Trump’s Illegal, Impossible Plan to Teach Twitter a Lesson

Trump’s tantrum over Twitter “censorship” might play well with his base, but they’re the only ones who don’t seem to know that it’s a joke. Even members of his own administration have been refusing to back the president’s new executive order about social media.

Yahoo News reports that “Vice President Mike Pence, National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow and others are making the argument that it will set a bad precedent to signal that the federal government can go after private companies and seek to penalize them for purely political reasons.”

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) head Ajit Pai said in a statement: “The Federal Communications Commission will carefully review any petition for rulemaking filed by the Department of Commerce.” Subtext: The agency doesn’t take action at Trump’s solo command.

Trump’s order—a final draft of which was released yesterday—asks the FCC to “propose regulations clarifying” some thoughts he has about how Twitter, Facebook, and the federal law known as Section 230 should work.

Allahpundit sums it up nicely at Hot Air:

[T]his is a glimpse at an ugly authoritarian soul fantasizing openly about using government power to censor a critic. Not even a critic, as Twitter’s let him run wild on their platform for a decade. All they did to piss him off was append a note to two of his tweets that slightly complicated his scheme to scapegoat voting-by-mail for his possible defeat in November. Two days later we have the president ranting in the Oval Office next to the Attorney General about closing down a prominent media company that’s used by millions to communicate.

“Just to be clear,” National Review‘s Charles C.W. Cooke reminds us, “the president can’t take away statutory legal protections, and we shouldn’t indulge the idea that he can. His job is to uphold the law, not negate it.”

Some in the Trump camp have rallied around the president’s position. Attorney General Bill Barr called it a “first step.” And the ever-preening-for-Trump’s-attention trio of Sens. Ted Cruz (R–Texas), Marco Rubio (R–Fla.), and Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) keep lying about the legal issues involved.

When called out—for instance, by Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.)—on their misrepresentations of the law, they revert to sputtering about free speech and Big Tech without addressing the ways they’re clearly making things up about what is a very short statute:

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

(2) Civil liability: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of— (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or (B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).

Worse still: A lot of powerful Democrats want the same thing their Trumpian counterparts do. They use different reasons to justify taking control of online speech and the entities that facilitate it, and they generally plan to do different things with that power. But for years, top Democrats—former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.)—have pushed the same sorts of anti–Section 230 propaganda and called for similar, sometimes identical, limitations to its scope.

Section 230 doesn’t create any rights for “interactive computer services” (or their users) that they’re not guaranteed under the First Amendment. But it clarifies legal liability for internet-mediated speech in such a way that digital actors big and small can avoid getting bogged down in endless frivolous lawsuits or baseless criminal charges from an attention-seeking district attorney. Without it, internet companies would have to spend an untenable amount of time in court fighting for their fundamental First Amendment rights—and would be much more susceptible to politically motivated attacks.

How might they counter such tedious legal actions without the protection of Section 230? One approach would be to permit all sorts of speech unless legally ordered to take an individual message down, turning large platforms into cesspools. Another, more likely approach would be to suppress any posts or users that anyone complains about, without first asking questions or making individual determinations, as sites tend to do with takedown requests alleging copyright violations. Anyone reported would have their account limited until they could prove that they were innocent of the offense alleged, severely worsening the social-media problems that people currently complain about.

Without Section 230, officials could much more easily police what people say about them online, suppress critics, crush rival campaigns, and weaponize platforms like Twitter and Facebook for their own ends. The ultimate aim here is not to stop bias against conservatives, to block Russian bots, to protect the sanctity of elections, to shield women from airdropped dick pics, to stop the spread of fake news, to save kids from getting gun downed in schools by fentanyl-peddling human traffickers from ISIS, or whatever new bullshit excuse gets used this week to manufacture consent for giving them the power to control our online speech.

Trump—who said in a televised address last night that he would shut Twitter down if he could—is just saying the quiet parts a little louder than the rest.

 

Twitter is, apparently, not backing down.

Early this morning, Trump tweeted that he was willing to send the military to Minneapolis—where protests against police brutality and the murder of George Floyd have also led to looting and fires—and that the troops wouldn’t hesitate to open fire. “Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” he posted at 12:53 a.m.

