Hard Pass

In her final act as director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard released a collection of declassified documents about COVID-19’s origins and Dr. Anthony Fauci. The headline claim was explosive: “Fauci Funded Wuhan Lab Research That Sparked COVID.” Her press release and accompanying five-minute long video monologue went further, accusing Fauci of manipulating intelligence assessments and lying to Congress.

But the documents don’t show anything of the sort.

The origins of COVID-19 remain uncertain. A lab-associated incident is plausible; so is natural spillover. China’s obstruction has made the truth harder to establish, and scientific opinions vary. There are legitimate questions to ask, in general, about biosafety and U.S.-funded research abroad. But Gabbard isn’t asking those questions. Her press release implies that the debate is over—that the definitive answer is a lab leak—and then uses the assumed conclusion as the foundation for a far more sweeping allegation: that Fauci “sparked COVID” and covered it up.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/39477452

I'm not the artist, ahoyuniverse is Source

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/62340497

🤔 Interesting

cross-posted from: https://feddit.online/c/mildlyinfuriating/p/1784290/interesting

Source

i'm not sure what we're looking at here, folks, to be honest.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday cancelled plans to sign bipartisan housing legislation in a fit of pique over Republican senators’ refusal to blow up their chamber’s rules to pass his voter ID bill.

The president had been set to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act in a rare Capitol signing ceremony at noon on Wednesday before attending a Senate Republican Steering Committee lunch.

But with less than an hour remaining until he was scheduled to leave the White House, he took to Truth Social to announce that the ceremony was “hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT.”

Wroth mentioning: the housing bill is veto-proof.

Research by the Citizen Lab and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) on Bill C-22 and on its predecessor Bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act, which contained the same provisions concerning foreign data sharing, indicates the current legislation might quietly pave the way to giving U.S. law enforcement unprecedented access to personal data stored in Canada, even if held by Canadian companies

One is a potential agreement under the U.S. CLOUD Act, whichwould allow U.S. law enforcement to request personal data directly from Canadian technology companies, bypassing authorization by Canadian courts. This would have detrimental impacts on human rights, in particular, privacy, equality and free expression, while potentially leading to subordination of Canadian constitutional law to the U.S.’s lower legal standards.

At the outset, U.S. government actors face many fewer constraints than their Canadian counterparts on their ability to collect and use personal data in ways that may be illegal, unconstitutional or would violate human-rights laws in Canada.

while any CLOUD Act agreement might restrict the U.S. to targeting only U.S. citizens and residents, Canadian data might still be incidentally collected – for example, a Canadian user’s texts or private messages with someone investigated or charged in the U.S.

Or, if U.S. law enforcement issued to a Canadian service provider a keyword or geofence “reverse warrant” — where the request is for a list of all individuals who searched certain terms or all individuals who were at a specific location at a given time — it could also capture large swaths of personal data that is Canadian, even if the targeted person is not.

Second, invasive surveillance practices normalized in the U.S., such as a higher likelihood of being forced to turn over one’s social media history, can impact those trying to cross the Canada-U.S. border.

If there is already little to stop U.S. law enforcement from seizing people in Canada or demanding private details about those living in Canada with no substantial ties to the U.S., we should at least not encourage or sanction this level of encroachment within our own laws as well.

Edit: Here's a compilation of all the Cleveland bath gags.

Once I got the first set of rails mounted, it was a bit easier since I could anchor them to that. But the first set, whew, it was all I could do to hang onto my tools and/or parts. This is despite anchoring my backpack full of tools/materials. Backpack was just not reachable when I was doing the bottom and middle mounts.

Only got one rail (5 panels) installed today. Spent a lot of time going up/down retrieving dropped tools, getting random stuff I didn't think I'd need, and struggling to not fall off the roof myself. I get vertigo easily, so this is proving to be more challenging than I thought. Two more rails (10 panels) left to install, but that's a tomorrow problem.

Yes, they're intentionally off-center on the mounts for spacing reasons. Also, yes, I blurred out my house because apparently you can just feed these to a tool that can identify my location. God I hate the internet.

The Kennedy Center had until June 12 at midnight to strip the president’s name from the building, but construction crews in hard hats and neon green high-vis vests only started to assemble scaffolding to reach the letters that afternoon.

That midnight deadline came and went without any letters removed from the building.

Cooper and a panel of appeals court judges denied the administration’s 11th-hour attempts to keep Trump’s name on the facade, and workers began adding a tarp to the towering scaffolding shortly after 1 a.m..

Workers eventually began removing letters at 3 a.m. June 13.

But the scaffolding and tarp are still in place.