#National Accountability Bureau

[justnownews]

NAB’s Historic Recovery in Peshawar’s BRT Project

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, September 23, 2024 – In a significant development, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has made a historic recovery of PKR 168.5 billion related to the controversial Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project in Peshawar. According to NAB’s official statement, this recovery will be allocated to public welfare projects. NAB’s investigation into the BRT project revealed…

[jaatanilsolanki]

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has been granted bail by Islamabad High Court in a corruption case. The decision comes a day after the Supreme Court declared his arrest "invalid and unlawful." Khan was arrested on Tuesday in the Al-Qadir Trust case after the National Accountability Bureau issued an arrest warrant against him. Stay updated with the latest news at glorymagazi.com

[mildmayfoxe]

hahaha hey you guys guess what. you'll never believe it. got the guy who's in charge of my fraud case on the phone and he was like "who'd you give one-time security codes to yesterday" and i was like "the guy who called me from the fraud department after they noticed a weird login in florida??" and he was like "that was the fuckin hacker. you got got. IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!" i handed my entire savings over to a fucking guy on the phone on a silver platter. like some kind of fuckin rube. bro

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #26

July 5-12 2024

The IRS announced it had managed to collect $1 billion in back taxes from high-wealth tax cheats. The program focused on persons with more than $1 million in yearly income who owned more than $250,000 in unpaid taxes. Thanks to money in Biden's 2022 Inflation Reduction Act the IRS is able to undertake more enforcement against rich tax cheats after years of Republicans cutting the agency's budget, which they hope to do again if they win power again.

The Biden administration announced a $244 million dollar investment in the federal government’s registered apprenticeship program. This marks the largest investment in the program's history with grants going out to 52 programs in 32 states. The President is focused on getting well paying blue collar opportunities to people and more people are taking part in the apprenticeship program than ever before. Republican pledge to cut it, even as employers struggle to find qualified workers.

The Department of Transportation announced the largest single project in the department's history, $11 billion dollars in grants for the The Hudson River Tunnel. Part of the $66 billion the Biden Administration has invested in our rail system the tunnel, the most complex Infrastructure project in the nation would link New York and New Jersey by rail under the Hudson. Once finished it's believed it'll impact 20% of the American economy by improving and speeding connection throughout the Northeast.

The Department of Energy announced $1.7 billion to save auto worker's jobs and convert factories to electronic vehicles. The Biden administration will used the money to save or reopen factories in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, and Virginia and retool them to make electric cars. The project will save 15,000 skilled union worker jobs, and created 2,900 new high-quality jobs.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development reached a settlement with The Appraisal Foundation over racial discrimination. TAF is the organization responsible for setting standards and qualifications for real estate appraisers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics last year found that TAF was 94.7% White and 0.6% Black, making it the least racially diverse of the 800 occupations surveyed. Black and Latino home owners are far more likely to have their houses under valued than whites. Under the settlement with HUD TAF will have to take serious steps to increase diversity and remove structural barriers to diversity.

The Department of Justice disrupted an effort by the Russian government to influence public opinion through AI bots. The DoJ shut down nearly 1,000 twitter accounts that were linked to a Russian Bot farm. The bots used AI technology to not only generate tweets but also AI image faces for profile pictures. The effort seemed focused on boosting support for Russia's war against Ukraine and spread negative stories/impressions about Ukraine.

The Department of Transportation announces $1.5 billion to help local authorities buy made in America buses. 80% of the funding will go toward zero or low-emission technology, a part of the President's goal of reaching zero emissions by 2050. This is part of the $5 billion the DOT has spent over the last 3 years replacing aging buses with new cleaner technology.

President Biden with Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau and Finnish President Alexander Stubb signed a new agreement on the arctic. The new trilateral agreement between the 3 NATO partners, known as the ICE Pact, will boost production of ice breaking ships, the 3 plan to build as many as 90 between them in the coming years. The alliance hopes to be a counter weight to China's current dominance in the ice breaker market and help western allies respond to Russia's aggressive push into the arctic waters.

The Department of Transportation announced $1.1 billion for greater rail safety. The program seeks to, where ever possible, eliminate rail crossings, thus removing the dangers and inconvenience to communities divided by rail lines. It will also help update and improve safety measures at rail crossings.

The Department of the Interior announced $120 million to help tribal communities prepare for climate disasters. This funding is part of half a billion dollars the Biden administration has spent to help tribes build climate resilience, which itself is part of a $50 billion dollar effort to build climate resilience across the nation. This funding will help support drought measures, wildland fire mitigation, community-driven relocation, managed retreat, protect-in-place efforts, and ocean and coastal management.

The USDA announced $100 million in additional funds to help feed low income kids over the summer. Known as "SUN Bucks" or "Summer EBT" the new Biden program grants the families of kids who qualify for free meals at school $120 dollars pre-child for groceries. This comes on top of the traditional SUN Meals program which offers school meals to qualifying children over the summer, as well as the new under President Biden SUN Meals To-Go program which is now offering delivery of meals to low-income children in rural areas. This grant is meant to help local governments build up the Infrastructure to support and distribute SUN Bucks. If fully implemented SUN Bucks could help 30 million kids, but many Republican governors have refused the funding.

