Year: 2020

Chaos is Job Won

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The new Postmaster General is a Trump toady, and he is doing his best to destroy the post office in order to kill postal voting:

The new head of the U.S. Postal Service established major operational changes Monday that could slow down mail delivery, warning employees the agency would not survive unless it made “difficult” changes to cut costs. But critics say such a philosophical sea change would sacrifice operational efficiency and cede its competitive edge to UPS, FedEx and other private-sector rivals.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told employees to leave mail behind at distribution centers if it delayed letter carriers from their routes, according to internal USPS documents obtained by The Washington Post and verified by the American Postal Workers Union and three people with knowledge of their contents, but who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.

“If the plants run late, they will keep the mail for the next day,” according to a document titled, “New PMG’s [Postmaster General’s] expectations and plan.” Traditionally, postal workers are trained not to leave letters behind and to make multiple delivery trips to ensure timely distribution of letters and parcels.

………

The Trump administration has consolidated control over the Postal Service, traditionally an apolitical institution, during the pandemic by making a financial lifeline for the nation’s mail service contingent upon the White House political agenda. President Trump in April called the agency “a joke” and demanded it quadruple package rates before he’d authorize any emergency aid or loans.

………

“This is framing the U.S. Postal Service, a 245-year-old government agency, and comparing it to its competitors that could conceivably go bankrupt,” said Philip Rubio, a professor of history at North Carolina A&T State University and a former postal worker. “Comparing it to U.S. Steel says exactly that ‘We are a business, not service.’ That’s troubling.”

The changes also worry vote-by-mail advocates, who insist that any policy that slows delivery could imperil access to mailed and absentee ballots. It reinforces the need, they say, for Congress to provide the agency emergency coronavirus funding.

These changes achieve 2 goals of Trump and his Evil Minions™:  Shafting Amazon, and suppressing the vote to boost his own reelection chances.

How Is This Not Attempted Bribery and Extortion?

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In response to Maryland Delegate Gabriel Acevero promoting legislation repealing the so-called “Maryland Police Bill of Rights”, his employer, Montgomery County Government Employees Organization Local 1994, browbeat him over his bill, and then fired him when he refused to withdraw the bill. (Local 1994 has a few Montgomery County deputy sheriffs among its members)

When Mr. Acevero noted that the meeting was completely inappropriate, they fired him:

The movement for greater accountability in policing poses a dilemma for organized labor. Union federations include and indeed welcome police organizations. Yet police unions can use their clout to win protection from complaints of officer brutality and other misconduct.

We offer no advice as to how union leaders should address this conundrum, but it is clear what they should not do: expel unionists who take a principled position in favor of police reform. And that is what Local 1994, which represents Montgomery County’s public employees, stands accused of doing to one of its salaried employees.

The staffer, Gabriel Acevero, 29, doubles as a member of Maryland’s House of Delegates, having represented District 39 in Montgomery County since January 2019. Mr. Acevero, who is black, has been outspoken against police abuses and is sponsoring a bill to provide greater transparency on misconduct cases: A key provision gives complainants access to previous documented allegations against accused officers. Mr. Acevero calls his bill Anton’s Law, after a 19-year-old African American from Caroline County, Anton Black, who died in policy custody in September 2018 under still-unclear circumstances.

In December, Local 1994 president Gino Renne, whose union also includes Montgomery County deputy sheriffs, summoned Mr. Acevero to meet with him, as well as deputies and an official of the county’s Fraternal Order of Police unit. The topic, according to an email from Mr. Renne: Mr. Acevero’s “support of legislation that interferes with our members’ employment rights” and “is in direct conflict with [the union’s] representational obligations and responsibilities.”

Mr. Acevero reiterated his position and said he considered the meeting inappropriate — whereupon Mr. Renne fired him. “I can’t have someone on my payroll who is slandering the very people who pay his salary,” Mr. Renne told us in an interview. Mr. Renne offered Mr. Acevero $35,000 severance if he would promise in writing not to discuss his firing publicly. Mr. Acevero refused, and instead filed a formal complaint against Mr. Renne’s union at the National Labor Relations Board last month. 

Gino Renne should be under criminal investigation, because this was a clear attempt to offer something of value to influence the actions of a public official.

Renne should be frog-marched out of his offices in handcuffs.

