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Politics & Religion / The Administrative Immigration Shuffle
« Last post by Body-by-Guinness on Today at 05:37:03 PM »
Remember the presidential administration that issued a bunch of executive orders weakening immigration enforcement? The one that was ostensibly all aflutter because Republicans wouldn’t sign on to a smoke and mirror legislative effort to putatively address the border crisis? Well that administration is now threatening to sue a state seeking to arrest those here illegally:

https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/05/doj-threatens-oklahoma-with-lawsuit-over-immigration-law/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=doj-threatens-oklahoma-with-lawsuit-over-immigration-law
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Politics & Religion / Social Media Censorship Blueprint
« Last post by Body-by-Guinness on Today at 05:29:27 PM »
Just Security is a reliable Deep State mouthpiece. As such, this post of theirs likely serves as a blueprint for what we are likely to see as the 2024 election looms:

Tech Platforms Must Do More to Avoid Contributing to Potential Political Violence
Just Security / by Yaël Eisenstat / May 22, 2024 at 10:05 AM
This essay is co-published with Tech Policy Press.

At the end of March, we convened a working group of experts on social media, election integrity, extremism, and political violence to discuss the relationship between online platforms and election-related political violence. The goal was to provide realistic and effective recommendations to platforms on steps they can take to ensure their products do not contribute to the potential for political violence, particularly in the lead-up to and aftermath of the U.S. general election in November, but with implications for states around the world.

Today, we released a paper that represents the consensus of the working group titled “Preventing Tech-Fueled Political Violence: What online platforms can do to ensure they do not contribute to election-related violence.” Given the current threat landscape in the United States, we believe this issue is urgent. While relying on online platforms to “do the right thing” without the proper regulatory and business incentives in place may seem increasingly futile, we believe there remains a critical role for independent experts to play in both shaping the public conversation and shining a light on where these companies can act more responsibly.

Indications of potential political violence mount

The January 6th, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol looms large over the 2024 election cycle. Former President Donald Trump and many Republican political elites continue to advance false claims about the outcome of the 2020 election, a potential predicate to efforts to delegitimize the outcome of the vote this November.

Yet such rhetoric is but one potential catalyst for political violence in the United States this political season. In a feature on the subject this month, The New York Times noted that across the country, “a steady undercurrent of violence and physical risk has become a new normal,” particularly targeting public officials and democratic institutions. And, a survey from the Brennan Center conducted this spring found that 38% of election officials have experienced violent threats. And to this already menacing environment, add conflict over Israel-Gaza protests on college campuses and in major cities, potentially controversial developments in the various trials of the former president, and warnings from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security about potential threats to LGBTQ+ Pride events this summer. It would appear that the likelihood of political violence in the United States is, unfortunately, elevated.

The neglect of tech platforms may exacerbate the situation

What role do online platforms play in this threat environment? It is unclear if the major platforms are prepared to meet the moment. A number of platforms have rolled back moderation policies on false claims of electoral fraud, gutted trust and safety teams, and appear to be sleep walking into a rising tide of threats to judges and election officials. These developments suggest the platforms have ignored the lessons of the last few years, both in the United States and abroad. For instance, a year after January 6th, supporters of Brazil’s outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro used social media to organize and mobilize attacks on governmental buildings. And an American Progress study of the 2022 U.S. midterm elections concluded that “social media companies have again refused to grapple with their complicity in fueling hate and informational disorder…with key exceptions, companies have again offered cosmetic changes and empty promises not backed up by appropriate staffing or resources.”

Platforms’ failure to prepare for election violence suggests that in many ways, 2024 mirrors 2020. In advance of that election, two of the authors (Eisenstat and Kreiss) convened a working group of experts to lay out what platforms needed to do to protect elections. Sadly, platforms largely ignored these and many other recommendations from independent researchers and civil society groups, including enforcing voting misinformation restrictions against all users (including political leaders), clearly refuting election disinformation, and amplifying reliable electoral information. The failure of platforms to adequately follow such recommendations helped create the context for January 6th, as documented by the draft report on the role of social media in the assault on the Capitol prepared by an investigative team of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attacks.

Recommendations

To avoid a similar outcome, we propose a number of steps the platforms can, and should, take if they want to ensure they do not fuel political violence. None of the recommendations are entirely novel. In fact, a number of them are congruent with any number of papers that academics and civil society leaders have published over the years. And yet, they bear repeating, even though time is short to implement them.