USAID announced its giving $100 million to the UN World Food Program to deliver urgently needed food assistance in Gaza. This will bring the total humanitarian aid given by the US to the Palestinian people since the war started in October 2023 to $774 million, the single largest donor nation. President Biden at his press conference last night said that Israel and Hamas have agreed in principle to a ceasefire deal that will end the war and release the hostages. US negotiators are working to close the final gaps between the two sides and end the war.

The Senate confirmed Nancy Maldonado to serve as a Judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Maldonado is the 202nd federal Judge appointed by President Biden to be confirmed. She will the first Latino judge to ever serve on the 7th Circuit which covers Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

Bonus: At the NATO summit in Washington DC President Biden joined 32 allies in the Ukraine compact. Allies from Japan to Iceland confirmed their support for Ukraine and deepening their commitments to building Ukraine's forces and keeping a free and Democratic Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. World leaders such as British Prime Minster Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, praised President Biden's experience and leadership during the NATO summit

[directactionforhope]

"Starting this month [June 2024], thousands of young people will begin doing climate-related work around the West as part of a new service-based federal jobs program, the American Climate Corps, or ACC. The jobs they do will vary, from wildland firefighters and “lawn busters” to urban farm fellows and traditional ecological knowledge stewards. Some will work on food security or energy conservation in cities, while others will tackle invasive species and stream restoration on public land. 

The Climate Corps was modeled on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, with the goal of eventually creating tens of thousands of jobs while simultaneously addressing the impacts of climate change. 

Applications were released on Earth Day, and Maggie Thomas, President Joe Biden’s special assistant on climate, told High Country News that the program’s website has already had hundreds of thousands of views. Since its launch, nearly 250 jobs across the West have been posted, accounting for more than half of all the listed ACC positions. 

“Obviously, the West is facing tremendous impacts of climate change,” Thomas said. “It’s changing faster than many other parts of the country. If you look at wildfire, if you look at extreme heat, there are so many impacts. I think that there’s a huge role for the American Climate Corps to be tackling those crises.”  

Most of the current positions are staffed through state or nonprofit entities, such as the Montana Conservation Corps or Great Basin Institute, many of which work in partnership with federal agencies that manage public lands across the West. In New Mexico, for example, members of Conservation Legacy’s Ecological Monitoring Crew will help the Bureau of Land Management collect soil and vegetation data. In Oregon, young people will join the U.S. Department of Agriculture, working in firefighting, fuel reduction and timber management in national forests. 

New jobs are being added regularly. Deadlines for summer positions have largely passed, but new postings for hundreds more positions are due later this year or on a rolling basis, such as the Working Lands Program, which is focused on “climate-smart agriculture.”  ...

On the ACC website, applicants can sort jobs by state, work environment and focus area, such as “Indigenous knowledge reclamation” or “food waste reduction.” Job descriptions include an hourly pay equivalent — some corps jobs pay weekly or term-based stipends instead of an hourly wage — and benefits. The site is fairly user-friendly, in part owing to suggestions made by the young people who participated in the ACC listening sessions earlier this year...

The sessions helped determine other priorities as well, Thomas said, including creating good-paying jobs that could lead to long-term careers, as well as alignment with the president’s Justice40 initiative, which mandates that at least 40% of federal climate funds must go to marginalized communities that are disproportionately impacted by climate change and pollution. 

High Country News found that 30% of jobs listed across the West have explicit justice and equity language, from affordable housing in low-income communities to Indigenous knowledge and cultural reclamation for Native youth...

While the administration aims for all positions to pay at least $15 an hour, the lowest-paid position in the West is currently listed at $11 an hour. Benefits also vary widely, though most include an education benefit, and, in some cases, health care, child care and housing. 

All corps members will have access to pre-apprenticeship curriculum through the North America’s Building Trades Union. Matthew Mayers, director of the Green Workers Alliance, called this an important step for young people who want to pursue union jobs in renewable energy. Some members will also be eligible for the federal pathways program, which was recently expanded to increase opportunities for permanent positions in the federal government...

 “To think that there will be young people in every community across the country working on climate solutions and really being equipped with the tools they need to succeed in the workforce of the future,” Thomas said, “to me, that is going to be an incredible thing to see.”"

-via High Country News, June 6, 2024

--

Note: You can browse Climate Corps job postings here, on the Climate Corps website. There are currently 314 jobs posted at time of writing!

Also, it says the goal is to pay at least $15 an hour for all jobs (not 100% meeting that goal rn), but lots of postings pay higher than that, including some over $20/hour!!

