Politics

Politics

There are 1,049 posts filed in Politics (this is page 10 of 105).

City of Raleigh begins first in state curbside textile recycling program | abc11.com

Recycling bin

The City of Raleigh has teamed up with a for-profit company to collect clothing along with recycling. The company, SimpleRecycling, will resell the items.

I know Bianca Howard and I think the city’s recycling program is top notch, however I’m uneasy with the city’s staff doing the dirty work of a for-profit company. I’m especially uneasy with the idea that this clothing could instead have gone to charities to distribute to people who need it, free of charge. Austin’s deal with the company has become controversial after local non-profits complained it was hurting their donations.

I think I’ll pass.

RALEIGH, NC (WTVD) –The City of Raleigh will begin to offer a textile recycling program on February 20th.Stay on top of breaking news stories with the ABC11 News AppRaleigh is the first city in North Carolina to partner with Simple Recycling, a for-profit company that sells the items domestically and internationally so residents will not receive a tax write off for their items.”They’re providing this service at no charge to residents of Raleigh,” City of Raleigh Environmental Coordinator Bianca Howard said.”Residents who prefer to get a tax deduction or help a favorite charity should continue to do that,” she said. “We really see this as another way to help people learn about textiles and keep good textiles out of the landfill.”

Source: City of Raleigh begins first in state curbside textile recycling program | abc11.com

Trump’s Would-Be Weather Czar Tried to Shut Down Free Forecasts | Vanity Fair

Oh, for fuck’s sake. The story of today’s erroneous tsunami warning quoted AccuWeather CEO Barry Myers, who Trump tapped to lead NOAA. I had no idea that Myers was up for this position.

This would be another case of Trump trying to destroy government from the inside. Myers’s company AccuWeather tried to quash free forecasts: one of the most useful and lifesaving services of the federal government.

Fuck this guy and fuck Trump for nominating him.

As extreme weather conditions and natural disasters lay waste to Northern California and Puerto Rico, Donald Trump is poised to hand over control of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—the government organization that focuses on weather and climate research—to a known opponent of the agency. Barry Myers, the C.E.O. of for-profit weather forecasting service AccuWeather, has supported measures that would limit how much information the National Weather Service can publicly release, so private companies like his can use N.W.S. data to sell their own products to consumers.

Source: Trump’s Would-Be Weather Czar Tried to Shut Down Free Forecasts | Vanity Fair

Drug firms shipped 20.8M pain pills to WV town with 2,900 people | Health | wvgazettemail.com

Somebody needs to go to jail. Several somebodies, in fact.

Over the past decade, out-of-state drug companies shipped 20.8 million prescription painkillers to two pharmacies four blocks apart in a Southern West Virginia town with 2,900 people, according to a congressional committee investigating the opioid crisis.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee cited the massive shipments of hydrocodone and oxycodone — two powerful painkillers — to the town of Williamson, in Mingo County, amid the panel’s inquiry into the role of drug distributors in the opioid epidemic.

“These numbers are outrageous, and we will get to the bottom of how this destruction was able to be unleashed across West Virginia,” said committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and ranking member Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., in a joint statement.

Source: Drug firms shipped 20.8M pain pills to WV town with 2,900 people | Health | wvgazettemail.com

Russian agents pollute social media

A few weeks ago, I shared my long-held skepticism about the effectiveness of influenza vaccines and was pleased to see a friend chime in in agreement. My skepticism of flu shots is based on science – that the effectiveness of the mass-produced vaccine is abysmal and has been for years. My friend’s skepticism is based on something less reliable, it seems, because she shared a post from the dubious news site, YourNewsWire.com. It quotes an unnamed CDC doctor:

A CDC doctor has warned this year’s “disastrous” flu shot may be responsible for the deadly flu epidemic sweeping the country.

“Some of the patients I’ve administered the flu shot to this year have died,” the doctor said, adding “I don’t care who you are, this scares the crap out of me.”

