clinton

Moo.

Ballot Access News – Arizona Bill to Limit Number of Independent Candidates to Only One Per Office

Feb 162025
 

Arizona State Senator Eva Diaz (D-Tolleson) has introduced HB 2844. It says that if two or more independent candidates file for the same office, they must face each other in a non-partisan primary, and whichever of them wins is the only independent candidate who can run in November.

The concept behind the bill seems to be a belief that all independent voters are associated together with each other, but this is false. Independent voters, collectively, have nothing in common with each other in the sense that members of a party have some beliefs in common.

The bill would not apply to presidential independent candidates.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2025/02/16/arizona-bill-to-force-limit-number-of-independent-candidates-to-only-one-per-election/

 2025-02-16  No Responses »

Hackaday – Why AI Usage May Degrade Human Cognition and Blunt Critical Thinking Skills

Feb 162025
 

Any statement regarding the potential benefits and/or hazards of AI tends to be automatically very divisive and controversial as the world tries to figure out what the technology means to them, and how to make the most money off it in the process. Either meaning Artificial Inference or Artificial Intelligence depending on who you ask, AI has seen itself used mostly as a way to ‘assist’ people. Whether in the form of a chat client to answer casual questions, or to generate articles, images and code, its proponents claim that it’ll make workers more efficient and remove tedium.
In a recent paper published by researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) the findings from a survey…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2025/02/13/why-ai-usage-may-degrade-human-cognition-and-blunt-critical-thinking-skills/

 2025-02-16  No Responses »

Techdirt. – Steve Wynn Asks Supreme Court To Gut Key First Amendment Standard

Feb 122025
 

Billionaires are already deleting parts of our government, as well as various safety mechanisms on the internet that sought to minimize hate and abuse. Do we also want them to be able to rewrite our understanding of the First Amendment?
Steve Wynn’s latest Supreme Court petition represents a dangerous escalation in the ongoing assault on press freedom and the First Amendment. While self-proclaimed free speech warriors claim to champion unfettered expression, their actions reveal a different agenda: securing immunity from criticism while maintaining the power to silence their critics through legal intimidation.
The weapon of choice? Dismantling New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court decision that has protected robust public debate for sixty years.
This attack on Sullivan…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/12/steve-wynn-asks-supreme-court-to-gut-key-first-amendment-standard/

 2025-02-12  No Responses »

Techdirt. – Federal Court Allows Lawsuit Over Network Of 172 Flock ALPR Cameras To Move Forward

Feb 122025
 

Late last fall, a number of Norfolk, Virginia residents — with the assistance of the Institute for Justice (IJ) — sued the city for blanketing Norfolk with nearly 200 automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) provided by Flock Safety.
Flock Safety made its first inroads with the private market, selling plate readers to gated communities and HOAs so busybodies could keep track of everyone driving in and out of their cul-de-sacs. Having captured that market, Flock moved on, targeting US law enforcement agencies with the promise of cheap ALPRs that could be tied into existing ALPR cameras deployed by private citizens.
It’s pretty much the Ring playbook — aggressive market growth that gives cops cheap buy-in so long…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/12/federal-court-allows-lawsuit-over-network-of-172-flock-alpr-cameras-to-move-forward/

 2025-02-12  No Responses »

LWN.net – Codeberg responds to hate attacks

Feb 122025
 

The Codeberg development forge has
recently been subject to sustained attacks resulting in, among other
things, abusive email being sent to the site’s users. The organization has
now put up a
description and a defiant response:

Extreme right forces actively target members of our communities and discriminate based on ethnicity and gender, political background, sexual orientation, disabilities, nationality and faith. However diversity is an important asset in free/libre software communities and it is what makes our software great and development productive.

By targeting some of our most active translators, nicest designers, best developers and all other motivated contributors, they are hurting the free/libre software ecosystem as a whole.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://lwn.net/Articles/1009227/

 2025-02-12  No Responses »

Labor Notes – Amazon Stokes Racial Divides in Lead-Up to North Carolina Union Vote

Feb 102025
 

Four thousand workers at a North Carolina Amazon warehouse are voting February 10-15 on whether to unionize with Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment.
RDU1, in the town of Garner, outside Raleigh, would be the second unionized Amazon warehouse in the United States.
It’s an ambitious campaign. The workers are organizing across racial and ethnic divides, through constant turnover, in deeply hostile terrain. At 2.4 percent, North Carolina’s union density is the lowest in the country.
They’ll also need to overcome widespread fear of something Amazon is notorious for: retaliation. In January, Amazon abruptly outsourced its entire Quebec operation rather than be forced to accept a contract at one warehouse.
In North Carolina, it has fired several visible…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://labornotes.org/2025/02/amazon-stokes-racial-divides-lead-north-carolina-union-vote

