The Death of the Mind

Progressive streamer Hasan Piker’s recent detention by CBP at the Chicago airport has generated widespread outrage — and rightfully so. No US citizen should be interrogated about their political beliefs when re-entering their own country. But while CBP’s behavior was egregious, Piker’s response was potentially even more dangerous: he chose to engage in a two-hour conversation with federal agents without a lawyer present, streaming about it afterward as if this were just more content for his millions of followers.
For many years, we’ve called out this kind of bullshit interrogation technique of citizens at the border (it didn’t start with Trump, though it’s almost certainly gotten worse with him in power).
Rather than following the basic rule of…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/05/13/hasan-piker-just-gave-his-millions-of-followers-a-masterclass-in-what-not-to-do-when-detained-by-cbp/

Nextcloud provides an
open-source collaboration platform called Nextcloud Hub, which includes file-sharing and syncing
features. The company has written
a blog post explaining that Google has revoked a critical permission
from the Nextcloud Files app for Android that allows it to sync files
to Nextcloud Hub.
Google is stating security concerns as a reason for revoking the
permission. This is hard to believe for us. Nextcloud has had this
feature since its inception in 2016, and we have never heard about any
security concerns from Google about it. Moreover, several Big Tech
apps as well as Google’s own still have this. What we think: Google
owning the platform means they can and are giving themselves
preferential treatment. Despite multiple appeals since mid-2024, Google has refused to
reinstate the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://lwn.net/Articles/1021016/

PostgreSQL 18 beta has been released, and it’s the perfect time to start exploring the new features we can expect in the General Availability (GA) release. One feature that particularly caught my attention relates to improvements in statistics collection and usage. Here’s an excerpt from the official PostgreSQL release notes:
Add functions to modify per-relation and per-column optimizer statistics (Corey Huinker) Add pg_dump, pg_dumpall, and pg_restore options –statistics-only, –no-statistics, –no-data, and –no-schema (Corey Huinker, Jeff Davis)
One of the key ingredients in performance analysis is understanding the underlying statistics of tables, columns, and indexes. Often, we encounter cases where queries behave differently in production compared to Pre-Prod or UAT environments. A common reason for this discrepancy…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/773

Raleigh’s planning commission, the all-volunteer body that makes recommendations to the city council about zoning, development, and growth, has two new members—and it lost two members who were eligible for reappointment and wanted to continue serving. It happened quickly during the city council’s Tuesday meeting: the deputy city clerk told the council members that freshman planning commissioners Reeves Peeler and La Tanta McCrimmon were each seeking reappointment for a second term, and that Mayor Janet Cowell had nominated Mark Shelburne and Nick Neptune to replace them.Council member Jane Harrison made a motion to reappoint Peeler, a community organizer who works in affordable housing tax credit financing. Council member Christina Jones seconded it. The members voted by a…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://indyweek.com/news/wake/raleigh-city-council-ousts-two-planning-commissioners/

On May 6, Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed HB 41. It changes the filing deadline for new parties from August 1 to July 1. Also it says that if a new party petition is found not to have enough valid signatures, the party that circulated it can’t just supplement the original petition. Instead it must start all over with a new petition.

Maryland is the second state this year to have made ballot access more difficult for minor parties. The first was New Jersey. Both states have Democratic majorities in both houses of the legislature, and Democratic governors.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2025/05/06/maryland-governor-signs-bill-making-ballot-access-somewhat-more-difficult-for-new-parties/

On May 5, U.S. District Court Judge Richard E. Myers II, a Trump appointee and a member of the Federalist Society, issued an order in Griffin v North Carolina State Board of Elections, e.d., 5:24cv-731. The ruling says North Carolina cannot refuse to count the votes of voters who voted in November 2024 election, and who had been told at the time that they had fulfilled all steps taken to have their votes count. The order is stayed for seven days in case the losing side wishes to appeal to the Fourth Circuit.
This lawsuit stems from the very close race for Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. The vote shows that the Democratic nominee won…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2025/05/05/u-s-district-court-rules-that-north-carolina-cannot-disqualify-voters-after-an-election/

On the morning of April 23, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies executed search warrants at multiple homes in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Canton Township, Michigan. The raids reportedly targeted a number of student organizers who were connected to Gaza protests at the University of Michigan.
According to the group Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE), agents seized the students’ electronics and a number of personal items. Four individuals were detained, but eventually released.
TAHRIR Coalition, a student-led movement calling for divestment from Israel, said that officers initially refused to present warrants at the Ypsilanti raid. They were unable to confirm whether ICE was present at the raid.
The post FBI And Police Raid Homes Of Palestine…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://popularresistance.org/fbi-and-police-raid-homes-of-palestine-activists-in-michigan/