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solarbirdThings are getting spicier tonight, as Donkeyballs Donald starts tweeting threats against Washington State governor Jay Inslee. They'd be funny, except for the New York Times article detailing exactly how close we came to a bloodbath in DC last week.
----- 1 -----
No Sign Of Antifa So Far In Justice Department Cases Brought Over Unrest
June 9, 2020
Ryan Lucas in 2018
Ryan Lucas
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/09/873278314/no-sign-of-antifa-so-far-in-justice-department-cases-brought-over-unrest
U.S. Attorney General William Barr has repeatedly blamed anti-fascist activists for the violence that has erupted during demonstrations over George Floyd's death, but federal court records show no sign of so-called antifa links so far in cases brought by the Justice Department.
NPR has reviewed court documents of 51 individuals facing federal charges in connection with the unrest. As of Tuesday morning, none is alleged to have links to the antifa movement.
Of the cases brought so far, 20 involve allegations related to arson; 16 involve the illegal possession of a firearm, more often than not by a felon; another eight people face charges related to inciting a riot or civil disorder.
The single instance in which an extremist group is mentioned in court documents is a case against three Nevada men. Federal prosecutors allege the trio belong to the right-wing Boogaloo movement that wants to bring about a civil war. The men have been charged with plotting violence during Las Vegas protests.
----- 2 -----
Message from GOP lawmakers to Iowans: We don't want you voting
The Register's editorial Published 5:35 p.m. CT June 8, 2020
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/2020/06/08/gop-state-lawmakers-dedicated-making-harder-iowans-vote-editorial/3173108001/
Republican state lawmakers are on a mission: Make it as difficult as possible for Iowans to vote.
Their latest effort to fulfill this mission came in the form of a last-minute 30-page amendment to a previously simple, noncontroversial bill. Sen. Roby Smith, R-Davenport, said the new legislation, passed along party lines after a contentious late-night debate, is intended to support “safe, secure and reliable elections.”
It is not. Iowa already has safe, secure and reliable elections.
The goal is voter suppression.
The bill, among other things, prohibits the secretary of state from mailing absentee ballot requests to Iowans without a written voter request.
In other words, it would prevent the current secretary, Republican Paul Pate, from doing exactly what he recently did. To promote voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic, he sent mail-in ballot request forms for the June 2 primary to all registered voters in the state.
The result was record voter turnout, largely due to absentee voting.
More than 520,000 votes were cast — shattering the existing record of about 450,000 set in 1994. Polk County saw a seven-fold increase in early voting.
“Iowans are amazing,” Pate wrote in a post-election op-ed for this newspaper. “The level of civic engagement among our citizens is unrivaled.”
Participation by more people in our democracy is a success. But that’s not how legislative Republicans see it. Unfortunately, that should come as no surprise by now.
----- 3 -----
Flynn committed perjury, and DOJ request to toss his conviction was ‘corrupt,’ ‘politically motivated,’ court-appointed adviser argues
By
Spencer S. Hsu and
Ann E. Marimow
June 10, 2020 at 1:27 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/michael-flynn-committed-perjury-but-should-not-face-contempt-hearing-court-appointed-counsel-finds/2020/06/10/09dada24-aa81-11ea-9063-e69bd6520940_story.html
Michael Flynn committed perjury, and his guilty plea of lying to the FBI should not be dismissed, a court-appointed adviser argued to a federal judge Wednesday, calling the Justice Department’s attempt to undo the conviction corrupt, politically motivated and “a gross abuse of prosecutorial power.”
In a formal briefing to the judge overseeing Flynn’s case, former New York federal judge John Gleeson said Flynn’s guilt “could hardly be more provable.” He issued a sharp rebuke of the Justice Department’s move to abandon the long-running case and called out President Trump for refusing to accept “settled foundational norms of prosecutorial independence.”
“The Government has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President,” Gleeson wrote in an 82-page brief to U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.
----- 4 -----
Daniel Dale
twitter.com/ddale8
10 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1270770336418709505
[THREAD]
This is a formal request. There is a letter from a lawyer.
[QUOTED TWEET]
Donie O'Sullivan
twitter.com/donie
10 June 2020
https://twitter.com/donie/status/1270769310915612673
Trump campaign demands CNN apologize for poll that shows Biden leading https://cnn.com/2020/06/10/politics/trump-campaign-cnn-poll/index.html
[NEXT]
Recall that Trump has claimed that his lawyers sent a letter to WaPo or ABC to complain about a 2016 poll, and then they gave him better results. (Also recall that WaPo says it never got any such letter and obviously didn't change its polling.)