[premimtimes]

EDITORIAL: Buhari, governors’ row over mindless stealing of LG funds

EDITORIAL: Buhari, governors’ row over mindless stealing of LG funds

The unabashed stealing of funds belonging to local government areas by state governors was put on the front burner of national discourse by President Muhammadu Buhari recently, when he said that the criminal indulgence was responsible for the stunted growth of rural areas across the country. The heist is orchestrated through the unlawful manipulation of the monthly financial allocations to the…

[doctorbitchcrxft]

Nightshifter | Supernatural Series Rewrite | Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader (Eventual ;) )

Warnings: canon violence, canon gore, hostage situation

Word Count: 5149

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You eyed Dean angrily as he flirted with the attractive woman in front of him dressed as an FBI agent. You knew he was teasing you, and it was pissing you off. You had long since finished your interrogation of the store’s manager. Helena had apparently been a patron of the store for years. Then, one day, she went crazy; the police caught her clearing out the jewelry store’s cases and the safe before shooting someone in the face and killing herself in her bathtub after the crime. You had a sneaking suspicion you were dealing with a shapeshifter; a monster that you were quite over dealing with.

Dean approached you, triumphantly waving the piece of paper with the phone number he’d gotten from the woman he was interviewing.

You snatched it out of his hands. 

“Aw, you jealous?” he teased, leaning into you.

You deadpanned, “Keep it professional, Agent Hetfield, wouldn’t want the bureau to hear about this, right?” You ripped the paper up and shoved its tatters into your blazer pocket.

He deflated slightly, but still smirked at you. “I’m gonna make you crack, sweetheart, just wait.”

“Mm-hmm,” you hummed, turning away from him and heading out to the Impala. Admittedly, you were strutting a little bit to tease him.

Sam met you at the car, and the three of you drove to the home of the man whose police statement had been a mix of sci-fi nerd gibberish and the only eye-witness account of the incident.

As you approached the small house, Sam began talking about another piece of the case. “Uh, Milwaukee National Trust. It was hit about a month ago.”

Dean raised a brow. “Same M.O. as the jewelry store?”

“Yep, inside job, longtime employee, the never-in-a-million-years type. Dude robs the bank, then goes home and supposedly commits suicide.”

“The guy, Resnick, he was the security guard on duty?” Dean questioned.

Sam nodded. “Yeah. He was actually beaten unconscious by the teller who heisted the place.”

“Jesus,” you grimaced.

“Yeah,” Sam nodded. He knocked on the screen door. “Mr. Resnick?” A bright flood light turned on, momentarily blinding you.

You raised a hand in front of your eyes. “Holy—”

Sam was apparently unfazed. “FBI, Mr. Resnick.”

Through the screen door, a chubby, nerdy-looking man in his late twenties approached. “Let me see the badge.”

You slapped your badge against the screen next to Sam’s and Dean’s. 

Mr. Resnick, whose first name was Ronald, squinted at them carefully. “I already gave my statement to the police.”

Dean chuckled. “Yeah, listen, Ronald, um… just some things about your statement we wanted to get some clarification on.”

“You read it?” He seemed surprised. “You come to listen to what I've got to say?”

“Well, that’s why we’re here,” Dean said.

“Well, come on in.” He opened the door and led you through a narrow hallway to a room cluttered with conspiracy theory paraphernalia.

“None of the cops ever called me back. Not after I told them what was really going on. Uh, they all thought I was crazy,” he rushed out. You were beginning to think the same. “First off, Juan Morales never robbed the Milwaukee National Trust, okay? That, I guarantee. See, me and Juan were friends. He used to come back to the bank on my night shifts, and we'd play cards.”

“So you let him into the bank that night, after hours,” Sam noted.

“The thing I let into the bank…” Ronald trailed off, “wasn't Juan. I mean, it had his face, but it wasn't his face. Uh, every detail was perfect, but too perfect, you know, like if a dollmaker made it, like I was talking to a big Juan-doll.”

You nearly choked on a laugh. “A Juan-doll?”

“Look, this wasn't the only time this happened, okay?” He scrambled through papers on his messy desk and handed you a folder. “There was this jewelry store, too. And the cops, a-and you guys, you just won't see it!” You flipped through the folder; it almost looked like a hunter’s profile of the case. You were half impressed. “Both crimes were pulled by the same thing,” Ronald finished. 

Sam pressed, saying, “What's that, Mr. Resnick?”

He picked up a copy of a magazine labeled “Fortean Times” and held it out to you. The headline read, “Birth of the Cybermen.”

‘Jesus Christ,’ you thought, suppressing a grimace.

“Chinese 've been working on 'em for years,” the man explained. “And the Russians before that. Part men, part machine. Like the Terminator. But the kind that can change itself, make itself look like other people.”

Dean smirked. “Like the one from T2.”

“Exactly! See, so not just a robot, more of a- a- a- a— Mandroid," he said finally, a bizarre twinkle in his eye.

“A Mandroid,” you deadpanned. “And what makes you so sure about this, Ronald?”

He held up a finger at you, smiling a little wildly. Your eyes flicked to Dean’s in concern, and he just wiggled his eyebrows at you. 

