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solarbirdOcasio-Cortez's short speech on the House floor is pretty good. Not revolutionary, but certainly correct, and people are paying attention for once. So that's a good thing.
----- 1 -----
“Hurting People At Scale”
Facebook’s Employees Reckon With The Social Network They’ve Built
As the US heads towards a crucial and contentious presidential election, the world's largest social network is facing an unprecedented cultural crisis.
Ryan Mac and Craig Silverman
July 23, 2020
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employee-leaks-show-they-feel-betrayed
On July 1, Max Wang, a Boston-based software engineer who was leaving Facebook after more than seven years, shared a video on the company’s internal discussion board that was meant to serve as a warning.
“I think Facebook is hurting people at scale,” he wrote in a note accompanying the video. “If you think so too, maybe give this a watch.”
Most employees on their way out of the “Mark Zuckerberg production” typically post photos of their company badges along with farewell notes thanking their colleagues. Wang opted for a clip of himself speaking directly to the camera. What followed was a 24-minute clear-eyed hammering of Facebook’s leadership and decision-making over the previous year.
The video was a distillation of months of internal strife, protest, and departures that followed the company’s decision to leave untouched a post from President Donald Trump that seemingly called for violence against people protesting the police killing of George Floyd. And while Wang’s message wasn’t necessarily unique, his assessment of the company’s ongoing failure to protect its users — an evaluation informed by his lengthy tenure at the company — provided one of the most stunningly pointed rebukes of Facebook to date.
“We are failing,” he said, criticizing Facebook’s leaders for catering to political concerns at the expense of real-world harm. “And what's worse, we have enshrined that failure in our policies.”
...
Yaël Eisenstat, Facebook's former election ads integrity lead, said the employees’ concerns reflect her experience at the company, which she believes is on a dangerous path heading into the election.
“All of these steps are leading up to a situation where, come November, a portion of Facebook users will not trust the outcome of the election because they have been bombarded with messages on Facebook preparing them to not trust it,” she told BuzzFeed News.
----- 2 -----
'I Could Not Allow That To Stand': Ocasio-Cortez Rebukes Republican For Vulgar Insult
July 23, 2020
Barbara Sprunt
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/23/894596598/i-could-not-allow-that-to-stand-ocasio-cortez-rebukes-republican-for-vulgar-insu
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., took to the House floor Thursday morning to admonish the insults hurled at her by Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., earlier this week.
Yoho confronted Ocasio-Cortez on the steps of the Capitol on Monday, Ocasio-Cortez said, calling her "disgusting" for linking poverty to crime rates in New York City.
"I was minding my own business walking up the steps, and Rep. Yoho put his finger in my face. He called me disgusting. He called me crazy. He called me out of my mind. And he called me dangerous," she said.
The congresswoman said she told Yoho his comments were rude and walked away to cast her vote. Then, as The Hill first reported, Yoho was overheard using a vulgar insult often aimed at women.
"There were reporters in the front of the Capitol, and in front of reporters Rep. Yoho called me, and I quote, a 'f*****g bitch,' " she said.
Ocasio-Cortez said Yoho was accompanied by Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, who did not interject on her behalf but instead joined in on insulting her. Williams has denied hearing or participating in the incident.
Ocasio-Cortez, a key voice in the progressive movement and a frequent target of Republicans, said that kind of verbal abuse isn't new and she's concerned about an increasing acceptance of dehumanizing and misogynistic language toward women.
"This issue is not about one incident. It is cultural. It is a culture of lack of impunity, of accepting of violence and violent language against women and an entire structure of power that supports that," she said.
...
Ocasio-Cortez said Yoho's comments on Wednesday prompted her to address the controversy. She described his remarks as making "excuses for his behavior."
"I could not allow my nieces, I could not allow the little girls that I go home to, I could not allow victims of verbal abuse, and worse, to see that. To see that excuse, and see our Congress accept it as legitimate and accept it as an apology and to accept silence as a form of acceptance. I could not allow that to stand," she said.
She reprimanded Yoho for using his family members as a "shield" for his foul language.
"Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man. And when a decent man messes up, as we all are bound to do, he tries his best and does apologize," she said.