[QUOTED TWEET]
[THREAD CONTINUES AT UPPER LINK]
----- 5 -----
CNN Communications
twitter.com/CNNPR
10 June 2020
https://twitter.com/CNNPR/status/1270802155201576962/photo/1
[THREAD]
Official response from CNN General Counsel to twitter.com/TeamTrump‘s letter demanding CNN apologize for a poll that shows twitter.com/JoeBiden leading.
[EMBEDDED IMAGE OF CNN RESPONSE which can be summed up as "go fuck yourself, Nazi"]
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]
----- 6 -----
After record primary turnout, Iowa senate Republicans try to limit vote-by-mail in presidential election
By Nicole Goodkind
June 9, 2020
https://fortune.com/2020/06/09/vote-by-mail-iowa-senate-bill-presidential-election-trump-biden/
Iowa set a new record for primary election turnout this month after secretary of state Paul Pate sent applications for mail-in ballots to all registered voters. More than 520,000 ballots were cast, according to Pate’s office, beating the previous record of 450,000 set in 1994.
Now, Republicans in the state senate are trying to prevent him from doing the same in the general election this November.
The Iowa Senate State Government Committee advanced a 30-page bill on a party-line vote late last week that would prohibit Pate, also a Republican, from proactively sending applications for mail-in-ballots to all registered voters. Anyone who wanted a mail-in ballot would need to submit a written request on their own and show proof of valid voter identification.
The bill would prohibit the secretary from taking emergency election action in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The secretary can make changes in cases of extreme weather or during wartime, it says, but not during a health crisis. It also prevents Pate from making any changes to the early or absentee voting process, even in an emergency.
In addition, the bill would require election offices to send reminder notices to any voter who misses one general election and would require his or her status to be updated to “inactive” before the notices are sent. Current law says that notices should sent after four years of no voting, with no change in status unless the post office returns the notice as undeliverable.
----- 7 -----
IBM quits facial recognition, joins call for police reforms
By MATT O'BRIEN
9 June 2020
https://apnews.com/5ee4450df46d2d96bf85d7db683bb0a6
IBM is getting out of the facial recognition business, saying it’s concerned about how the technology can be used for mass surveillance and racial profiling.
Ongoing protests responding to the death of George Floyd have sparked a broader reckoning over racial injustice and a closer look at the use of police technology to track demonstrators and monitor American neighborhoods.
IBM is one of several big tech firms that had earlier sought to improve the accuracy of their face-scanning software after research found racial and gender disparities. But its new CEO is now questioning whether it should be used by police at all.
“We believe now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies,” wrote CEO Arvind Krishna in a letter sent Monday to U.S. lawmakers.
IBM’s decision to stop building and selling facial recognition software is unlikely to affect its bottom line, since the tech giant is increasingly focused on cloud computing while an array of lesser-known firms have cornered the market for government facial recognition contracts.
----- 8 -----
Alexander Reid Ross
twitter.com/areidross
5 June 2020
https://twitter.com/areidross/status/1269021928510984193
[EDITOR: This map has continued to be updated since June 5th]
Here's an interactive webmap I made of vigilantism incidents I've been tracking over the last several days. They range from smallish to 100+ participants, and from staging to harassment, chucking objects, and shootings... will continue to update.
http://web.pdx.edu/~aross/incidents/incidents.html
----- 9 -----
Donald J. Trump
twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
June 10, 2020
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1270914092295950337
Radical Left Governor twitter.com/JayInslee and the Mayor of Seattle are being taunted and played at a level that our great Country has never seen before. Take back your city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly Anarchists must be stooped IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST!
----- 10 -----
[EDITOR]
Hi, your editor here.
I know I said I wasn't planning on linking to the New York Times anymore, not after publishing that Tom Cotton op-ed calling for exactly this. But in this case, I think I have to.
The regular military had to work really hard to keep Trump from calling in the 82nd Airborn last week. And that included national guard specifically gearing up to use live ammo on US citizens. Quoting the article:
"Tens of thousands of rifle and pistol rounds were stored in the D.C. Armory and partitioned in pallets, labeled by their state of origin, to be used on American citizens in case of emergency."
Link is in the tweet. And yes, verified.