The man returned a moment later holding a VHS tape labeled “M.N.T. Camera 4— Juan.” He inserted it into a player, saying, “See, I made copies of all the security tapes. I knew once the cops got them they'd be buried. Here.” He fast-forwarded a bit in the tape. “Now watch. Watch. Watch him, watch, watch! See, look! Th- th- there it is!” He paused it on a clip of the man with a silver in his eyes. “You see? He's got the laser eyes.”

You gave Sam a knowing look that he returned.

“Cops said it was some kind of reflected light. Some kind of ‘camera flare’. Okay? Ain't no damn camera flare. They say I'm a post-trauma case. So what? Bank goes and fires me, it don't matter!” You eyed Ronald uncomfortably as he continued to pace around and rant. “The Mandroid is— is still out there. The law won't hunt this thing down— I'll do it myself.

"You see, this thing, it- it- it kills the real person, makes it look like a suicide, then it sorta, like, morphs into that person. Cases the job for a while until it knows the take is fat, and then it finds its opening. Now, these robberies, they're, they're grouped together.” He pointed at the map on the wall. “So I figure the Mandroid is holed up somewhere in the middle, underground, maybe. I dunno, maybe that's where it recharges its, uh, Mandroid batteries.”

Dean nodded, seeming impressed. You just looked between Ronald and Dean in confusion. 

“Okay. I want you to listen very carefully. Because I'm about to tell you the god's honest truth about all of this,” Sam began.

Your head whipped to him, confused as to where he was going with this.

“There's no such thing as Mandroids. There's nothing evil or inhuman going on out there. Just people. Nothing else, you understand?”

You kept a straight face, but were startled. 

“The laser eyes,” Ronald tried desperately.

“Just a camera flare, Mr. Resnick. See, I know you don't want to believe this. But your friend Juan robbed the bank, and that's it,” Sam mollified.

Ronald immediately became angry. “Get out of my house! Now!”

***

You and the brothers found another tacky, cheap motel to stay in for the time being. You lounged on Dean’s bed in a pair of comfortable sweatpants and an oversized band t-shirt. 

Dean paced around the room, chuckling. “Man, that has got to be the kicker, straight up. I mean, you tell that poor son of a bitch that— what did you say, remand the tapes that he copied? Classified evidence of an ongoing investigation?” He laughed harder. “That's messed up.”

Sam sat on the foot of the bed and inserted the tape into the television’s player. “What are you, pissed at me or something?”

Dean shook his head. “Nah, I just think it's a little creepy how good of a Fed you are. I mean, come on, we could have at least thrown the guy a bone. He did some pretty good legwork here.”

“Mandroid?” you deadpanned.

“Except for the Mandroid part,” Dean added. “I liked him. He's not that different from you or me. People think we're crazy.”

“He’s not a hunter, though, Dean,” you challenged. “He ran into something real and let his conspiracy-theory-brain-rot get the best of him.”

“Better to stay in the dark, and stay alive,” Sam finished.

Dean shrugged, “Yeah, I guess.” He put a paper down on the map on the table and began marking it with a red pen. 

You shuffled forward to Sam and hit the pause button on the remote just as the man’s eyes flashed at the camera.

“Shapeshifter. Just like back in St. Louis. Same retinal reaction to video,” Sam informed.

“Eyes flare at the camera. I hate those fuckin��� things,” Dean grunted.

“You think we don’t?” you scoffed.

“Yeah, well, one didn't turn into you and frame you for murder.”

You shrugged. “Well, look, if this shifter's anything like the one we killed in Missouri—”

“Then Ronald was right. Alright, they like to layer up underground, preferably the sewer. And all the robberies have been connected so far, right?”

Sam nodded.

“With the, uh, sewer main layout. There's one more bank lined up on that same sewer main,” Dean continued.

“Awesome,” you grumbled.

***

Later that evening, you and the brothers headed to the bank Dean referenced, the City Bank of Milwaukee, to see if the shapeshifter would be hitting that one next. You posed as Sam and Dean’s boss, and the two boys wore security camera technician outfits. 

The guard of the bank informed you as you walked along, “Well, we haven't had any flags go up on our system yet.”

You shook your head. “No, sir, this is a glitch in the overall grid. I just need to cover all my bases and make sure the branch monitors are okay.”

“Well, better to be safe than sorry, I guess,” the guard shrugged.

“That’s the plan,” you nodded.

He opened the door to an observation room flooded with monitors for you, saying, “Alrighty. You guys need anything else?”

“Nope,” you replied. “We’ll be in and out before you know it. Just a routine check.”

“Okie-dokie,” he said, leaving the room.

Dean chuckled. “I like him. He says ‘Okie-dokie.’ “

“What if he's the shifter?” worried Sam.

“Well, then we follow him home, put a silver bullet through his chestplate,” the older brother replied simply.

You sat down in one of the desk chairs to watch the screens. You kicked your high-heeled feet up on the desk in front of you, leaning back in your seat. “Anybody got popcorn?” you yawned, preparing for the hours of work ahead of you.

***

You and the Winchester boys were beginning to go cross-eyed after searching for the monster for so long.

“Well, it looks like Mr. Okie-Dokie is… okie-dokie,” Dean commented upon seeing his eyes appear normal in the camera screens.

