05 December 19
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So far we have 86 donations for December. However over the past day we have only “7.” That won't work.
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Founder, Reader Supported News
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05 December 19 It's Live on the HomePage Now: Reader Supported News Sure, I'll make a donation!
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | Colin Kaepernick Is the Black Grinch for Those Who Dream of a White America
 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Guardian UK Abdul-Jabbar writes: "Colin Kaepernick sent a tweet on Thanksgiving and the white-wing media wants to make sure you know about it."
16.6K people are talking about this
 Attorney General William Barr. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty)
Barr's Chosen Prosecutor Says He Can't Back Right-Wing Theory on Russia Case
Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett, The Washington Post Excerpt: "The prosecutor handpicked by Attorney General William P. Barr to scrutinize how U.S. agencies investigated President Trump's 2016 campaign said he could not offer evidence to the Justice Department's inspector general to support the suspicions of some conservatives that the case was a setup by American intelligence, people familiar with the matter said."
EXCERPT:
Trump and his allies have relentlessly criticized the FBI probe, which was taken over by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, as a “witch hunt” and pushed for investigations of those who launched it. They have been eagerly anticipating the release of Horowitz’s report in hopes the watchdog with a nonpartisan reputation might validate their attacks.
Barr told CBS News in May that some of the facts he had learned about the Russia case “don’t hang together with the official explanations of what happened.” He declined to be more specific. In response to recent reports about Barr’s skepticism about the forthcoming inspector general report, Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement that the watchdog’s investigation “is a credit to the Department of Justice.”
“His excellent work has uncovered significant information that the American people will soon be able to read for themselves,” Kupec said. “Rather than speculating, people should read the report for themselves next week, watch the Inspector General’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and draw their own conclusions about these important matters.”
Horowitz’s draft report concludes that political bias did not taint how top FBI officials running the investigation handled the case, people familiar with the matter said. But it details troubling misconduct that Trump and his allies are likely to emphasize as they criticize the bureau.
In particular, Horowitz’s team found omissions in the FBI’s applications to renew warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, people familiar with the matter said.
 Coordinated Facebook posts made by an Israel-based group have vilified Muslim politicians such as Democratic congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. (photo: Tom Williams/Getty)
Revealed: Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib Targeted in Far-Right Fake News Operation
David Smith, Michael McGowan, Christopher Knaus and Nick Evershed, Guardian UK Excerpt: "Two Muslim US congresswomen have been targeted by a vast international operation that exploits far-right pages on Facebook to inflame Islamophobia for profit, a Guardian investigation has found."
EXCERPTS:
A mysterious Israeli-based group uses 21 Facebook pages to churn out more than a thousand coordinated fake news posts per week to more than a million followers around the world. It milks the traffic for revenue from digital advertising.
Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who earlier this year became the first Muslim women to serve in the US Congress, have been singled out for vicious attacks by the coordinated effort.
Somali-born Omar is the most frequent target. She has been mentioned in more than 1,400 posts since the network began two years ago. Tlaib has been mentioned nearly 1,200 times. Both totals are far higher than any other member of Congress.
The Guardian uncovered contacts between a group of mysterious Israel-based accounts and 21 far-right Facebook pages across the US, Australia, the UK, Canada, Austria, Israel and Nigeria.
The posts exacerbate Islamophobia by amplifying far-right parties and vilifying Muslim and leftwing politicians. Their content is a blend of distorted news and pure fabrication.
An analysis by Queensland University of Technology’s digital media research centre indicated a single entity is coordinating the publication of content across the Facebook pages.
Using web archiving services and domain registry information, the Guardian has been able to confirm a key figure in the network is Ariel Elkaras, a thirtysomething jewelry salesman and online operator living on the outskirts of the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.
Several of the network’s websites were either taken down or had large amounts of content removed soon after the Guardian approached Elkaras for comment. Public posts on his Facebook profile were also deleted.
Elkaras did not respond to multiple requests for comment via email and phone, but the Guardian was able to track him down in the Israeli town of Lod, near Tel Aviv, where he denied involvement in the network. “It’s nothing related to me,” he said through a translator.
The uncovering of the network is likely to fuel concerns that Facebook is failing to tackle disinformation and hate groups ahead of next year’s presidential election in the US.
Omar told the Guardian: “As this report makes clear, foreign interference – whether by individuals or governments – is still a grave threat to our democracy. These are malicious actors operating in a foreign country, Israel, spreading misinformation and hate speech to influence elections in the United States. The goal of these anti-Muslim hate campaigns is clear – they put Muslim lives here and around the world at risk and undermine our country’s commitment to religious pluralism.”
She also slammed Facebook for its role in allowing users to spread misinformation.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Facebook’s complacency is a threat to our democracy. It has become clear that they do not take seriously the degree to which they provide a platform for white nationalist hate and dangerous misinformation in this country and around the world. And there is a clear reason for this: they profit off it. I believe their inaction is a grave threat to people’s lives, to our democracy and to democracy around the world.
