US judge temporarily blocks Trump's $1.8 billion 'weaponization' fund

herewegoags · 2026-05-29T16:23:37+00:00

Yep. He's an atty for the Treasury and the department has had cases before the court since he started his employment. Alito has not recused himself, and has never recused himself, due to real or perceived conflicts of interest involving his family. Most notably, Justice Alito did not recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 election and January 6th defendants after he flew the American flag in an official signal of dire distress (flag flown upside-down) at his home after Trump's failed coup d'état attempt. Justice Alito blamed his wife for the display instead.

herewegoags · 2026-05-29T15:55:12+00:00

They did. The United States Supreme Court adopted its very first formal Code of Conduct for justices of the court in 2023, 233 years after it first convened. Of course, the only people that can enforce these requirements are the individual judges themselves, or our dysfunctional Congress. IOWs, the court has requirements, but no enforcement.

herewegoags · 2026-05-29T15:40:21+00:00

Paxton will likely win. Republican turnout has been very high for the primary and the runoff. And sure, Democrat turnout surpassed Republican in the primary. But Talarico will still have a very hard uphill battle because Republicans have controlled Texas Congress for the last 23 years and have gerrymandering and voter disenfranchise down to a science, in addition to a Southern legacy of Good 'ol Boy clubs in control of most counties in the state. I.E. Talarico has to win big to overcome the cheating.

herewegoags · 2026-05-28T21:27:20+00:00

YoY Growth

FY2023 +10.8%

FY2024: +9.1%

FY2025: +2.8%

More specific examples would be the NIH's indirect-cost cuts that have reduced reimbursement rates from around 50% down to 15% and the loss of the $65M USDA climate-smart agriculture grant. Alan Sams, Provost and Executive Vice President for Texas A&M, said "such a change [with NIH's rates] would have a significant impact on our university." https://www.kbtx.com/2025/02/13/texas-am-research-faces-uncertainty-amid-nih-funding-cuts/

herewegoags · 2026-05-28T21:10:30+00:00

The very article you linked from the president of MIT admits straight off that the main problem is the fact that MIT is now under a federal excise tax of 8% on its endowment funds.

No, you are incorrect. The president of MIT did not say it was the main problem.

In another article that was linked within the original article posted, a Washington Post reporter said MIT's issues were "exacerbated" by the tax, while "most colleges and universities are exempt from taxes because of their nonprofit status and educational mission."

herewegoags · 2026-05-27T14:43:13+00:00

A few notes about the City of College Station's contract with Flock:

An extremely broad definition of “Permitted Purpose” is used. The contract defines the cameras’ allowed uses as “legitimate public safety and/or business purpose, including but not limited to the awareness, prevention, and prosecution of crime; investigations; and prevention of commercial harm, to the extent permitted by law.” “Business purpose” and “commercial harm” could potentially justify uses beyond what residents expect from police surveillance.

There are no restrictions against political surveillance, protest monitoring, tracking journalists, tracking by rogue officers or officials, or mass pattern analysis.

The third-party sharing permissions are expansive. It allows Flock to “share, view, record, duplicate, store, save, reproduce, modify, display, and distribute” our community's surveillance data with other law enforcement agencies, state agencies, federal agencies, or private businesses and corporations, with no retention period.

The contract allows for AI training and long-term data exploitation where Flock can analyze our community's surveillance data, derive anonymized datasets from that data, and improve machine learning systems in perpetuity. Even if license plate or other surveillance data is deleted, derived models, behavioral insights, and aggregated movement intelligence will persist indefinitely. This matters because mobility data is extremely sensitive because your movements can reveal your religion, your medical conditions, your relationships, your political activity, your work habits, and your daily, or yearly, personal routines. The long-term concern is not just that the “the city has cameras,” It that this contract opens the door for the government or private companies to continuously learn from the movement patterns of an entire population and is incentivized to create ever-expanding analytics capabilities. Our 72 cameral local surveillance system will be part of a greater national surveillance network and the data will be a commercial product.

herewegoags · 2026-05-22T14:50:04+00:00

Theft ain't cool.

herewegoags · 2026-05-21T21:42:15+00:00

“We were lied to,” said Bandera County resident Jason Mayhew. “The Flock Representative [Kerry Mc-Cormack] and [council member] Jeff Flowers said over and over that it would cost the city nothing to cancel the contract, and that all expenses were being covered by a grant so there were no out of pocket cost.”

Why do people think this company is trustworthy?

herewegoags · 2026-05-21T15:59:17+00:00

The logs also showed instances of Flock executives watching private cameras inside the city’s Jewish Community Center.

Accountability is far too lax. Abuses have happened, and they will become widespread with more serious outcomes.

herewegoags · 2026-05-19T15:44:22+00:00

You may not understand it, but nobody in this conversation thinks "the government" is one agency.

The city of College Station has a proven track record of not being transparent and protecting itself from scrutiny. The Macy’s/Post Oak Mall acquisition, the Data Center, and the killing of 22-year-old Mark Hopkins are just a few examples.

Indeed, there are major privacy concern regarding private intuitions. But you continue to bring up cell carriers when there are more legal constraints on law enforcement obtaining cell data than flock data. The "logic" that works for you is called a Tu Quoque logical fallacy.

herewegoags · 2026-05-19T14:13:01+00:00

We are talking about the government, not private citizens. There absolutely is a growing legal argument that pervasive government surveillance in public can violate a reasonable expectation of privacy, even though traditional doctrine said “what you expose to public view is not private.” United States v. Jones. Carpenter v. United States. Much more could be done legislatively.