Yes, There Is a Historical Precedent

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Hmm, Police Officers hiding their names and only obliged to identify themselves with a generic tag as a member of their organisation? Im sure I’ve heard of that approach used somewhere before… pic.twitter.com/LJ1sfeEJbV

— Sam White (@Whitesv2128) July 18, 2020

For those of you who do not understand the meaning of “Geheime Staatspolizei”, which translates to secret state police, which is generally referred to its contraction, Gestapo.

The insistence of CBP that its agents will not carry any sort of external identification beyond a label saying, “Police” on the back of their uniforms has some profoundly ominous historical echoes.

Why Governments Should Insource their IT

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It turns out that, after millions of dollars poured down the drain, the unemployment websites created by companies like DeLoitte and IBM do not work.

It’s a hell of a racket. You get paid to create the website, and then you get paid to fix your own piss-poor work:

In 2010, California hired the consulting firm Deloitte to overhaul the state website people use to apply for unemployment benefits. Things didn’t go well: Later that year, technical errors led to the halting of payments for some 300,000 people, according to the Los Angeles Times. And, the paper reported that, at $110 million, the final cost of the system was almost double the initial estimate.

A decade later, the taxed, aging system built by Deloitte in California is struggling again, this time under the strain of new applicants put out of work by the pandemic.

But Deloitte still won a fresh contract last month to again help out with California’s unemployment system. The Sacramento Bee reported that the company has received another $16 million to provide unemployment call center services and help deliver benefits. Deloitte still receives nearly $6 million per year under the contract to maintain the system, the Bee reported.

The move is part of a pattern: States continue to spend millions of dollars hiring Deloitte, IBM, and other contractors to build and fix unemployment websites, even amid growing concerns about the quality of their work. And the crush of unemployment applications flooding in around the country since the pandemic hit have only made the situation worse.

This problem is as follows:

  • Basic capabilities are outsourced to consultants.
  • The knowledge to supervise these projects beyond the most superficial walks out the door as the personnel are hired by these consultants.
  • The consultants do their jobs poorly, but the government cannot spot this until it is too late.
  • The consultants are then paid to fix the problem because the government lacks the ability to fix the system.
  • The consultants are paid to maintain the system because the government lacks the ability to fix the system.
  • Rinse, lather, repeat.

Somewhere along the line, there are likely some campaign donations, or similar skulduggery, but that’s a feature, not a bug.

AI Scams

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In this case, it is food delivery robots known as Kiwibots, which, in addition to frequently blocking curb cuts in ways that threaten the lives of the disabled, lies about their use of artificial intelligence to navigate.

In reality, it uses remote operators in Columbia who are paid only $2.00/hour:

It seemed inevitable with the era of the autonomous car, ideas like the Kiwibots emerged. Small ostensibly autonomous vehicles that were in charge of food distribution, thus posing an alternative to courier services such as Glovo, Deliveroo or Uber Eats where deliveries are carried out by human messengers through the bike.

Everything seemed fantastic until it has been discovered that these vehicles have little of self-employed: an investigation has discovered that in reality these robots are remotely controlled by operators in Colombia who charge $2 per hour for this work.

………

This startup, called Kiwi Campus, launched small robots that looked like small carts with four wheels and a storage compartment at the top for orders. The robots became a sensation in the surroundings of that university, where the activity of the autonomous vehicles began.

………

The people in charge of the Kiwibots have several videos on their website that show how these messenger robots work: theoretically, the magic is provided by a complex artificial vision system that is able to recognize obstacles and detect when they can cross the street or not.

………

What was not shown to us as indicated in the San Francisco Chronicle is that they are remotely controlled by human operators who use the GPS sensors and cameras of these robots to send orders to the robots every 5 or 10 seconds.

On Kiwi Campus, they have recognized that there is indeed a part of human remote control, but for them, their service is a “parallel autonomy” system. The robots also circulate at a very reduced speed that goes from 1.6 to 2.4 km/h, which makes Kiwi workers have to pick up food orders from restaurants and go to the Kiwibots points of Departure to put the foods in the storage compartments of the robots and then make deliveries.

The model is unique, but it has more secrets than it might seem and much less autonomy than the robots seemed to raise – each of them costs $ 2,500 – initially. The ideal benefits from the low cost of the workforce that controls them: the operators that handle them in Colombia charge $2 per hour, a much lower cost than installing, for example, LIDAR systems – which would be difficult to integrate into these robots.

Seriously, why do we let fraudsters extract private profits from public space based on their lies?

Weep for the Overpaid Executives

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There are claims that Russia is trying to steal coronavirus vaccine research from the US, UK, and Canada.