“When private corporations don’t act, we as a nation need to think seriously about ways to address the spread of misinformation while protecting core values like free speech.”
When the Guardian notified Facebook of its investigation, the company removed several pages and accounts “that appeared to be financially motivated”, a spokesperson said in a statement.
“These pages and accounts violated our policy against spam and fake accounts by posting clickbait content to drive people to off-platform sites,” the spokesperson said.
“We don’t allow people to misrepresent themselves on Facebook and we’ve updated our inauthentic behavior policy to further improve our ability to counter new tactics.
“Our investigations are continuing and, as always, we’ll take action if we find any violations.”
 Guantanamo Bay detainees. (photo: Getty)
What the Bush Administration's CIA's Torture Program Looked Like to Those Being Tortured
Carol Rosenberg, The New York Times Rosenberg writes: "One shows the prisoner nude and strapped to a crude gurney, his entire body clenched as he is waterboarded by an unseen interrogator. Another shows him with his wrists cuffed to bars so high above his head he is forced on to his tiptoes, with a long wound stitched on his left leg and a howl emerging from his open mouth. Yet another depicts a captor smacking his head against a wall." READ MORE  Albritton with her children at home. (photo: Kim Raff/ProPublica)
They Loan You Money. Then They Get a Warrant for Your Arrest.
Anjali Tsui, ProPublica Tsui writes: "They had each borrowed money at high interest rates from a local lender called Loans for Less and were sued for owing sums that ranged from $800 to $3,600. When they missed a court date, the company obtained a warrant for their arrest."
EXCERPTS:
In Utah, payday lenders and similar companies that offer high-interest, small-dollar loans dominate small claims court. Loans for Less, for example, filed 95% of the small claims cases in South Ogden, a suburban city of 17,000 about a half-hour north of Salt Lake City on the interstate, in fiscal year 2018, according to state data.
Across Utah, high-interest lenders filed 66% of all small claims cases heard between September 2017 and September 2018, according to a new analysis of court records conducted by a team led by Christopher Peterson, a law professor at the University of Utah and the financial services director at the Consumer Federation of America, and David McNeill, a legal data consultant and CEO of Docket Reminder.
Companies can sue for up to $11,000 in Utah’s small claims courts, which are stripped of certain formalities: There are rarely lawyers, judges are not always legally trained and the rules of evidence don’t apply.
Lenders file thousands of cases every year. When defendants don’t show up — and they often don’t — the lenders win by default. Once a judgment is entered, companies can garnish borrowers’ paychecks and seize their property. If borrowers fail to attend a supplemental hearing to answer questions about their income and assets, companies can ask the court to issue a bench warrant for their arrest.
Arrest warrants were issued in an estimated 3,100 small claims cases during the period studied by Peterson’s team. Almost all of the warrants — 91% — were issued in cases filed by payday, auto title or other high-interest lenders. The number of people who are jailed appears to be small. The state does not track the information, but ProPublica examined a sampling of court records and identified at least 17 people who were jailed over the course of 12 months.
Zachery Limas and his wife, Amber Greer, both 24, waited in the lobby area for their audience with Stauffer. Limas had borrowed $700 from Loans for Less last summer for a down payment on a 2012 Hyundai Santa Fe, an SUV with enough space to accommodate car seats for three children, one of whom was then on the way. (Limas and Greer had another loan with a different company to cover the balance of the purchase price.) Since the $700 loan came with a 180% APR, Limas would have to pay back around $1,400 — double the amount borrowed — within 10 months. At the time, he earned $16.87 an hour driving a forklift at a warehouse; she worked at Subway.
Limas said he made a few payments before a new owner took over his employer and he was laid off. By the time he found a new job, Greer had given birth to their child and stopped working. With his entire paycheck going toward basic expenses like rent and electricity, they could no longer afford to pay back the loan. In March, Loans for Less won a default judgment against Limas for $1,671.23, which included the outstanding balance plus court fees. “We can’t catch up. We can’t do this,” Greer said. “There’s no way we’re ever going to catch up, especially not with the interest rate that they have.”
 The unnamed woman was on her way to court in Rae Bareli for the hearing of her case when she was attacked by five men. (photo: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters)
India: Woman Set on Fire on Way to Testify Against Alleged Rapists
Bilal Kuchay, Al Jazeera Kuchay writes: "A rape survivor has been set on fire by five men in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, days after the brutal rape and murder of a veterinarian in Hyderabad city, according to police." READ MORE  A mock up of one of BP's ad with a warning about fossil fuels. (photo: ClientEarth)
BP Just Got Its A-s Sued for False Advertising
Dharna Noor, Gizmodo Noor writes: "Lawyers with the environmental legal nonprofit ClientEarth filed a groundbreaking complaint against BP for greenwashing in their ads. They're also calling for a ban on all fossil fuel ads, unless they come with 'a tobacco-style health warning' about the dangers the industry poses to the planet." READ MORE Update My Monthly Donation |
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