“Maybe we jumped the gun on this, guys,” sighed Sam. “I mean, we don't even know it's here.”

Something caught your eye. “Wait a minute.” A middle-aged man turned toward the camera, and his eyes flared. “Got him.”

“Hello, freak,” Dean growled.

Sam immediately jumped up, as did you, but Dean lingered behind. “Guys, wait!”

“What?” you and Sam spun around.

You then saw Ronald scurrying up to the door of the bank with a chain and a padlock, chaining it shut.

Dean scoffed. “Hello, Ronald.”

You immediately began running down the hall, ignoring the protesting of the soles of your feet as your heels clacked against the floor. As you approached the main lobby of the bank, you heard Ronald screaming for everyone to get on the ground. And then, gunshots.

“Fuck!” you cursed.

“And you said we shouldn't bring guns,” Dean scolded Sam, nearly bumping into someone fleeing past him.

“I didn't know this was gonna happen, Dean,” Sam replied.

“Just let me do the talking,” the older brother commanded. “I don't think he likes you very much, Agent Johnson.”

You saw Ronald standing in front of a group of people huddled together on the floor. “Now, there's only one way in or out of here, and I chained it up. So nobody's leaving, do you understand?”

Your eyes flicked to Dean concernedly as he stepped forward. “Hey, buddy. Calm down. Just calm down—”

Ronald wheeled around. “What the— You! Get on the floor, now.”

Dean began to crouch to the floor, as did you and Sam. “Okay, we're doing that. Just don't shoot anybody, especially us.”

“I knew it. As soon as you two left. You ain't FBI. Who are you? Who are you working for, huh? The men in black? You working for the Mandroid?”

“We’re not working for the Mandroid!” Sam exclaimed.

Ronald shakily aimed his gun at Sam. “You, shut up! I ain't talking to you. I don't like you.”

“Fair enough,” the brunet mumbled.

“Get on 'em. Frisk them down, make sure they got no weapons on them. Go!” Ronald commanded one of the hostages.

“Oh, hell, no, you’re not fucking touching me,” you struggled against the man as he tried to feel you up. 

“(Y/N), (Y/N), stop, stop,” Sam pleaded.

You shoved the man off yourself. Your struggle was strategic, though, as it kept him from finding the knives you had planted on yourself; one in your sleeve and one alongside your thigh.

The man moved over to Dean and found a knife stashed in his boot.

“Now what have we here?” Ronald’s question was meant to sound intimidating, but his wavering voice gave him away.

Sam shot Dean a look.

“I'm not just gonna walk in here naked!” Dean hissed back.

“Get back there,” Ronald ordered. You did so, following his pointing of the gun to the group of people behind him. He dropped Dean’s knife in the deposit box, and Dean winced.

“We know you don't want to hurt anybody,” he said. “That's exactly what's gonna happen if you keep waving that cannon around, and why don't you let these people go?”

“No!” Ronald shrieked. “I already told you. If nobody's gonna stop this thing, then I've got to do it myself.”

“Hey, we believe you! That's why we're here,” Dean replied.

“You don't believe me. Nobody believes me! How could they?” he cried.

“Come here,” Dean said.

Ronald scoffed. “What? No.”

“You're holding the gun, boss; you're calling the shots. I just want to tell you something. Come here.”

Ronald approached cautiously and leaned into Dean. You assumed he was telling him who the shifter was.

“Why do you think we've got these getups, huh? We've been monitoring the cameras in the back. We saw the bank manager. We saw his eyes,” Dean whispered.

The shorter man’s eyes widened. “His laser eyes?”

“Yes.” Dean seemed to realize what he’d said. “No. No! No, look, we're running out of time, okay? We've got to find him before he changes into someone else.”

“Like I'm gonna listen to you. You're a damn liar,” Ronald grumbled.

Dean stood cautiously, hands out.

“Dean, no!” you said.

“I'll shoot you! Get down!” Ronald ordered, pointing his rifle at Dean.

“Take me. Okay? Take me with you; take me as a hostage. But we've gotta act fast , because the longer we just sit here, the more time he has to change.” Dean paused. “Look at me, man. I believe you. You're not crazy. There really is something inside this bank.”

Ronald finally nodded. “Alright, you come with me. But everyone else gets in the vault!”

You stood on shaky legs as the people around you gasped and cried. You helped Sam herd everyone into the vault, and Dean tried to calm everyone down when Ronald ordered him to shut the door.

“It's okay, everyone. Just stay cool.” He threw a lingering glance to you before locking the vault completely.

A young redhead stared after Dean. “Who is that man?” she asked breathlessly.

“He's my brother,” Sam replied; you could hear the worry in his voice.

“He is so brave,” she practically moaned.

You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms.