Atop Trump’s tweet, Twitter posted a message saying “this Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible,” with a link to learn more. When scrolling through Trump’s timeline, users must click view to see the actual tweet.

Folks will again try to spin this as Twitter illegally or unfairly “censoring” Trump. But as Hot Air reminds us:

Twitter isn’t the state actor here. Trump is. It’s not Trump’s free speech that’s being threatened. Twitter’s is, by Trump. Social media companies can’t “censor” because they’re not public forums, a point that was reiterated literally just yesterday by the D.C. Circuit. [The opening passage of the executive order] is Trump’s twisted victimhood complex distilled to its essence, a case of the president bringing the power of the federal government onto a private actor because of how powerless he’s been made to feel.

As I wrote yesterday, Trump’s new executive order throws around a lot of legal terms and dramatic statements but doesn’t amount to much of anything. The order basically just talks about what Trump thinks Section 230 means and asks federal agencies to consider sanctioning these companies if they’re doing something illegal (and if so, maybe could they tell him what that is?).

The FCC and the Federal Trade Commission have previously signaled that they want no part in all of this.

“Based on the track record of Ajit Pai, he has been lobbied to police speech many times, and he has not succumbed to any of those pressures,” said Ashkhen Kazaryan, director of civil liberties at TechFreedom. “This is not how the Constitution works. The First Amendment protects Twitter from Trump. It does not protect Trump from Twitter.”

“Legal and technology policy experts [said] that some sections of the draft executive order were not legal at all and that other parts would require government agencies to throw out years of judicial interpretation of Section 230,” notes Business Insider.

QUICK HITS

• Updates from Minneapolis:

• Protests over Floyd’s killing have also extended beyond the area:

• Virginia Postrel on how banning Chinese STEM students would backfire.

• The CDC has new guidelines on office life.

• Some good news:

• Today in Our Dystopian Future:

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2ZUGGel
via IFTTT

Upcoming Free Online Talk About My Book “Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom”

On June 1, at noon Eastern time (US), I will be doing an online talk about my new book Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom, sponsored by Oxford Hayek Society and Students For Liberty UK. All are welcome to watch and ask questions, even if you are not an Oxford student or a member of SFL UK. Indeed, anyone anywhere in the world is invited to watch and to do so for free. That is especially appropriate given the subject of the book! We, of course, particularly welcome Volokh Conspiracy readers.

You can register to watch on Zoom here. If you prefer not to use Zoom, you can watch a livestream at the SFLUK Facebook page  or at the Oxford Hayek Society FB site.

Thanks to the Oxford Hayek Society and SFL UK for setting this up!

I hope to (virtually) see you at the event!

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3gzDoTG
via IFTTT

Trump’s Illegal, Impossible Plan to Teach Twitter a Lesson

Trump’s tantrum over Twitter “censorship” might play well with his base, but they’re the only ones who don’t seem to know that it’s a joke. Even members of his own administration have been refusing to back the president’s new executive order about social media.

Yahoo News reports that “Vice President Mike Pence, National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow and others are making the argument that it will set a bad precedent to signal that the federal government can go after private companies and seek to penalize them for purely political reasons.”

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) head Ajit Pai said in a statement: “The Federal Communications Commission will carefully review any petition for rulemaking filed by the Department of Commerce.” Subtext: The agency doesn’t take action at Trump’s solo command.

Trump’s order—a final draft of which was released yesterday—asks the FCC to “propose regulations clarifying” some thoughts he has about how Twitter, Facebook, and the federal law known as Section 230 should work.

Allahpundit sums it up nicely at Hot Air:

[T]his is a glimpse at an ugly authoritarian soul fantasizing openly about using government power to censor a critic. Not even a critic, as Twitter’s let him run wild on their platform for a decade. All they did to piss him off was append a note to two of his tweets that slightly complicated his scheme to scapegoat voting-by-mail for his possible defeat in November. Two days later we have the president ranting in the Oval Office next to the Attorney General about closing down a prominent media company that’s used by millions to communicate.

“Just to be clear,” National Review‘s Charles C.W. Cooke reminds us, “the president can’t take away statutory legal protections, and we shouldn’t indulge the idea that he can. His job is to uphold the law, not negate it.”