“We have seen people dying across the country of the flu, and one thing nearly all of them have in common is they got the flu shot.”

Scientists were worried this year’s flu season was going to be rough and their fears have been proven well founded. The flu season is off to a record-breaking start, with the CDC reporting widespread flu activity from coast to coast. Many health officials believe that 2018 will ultimately be the worst flu outbreak that we have experienced since 1918.

The CDC doctor’s experience of patients dying of the flu after receiving the flu shot is sadly not uncommon. Eight Santa Barbara County residents have died from the flu in the last fortnight. Seven of them had the flu shot.

This seemed like a pretty radical claim, so I searched the Internet for it and … nothing. The unnamed doctor obviously does not exist. YourNewsWire is the place Russian trolls work to perfect their craft.
Continue reading →

Amazon won’t say if it hands your Echo data to the government | ZDNet

Amazon has a transparency problem.Three years ago, the retail giant became the last major tech company to reveal how many subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders it received for customer data in a half-year period. While every other tech giant had regularly published its government request figures for years, spurred on by accusations of participation in government surveillance, Amazon had been largely forgotten.

Eventually, people noticed and Amazon acquiesced. Since then, Amazon’s business has expanded. By its quarterly revenue, it’s no longer a retail company — it’s a cloud giant and a device maker. The company’s flagship Echo, an “always listening” speaker, collects vast amounts of customer data that’s openly up for grabs by the government.

But Amazon’s bi-annual transparency figures don’t want you to know that.

Source: Amazon won’t say if it hands your Echo data to the government | ZDNet

The leadership itch returns

Last Thursday, I attended an RPD Community Meeting at Lions Park Community Center. It was a meeting to answer neighborhood concerns about the recent incident of delayed police response as well as answer any questions about crime in the area. A handful of neighbors attended, the usuals I’ve become used to seeing at CAC meetings, and a bevy of police officers, detectives, and representatives from the Communications Center.

I have two pages of notes on that meeting that I would like to type up into a report, but the point of this post is how at home I found myself feeling in that room. After three years of conducting CAC meetings, I was all too happy to volunteer questions when the presenters asked for them. I didn’t organize the meeting nor was I in charge of it but I certainly felt right at home quizzing these people for things I wanted to know.

In short, I may indeed miss being a CAC chair. More than that, I miss that I wasn’t able to run for City Council. I have not forgotten how absolutely jazzed I used to feel after my CAC meetings. The small taste I got of it Thursday reminded me that this is where I’m in my element. I hope some day I can get there.

Burglars enter her home. Cops take an hour to get there.

Imagine being on your own with these guys for almost an hour

Yesterday evening one of my neighbors found herself in a terrifying situation. Three would-be burglars had targeted her home and two of them had just quietly entered through her back door – while she was home! If her very large dogs hadn’t alerted her and scared them off she could’ve found herself face to face with these young men.

She did what any panicked homeowner would do – she called 911 and waited for help to arrive.

And she waited. And waited. And waited.

Two strangers had just entered her home while she was inside and the first Raleigh police officer did not arrive until a full fifty minutes later. By that time the intruders trail had gone cold, too cold for the K9 unit to track them. Officers were apologetic, telling her the department is understaffed.

My neighbor said later that the dispatcher misclassified the break-in as a “Level 2” incident, meaning the officers didn’t even get dispatched until 20 minutes after the incident. Even so, if it takes 30 minutes to round up enough officers to respond to a B&E that is far too long.

No one should have to wait this long for assistance in a life-threatening emergency. This is completely unacceptable. If the Raleigh Police Department is this understaffed then the City of Raleigh needs to get this fixed.

I know the Council recently approved raises for our first responders. Has that boosted recruitment? Why or why not? What else can the city do to ensure the safety of its citizens?

I can’t imagine what I would’ve done had this happened to me. The City of Raleigh needs to do whatever it takes to get more officers in the Raleigh Police Department and to keep happy the ones who are there now. What we have now puts everyone’s safety at risk.