The hand wringing over this is kind of silly for two reasons:

  • The more people who have access to this research, the more chance there is for a successful vaccine to be developed and manufactured.
  • The only people who could possibly be harmed are big-pharma profiteers.

I’m sorry, but, “Think of the overpaid pharmaceutical executives’ bonuses,” is just not something that inspires me to paroxysms of fear.

So, Now Nazis are a Protected Group in Canada?

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Police in Ontario are investigating graffiti on a monument to an SS division as a hate crime.

I can understand that someone spray painting, “Nazi war monument,” on the side of a ……… well ……… Nazi war monument ……… might constitute vandalism, but it’s not a hate crime, it’s truth in labeling.

It appears that as a result of this controversy, a number of Canadians have become rather upset about the cenotaph in a Ukrainian cemetary to the 14th SS Division as well, so perhaps the end game may involve taking this item down.

I’m sure that some Canadian-Ukrainians would object to that, claiming that this is their heritage, but, much like people claiming Confederate heritage in the United States, I don’t give a crap what they think:

An incident involving graffiti spray painted on a monument to those who fought in Adolf Hitler’s SS is being investigated as a hate crime by an Ontario police force.

Someone painted “Nazi war monument” on a stone cenotaph commemorating those who served with the 14th SS Division. The monument is located in Oakville in the St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery.

The division, made up of Ukrainians who pledged allegiance to Hitler, was part of the Nazi’s Waffen SS organization. Some members of the division have been accused of killing Polish women and children as well as Jews during the Second World War.

………

But researcher Moss Robeson, who has written articles on Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis, provided details about the graffiti and the monument on Twitter, prompting questions about why Halton Regional Police think members of the Nazi SS can be the subject of hate crimes.

In response to questions from this newspaper, Const. Steve Elms, spokesman for Halton-Regional Police, cited a section of the Criminal Code that noted those communicating statements in any public place inciting hatred against any identifiable group could face imprisonment not exceeding two years. “This incident occurred to a monument and the graffiti appeared to target an identifiable group,” he explained in an email to questions about how a hate crime could be perpetrated against members of the SS.

If this reminds you of people in the “Blue Lives Matter” movement claiming that protests against the police is a hate crime, not only are you very perceptive, and likely quite likely devastatingly attractive as well.

The 14th SS Division, also known as the Galizien Division, was formed in 1943 when Nazi Germany needed to shore up its forces as allied troops, including those from the U.S., Canada, Britain and Russia, started to gain the upper hand and turn the tide of the war. In May 1944, SS leader Heinrich Himmler addressed the division with a speech that was greeted by cheers. “Your homeland has become more beautiful since you have lost – on our initiative, I must say – the residents who were so often a dirty blemish on Galicia’s good name – namely the Jews,” Himmler said. “I know that if I ordered you to liquidate the Poles, I would be giving you permission to do what you are eager to do anyway.”

………

There are allegations members of the 14th SS Division took part in killing hundreds of Polish civilians in 1944 in the village of Huta Pieniacka. Some Ukrainians dispute that the SS division took part in the killings or they argue that only small elements from the unit – and under Nazi command – were involved. Others argue the SS members were heroes who fought against the Russians.

………

Bernie Farber of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network said there is a need for Halton Regional Police to better educate themselves on what constitutes a hate-motivated crime. “Yes, it’s destruction of property for sure,” Farber said of the graffiti on the monument. “But a hate crime? Far from it.”

The monument to the 14th SS Division was also in the headlines in 2017 when the Russian Embassy in Ottawa posted images on its Twitter account pointing out the “Nazi monuments” in Canada.

BTW, after the furor, the Halton Regional Police are now investigating the graffiti as simple vandalism, and the police chief is wondering why there is a Nazi monument in the first place.

Whoever put that graffiti on the monument may see it coming down now.

Self Dealing and Corruption at ICANN

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Just about a week after penning essays suggesting that “Geeks Must Be In Charge of the Internet,”* former ICANN chairman Fadi Chehadé has been revealed to be the CEO of the sketchy hedge fund that was trying to take over the .org registry.

There have long been allegations that the transfer of the registry to a for-profit entity, particularly when juxtaposed with the removal of price caps by ICANN just before the attempt began.

There needs to be a dive into corruption within ICANN, because what is going on now is almost certainly in violation of the requirements for non-profits in the United States and in California, where it is headquartered:

Former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé is currently listed as the co-CEO of Ethos Capital on the firm’s website.