Brian Beutler
twitter.com/brianbeutler
10 June 2020
https://twitter.com/brianbeutler/status/1270886461970288640
The plan was to shoot DC protesters. https://nytimes.com/2020/06/10/us/politics/national-guard-protests.html
- No Sign Of Antifa So Far In Justice Department Cases Brought Over Unrest
- Message from GOP lawmakers to Iowans: We don't want you voting
- Flynn committed perjury, and DOJ request to toss his conviction was ‘corrupt,’ ‘politically motivated,’ court-appointed adviser argues
- Trump campaign sends letter demanding CNN retract its poll, apologise
- CNN tells Trump campaign to go fuck itself
- After record primary turnout, Iowa senate Republicans try to limit vote-by-mail in presidential election
- IBM quits facial recognition, joins call for police reforms
- an interactive webmap I made of vigilantism
- Donald Trump threatens Jay Inslee with military intervention
- Exactly how close we came to a bloodbath in DC last week
----- 1 -----
No Sign Of Antifa So Far In Justice Department Cases Brought Over Unrest
June 9, 2020
Ryan Lucas in 2018
Ryan Lucas
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/09/873278314/no-sign-of-antifa-so-far-in-justice-department-cases-brought-over-unrest
U.S. Attorney General William Barr has repeatedly blamed anti-fascist activists for the violence that has erupted during demonstrations over George Floyd's death, but federal court records show no sign of so-called antifa links so far in cases brought by the Justice Department.
NPR has reviewed court documents of 51 individuals facing federal charges in connection with the unrest. As of Tuesday morning, none is alleged to have links to the antifa movement.
Of the cases brought so far, 20 involve allegations related to arson; 16 involve the illegal possession of a firearm, more often than not by a felon; another eight people face charges related to inciting a riot or civil disorder.
The single instance in which an extremist group is mentioned in court documents is a case against three Nevada men. Federal prosecutors allege the trio belong to the right-wing Boogaloo movement that wants to bring about a civil war. The men have been charged with plotting violence during Las Vegas protests.
----- 2 -----
Message from GOP lawmakers to Iowans: We don't want you voting
The Register's editorial Published 5:35 p.m. CT June 8, 2020
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/2020/06/08/gop-state-lawmakers-dedicated-making-harder-iowans-vote-editorial/3173108001/
Republican state lawmakers are on a mission: Make it as difficult as possible for Iowans to vote.
Their latest effort to fulfill this mission came in the form of a last-minute 30-page amendment to a previously simple, noncontroversial bill. Sen. Roby Smith, R-Davenport, said the new legislation, passed along party lines after a contentious late-night debate, is intended to support “safe, secure and reliable elections.”
It is not. Iowa already has safe, secure and reliable elections.
The goal is voter suppression.
The bill, among other things, prohibits the secretary of state from mailing absentee ballot requests to Iowans without a written voter request.
In other words, it would prevent the current secretary, Republican Paul Pate, from doing exactly what he recently did. To promote voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic, he sent mail-in ballot request forms for the June 2 primary to all registered voters in the state.
The result was record voter turnout, largely due to absentee voting.
More than 520,000 votes were cast — shattering the existing record of about 450,000 set in 1994. Polk County saw a seven-fold increase in early voting.
“Iowans are amazing,” Pate wrote in a post-election op-ed for this newspaper. “The level of civic engagement among our citizens is unrivaled.”
Participation by more people in our democracy is a success. But that’s not how legislative Republicans see it. Unfortunately, that should come as no surprise by now.
----- 3 -----
Flynn committed perjury, and DOJ request to toss his conviction was ‘corrupt,’ ‘politically motivated,’ court-appointed adviser argues
By
Spencer S. Hsu and
Ann E. Marimow
June 10, 2020 at 1:27 p.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/michael-flynn-committed-perjury-but-should-not-face-contempt-hearing-court-appointed-counsel-finds/2020/06/10/09dada24-aa81-11ea-9063-e69bd6520940_story.html
Michael Flynn committed perjury, and his guilty plea of lying to the FBI should not be dismissed, a court-appointed adviser argued to a federal judge Wednesday, calling the Justice Department’s attempt to undo the conviction corrupt, politically motivated and “a gross abuse of prosecutorial power.”
In a formal briefing to the judge overseeing Flynn’s case, former New York federal judge John Gleeson said Flynn’s guilt “could hardly be more provable.” He issued a sharp rebuke of the Justice Department’s move to abandon the long-running case and called out President Trump for refusing to accept “settled foundational norms of prosecutorial independence.”
“The Government has engaged in highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President,” Gleeson wrote in an 82-page brief to U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.
----- 4 -----
Daniel Dale
twitter.com/ddale8
10 June 2020
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1270770336418709505
[THREAD]
This is a formal request. There is a letter from a lawyer.
[QUOTED TWEET]
Donie O'Sullivan
twitter.com/donie
10 June 2020
https://twitter.com/donie/status/1270769310915612673
Trump campaign demands CNN apologize for poll that shows Biden leading https://cnn.com/2020/06/10/politics/trump-campaign-cnn-poll/index.html
[NEXT]
Recall that Trump has claimed that his lawyers sent a letter to WaPo or ABC to complain about a 2016 poll, and then they gave him better results. (Also recall that WaPo says it never got any such letter and obviously didn't change its polling.)