The redhead went silent for a few minutes, and you took some time to thoroughly think your situation over. ‘Cops are gonna be all over this place by now. Dean’s been accused of murder, and the three of us have already been arrested once. Dean’s on the FBI’s radar. Surely, after our escape on the danashulps case, the feds are on us again. Now, we’re smack dab in the middle of a full-on hostage situation. And who are they likely to blame? Us!’ Your anxiety was beginning to get away with you as your thoughts began to swirl in your head. You were then acutely aware of how hot the room was, and unbuttoned the top two buttons of your shirt to keep some circulation moving. 

The woman next to you who seemed infatuated with Dean introduced herself to you.

“ ‘Scuse me, sorry. Uh, hi, I’m Sherry,” she said. “You’re, uh, with those guys, too, right?”

You nodded. 

“You known them a while?”

You nodded again.

She grinned. “Oh, gosh. What’s it like being around him?”

You snorted. “ ‘Him’ who?”

“That guy! The one who saved our lives!” she beamed. “What’s he like?”

“To tell you the truth, he’s a pain in my ass most of the time,” you giggled, arms crossed over your chest. 

“Oh, really?” She deflated a bit before her floaty, trancelike inflection in her voice came back. “He just… He seems so wonderful to be around. I mean, staring down that gun. And, you know, the way— he played right into that psycho's crazy head, telling him what he wanted to hear, I mean—” She trailed off, turning her attention back to you. “He's like, a real hero or, or something.” She tucked a hair behind her ear as she continued to gush.

You nodded again, feeling weirded out. 

“Sorry, I just,” she sing-songed, “I’ve never met anyone like him.” She paused, seeming to consider her next question carefully. “You ever… done anything with him?”

You nearly choked at her statement, uncomfortable with the objectification of Dean. “What?”

“Y’know,” she drawled, “How good is he in the—”

You were grateful to hear the vault door unlocking, revealing Dean holding a handgun.

“Oh my god, you saved us! You saved us!” Sherry cheered.

“Actually, I just found a few more. Come on, everybody, let's go. Let's go.” Dean ushered the guard from earlier and a few other people inside the vault.

“What are you doing?” Sherry questioned.

“Sam, (Y/N), look, uh, Ronald and I need to talk to you,” Dean said.

You shot Sam a confused look, and Dean shut the vault door behind him, shrugging apologetically.

“It's shed its skin again,” Dean explained. “We don't know when— it could be in the halls, it could be in the vault.”

“Great,” you sighed. “Y’know, Dean, you are wanted by the police.”

He nodded.

Sam seemed to catch onto where you were headed with this. “So even if we do find this damn thing, how the hell are we gonna get out of here?”

“Well, one problem at a time,” the older brother replied. “Alright, I'm gonna do a sweep of the whole place; see if we can find any stragglers. Once we get everyone together we've got to play a little game of find-the-freak, so… here.” He handed Sam a silver letter opener. “Found another one of these for you. (Y/N), I know you have weapons on you. Best use ‘em.”

You grinned at how well he knew you. You slipped your silver-bladed knife out of your sleeve.

Dean turned to Sam. “Now, stay here, make sure Ronald doesn't hurt anybody, okay? Help him manage the situation.” He turned to you. “C’mon.”

Sam’s voice began rising in outrage. “Help him manage? Are you insane?”

You turned your head to Ronald who seemed shaken, attention caught by Sam’s voice.

“Look, I know this isn't going the way we wanted—”

Dean was cut off by his brother nearly shouting, “Understatement!”

“But if we invite the cops in right now, Ronald gets arrested, we get arrested, the shifter gets away, probably never find it again, okay?” Dean finished.

Ronald peered out of the window in plain view of whoever was down below. You snapped, “Ronald! Out of the light!”

Sam scoffed at his brother, “Seriously?!”

Dean sighed. “Yeah, Ron's game plan was a bad plan, I mean, it was a bit of a crazy plan, but right now, crazy's the only game in town, okay?”

Dean slapped Sam on the shoulder and grabbed your hand, bringing you along with him. ‘If only Sherry could see us now,’ you thought bitterly.

Dean looked over his shoulder at you. “What’s that face about?” he questioned.

“Nothin’,” you replied, still grinning in self-satisfaction, scanning the hallway ahead for anyone or anything.

He just hummed at you, turning his head forward again.

“I hate this case,” you whispered after a few minutes of tense walking.

“Yeah, me too,” he replied, still scanning the ceiling. He seemed to notice something, and you followed his gaze upward. A panel in the ceiling had been left askew. You eyed Dean curiously and took the gun from him, pointing it at the panel while Dean dislodged it with a coat rack from nearby. Suddenly, a naked body fell to the floor. Dean turned the body over with the end of the rack.

“Wait, Dean, wasn’t that?—”

“Yeah, I just let that guy in the vault.”

***

You and Dean hurried as inconspicuously as possible to inform Sam of what had just happened. Sam told you that man had been trying to get the front door unlocked and helping Mr. Okie-Dokie who may have been going into cardiac arrest when you and Dean found the body. 

You turned to Ronald and his cocked rifle. “You know what, Ronald? He's right, we've got to get this man outside. Come on. I've got you.”

The shifter tried to help, too. “Yeah, yeah, let me help you.”