"I am someone's daughter, too. My father, thankfully, is not alive to see how Mr. Yoho treated his daughter," she went on to say. "My mother got to see Mr. Yoho's disrespect on the floor of this House towards me on television. And I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men."
----- 3 -----
Cassie LaBelle
twitter.com/CassieCeleste
24 July 2020
https://twitter.com/CassieCeleste/status/1286338629141397506
[THREAD]
I run a small online business and I use the USPS for all my shipping. I probably mail 100 packages a week, and have been doing so for years.
I don't think most people understand the scope of what has been happening over the last month or so in terms of delays.
[NEXT]
----- 4 -----
Eastside tech executive took $5.5M in fraudulent PPP loans, feds allege
July 23, 2020 at 5:50 pm Updated July 23, 2020 at 6:04 pm
By Katherine Khashimova Long
Seattle Times business reporter
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/eastside-tech-executive-took-5-5m-in-fraudulent-ppp-loans-feds-allege/
Mukund Mohan, a former executive at Amazon and Microsoft, was arrested and charged Thursday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with forging documents to fraudulently acquire more than $5.5 million in coronavirus relief funds.
Mohan submitted “fake and altered documents, including fake federal tax filings and altered incorporation documents” in support of Paycheck Protection Program applications for six shell companies he owned, and then transferred some of the money to his Robinhood brokerage account “for his personal benefit,” the U.S. Attorney alleged in its complaint. Mohan could not be reached for comment.
Federal PPP loans are intended to help businesses retain workers during the coronavirus pandemic — but Mohan’s companies didn’t employ a single worker, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
----- 5 -----
‘I may have signed my own death warrant’: Teacher regrets her Trump vote as schools pushed to reopen during COVID-19 pandemic
July 23, 2020
By Travis Gettys
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/i-may-have-signed-my-own-warrant-teacher-regrets-her-trump-vote-as-schools-pushed-to-reopen-during-19/
A regretful Republican voter fears she may have unwittingly consigned herself to death by voting against Hillary Clinton four years ago.
Nancy Shively is a special education teacher and lifelong Republican from Oklahoma, who voted for President Donald Trump in 2016 as the “less bad of two bad choices,” but she wrote a column for USA Today explaining that she made a grave error.
“When the pandemic hit, the incompetence of the man for whom I had voted and the complicity of everyone around him forced me to admit that I could no longer maintain any kind of self-respect as a Republican,” Shively wrote. “So even though I had voted Republican in every presidential election since 1976, I changed my voter registration to independent and I will be voting for Joe Biden in November.”
----- 6 -----
State potentially delayed outbreak announcement at beef factory
By Ethan Stein
Published: Jul. 24, 2020
https://www.kcrg.com/2020/07/24/state-potentially-delayed-outbreak-announcement-at-beef-factory/
TAMA COUNTY, Iowa (KCRG) - The state of Iowa potentially delayed an announcement about a COVID-19 outbreak occurring at the Iowa Premium Beef plant in Tama County, according to records I9 received through a public records request.
Emails between the Iowa Department of Public Health and local health officials said Governor Kim Reynolds was going to announce the plant as an outbreak center on April 16th. Instead, it was announced as an outbreak location days later on April 20th.
Pat Garrett, who is the spokesperson for the Governor’s office, said the variance in dates had to be a mistake because employees at the plant began receiving tests for COVID-19 on April 16th and April 17th. The state declares an outbreak at a facility once 10 percent of its employees are infected with COVID-19.
However, about one week before those employees were tested, they all received a letter about “an ongoing outbreak at their place of employment.”
The letter, which I9 received through a public records request, was addressed to health care providers from State Epidemiologist Dr. Caitlin Pedati. The letter asked healthcare providers to test people for COVID-19 if they had a fever or any other respiratory symptoms.
Garrett said the governor referenced the beef plant as a potential outbreak in response to a question a reporter asked her, during a press conference, around the same time period.
- “Hurting People At Scale”: Facebook’s Employees Reckon With The Social Network They’ve Built
- 'I Could Not Allow That To Stand': Ocasio-Cortez Rebukes Republican For Vulgar Insult
- Trump appointee DeJoy's sabotage of the USPS: one small business's report.