Some in the Trump camp have rallied around the president’s position. Attorney General Bill Barr called it a “first step.” And the ever-preening-for-Trump’s-attention trio of Sens. Ted Cruz (R–Texas), Marco Rubio (R–Fla.), and Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) keep lying about the legal issues involved.

When called out—for instance, by Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.)—on their misrepresentations of the law, they revert to sputtering about free speech and Big Tech without addressing the ways they’re clearly making things up about what is a very short statute:

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

(2) Civil liability: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of— (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or (B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).

Worse still: A lot of powerful Democrats want the same thing their Trumpian counterparts do. They use different reasons to justify taking control of online speech and the entities that facilitate it, and they generally plan to do different things with that power. But for years, top Democrats—former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.)—have pushed the same sorts of anti–Section 230 propaganda and called for similar, sometimes identical, limitations to its scope.

Section 230 doesn’t create any rights for “interactive computer services” (or their users) that they’re not guaranteed under the First Amendment. But it clarifies legal liability for internet-mediated speech in such a way that digital actors big and small can avoid getting bogged down in endless frivolous lawsuits or baseless criminal charges from an attention-seeking district attorney. Without it, internet companies would have to spend an untenable amount of time in court fighting for their fundamental First Amendment rights—and would be much more susceptible to politically motivated attacks.

How might they counter such tedious legal actions without the protection of Section 230? One approach would be to permit all sorts of speech unless legally ordered to take an individual message down, turning large platforms into cesspools. Another, more likely approach would be to suppress any posts or users that anyone complains about, without first asking questions or making individual determinations, as sites tend to do with takedown requests alleging copyright violations. Anyone reported would have their account limited until they could prove that they were innocent of the offense alleged, severely worsening the social-media problems that people currently complain about.

Without Section 230, officials could much more easily police what people say about them online, suppress critics, crush rival campaigns, and weaponize platforms like Twitter and Facebook for their own ends. The ultimate aim here is not to stop bias against conservatives, to block Russian bots, to protect the sanctity of elections, to shield women from airdropped dick pics, to stop the spread of fake news, to save kids from getting gun downed in schools by fentanyl-peddling human traffickers from ISIS, or whatever new bullshit excuse gets used this week to manufacture consent for giving them the power to control our online speech.

Trump—who said in a televised address last night that he would shut Twitter down if he could—is just saying the quiet parts a little louder than the rest.

 

Twitter is, apparently, not backing down.

Early this morning, Trump tweeted that he was willing to send the military to Minneapolis—where protests against police brutality and the murder of George Floyd have also led to looting and fires—and that the troops wouldn’t hesitate to open fire. “Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” he posted at 12:53 a.m.

Atop Trump’s tweet, Twitter posted a message saying “this Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible,” with a link to learn more. When scrolling through Trump’s timeline, users must click view to see the actual tweet.

Folks will again try to spin this as Twitter illegally or unfairly “censoring” Trump. But as Hot Air reminds us:

Twitter isn’t the state actor here. Trump is. It’s not Trump’s free speech that’s being threatened. Twitter’s is, by Trump. Social media companies can’t “censor” because they’re not public forums, a point that was reiterated literally just yesterday by the D.C. Circuit. [The opening passage of the executive order] is Trump’s twisted victimhood complex distilled to its essence, a case of the president bringing the power of the federal government onto a private actor because of how powerless he’s been made to feel.

As I wrote yesterday, Trump’s new executive order throws around a lot of legal terms and dramatic statements but doesn’t amount to much of anything. The order basically just talks about what Trump thinks Section 230 means and asks federal agencies to consider sanctioning these companies if they’re doing something illegal (and if so, maybe could they tell him what that is?).

The FCC and the Federal Trade Commission have previously signaled that they want no part in all of this.

“Based on the track record of Ajit Pai, he has been lobbied to police speech many times, and he has not succumbed to any of those pressures,” said Ashkhen Kazaryan, director of civil liberties at TechFreedom. “This is not how the Constitution works. The First Amendment protects Twitter from Trump. It does not protect Trump from Twitter.”

“Legal and technology policy experts [said] that some sections of the draft executive order were not legal at all and that other parts would require government agencies to throw out years of judicial interpretation of Section 230,” notes Business Insider.