“Oh, we got him, it's, it's cool. Thanks,” you replied. You helped the guard out of the way, and Sam took the man’s other side.

“Thank you. Thank you,” the guard told you between labored breaths.

“Sure,” you smiled politely.

You could hear Dean talking to the shifter and a sudden crash behind you. You turned with the guard still on your shoulders at Ronald yelling, “Stop! Come back here!” You noticed a red laser pointed on his back, and your breath caught.

“Get down! Now!” you screamed, but you were too late. 

The bullet from the sniper rifle hit Ronald squarely in the chest. You watched in horror as he fell to his knees before hitting the floor dead.

You took in a sharp breath at the sight, forcing yourself to keep your composure for the sake of everyone else in the room with you.

It was bedlam at that minute. All of the hostages began running out of the vault toward the door. You put Mr. Okie-Dokie on the ground next to you and just kept him talking until something could be done to help him. You weren’t quite sure what Sam or Dean were doing, but you made it your priority to keep this man from going into cardiac arrest.

Dean suddenly came over to you, holding a rifle.

“Dean, what are you doing?” you questioned.

“(Y/N), trust me on this—” he pleaded before helping the guard stand.

“Dean! I can help him, don’t bring him outside—”

“I’m not taking that chance, (Y/N). C’mon,” he told the guard. “I gotcha.” He held the man out in front of him and pushed him out the front door with the rifle at the guard’s back. You stayed out of the light, back pressed against the pillar next to the heavy door. 

“No, don't shoot! Don't shoot! Please!” you heard the guard yell.

Dean commanded, “Don't even think about it! I said get back! Now!” He paused a moment before you heard his voice again. “Okay, go, go!” The older Winchester slipped back inside, shutting the door and latching it.

“We are so fucked,” he mumbled to you, helping you up from the floor. 

“Fuck, why?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “There’s about, I don’t know, eight thousand cops out there. Helicopters and search lights and everything. We are fucked, (Y/N).”

You dropped your head back, groaning, “Great.”

Dean’s phone rang, and you assumed it was Sam. “Yeah?” he answered. “What?... God, it's like playing the shell game. It could be anybody. Again… Alright, you search every inch of this place, we’re gonna go round everybody up.” He hung up the phone.

“I think this is the most stressed I’ve been on a job,” you said as you and Dean began searching for the hostages. 

“Yeah? Even more so than the demons in New York?”

“Oh, definitely. That was just a sad one; not super stressful,” you replied. You noticed a herd of people toward the end of the hall. You gripped the handle of your knife, knowing the shifter would likely be in the mix of all the hostages. 

You and Dean rounded them up; Dean pointing the rifle he picked up from Ronald at the group. You guided them back to the vault.

“And I thought you were one of the good guys,” Sherry, who held up the back of the group, told Dean, who was trailing behind her.

“What's your name?” he asked.

“Why would you care?” she scoffed.

“My name's Dean,” he said. Your heart melted a bit at his gentleness with her.

She hesitated but still answered. “I'm Sherry.”

“Hi, Sherry. Everything's gonna be alright. This will all be over soon, okay?” He assured her, shutting the vault door and spinning the lock shut. The landline of the bank rang and you picked it up. You didn’t say anything when you answered the phone.

“This is Special Agent Victor Henriksen,” a commanding voice stated through the phone. “Is this Dean? Sam?”

You didn’t respond once more.

Dean mouthed to you, “Who is that?”

You shook your head, holding up a finger to gesture for him to wait.

“Oh, or is it that pretty girl? Our very own criminal Jane Doe. Some people have been calling her Ghost since no one can seem to find any record of her existence.”

Your breath hitched in your throat, but you still didn’t say anything.

“Well, whether you’ve got the Bonnie to your Clydes with you or not, it’s my job to bring you boys in. Alive's a bonus, but not necessary. I want you Winchesters out here, unarmed, or we come in.”

You still didn’t say anything.

“I know you’re still there,” he said, almost taunting. “I know everything about you two. I've been looking for you for weeks now. I know about the murder in St. Louis; I know about the Houdini act you pulled in Baltimore. I know about the desecrations and the thefts. I know about your dad.” 

Dean was trying to get close to the phone, but you kept pushing him away because you knew he’d explode at the mention of his father.

“Ex-marine, raised his kids on the road,” the agent continued, “cheap motels, backwood cabins. Real paramilitary survivalist type. I just can't get a handle on what type of whacko he was. White supremacist, Timmy McVeigh, to-may-to, to-mah-to. You have one hour to make a decision, or we come through those doors fully automatic.” With that, he hung up the phone.

You slammed the phone down, cursing in frustration.

“What? Who was that?” Dean asked.

“The fucking FBI agent who’s been tailing us since Missouri,” you replied, beginning to pace anxiously. “He knows everything about you guys, man. Even about your dad. That’s why I didn’t let you talk to him; I knew you would’ve ripped his head off.”

“Damn right,” the man growled. “They have a positive ID on you yet?” 