- Eastside tech executive took $5.5M in fraudulent PPP loans, feds allege
- ‘I may have signed my own death warrant’: Teacher regrets her Trump vote as schools pushed to reopen during COVID-19 pandemic
- (IOWA) State potentially delayed outbreak announcement at beef factory
----- 1 -----
“Hurting People At Scale”
Facebook’s Employees Reckon With The Social Network They’ve Built
As the US heads towards a crucial and contentious presidential election, the world's largest social network is facing an unprecedented cultural crisis.
Ryan Mac and Craig Silverman
July 23, 2020
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employee-leaks-show-they-feel-betrayed
On July 1, Max Wang, a Boston-based software engineer who was leaving Facebook after more than seven years, shared a video on the company’s internal discussion board that was meant to serve as a warning.
“I think Facebook is hurting people at scale,” he wrote in a note accompanying the video. “If you think so too, maybe give this a watch.”
Most employees on their way out of the “Mark Zuckerberg production” typically post photos of their company badges along with farewell notes thanking their colleagues. Wang opted for a clip of himself speaking directly to the camera. What followed was a 24-minute clear-eyed hammering of Facebook’s leadership and decision-making over the previous year.
The video was a distillation of months of internal strife, protest, and departures that followed the company’s decision to leave untouched a post from President Donald Trump that seemingly called for violence against people protesting the police killing of George Floyd. And while Wang’s message wasn’t necessarily unique, his assessment of the company’s ongoing failure to protect its users — an evaluation informed by his lengthy tenure at the company — provided one of the most stunningly pointed rebukes of Facebook to date.
“We are failing,” he said, criticizing Facebook’s leaders for catering to political concerns at the expense of real-world harm. “And what's worse, we have enshrined that failure in our policies.”
...
Yaël Eisenstat, Facebook's former election ads integrity lead, said the employees’ concerns reflect her experience at the company, which she believes is on a dangerous path heading into the election.
“All of these steps are leading up to a situation where, come November, a portion of Facebook users will not trust the outcome of the election because they have been bombarded with messages on Facebook preparing them to not trust it,” she told BuzzFeed News.
----- 2 -----
'I Could Not Allow That To Stand': Ocasio-Cortez Rebukes Republican For Vulgar Insult
July 23, 2020
Barbara Sprunt
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/23/894596598/i-could-not-allow-that-to-stand-ocasio-cortez-rebukes-republican-for-vulgar-insu
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., took to the House floor Thursday morning to admonish the insults hurled at her by Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., earlier this week.
Yoho confronted Ocasio-Cortez on the steps of the Capitol on Monday, Ocasio-Cortez said, calling her "disgusting" for linking poverty to crime rates in New York City.
"I was minding my own business walking up the steps, and Rep. Yoho put his finger in my face. He called me disgusting. He called me crazy. He called me out of my mind. And he called me dangerous," she said.
The congresswoman said she told Yoho his comments were rude and walked away to cast her vote. Then, as The Hill first reported, Yoho was overheard using a vulgar insult often aimed at women.
"There were reporters in the front of the Capitol, and in front of reporters Rep. Yoho called me, and I quote, a 'f*****g bitch,' " she said.
Ocasio-Cortez said Yoho was accompanied by Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, who did not interject on her behalf but instead joined in on insulting her. Williams has denied hearing or participating in the incident.
Ocasio-Cortez, a key voice in the progressive movement and a frequent target of Republicans, said that kind of verbal abuse isn't new and she's concerned about an increasing acceptance of dehumanizing and misogynistic language toward women.
"This issue is not about one incident. It is cultural. It is a culture of lack of impunity, of accepting of violence and violent language against women and an entire structure of power that supports that," she said.
...
Ocasio-Cortez said Yoho's comments on Wednesday prompted her to address the controversy. She described his remarks as making "excuses for his behavior."
"I could not allow my nieces, I could not allow the little girls that I go home to, I could not allow victims of verbal abuse, and worse, to see that. To see that excuse, and see our Congress accept it as legitimate and accept it as an apology and to accept silence as a form of acceptance. I could not allow that to stand," she said.