QUICK HITS

• Updates from Minneapolis:

• Protests over Floyd’s killing have also extended beyond the area:

• Virginia Postrel on how banning Chinese STEM students would backfire.

• The CDC has new guidelines on office life.

• Some good news:

• Today in Our Dystopian Future:

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2ZUGGel
via IFTTT

Private Wages Crash Most On Record As Savings Soar By $4 Trillion In 1 Month

Private Wages Crash Most On Record As Savings Soar By $4 Trillion In 1 Month

Tyler Durden

Fri, 05/29/2020 – 10:32

One of the recurring laments about the BLS’ “average hourly earnings” series is that it does not actually measure the change in average hourly earning – which as a reminder surged 7.9% in April according to the latest jobs report…

… but is merely a ratio between aggregate compensation and hours worked, and since the denominator crashed much more than the numerator, the number actually posted a sharp spike contrary to what actually happened since the start of the Second Great Depression.

So what did happen?

According to latest monthly income and spending reported published earlier today by the BEA, the reality was far uglier, as wages for private industries plunged to $7.0 trillion annualized from $7.7 trillion in March, and from $7.8 trillion last April. The drop of 10.1% was not only the accurate description of what actually happened to private wages, but was also the biggest annual drop on record, surpassing even the worst drop during the financial crisis. Furthermore, it meant that three years of private wage growth was lost in one month, as the last time private wages printed an annualized $7.0 trillion was in April 2017! Meanwhile, as private wages imploded, government workers also saw their pay drop drop, but far more modestly, from $1.487 trillion in March to $1.438 trillion in April, an unchanged print from a year ago, meaning that government workers have been far more insulated from the economic collapse, in line with expectations.

The chart below shows the true hit to private and government wages in April, a far cry from the “fake news” reported by the BLS’ average hourly earnings print which is clearly meaningless in a time of corona.

And yet, as total wages crashed by almost $1 trillion, down from $9.22 trillion annualized in March to $8.48 trillion in April, total personal income actually soared by nearly $2 trillion, from $18.7 trillion to $20.7 trillion.

How did this happen? Simple: the government unleashed the biggest ever flood of personal current transfer receipts (i.e., government handouts), which soared from an annualized $3.3 in March to a record $6.3 trillion in April. Here, unemployment benefits were a major contributor, rising from $69.6BN to $430BN annualized, but it was the “Other” line, which exploded from $528 billion to $3.122 trillion – which consisted of various coronavirus stimulus measures – that was primarily responsible for the surge.

Meanwhile, as noted earlier, despite this record boost to personal incomes, US spending – that biggest contributor to GDP accounting for 70% of US output – collapsed by the most on record, sliding -13.6%…

… as consumers were frozen, unsure if and when things will return to normal.

The result of this surge in personal incomes and plunge in spending, is that the annualized amount of Personal Savings exploded by a mindblowing $4 trillion in  May, rising from $2.1 trillion to $6.1 trillion…

… and accounting for 33% of disposable personal income.

And while economists will say that consumer better start spending all those pent up savings soon to reboot the economy, we have a different question: how much of these “government stimulus” checks were already spent by the retail public to buy stocks, because as we observed last week, in addition to paying down debt and withdrawing cash, investing in stocks was listed as the third most popular use of government funds…

… and would easily explain the market’s torrid surge in recent weeks.

 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2zGUzSx Tyler Durden

Gang Of Monkeys Attacks Lab Assistant, Escape With Coronavirus Test Samples

Gang Of Monkeys Attacks Lab Assistant, Escape With Coronavirus Test Samples

Tyler Durden

Fri, 05/29/2020 – 10:21

A gang of monkeys in Delhi, India assaulted a laboratory assistant and escaped with coronavirus test samples from three patients, according to Sky News, citing local media.

The incident happened near Meerut Medical College. According to the report, one of the monkeys was later spotted in a tree chewing one of the sample collection kits, the Times of India reported – which noted that the patients required new tests.

It is the latest example of the highly intelligent, red-faced rhesus macaques taking advantage of India’s nationwide lockdown to combat the spread of coronavirus.

While they have proved an increasing problem in urban areas of the country in recent years, lockdown measures in the last two months have emboldened the monkeys.