 2025-02-10  No Responses »

Techdirt. – Federal Court Shuts Down Louisiana’s Unconstitutional ‘Police Buffer Zone’ Law

Feb 082025
 

Last June, Louisiana became the third state to decide the US Constitution was subservient to cops’ wishes that they not be filmed while performing their public duties.
Arizona had already tried this twice, starting at 25 feet before trimming the “halo” to an 8-foot diameter. It didn’t matter. A federal court permanently blocked the law due to its obvious unconstitutional nature. Florida has tried the same thing — a 25-foot “no go” zone around “first responders” — utilizing the dubious theory that too many people filming cops are somehow “interfering” with their ability to do their jobs. At this point, the law remains in place, but it’s only a matter of time before it’s kicked to…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/07/federal-court-shuts-down-louisianas-unconstitutional-police-buffer-zone-law/

 2025-02-08  No Responses »

Richard Stallman’s Political Notes – Claims the wrecker has sent prisoners to Guantanamo

Feb 072025
 

The wrecker’s
press secretary claims that he has
already sent
prisoners to Guantanamo, unauthorized immigrants who were in the US.

The wrecker,
or someone working for him, has a cunning awareness of
the US’s sores, and picks at them to exacerbate the soreness.
This spreads the feeling that the US will be so massively cruel and evil
that it threatens to demoralize Americans who want their country to be good
rather than cruel.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2024-nov-feb.html#6_February_2025_(Claims_the_wrecker_has_sent_prisoners_to_Guantanamo)

 2025-02-07  No Responses »

Techdirt. – Democrats Should Be Stopping A Lawless President, Not Helping Censor The Internet, Honestly WTF Are They Thinking

Feb 052025
 

It has long been clear that the GOP, as it is today, has a death wish for our Constitutional order, but that’s a subject for another post. What’s more relevant is that, at this point, one could easily construe that Democrats would like our Constitution to die too. In part because of how enfeebled they have so far been in resisting the lawlessness exhibited by the Article II branch of our government—although that, too, is a subject for another post.  (Standing against the Vought OMB nomination, and slowing his appointment process, is good. But it’s not enough, and even though it’s a good start, it doesn’t forgive all the missed opportunities to slow the damage everyone…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/05/democrats-should-be-stopping-a-lawless-president-not-helping-censor-the-internet-honestly-wtf-are-they-thinking/

 2025-02-05  No Responses »

Ballot Access News – Tennessee Bill Passes Legislature, Making it a Felony for a City Councilmember to Vote in Favor of Creating a Sanctuary

Feb 012025
 

Tennessee bills to make it a felony for a local government official to cast a vote in favor of creating a sanctuary passed the legislature on January 30. The identical bills are SB 6002 and HB 6001. … Continue reading →

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2025/02/01/tennessee-bill-passes-legislature-making-it-a-felony-for-a-city-councilmember-to-vote-in-favor-of-creating-a-sanctuary/

 2025-02-01  No Responses »

Techdirt. – The Faux Free Speech Warriors Attacking Free Speech

Feb 012025
 

There’s a particularly insidious and cynical form of censorship gaining prominence in America: the weaponization of “free speech” rhetoric, combined with abuses of the judicial system and executive power, to actually suppress speech. It’s a strategy that turns the First Amendment’s principles inside out, using the language of liberty to justify silencing critics and opponents.
Consider Brendan Carr pretending to be a free speech warrior while demanding censorship and seeking to punish those who speak against Trump. Or Jim Jordan, who was supposedly tasked with investigating the “weaponization” of the government against speech, but used that position to weaponize his government committee to suppress speech.
Perhaps the most brazen practitioners of this strategy are those with the resources…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/31/the-faux-free-speech-warriors-attacking-free-speech/

 2025-02-01  No Responses »

Planet Debian – Daniel Lange: Seagate old hard disks sold as new, smartmontools v7.4 for Debian Bullseye and Bookworm

Feb 012025
 

Apparently somebody managed to resell Seagate hard disks that have 2-5 years of operations on them as brand new. They did this by using some new shrink wrap bags and resetting the used hard disk SMART attributes to factory-new values. Luckily Seagate has a proprietary extension “Seagate FARM (Field Access Reliability Metrics)” implemented in their disks that … the crooks did not reset. Luckily … because other manufacturers do not have that extension. And you think the crooks only re-sell used Seagate disks? Lol. The get access to the Seagate FARM extension, you need smartctl from smartmontools v7.4 or later. For Debian 12 (Bookworm) you can add the backports archive and then install with
apt…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://daniel-lange.com/archives/191-Seagate-old-hard-disks-sold-as-new%2C-smartmontools-v7.4-for-Debian-Bullseye-and-Bookworm.html