The full set of seven recommendations and details can be found in our report, but in general they center on a number of themes where online platforms are currently falling short, including:

Platforms must develop robust standards for threat assessment and engage in scenario planning, crisis training, and engagement with external stakeholders, with as much transparency as possible.
Platforms should enforce clear and actionable content moderation policies that address election integrity year-round, proactively addressing election denialism and potential threats against election workers.

Politicians and other political influencers should not receive exemptions from content policies or special treatment from the platforms. Platforms should enforce their rules uniformly.
Platforms must clearly explain important content moderation decisions during election periods, ensuring transparency especially when it comes to the moderation of high profile accounts.

This election cycle, so much of the conversation about tech accountability has moved on to what to do about deceptive uses of AI. But the distribution channels for AI-generated content still run largely through the online platforms where users spread the “Stop the Steal” narrative in 2020 and galvanized the people who ultimately engaged in political violence at the U.S. Capitol. We will continue to draw attention to these unresolved issues, in the hope that rising demands for accountability will prompt platforms to act more responsibly and prioritize the risk of political violence both in the United States and abroad.

The post Tech Platforms Must Do More to Avoid Contributing to Potential Political Violence appeared first on Just Security.

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A list for those tracking these things. Hopefully they’ll learn the same hard lessons Oberlin college did:

A List (with Links) of Antisemitism Lawsuits Filed against American Universities
The Volokh Conspiracy / by David Bernstein / May 22, 2024 at 1:06 PM
Along with dozens of Title VI administrative complaints filed with the Office of Civil Rights, at least eleven colleges and universities are facing lawsuits over their handling of antisemitism on campus since October 7. I asked around, and no one seems to have a compiled a list of defendants with links to the complaints, so I've created one, which I will update as needed. Let me know if I have missed any.

Columbia University I

Columbia University II

Columbia University III

Haverford College

Havard University I

Harvard University II (filed today, link coming soon)

MIT

New York University

Northwestern

Rutgers I

Rutgers II

University of California Berkeley

University of California Los Angeles

University of Pennsylvania

University of Virginia (filed Friday, link coming soon)

The post A List (with Links) of Antisemitism Lawsuits Filed against American Universities appeared first on Reason.com.

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/05/22/a-list-with-links-of-antisemitism-lawsuits-filed-against-american-universities/
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Politics & Religion / Jerry Miculek
« Last post by Body-by-Guinness on Today at 05:03:01 PM »
For several years I was a range safety officer at the largest private range on the East coast. I’m working a Wounded Warrior event one weekend where I was going to be doing some adaptive pistol work and such with folks injured during their military service. It was a large event with just about every range there hosting a rifle, pistol, shotgun, silenced firearm, full auto firearm, various vendor giveaways and the like so there were a lot of moving parts. As such when I arrived I was told I would be instructing with an industry professional, but nothing more before I headed off to set up my range.

It was a foggy morning and as I was setting up targets I heard some folks arrive, one of ‘em sporting a Cajun twang. I’m like no, wait, what? Is that … Jerry Freaking Miculek, arguably the fastest shooter on the planet? It was, and I spent the day instructing with him, which would be sorta the same as a middlin’ martial artist learning he’d be running a class with Bruce Lee.

Jerry is a down to earth guy (he signed my RSO hat and posed with me for pics), a great teacher, and a character in general. His you tube vids are well worth checking out, along with the one shown here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzHG-ibZaKM

And if you have a spare $3400 you can pick up the revolver he just designed:

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2024/05/22/model-327-wr/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss
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And his second one this month. Dude’s got a serious set of stones:

https://gearjunkie.com/climbing/mountaineering/new-mount-everest-summits-record
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Politics & Religion / First, Stop Being Afraid
« Last post by Body-by-Guinness on Today at 04:24:57 PM »
The tide is turning and we need to turn with it:

https://the-pipeline.org/the-column-we-must-stop-being-afraid/
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Politics & Religion / WSJ: Chinese vs America Naval Power
« Last post by Crafty_Dog on Today at 03:40:29 PM »


China’s Sea Power Leaves U.S. Adrift
With Beijing pursuing global supremacy across the oceans, America must rebuild its maritime sector.
By Mike Waltz and Mark Kelly By
Updated May 22, 2024 6:06 pm ET





In his 1890 book, “The Influence of Seapower Upon History,” Alfred Thayer Mahan identified a crucial factor in the British Empire’s rise to global dominance: a battle fleet. A strong force could protect a nation’s merchant marine and maritime commerce, which could finance national power. Mahan subsequently exhorted the U.S. to build such a fleet and reap the rewards.