Reports have shown them congregating in parts of Delhi normally crowded with humans. –Sky

In March we noted that rival monkey gangs in Thailand – driven by starvation due to a lack of visitors amid the pandemic – have been roving the streets looking for food.

The ferocity of the animals shocked even locals, who are used to seeing the monkeys on a daily basis. One onlooker who captured video of the monkeys said: “They looked more like wild dogs than monkeys. They went crazy for the single piece of food. I’ve never seen them this aggressive,” according to the Daily Mail.

According to the Sky report, people have been advised not to feed monkeys during the pandemic over fears that doing so could cause the disease to mutate and infect primates. If that happened, it could have a devastating impact.

“The point is, we have very little understanding of the virus, and it is better to limit our interactions with wildlife till there is more research done on its effects on non-human primates and other animal species,” a senior biologist from the Tamil Nadu Forest Department previously told The Hindu.

“Very often they snatch food from people as they are walking, and sometimes they even tear files and documents by climbing in through the windows,” said Home Ministry employee Ragni Sharma in 2018.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3epO7xU Tyler Durden

UMich Sentiment Disappoints As ‘Hope’ Hits 7-Year Lows

UMich Sentiment Disappoints As ‘Hope’ Hits 7-Year Lows

Tyler Durden

Fri, 05/29/2020 – 10:12

UMich sentiment was expected to have accelerated its rebound from preliminary May data, but it disappointed (despite surging stocks and reopenings).

  • Headline UMich Sentiment up from 71.8 to 72.3 (but down from the 73.7 flash print and below the 74.0 expectations)

  • Current Conditions up from 74.3 to 82.3 (but down from the 83.0 flash print and below the 84.0 expectations)

  • Expectations “Hope” down from 70.1 to 65.9 (and down from the 67.7 flash print and below the 68.4 expectations)

Source: Bloomberg

This is the lowest level for expectations since Nov 2013.

It should not be surprising that a growing number of consumers expected the economy to improve from its recent standstill, or that the majority still thought conditions would remain unfavorable in the year ahead. This has been a common occurrence in past cycles. The gap between judgements about economic growth and the current performance is likely to grow significantly when the 2nd quarter GDP is announced.

Is it any wonder current conditions sentiment is rebounding – screw 40 million unemployed, the government just dumped $ 3 trillion in transfer payments for people to sit on their ass for a month or two?

Federal payments distributed under the CARES Act are giving a jolt to consumers’ finances — though the bump may be temporary as some of the stimulus money includes one-time checks. And while the worst of the economic downturn may be over, Americans are expecting prolonged hardship, according to the report.

The 50% of consumers who expected “bad financial times over the next five years” was the second-worst reading since Donald Trump became president, Richard Curtin, director of the survey, said in a statement.

The question – as we noted previously, is what happens when the transfer payments run out and unemployment remains at depression levels?

Finally, consumers reported hearing more negative economic news in May than at any other time in the long history of the surveys, with an all-time record of 89% mentioning the steep increases in unemployment.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XdA7l9 Tyler Durden

Ted Cruz Accuses Twitter Of Violating Sanctions Against Iran, Demands DoJ Probe

Ted Cruz Accuses Twitter Of Violating Sanctions Against Iran, Demands DoJ Probe

Tyler Durden

Fri, 05/29/2020 – 09:58

We’ve mentioned in nearly every single one of our posts about this week’s dustup between the president and Twitter that the Ayatollah has an account on the company’s platform, where he routinely spouts dangerously anti-American rhetoric, without drawing even a whiff of scrutiny from Twitter (or the American left),

Now, as the GOP cranks up the pressure on Trump’s (least) favorite social media company, Senator Ted Cruz is calling for a full-on investigation of how the company treats foreign leaders who use the platform. To be sure, this isn’t exactly coming out of nowhere – Cruz led an earlier pressure campaign to convince Twitter to boot senior Iranian officials off the platform, even insinuating that not doing so would violate international sanctions against Iran, as Axios reported.

In a letter sent to the DoJ and the Treasury Department on Friday, Cruz asked Attorney General Bill Barr and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to investigate whether Twitter’s refusal to comply with Cruz’s request violates US sanctions prohibiting American companies from providing goods and services to senior officials of targeted nations.