 2025-02-01  No Responses »

jwz – Werewolf Futures

Jan 302025
 

Werewolf. The other day I joked that the hardest part about watching some movies is suspending disbelief that AI is possible, but on the other hand, movies about werewolves, zombies and vampires don’t bother me. The difference being that there are not currently grifters manipulating the economy with their insane promises about werewolf futures. I think I’m on to something here. Any time you read about Artificial General Intelligence, read that as Artificial General Werewolves: Today’s Self-Werewolves might be limited, but we’re only 14 months away from Full-Self-Werewolf. We need to be very concerned about the existential threat of General Werewolves. What effect will Werewolves have on the Economy? It’s…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2025/01/werewolf-futures/

 2025-01-30  No Responses »

Ballot Access News – Wyoming House Passes Bill Making Ballot Access Much More Difficult

Jan 302025
 

On January 29, the Wyoming House passed HB 173 on second reading. It makes ballot access much worse for independent candidates. Currently they need a petition of 2% of the last U.S. House vote, which in 2026 would be 3,879 signatures. The bill would increase that to 9,697 signatures. Already Wyoming has the nation’s highest percentage for petitions for presidential candidates, if the easier method in each state is used. Wyoming has the nation’s smallest population.
The bill also moves the petition deadline for independent candidates to 81 days before the primary. The 2026 primary is August 18, so that would mean a deadline of May 29, 2026. Existing law says the independent petition is due 70…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2025/01/30/wyoming-house-passes-bill-making-ballot-access-much-more-difficult/

 2025-01-30  No Responses »

PopularResistance.Org – Switzerland Deports Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah

Jan 292025
 

The Electronic Intifada’s executive director Ali Abunimah was deported by Switzerland on Monday after spending two nights in jail.

Abunimah described his experience in a statement he made upon arrival to Istanbul airport late Monday. He said that he was “cut off from communication with the outside world” and “not even permitted to contact my family.”

He said that police accused him of “offending against Swiss law” but was not presented with any charges. Abunimah added that he was questioned “by Swiss defense ministry intelligence agents without the presence of my lawyer, and they again refused to allow me to contact her or my family.”

The post Switzerland Deports Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://popularresistance.org/switzerland-deports-electronic-intifadas-ali-abunimah/

 2025-01-29  No Responses »

Ars Technica – Democrat teams up with movie industry to propose website-blocking law

Jan 292025
 

US Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) today proposed a law that would let copyright owners obtain court orders requiring Internet service providers to block access to foreign piracy websites. The bill would also force DNS providers to block sites.
Lofgren said in a press release that she “work[ed] for over a year with the tech, film, and television industries” on “a proposal that has a remedy for copyright infringers located overseas that does not disrupt the free Internet except for the infringers.” Lofgren said she plans to work with Republican leaders to enact the bill.
Lofgren’s press release includes a quote from Charles Rivkin, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). As we’ve previously written, the MPA…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/movie-industry-loves-bill-that-would-force-isps-to-block-piracy-websites/

 2025-01-29  No Responses »

Ars Technica – Trump admin rescinds controversial funding freeze after two days of protest

Jan 292025
 

The Trump administration today withdrew a controversial order to freeze funding for a wide range of government programs, according to multiple news reports. Acting Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Matthew Vaeth reportedly wrote in today’s memo, “OMB Memorandum M-25-13 is rescinded. If you have questions about implementing the President’s Executive Orders, please contact your agency General Counsel.”
A federal judge yesterday temporarily blocked the funding freeze with an administrative stay that lasts until February 3 and scheduled a hearing for February 3 to decide whether to block the freeze for longer. States were already having trouble accessing Medicaid after the Monday order, and the future of many other programs has been in doubt.
A $42.45 billion…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/trump-admin-rescinds-controversial-funding-freeze-after-two-days-of-protest/

 2025-01-29  No Responses »

Phoronix – X.Org / FreeDesktop.org Encounters New Cloud Crisis: Needs New Infrastructure Very Soon

Jan 292025
 

About five years ago X.Org / FreeDesktop.org was experiencing a cloud hosting crisis with their cloud costs running out of control after losing free credits for Google Cloud and the continuous integration (CI) testing driving up expenses. They ended up switching public cloud providers over to Equinix. Equinix ended up sponsoring the X.Org Foundation / FreeDesktop.org with their cloud/hosting needs but now on short notice that is coming to an end…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.phoronix.com/news/2025-XOrg-FreeDesktop-Cloud

 2025-01-29  No Responses »
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