Ethos Capital tried to buy Public Interest Registry, the non-profit that runs .org domains, but ICANN denied the transaction.

Chehadé’s name was nowhere on Ethos’ website when it announced the .org transaction. His involvement quickly became public because of Whois data for one of Ethos Capital’s domain names. The private equity company admitted that Chehadé was an advisor on the deal.

For months, the Ethos Capital website listed only two employees: CEO Erik Brooks and Chief Purpose Officer Nora Abusitta-Ouri. Abusitta-Ouri worked with Chehadé at ICANN.

The website change listing Chehadé as co-CEO appears to have happened very recently. The last Wayback Machine capture from June 15 did not show him. Elliot Silver spotted the difference today.

Many industry observers may wonder if Chehadé was pegged to be a co-CEO all along, only omitted from the website to avoid more controversy.

I hope that before this is over, some current and former senior staffers at ICANN need to be frog-marched out of their offices in handcuffs.

It’s the only way to fix the organization.

*Keep the Geeks in Charge of the Internet, Project Syndicate, July 7, 2020.

Clearly, We Must Open up Schools Immediately

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For all those people demanding to open the schools, this is another indication that they are delusional as to the impact of this action:

In the heated debate over reopening schools, one burning question has been whether and how efficiently children can spread the virus to others.

A large new study from South Korea offers an answer: Children younger than 10 transmit to others much less often than adults do, but the risk is not zero. And those between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults do.

The findings suggest that as schools reopen, communities will see clusters of infection take root that include children of all ages, several experts cautioned.

………

Several studies from Europe and Asia have suggested that young children are less likely to get infected and to spread the virus. But most of those studies were small and flawed, said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.

The new study “is very carefully done, it’s systematic and looks at a very large population,” Dr. Jha said. “It’s one of the best studies we’ve had to date on this issue.”

In the places pushing hardest to open schools, areas where infections are exploding, opening schools will be a complete disaster.

Support Your Local Police

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Clearly, the problem is insufficient respect of police

After a police officer was placed on administrative leave for a profanity laden tirade against, his fellow officers issued a commemorative coin to celebrate his behavior:

Two months after a state trooper was captured on camera in a profanity-laced tirade during a traffic stop, a commemorative coin that honors him is circulating among his fellow troopers.

Trooper Matthew Spina, a 19-year veteran of the state police, was seen in video captured by the driver screaming profanities and commands as he orders the man out of the vehicle on the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge in New Haven in May.

“We’ve been made aware of a profane challenge coin that has the image of Connecticut State Police badge,” Brian Foley, an aide to Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Commissioner James Rovella, said. “We have no indication Trooper Spina created the coin.”

A law enforcement source said the coin has been circulating among state troopers and other police officers.

………

Spina was initially taken off the road shortly after the video of the traffic stop was posted, but records of a grievance filed with the state police show that he was later suspended.

The coin, which includes a state police insignia on the front with words that include “every [law enforcement officer]‘s hero,” also includes an apparent engraving of a trooper along with lines from the tirade viewed widely on YouTube.

The unholy glee that police show at the unprofessional and abusive behavior of their fellow officers is an indication of some profound and deep failures of cop culture.

What Happens When a Nakajima B5N “Kate” Drops an 800 KG Armor Piercing Bomb

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This looks like a picture of Pear Harbor on December 7, 1941


The deck and superstructure have been severely damaged


It appears that the heat from the fire may have damaged the hull

My bad, that’s not the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, it is a fire on the Bonhomme Richard, and the ship appears to have been damaged beyond economic repair, notwithstanding claims to the US Navy that it is too soon to make that determination:

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said Friday he is unsure if the Bonhomme Richard should be repaired after it was engulfed in flames and smoke in San Diego over five days this week.

Gilday, speaking during a press conference on Naval Base San Diego across from the damaged and listing ship, said they’re still assessing damage so it’s unclear if the ship will be repaired.

“The damage is extensive,” he said, adding but he is “100 percent confident” the defense industry can put the amphibious assault ship back out to sea.

“The question is should we make that investment into a 22-year-old ship,” he said.

Yeah, I think that the ship could be repaired, if it had to face the Kaigun to protect Midway Island in 4 weeks, but under any situation short of war, it would make no economic sense to repair the ship.

Yeah, Fascism

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Roving bands of masked federal agents are jumping out of unmarked cars and dragging people away.