Cruz isn’t alone: Sen Josh Hawley suggested earlier this week that Twitter’s move to affix these “warnings” to Trump’s tweets was politically motivated. In a letter to Dorsey, Hawley wrote that the decision “raises serious questions about whether Twitter targeted the President for political reasons.”

Shortly after Cruz first raised the issue, twitter responded by arguing that its service is exempt from the sanctions, and that the public conversation on the platform is critically important during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Fundamental values of openness, free expression, public accountability, and mutual understanding matter now more than ever,” Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s legal, public policy & trust and safety lead, wrote. “Regardless of the political agenda of a particular nation state, to deny our service to their leaders at a time like this would be antithetical to the purpose of our company, which is to serve the global public conversation.”

Twitter has long maintained that it’s important to have public figures use the platform, even if they use the platform to attack the US.

Read Cruz’s letter below:

2020.05.29 – Letter to DoJ and Treasury on Twitter Criminal Probe by Zerohedge on Scribd

 

 

 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2AmfytE Tyler Durden

Chicago PMI Plummets To 11 Year Low As Orders, Production Plunge

Chicago PMI Plummets To 11 Year Low As Orders, Production Plunge

Tyler Durden

Fri, 05/29/2020 – 09:52

That wasn’t supposed to happen.

Various other cherry-picked sentiment surveys have been soaring against expectations in recent days but Chicago PMI just plummeted to its lowest level since 2009, notably below expectations…

Against expectations of a bounce back to 40.0 from 35.4, Chicago PMI tumbled to 32.3 in May…

  • Prices paid rose and the direction reversed, signaling expansion

  • New orders fell at a faster pace, signaling contraction

  • Employment fell at a slower pace, signaling contraction

  • Inventories rose and the direction reversed, signaling expansion

  • Supplier deliveries rose at a slower pace, signaling expansion

  • Production fell at a faster pace, signaling contraction

  • Order backlogs fell at a faster pace, signaling contraction

Of course, this important sentiment signal will be shrugged off because stocks are higher this month.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Mcx2M2 Tyler Durden

George Floyd Worked Security At The Same Nightclub As The Officer Who Killed Him

George Floyd Worked Security At The Same Nightclub As The Officer Who Killed Him

Tyler Durden

Fri, 05/29/2020 – 09:36

Authored by John Vibes via TheMindUnleashed.com,

A bizarre twist in the murder of George Floyd was reported on Thursday night, as a former club owner in south Minneapolis revealed that Floyd worked at her club as a security guard, alongside recently fired police officer Derek Chauvin, the man who killed him.

Club owner Maya Santamaria says that the two both worked the same security shift at El Nuevo Rodeo club on Lake Street, before the business was sold a few months ago.

“Chauvin was our off-duty police for almost the entirety of the 17 years that we were open. They were working together at the same time, it’s just that Chauvin worked outside and the security guards were inside,” Santamaria told KSTP.

However, Santamaria said that she can’t be certain that Chauvin and Floyd knew each other, because often over a dozen security guards working at the club on any given night.

Still, they did work overlapping shifts, and the fact that one man ended up killing the other should justify further investigation into whether or not the two had a prior relationship.

If Chauvin and Floyd were not meeting for the first time in the moments before Floyd’s death, that could potentially mean that there was a deeper motive behind the murder.

If true, this could make the difference between a manslaughter charge or a murder charge.

As of right now, no other evidence of a prior relationship has been revealed, but this is an extremely strange coincidence, which would be cause for serious suspicion in any other circumstance.

Santamaria says that she did not realize that the men in the video were her former employees until a friend told her.

“My friend sent me (the video) and said this is your guy who used to work for you and I said, ‘It’s not him.’ And then they did the closeup and that’s when I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s him.’ I didn’t recognize George as one of our security guys because he looked really different lying there like that,” Santamaria said.

People around the country are calling for Chauvin to be charged with murder, but thus far no formal charges have been filed against any of the officers involved in Floyd’s death.

All four of the officers who were on the scene at the time of the incident were fired from the police force, but Floyd’s family says that is not enough, and the city’s mayor agrees.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has called for criminal charges against the police officer who killed George Floyd.

“I’ve wrestled with, more than anything else over the last 36 hours, one fundamental question: Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail. If you had done it, or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now,” Frey said.