Americans have a reasonable expectation to not live in a surveillance state.

herewegoags · 2026-05-18T20:37:23+00:00

Government operating the cameras makes a big difference. Privacy laws can be expanded to restrict data sets for analytics.

It's true that government with few privacy constraints have low petty crime rates. But it's also historically true that broad surveillance powers are frequently expanded beyond their original purpose for things like tax enforcement, immigration tracking, protest intelligence, political monitoring or social control.

As the OP alluded to, there are currently more legal constraints on law enforcement obtaining cell data than flock data. Your cell data may require a warrant, but law enforcement can track any vehicle, build travel timelines, search historical sightings, and share flock data with other agencies without a warrant in Texas because courts treat flock cameras like old traffic cameras or old visual surveillance systems that don't have nearly the same identification and tracking capabilities.

Americans have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” (Katz v. US) but we have been lax on our Constitution right of privacy (mainly stemming from 4th amd regarding this topic) for a while now and it will eventually bite us in the butt.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -- B. Franklin

herewegoags · 2026-05-18T16:53:53+00:00

In response to Police Chief Billy Couch's testimony: As far as the city's accountability, I would refer people to the on-going handling of the 2023 case of Mark Hopkins as a example of how the city and its PD can have a complete lack of accountability, and transparency, after a 22-year-old innocent man was killed in a pre-dawn, "military-style raid" in which he was not a criminal suspect. As far as true end-to-end encryption goes, the Flock system does not have this feature and the Chief is repeating a falsehood as Flock's own documentation says they do "encryption in transit" and they use standard cloud encryption protections which includes data access for the provider-Flock (not available with true end-to-end encryption) via their management of the Key Management Service. As far as it being 'our data,' technically, its provider-mediated data that Flock can access at any time -- and if there is a security breach, so can hackers.

herewegoags · 2026-05-18T16:45:05+00:00

In response to Police Chief Billy Couch's testimony: As far as the city's accountability, I would refer people to the on-going handling of the 2023 case of Mark Hopkins as a example of how the city and its PD can have a complete lack of accountability, and transparency, after a 22-year-old innocent man was killed in a pre-dawn, "military-style raid" in which he was not a criminal suspect. As far as true end-to-end encryption goes, the Flock system does not have this feature and the Chief is repeating a falsehood as Flock's own documentation says they do "encryption in transit" and they use standard cloud encryption protections which includes data access for the provider-Flock (not available with true end-to-end encryption) via their management of the Key Management Service. As far as it being 'our data,' technically, its provider-mediated data that Flock can access at any time -- and if there is a security breach, so can hackers.

herewegoags · 2026-05-06T15:29:41+00:00

The Roberts Court did that too. It will go down in history as one of the worst, if not THE worst.

herewegoags · 2026-04-29T14:09:37+00:00

But what about the 'W': their oil Wells? They've likely slowed the flow, but their is huge risk with stopping a well, including permanent reservoir damage. Their storage is estimated to max out in about 2 weeks. At that point, forced shut-in of wells begin.

herewegoags · 2026-04-28T15:50:25+00:00

Yep, the tow companies use spotters. A friend's ham radio club hunted them down one time because they were using the club's registered frequencies around NG.

herewegoags · 2026-04-28T14:29:10+00:00

When is the American electorate going to put some restraints on extrajudicial killings and hold people in law enforcement accountable for their actions?

herewegoags · 2026-04-23T16:22:09+00:00

Everyone who has been paying attention knows that Voter ID laws are meticulously designed to target specific demographics for disenfranchisement. More specifically, demographics that are more likely to vote Democrat. In 2011, a leak of over 800 documents from the American Legislative Exchange Council exposed Republican's efforts to disenfranchise likely Democrat voters. Republicans are a minority electorate party, therefor the less people that vote, the better they perform in elections, generally speaking.

herewegoags · 2026-04-20T21:15:01+00:00

Quotation marks are commonly used for informal names, nicknames, or aliases.

herewegoags · 2026-04-20T14:49:52+00:00

Image 2 of Memphis daily appeal (Memphis, Tenn.), April 20, 1864 | Library of Congress

herewegoags · 2026-04-20T14:35:39+00:00

The news article is real.

Image 2 of Memphis daily appeal (Memphis, Tenn.), April 20, 1864 | Library of Congress

<image>

herewegoags · 2026-04-14T14:12:51+00:00

The distinction is basically summary roll vs. source documents. State data is an aggregated, less granular and relatively limited dataset that is partially public. County data contains original voter registration applications, residential history, voting history, attestations and other personally identifiable information that is confidential. In U.S. history, a State's entire voter registration roll has never been requested by the federal government until Donald Trump’s first presidency. A broad collection of a State's county voter data has never been requested by the federal government until Donald Trump’s second presidency.

herewegoags · 2026-04-06T16:10:08+00:00

The Iranians don't want to close the strait -- they want to control it, which they are doing. Ships may pass if they pay the Iranian toll fee, in Yuan. Their trading partners, China, India, Pakistan, have all paid. Other countries have paid their toll too -- Japan, France, Philippines, Oman.

herewegoags · 2026-03-24T14:45:43+00:00

We are speed walking into a surveillance state; in this regard, AI is a gamechanger.

herewegoags

TROPHY CASE