The mayor of Portland, the governor of Oregon, the Portland PD, and the Oregon State police have received no notice about this:

In the early hours of July 15, after a night spent protesting at the Multnomah County Justice Center and Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, Mark Pettibone and his friend Conner O’Shea decided to head home.

………

A block west of Chapman Square, Pettibone and O’Shea bumped into a group of people who warned them that people in camouflage were driving around the area in unmarked minivans grabbing people off the street.

………

They had barely made it half a block when an unmarked minivan pulled up in front of them.

“I see guys in camo,” O’Shea said. “Four or five of them pop out, open the door and it was just like, ‘Oh sh%$. I don’t know who you are or what you want with us.’”

Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off.

The tactic appears to be another escalation in federal force deployed on Portland city streets, as federal officials and President Donald Trump have said they plan to “quell” nightly protests outside the federal courthouse and Multnomah County Justice Center that have lasted for more than six weeks.

Federal officers have charged at least 13 people with crimes related to the protests so far, while others have been arrested and released, including Pettibone. They also left one demonstrator hospitalized with skull fractures after shooting him in the face with so-called “less lethal” munitions July 11.

………

But interviews conducted by OPB show officers are also detaining people on Portland streets who aren’t near federal property, nor is it clear that all of the people being arrested have engaged in criminal activity. Demonstrators like O’Shea and Pettibone said they think they were targeted by federal officers for simply wearing black clothing in the area of the demonstration.

………
“Feds are driving around, grabbing people off the streets,” O’Shea said on the video. “I didn’t do anything f%$#ing wrong. I’m recording this. I had to let somebody know that this is what happens.”

………

“I am basically tossed into the van,” Pettibone said. “And I had my beanie pulled over my face so I couldn’t see and they held my hands over my head.”

………

Pettibone said he was put into a cell. Soon after, two officers came in to read him his Miranda rights. They didn’t tell him why he was being arrested. He said they asked him if he wanted to waive his rights and answer some questions, but Pettibone declined and said he wanted a lawyer. The interview was terminated, and about 90 minutes later he was released. He said he did not receive any paperwork, citation or record of his arrest.

(%$# mine)

I’m trying to figure out whether or not this is Brownshirt sh%$, or if it’s Blackshirt sh%$.

In either case, there area a lot of “Good Germans” out there who need to be dealt with when Trump goes.

This is Horrifying

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After pumping about a dozen bullets into Breonna Taylor, the cops did nothing for 20 minutes as she slowly suffocated on her own blood.

When we are talking about reforming the police, creating a legal requirement to provide aid would be something that should be included:

Just after midnight March 13, three Louisville police officers fired more than 20 bullets into Breonna Taylor’s apartment, striking her five times.

But she was still alive — at least briefly.

For at least five minutes, she was coughing as she struggled to breathe, according to her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who told investigators she was alive as he called her mom and yelled for help.

“(Police are) yelling like, ‘Come out, come out,’ and I’m on the phone with her (mom). I’m still yelling help because she’s over here coughing and, like, I’m just freaking out,” Walker said in a recorded police interview three hours after the shooting.

The Jefferson County coroner disputes that account, telling The Courier Journal that Taylor likely died within a minute of being shot and couldn’t have been saved.

But records show that no effort was made to save her.

For more than 20 minutes after Taylor was fatally shot at approximately 12:43 a.m. by Louisville officers, the 26-year-old emergency room technician lay where she fell in her hallway, receiving no medical attention, according to dispatch logs.

This is the rule, not the exception when police is involved.

From the Department of “Well, Duh!”

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A leaked document has revealed that the FBI is worried that some private equity firms are involved in money laundering.

Well, color me f%$%#ing stunned.

Private equity, which generates profits from the obscene fees that it charges for the services it allegedly provides, is nothing at all like money laundering, which generates profits from the obscene fees that it charges for the services it allegedly provides:

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation believes firms in the nearly $10-trillion private investment funds industry are being used as vehicles for laundering money at scale, according to a leaked intelligence bulletin prepared by the agency in May.

“Threat actors” — including criminals in it for the money and foreign adversaries — “use the private placement of funds, including investments offered by hedge funds and private equity firms” to reintegrate dirty money into the legitimate global financial system, according to the bulletin.

It also said the industry lacks adequate anti-money laundering programs and called for greater scrutiny by regulators, which have yet to issue rules for the industry.

Corruption and money-laundering is a feature of private equity, not a bug.