When asked about which specific charge he would want to see for the officer, Mayor Frey declined to comment, but many legal experts have speculated that Chauvin could face manslaughter charges considering the video evidence against him.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Afq4mB Tyler Durden

“Corona and the Constitution” on Zoom, Plus SCOTUS Jeopardy!

Yesterday I gave a presentation to the Chicago Federalist Society Chapter on “Corona and the Constitution,” via Zoom. I’ve embedded the video below. Here, I’d like to offer some thoughts about giving presentations to Lawyer groups over Zoom.

First, for any group greater than 10 or 15 attendees, I would recommend Webinar mode. Through this mode, attendees keep their cameras and microphones off by default. Attendees do not see the Brady Bunch grid. Attendees only see the presenters, full screen. This approach avoids the awkward moment where someone forgets to mute his mic, or inadvertently turns her camera on at the wrong moment.

Second, you should still try to find ways for attendees to speak and get involved. Tonight I tried SCOTUS Jeopardy! I created a powerpoint of ten Supreme Court trivia questions. The hearty lawyers of the Chicago chapter got 9 out of the 10 questions correct. You can see the questions here. Here is the question that stumped everyone. The fact that it stumped everyone reaffirms that he is the most underrated framer.

After I read the question, I asked people in attendance to raise their blue hands once they figured out the answers. Zoom automatically sorts people based on when they raise their hands, so the system provides some fairness. When I finished reading the question, I could call on the the first person in the queue. I can either “enable” their microphones, which lets them quickly speak. Or I can make them a “panelist,” which lets them broadcast their camera to the entire Zoom room. I chose the former tonight. I think this format may in fact work for lecture classes. Staring at a grid of 36 people is distracting. I don’t know why students need to see their classmates during the session. They should be focused on paying attention to the lecture and taking notes; not starting at their classmate’s puppy. (Yes, lots of students have dogs on their laps during class.) All they need to see is me, and the student who is asking/answering questions at any given time. I may experiment with this approach in the fall.

Also, as a perk, we were able to give a copy of my new book to each person who correctly answered a question. (I was originally slated to do a book signing in Chicago on May 28, but, alas COVID).

Third, presentations should be kept shorter. Attention spans are tight with Zoom. When I have a solo slot, I usually plan to speak for about 40 minutes. Today I spoke for about 25 minutes. Indeed, Jeopardy filled up nearly 18 minutes.

Fourth, there are different ways to handle text Q&As. Some people like to type questions into the cheat feature. Those messages are visible to everyone. Some people like to type questions into the Questions & Answers feature. Those message are only visible to the host. My preference is to disable the chat. To be frank, some questions are not worth answering, and can distract everyone else. I would much rather that the questions will only be visible to the host, who can separate the wheat from the chaff. For example, I can summarize a question, if it is too long, or skip over other questions that are a waste of time. (Something a moderator cannot do in real life!)

Fifth, I much prefer people to ask questions by raising their blue hands. I then call on them to speak. This breaks up the monotony, and livens up the event.

Sixth, the quality of web cameras suck. Truly, they do. Even the most expensive 1080p camera is equivalent to an iPhone 5. We all have stunning cameras on our smart phones, but they cannot easily be used as web cameras. I have begun to research using a mirrorless DSLR camera as a web camera. The process is complicated–and even tougher on Macs. Plus Zoom will block several hardware workarounds. For example, the Zoom desktop app will not work with the Canon DSLR link. You have to use the Chrome browser version. I am not sure what I’ll do with the fall semester. I think that higher-quality streams (think of your favorite YouTube star!) will be easier to watch. But getting the right setup requires a very expensive game of trial-and-error.

Seventh, my new eight-monitor setup worked well, though I tweaked it. I had planned to use my laptop screen for Zoom, and the mini-monitor for lecture notes. I flipped it. I put Zoom on the mini-monitor, and put the reading materials on my laptop screen. This approach let me keep my eyes at a far more natural position during the broadcast.

Finally, here is the video of my Corona event.

My hair keeps getting bigger as the lockdown continues. I think I’ve gained about 3 inches in height! Compare with a video I recorded shortly after the lockdown began.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2BbBUP3
via IFTTT