She reprimanded Yoho for using his family members as a "shield" for his foul language.
"Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man. And when a decent man messes up, as we all are bound to do, he tries his best and does apologize," she said.
"I am someone's daughter, too. My father, thankfully, is not alive to see how Mr. Yoho treated his daughter," she went on to say. "My mother got to see Mr. Yoho's disrespect on the floor of this House towards me on television. And I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men."
----- 3 -----
Cassie LaBelle
twitter.com/CassieCeleste
24 July 2020
https://twitter.com/CassieCeleste/status/1286338629141397506
[THREAD]
I run a small online business and I use the USPS for all my shipping. I probably mail 100 packages a week, and have been doing so for years.
I don't think most people understand the scope of what has been happening over the last month or so in terms of delays.
[NEXT]
----- 4 -----
Eastside tech executive took $5.5M in fraudulent PPP loans, feds allege
July 23, 2020 at 5:50 pm Updated July 23, 2020 at 6:04 pm
By Katherine Khashimova Long
Seattle Times business reporter
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/eastside-tech-executive-took-5-5m-in-fraudulent-ppp-loans-feds-allege/
Mukund Mohan, a former executive at Amazon and Microsoft, was arrested and charged Thursday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with forging documents to fraudulently acquire more than $5.5 million in coronavirus relief funds.
Mohan submitted “fake and altered documents, including fake federal tax filings and altered incorporation documents” in support of Paycheck Protection Program applications for six shell companies he owned, and then transferred some of the money to his Robinhood brokerage account “for his personal benefit,” the U.S. Attorney alleged in its complaint. Mohan could not be reached for comment.
Federal PPP loans are intended to help businesses retain workers during the coronavirus pandemic — but Mohan’s companies didn’t employ a single worker, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
----- 5 -----
‘I may have signed my own death warrant’: Teacher regrets her Trump vote as schools pushed to reopen during COVID-19 pandemic
July 23, 2020
By Travis Gettys
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/i-may-have-signed-my-own-warrant-teacher-regrets-her-trump-vote-as-schools-pushed-to-reopen-during-19/
A regretful Republican voter fears she may have unwittingly consigned herself to death by voting against Hillary Clinton four years ago.
Nancy Shively is a special education teacher and lifelong Republican from Oklahoma, who voted for President Donald Trump in 2016 as the “less bad of two bad choices,” but she wrote a column for USA Today explaining that she made a grave error.
“When the pandemic hit, the incompetence of the man for whom I had voted and the complicity of everyone around him forced me to admit that I could no longer maintain any kind of self-respect as a Republican,” Shively wrote. “So even though I had voted Republican in every presidential election since 1976, I changed my voter registration to independent and I will be voting for Joe Biden in November.”
----- 6 -----
State potentially delayed outbreak announcement at beef factory
By Ethan Stein
Published: Jul. 24, 2020
https://www.kcrg.com/2020/07/24/state-potentially-delayed-outbreak-announcement-at-beef-factory/
TAMA COUNTY, Iowa (KCRG) - The state of Iowa potentially delayed an announcement about a COVID-19 outbreak occurring at the Iowa Premium Beef plant in Tama County, according to records I9 received through a public records request.
Emails between the Iowa Department of Public Health and local health officials said Governor Kim Reynolds was going to announce the plant as an outbreak center on April 16th. Instead, it was announced as an outbreak location days later on April 20th.
Pat Garrett, who is the spokesperson for the Governor’s office, said the variance in dates had to be a mistake because employees at the plant began receiving tests for COVID-19 on April 16th and April 17th. The state declares an outbreak at a facility once 10 percent of its employees are infected with COVID-19.
However, about one week before those employees were tested, they all received a letter about “an ongoing outbreak at their place of employment.”
The letter, which I9 received through a public records request, was addressed to health care providers from State Epidemiologist Dr. Caitlin Pedati. The letter asked healthcare providers to test people for COVID-19 if they had a fever or any other respiratory symptoms.
Garrett said the governor referenced the beef plant as a potential outbreak in response to a question a reporter asked her, during a press conference, around the same time period.