Neighbors will be asking the Raleigh City Council next month to allocate more resources towards our police.

I-Team Exclusive: Sen. Reid discusses UFO study | LasVegasNow

Former Senator Harry Reid discusses his Pentagon UFO study project.

Did anyone notice what just happened here?

1. The U.S. Government has confirmed it has been studying UFOs.
2. This study has been quietly supported at some of the highest levels of government.
3. A video of a compelling UFO encounter has just been officially released by the U.S. Government.
4. One of the highest ranking former members of Congress didn’t run away from these events but proudly claimed them.
5. In spite of all this, the world didn’t end. People didn’t run for the hills. Mostly everyone shrugged.

These are all remarkable events and unthinkable even a few years ago. If all the people who made this happen escape without being publicly crucified we may see more of these disclosures.

Is society becoming ready to accept the truth of other life in the universe?

The existence of the UFO study was first reported by the I-Team back in October. That’s when a high-ranking intelligence officer in charge of the program quit to take a job with a private company.

Over the weekend, news of Harry Reid’s role in the study surfaced in news reports. The senator gave his only on camera interview to the I-Team’s George Knapp.

Harry Reid’s interest in UFOs dates back to 1989 because that is when George Knapp first had conversations with him on the topic.

In the years since, Reid quietly collected more information, met with scientists, intelligence officials, and other experts, and finally authorized a study that was carried out by a company created by a Las Vegas billionaire.

Since the story broke on Saturday, Reid has been bombarded with media requests, but he gave his only on camera interview to the I-Team.

The release this weekend of videos recorded by military pilots is unusual because, officially, the U.S. government stopped collecting information about UFOs back in 1969, when the Air Force canceled Project Blue Book. But in the decades since, pilots and others continued to encounter technology that is beyond anything known on earth.

Source: I-Team Exclusive: Sen. Reid discusses UFO study | LasVegasNow

“Suspicious” event routes traffic for big-name sites through Russia | Ars Technica

Russia briefly hijacked key Internet sites Wednesday through manipulation of BGP, the Internet’s routing tables. In a war, you can bet that the Internet will be one of the first targets. Is Russia testing its plans?

Traffic sent to and from Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft was briefly routed through a previously unknown Russian Internet provider Wednesday under circumstances researchers said was suspicious and intentional.

The unexplained incident involving the Internet’s Border Gateway Protocol is the latest to raise troubling questions about the trust and reliability of communications sent over the global network. BGP routes large-scale amounts of traffic among Internet backbones, ISPs, and other large networks. But despite the sensitivity and amount of data it controls, BGP’s security is often based on trust and word of mouth. Wednesday’s event comes eight months after large chunks of network traffic belonging to MasterCard, Visa, and more than two dozen other financial services were briefly routed through a Russian government-controlled telecom, also under suspicious circumstances.

Source: “Suspicious” event routes traffic for big-name sites through Russia | Ars Technica

US F-22s intercept Russian jets over Syria, fire warning flares – CNNPolitics

This is one of the most underreported stories. For over 40 minutes, U.S. fighters escorted Russian fighters who had strayed beyond the agreed-upon demilitarization line. Such encounters could very, very easily end in tragedy. Russia is taunting us.

Two US F-22 stealth fighters intercepted two Russian aircraft Wednesday after the Russian jets crossed the Euphrates River in Syria, flying east of the “de-confliction line” that is supposed to separate Russian and US-led coalition aircraft operating over Syria, two US defense officials told CNN.

The US jets fired warning flares during the intercept of the two Russian Su-25 close air support jets according to the officials after they crossed the de-confliction line multiple times.

One of the officials said a Russian Su-35 fighter jet was also involved and that the aerial encounter lasted “several minutes.”

Source: US F-22s intercept Russian jets over Syria, fire warning flares – CNNPolitics