Wage Theft is the Goal

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Shipt, the delivery service owned by Target, is facing a strike over its shift to an algorithm based pay structure, which workers are claiming will cheat them out of pay.

This is no surprise.  Opaque pay structures like this are intended to cheat workers out of their pay:

Workers for the Target-owned grocery delivery service Shipt are striking Wednesday in protest of the company rolling out a less transparent payment structure nationwide.

The walk-off will coincide with the day that the new pay model will take effect in 12 metro areas, including Chicago, Tampa, Richmond, Va., and Portland, Ore.

Shipt shoppers are raising alarm over the change, which they say would likely reduce shopper pay by at least 30 percent based on a similar pay shift that occurred at the end of 2019.

While Shipt previously had a simple model for calculating payouts — a 7.5 percent commission on all orders plus $5 — the model, dubbed V2, rolled out in some markets last year doles out pay based on a black box algorithm.

“We do not like the transparency because we’re not able to calculate or figure out exactly how it is that we’re being compensated,” Willy Solis, one of the strike’s organizers and a shopper in Texas, told The Hill on Monday.

………

Shipt gig workers’ experiences in areas where the V2 model has been tested do not line up with that claim.

Jeanine Meisner, a veteran shopper in the Kalamazoo, Mich., area told The Hill that she saw an immediate drop in the dollar amount of offers when V2 came to her area.

………

“For six months now we have tirelessly, endlessly provided screenshots, we’ve called, we’ve texted, we’ve emailed about these lowball offers that we’ve gotten and we’ve got nowhere, we get a cut and pasted response,” she said.

Shoppers across V2 markets felt similar impacts, according to Solis.

“Collectively we joined forces and started keeping tabs and calculating … and shoppers were losing significant money,” he said.

So not a surprise.

This is a feature, not a bug.

Algorithmic pay schemes always end up cheating workers, because they make doing so effortless.

This is No Surprise

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The European Court of Justice has ruled that servers in the US are insufficiently secure to comply with EU privacy regulations.

This is no surprise. The deal with the US has largely been a fig-leaf created as a result of brow-beating of European regulators by the US State Security Apparatus:

The European Union’s top court on Thursday threw a large portion of transatlantic digital commerce into disarray, ruling that data of E.U. residents is not sufficiently protected from government surveillance when it is transferred to the United States.

The ruling was likely to increase transatlantic tensions at a moment when President Trump has already been threatening tariffs and retaliation against the E.U. for what he says are unfair business practices. It was a victory for privacy advocates, who said that E.U. citizens are not as protected when their information is transferred to U.S. servers as when that information stays inside Europe.

The European Court of Justice ruled that a commonly used data protection agreement known as Privacy Shield did not adequately uphold E.U. privacy law.

………

The court said that it was unacceptable for E.U. citizens not to have “actionable rights” to question U.S. surveillance practices.

European data privacy advocates celebrated the decision.

It’s a good thing that the US State Security apparatus is finally getting some push-back internationally.

1.3 Million

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It’s now 17 weeks straight of initial unemployment claims above 1 million.

People keep saying that this is good news, but this is horrible news:

About 1.3 million workers filed for unemployment insurance for the first time last week — the 17th straight week new claims exceeded 1 million as the coronavirus pandemic continues to drag down the economy.

Nearly 17.4 million workers were continually claiming unemployment insurance for the week ended July 4, the Labor Department said. Another 14.3 million people were claiming Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the program newly created for self-employed or gig workers who are out of work at the moment, bringing the total number of people on all programs to 32 million unemployed.

“What we’re seeing is continued, historic elevated rates of job loss in the United States,” said Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab. “We’ve seen sustained elevated rates of job loss, and that’s continued as we hurdle toward the expiration of several programs that have propped up the economy.”

The weekly filings decreased only slightly from the previous week, when 1.31 million workers filed for unemployment for the first time. They have steadily decreased from their high of 6.9 million filings for the week ended March 28, but the rate has slowed significantly in the past month.

………

In April, 5.5 percent of people who were unemployed reported permanent job losses. By June, that figure increased to 20 percent. In April, the top five jobs with the worst losses were those most directly affected by the virus and shutdowns: housekeepers and cleaners, waiters, retail workers, and cashiers, he found.

But by June, those jobs had shifted to other occupations, pointing to broader economic damage: carpenters, paralegals, managers, financial analysts and customer sales representatives.

Things are going in the wrong direction, and the extra $600/week in unemployment insurance is going away in 2 weeks.
Look out below.