[QUOTED TWEET]
[THREAD CONTINUES AT UPPER LINK]
----- 5 -----
CNN Communications
twitter.com/CNNPR
10 June 2020
https://twitter.com/CNNPR/status/1270802155201576962/photo/1
[THREAD]
Official response from CNN General Counsel to twitter.com/TeamTrump‘s letter demanding CNN apologize for a poll that shows twitter.com/JoeBiden leading.
[EMBEDDED IMAGE OF CNN RESPONSE which can be summed up as "go fuck yourself, Nazi"]
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]
----- 6 -----
After record primary turnout, Iowa senate Republicans try to limit vote-by-mail in presidential election
By Nicole Goodkind
June 9, 2020
https://fortune.com/2020/06/09/vote-by-mail-iowa-senate-bill-presidential-election-trump-biden/
Iowa set a new record for primary election turnout this month after secretary of state Paul Pate sent applications for mail-in ballots to all registered voters. More than 520,000 ballots were cast, according to Pate’s office, beating the previous record of 450,000 set in 1994.
Now, Republicans in the state senate are trying to prevent him from doing the same in the general election this November.
The Iowa Senate State Government Committee advanced a 30-page bill on a party-line vote late last week that would prohibit Pate, also a Republican, from proactively sending applications for mail-in-ballots to all registered voters. Anyone who wanted a mail-in ballot would need to submit a written request on their own and show proof of valid voter identification.
The bill would prohibit the secretary from taking emergency election action in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The secretary can make changes in cases of extreme weather or during wartime, it says, but not during a health crisis. It also prevents Pate from making any changes to the early or absentee voting process, even in an emergency.
In addition, the bill would require election offices to send reminder notices to any voter who misses one general election and would require his or her status to be updated to “inactive” before the notices are sent. Current law says that notices should sent after four years of no voting, with no change in status unless the post office returns the notice as undeliverable.
----- 7 -----
IBM quits facial recognition, joins call for police reforms
By MATT O'BRIEN
9 June 2020
https://apnews.com/5ee4450df46d2d96bf85d7db683bb0a6
IBM is getting out of the facial recognition business, saying it’s concerned about how the technology can be used for mass surveillance and racial profiling.
Ongoing protests responding to the death of George Floyd have sparked a broader reckoning over racial injustice and a closer look at the use of police technology to track demonstrators and monitor American neighborhoods.
IBM is one of several big tech firms that had earlier sought to improve the accuracy of their face-scanning software after research found racial and gender disparities. But its new CEO is now questioning whether it should be used by police at all.
“We believe now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies,” wrote CEO Arvind Krishna in a letter sent Monday to U.S. lawmakers.
IBM’s decision to stop building and selling facial recognition software is unlikely to affect its bottom line, since the tech giant is increasingly focused on cloud computing while an array of lesser-known firms have cornered the market for government facial recognition contracts.
----- 8 -----
Alexander Reid Ross
twitter.com/areidross
5 June 2020
https://twitter.com/areidross/status/1269021928510984193
[EDITOR: This map has continued to be updated since June 5th]
Here's an interactive webmap I made of vigilantism incidents I've been tracking over the last several days. They range from smallish to 100+ participants, and from staging to harassment, chucking objects, and shootings... will continue to update.
http://web.pdx.edu/~aross/incidents/incidents.html
----- 9 -----
Donald J. Trump
twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
June 10, 2020
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1270914092295950337
Radical Left Governor twitter.com/JayInslee and the Mayor of Seattle are being taunted and played at a level that our great Country has never seen before. Take back your city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly Anarchists must be stooped IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST!
----- 10 -----
[EDITOR]
Hi, your editor here.
I know I said I wasn't planning on linking to the New York Times anymore, not after publishing that Tom Cotton op-ed calling for exactly this. But in this case, I think I have to.
The regular military had to work really hard to keep Trump from calling in the 82nd Airborn last week. And that included national guard specifically gearing up to use live ammo on US citizens. Quoting the article:
"Tens of thousands of rifle and pistol rounds were stored in the D.C. Armory and partitioned in pallets, labeled by their state of origin, to be used on American citizens in case of emergency."
Link is in the tweet. And yes, verified.
Brian Beutler
twitter.com/brianbeutler
10 June 2020
https://twitter.com/brianbeutler/status/1270886461970288640
The plan was to shoot DC protesters. https://nytimes.com/2020/06/10/us/politics/national-guard-protests.html
no subject
Date: 2020-06-11 04:59 am (UTC)CNN tells Trump campaign to go fuck itself
LOL. Those were basically my exact words in my, ah, slightly paraphrased dramatic reading-aloud of the first few grafs of this article in the local paper.