or in terms of any other measure … with the (Trump) campaign.”

By Election Day, an automated Kremlin cyberattack of unprecedented scale and sophistication had delivered critical and phony news about the Democratic presidential nominee to the Twitter and Facebook accounts of millions of voters. Some investigators suspect the Russians targeted voters in swing states, even in key precincts.

Russia’s operation used computer commands knowns as “bots” to collect and dramatically heighten the reach of negative or fabricated news about Clinton, including a story in the final days of the campaign accusing her of running a pedophile ring at a Washington pizzeria.

One source familiar with Justice’s criminal probe said investigators doubt Russian operatives controlling the so-called robotic cyber commands that fetched and distributed fake news stories could have independently “known where to specifically target … to which high-impact states and districts in those states.”

All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation, led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is confidential.

Top Democrats on the committees investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election have signaled the same.

Schiff said he wants the House panel to determine whether Trump aides helped Russia time its cyberattacks or target certain voters and whether there was “any exchange of information, any financial support funneled to organizations that were doing this kind of work.”

Trump son-in-law Kushner, now a senior adviser to the president and the only current White House aide known to be deemed a “person of interest” in the Justice Department investigation, appears to be under the microscope in several respects. His real estate finances and December meetings with Russia’s ambassador and the head of a sanctioned, state-controlled bank are also being examined.

Kushner’s “role as a possible cut-out or conduit for Moscow’s influence operations in the elections,” including his niche overseeing the digital operations, will be closely looked at, said the source knowledgeable about the Justice Department inquiry.

Kushner joined Donald Trump Jr. and Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort at a newly disclosed June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in New York.. The meeting, revealed by The New York Times, followed emails in which Trump Jr. was told the lawyer for the Russian government would provide him with incriminating information on Clinton and he replied “If it’s what you say I love it.”

That disclosure could only serve to heighten interest in whether there was digital collaboration.

Mike Carpenter, who in January left a senior Pentagon post where he worked on Russia matters, also has suspicions about collaboration between the campaign and Russia’s cyber operatives.

“There appears to have been significant cooperation between Russia’s online propaganda machine and individuals in the United States who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation,” he said, without naming any American suspects.

Trump has repeatedly repudiated or equivocated about the finding of four key intelligence agencies – the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency and the Directorate of National Intelligence – that Russian cyber operatives meddled with the U.S. election.

Last Friday, during their first face-to-face meeting, Trump questioned Putin about Russia’s role in the election meddling and Putin denied culpability, said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was present. Trump then said the two countries should find ways to move forward in their relationship, Tillerson said.

A Russian official who was at the meeting said the two sides agreed to form a working group to address cybersecurity, including interference in other countries’ internal affairs. However, Trump backtracked Sunday night, saying in a tweet that he doesn’t believe such an effort can happen.

As more has been learned about the breadth of the Russian cyber onslaught, congressional Democrats have shown growing resolve to demand that the Republican-controlled intelligence committees fully investigate ways in which Trump associates may have conspired with the Russians.

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ITV, “Donald Trump Jr releases Russian meeting emails”, 11 July 2017:

Donald Trump’s eldest son was offered a meeting with a Russian lawyer to get damaging information on Hillary Clinton as part of a Kremlin-sponsored effort to boost Mr Trump’s presidential campaign, according to documents released today.

      He replied: “If it’s what you say I love it”.

Donald Trump Jr published what he said were the full transcripts of his emails with a businessman who offered to set up the meeting in the run-up to the 2016 elections which took his father to victory.

It comes as he faces growing scrutiny over what appears to be strongest evidence yet of direct Russian links to the Trump presidential campaign at the highest levels.

The transcripts show Mr Trump Jr, who was deeply involved in his father’s presidential campaign, was told he was being passed the contact as “part of Russia and it’s Government’s support for Mr Trump”.

Russian Oligarch’s son, Rob Goldstone

The transcripts indicate that Mr Trump Jr was contacted in early June 2016 by music publicist Rob Goldstone, whom he had met at a 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Russia.

It offered to put him in contact with a Russian lawyer who he said had information that would “incriminate” rival presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

         

“This is obviously very high-level and sensitive information but it is part of Russia and it’s Government’s support for Mr Trump,” the message said.

It added the information “would be very useful to your father”.

“If it’s what you say I love it, especially later in the summer,” Trump Jr. replied to Goldstone in the exchanges which he posted to Twitter.

The emails say the alleged leak came via the “Crown Prosecutor of Russia”. That is a position that does not exist, though Russia does have a Prosecutor General.

Mr Trump Jr has acknowledged that a meeting with the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, did subsequently take place at Trump Tower.

He insisted that in fact no information on Clinton was given to him, and the supposed leak was “the most inane nonsense I ever heard”.

The Trump Jr. delegation was actually disappointed with Veselnitskaya. They had sought more dirt on Hillary Clinton.

The growing concern over the contact comes after allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to benefit Mr Trump.

Those claims are currently the subject of an ongoing politically-charged investigation in the US.

Mr Trump has firmly denied that there was any contact between his campaign and the Russian government.

Last updated Tue 11 Jul 2017

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Tara McCarthy Interviews Colin Flaherty: Don’t Make The Black Kids Angry, Youtube.com, 10 July 2017.

Trump would try to stop election hacking by working with the man who has turned election hacking into an art form

Vox, 9 July 2017:  No, really.

“Trump wants to work with Putin to fight election hacking.”

President Donald Trump began his high-profile Europe trip by publicly questioning the US intelligence community’s unanimous conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. He used a one-one-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to make clear Moscow wouldn’t be punished for the hack.

Then, on Sunday, Trump capped his time at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, with an announcement that he and Putin had agreed to create “an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things” will be prevented.

Trump, if he sticks with the plan, will be trying to stop election hacking by working with the man who has turned election hacking into an art form.

The announcement stunned lawmakers from both parties, with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham describing it as “pretty close” to the “dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.” Graham also blasted Trump for his continued refusal to acknowledge the Russian hacking campaign.

“He is literally the only person I know of who doesn’t believe Russia attacked our election in 2016,” Graham said on NBC News’s Meet the Press.

With criticism pouring in, Trump tried to slightly distance himself from the idea late Sunday night, with a tweet that said the “fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn’t mean I think it can happen. It can’t-but a ceasefire can, and did!”

Trump’s quasi-denial aside, there was something genuinely startling about his first announcement. Trump left for the G20 summit with his presidency engulfed in an array of Russia-related scandals, including a criminal investigation into whether his campaign knowingly colluded with Kremlin hackers.

That meant there was one major question hanging over Trump as he prepared for his face-to-face meeting with Putin: whether he would hold the Russian leader accountable for directing what US spies describe as a systematic hacking campaign designed to hurt Hillary Clinton and help him win the White House.

On Sunday, Trump appeared to answer that question with a resounding “no.”

The summit was a win for Putin and a loss for everyone else.

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