America today faces its most significant great-power threat since the end of the Cold War, especially on the seas. China has learned Mahan’s lessons well. Its international shipbuilding industry and expansive merchant marine, combined with its growing navy, pose a comprehensive threat to American prosperity and security.

China uses the world’s oceans to pursue global supremacy, employing coercion and economic intimidation against weaker nations. In the South China Sea it has seized more than a dozen islands in waters claimed by its neighbors. China is using the islands as military outposts, which serve to choke off the region’s economic and natural-resources lifelines. Beijing’s games of chicken with foreign ships contravene international law, risk dangerous escalation, and deny freedom of navigation to American allies and partners.

Yet the Communist Party’s reach and intentions extend beyond regional waters. China has become the world’s top shipbuilder. It controls one of the world’s largest shipping companies and boasts the largest navy. It has built these capabilities with the help of massive state subsidies.

By flouting international standards of fair market behavior, China has secured nearly half the world’s shipbuilding market as well as control over port and shipyard infrastructure around the world.

In shipbuilding, according to a conservative analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Security, China offered $132 billion in subsidies to the shipbuilding and shipping industries between 2010 and 2018. These industries are buttressed by policies like debt forgiveness, low-interest bond issuance, equity infusions and barriers to foreign competition.

Functionally, China’s shipbuilding industry is state-owned and leveraged to accelerate military-vessel construction. China has also invested nearly $60 billion into port projects around the world, including in such countries as Peru. Beijing makes the vast majority of cranes in these ports, including 80% in U.S. ports. Predatory lending practices enable it to gain control over facilities when poor nations can’t pay their debts, as happened in Sri Lanka in 2017.

Meanwhile, America’s commercial maritime industry has faltered. At the end of World War II, the U.S. boasted a fleet of more than 5,000 ships, which made up more than 40% of the world’s shipping capabilities. Today there are only about 90 U.S.-flagged ships involved in international trade, owing to increased international competition and scant support for the commercial maritime sector at home. At the same time, America’s maritime industrial base is shrinking.

The U.S. doesn’t subsidize commercial shipbuilders. Partially as a result, the U.S. lost 300 shipyards between 1983 and 2013. Today, only 20 U.S. shipyards can produce oceangoing vessels. Most of them, moreover, exclusively produce vessels for the U.S. Navy. The U.S. trade representative is currently investigating potentially unfair trade practices by China in shipbuilding, shipping and maritime logistics sectors, but such inquiries won’t rebuild the U.S. merchant fleet or production capabilities.

Since the end of the 1970s, the U.S. has increasingly relied on other nations to conduct trade. Today, 98% of America’s trade is done via foreign-flagged ships. Such reliance has left America less able to guarantee free access to the world’s economy. Mahan’s dictums hold true. A lack of competitiveness in maritime trade not only jeopardizes America’s ability to ensure its economic interests but also diminishes its capabilities to sustain its military power.

The U.S. must change course urgently. In our Congressional Guidance for a National Maritime Strategy—and with the support of a bipartisan alliance of maritime officials, industry leaders and lawmakers—we encourage our nation and its leaders to address our pressing maritime challenges.

Our framework proposes investment across the maritime sector to rebuild America’s ability to create and sustain a merchant fleet and industry. It offers proposals that will strengthen the U.S.-flagged international shipping fleet, domestic shipbuilding, and our maritime workforce. It also encourages private-sector investments and streamlines burdensome regulations.

America is flanked on both sides by oceans, making our economy dependent on trade and the vessels that enable commerce. We must ensure the safe passage of U.S. exports and imports that fuel our economy.

The next step is for Congress to codify our bipartisan guidance into the National Maritime Strategy, and for the president to adopt it. That will set a course for securing America’s edge at sea, recognizing the innovative and competitive spirit of the American people.

China’s threat over the oceans and how we respond to it will shape our economic and national security for decades. As former service members, we know that the oceans ensure our path to prosperity and security, today no less than a century ago.

Mr. Waltz, a Republican, represents Florida’s Sixth Congressional District. Mr. Kelly, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Arizona.
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