“No, actually,” you said. “Ironically, some of the feds labeled me ‘Ghost’ cause they can’t find anything on me. Which makes me even more nervous. Anyway, we’ve got an hour till they come in here and pump us full of lead,” you informed him.

“Fuck,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair.

Moments later, Sam appeared at the entrance of the vault room.

“Hey. We've got a bit of a problem outside,” Dean said.

Sam snorted. “We got a problem in here.”

“What?” you questioned.

Sam hushed his voice. “The girl that was gushing over Dean in the vault? It’s her,” he told you. 

“Who, Sherry?” you questioned.

He nodded. “Just found her body.”

Barely needing to flick a glance at the boys, you unlocked the vault.

“Sherry? We're gonna let you go,” Dean called as the door swung open.

“What? Why me?” she questioned.

“Uh, as a show of good faith to the feds, come on,” he replied.

The woman hesitated. “Uh... I think I'd— I'd rather stay here, with the others.”

Dean approached her intimidatingly. “I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist.”

You clutched your blade at your side. After a tense moment, she approached you. Sam and Dean pushed her back to the hallway.

“I thought you were letting me go,” the woman you thought was the shifter said.

Dean shoved her forward, holding her head and forcing her to look at the body of Sherry Sam had brought back with him. She began screaming hysterically.

“Is that community theater, or are you just naturally that good?” Dean gruffly questioned.

“This is the last time you become anybody. Ever,” Sam added.

“No! Oh god!” she cried. She fainted almost immediately.

You stared at the two Sherrys in disbelief. One of the bodies was dressed, the other, half-naked. ‘Poor lady,’ you thought. You took off your blazer and laid it over the woman’s body, trying to spare her dignity. 

“Wait, why did it do that?” you questioned. You leaned over the undressed body of Sherry covered only by your blazer and put your finger on her neck, trying to find a pulse. The body immediately jolted up, grabbing you by the throat. You struggled, stabbing at it frantically. You got a lick in at its upper arm with the knife before it kneed you in the chin and bolted.

You coughed when it released your throat, clutching at your neck and coughing.

“(Y/N)!” Dean cried.

“Dean, no, I’m fine! Follow it!”

He nodded, taking your knife from your outstretched hand and running after it. You kicked off your heels and took another moment before standing and going to follow Dean. Sam had taken off somewhere with the real Sherry. 

You didn’t know what else to do besides stay with the vault and Dean’s discarded handgun, prowling in front of it with the gun at the ready. 

***

You had no idea how long it had been. You just continued to pace in front of the vault, tension overtaking your body and anxiety keeping your eyes flickering across the room rapidly. You suddenly heard approaching footsteps and dove on the ground behind a desk— unsure if it was Dean, Sam, the shifter, a cop— and were panicked at the sight of S.W.A.T. sniper rifle lasers and flashlights on the wall in front of you. Your breath quickened as the footsteps continued approaching you. Then, a masked man ducked under the desk in front of you.

You shrieked.

“Here’s Johnny!” he yelped.

“Dean! Fuck you!” You shoved his shoulder harshly when you recognized his face. He and Sam were donned in S.W.A.T. outfits that they had definitely taken off some poor bastards hidden in a broom closet somewhere. 

“C’mon, we gotta get outta here, now,” Dean told you. You grabbed your heels and followed the boys out of the building and to the Impala. Dean and Sam had their stolen guns at the ready as you sprinted up to the third floor of the parking garage. 

The three of you sat in the Impala, completely breathless, as you grappled with the reality of your situation.

“We are so fucked,” Dean murmured.

You and Sam nodded minutely.

You looked out of the window at the rising morning sun. Exhausted, you let the rumble of the Impala soothe you into a restless sleep as Dean drove you away from the bank. 

Series Rewrite Taglist: @polireader @brightlilith @atcamillanorrman @jrizzelle @insomnia-bookworm @procrastination20 @mrs-liebgott @djs8891 @tiggytaylor @staple-your-mouth @jesstherebel @rach5ive @strawberrykiwisdogog @bruhidkjustwannaread @mxltifxnd0m @sunshine-on-marz @big-ol-boat @mgchaser @capncrankle @chervbs @simpingdeadcharacters @nesnejwritings @stillhere197 @tearsforhan @take-it-on-the-run @iloveyou2mia @maxinehufflepuffprincess @ohgeehowdigethere @seninjakitey @berarenado @s0urw00lf @princessleahorgana @quarterhorse19 @isla-finke-blog @silverdoragon @karacaroldanvers @gayandfairycore @examishbookwyrm @star-yawnznn @real-sharena-h @fandomloverrr @metalmonki @onlyangel-444 @yu-winchester @benniwiththefanni @daisychaingirl @immagods @missmieux @yoongi-holland @littledebbieinabigworld

[zvaigzdelasas]

Cuban Pedro Rafael Delgado, a 56-year-old accountant, saw his life change dramatically just days after Cuba approved a set of laws by referendum in September that allow gay marriage.

For more than a decade, Delgado, who works at a Communist Party office, lived as "friends" with his 62-year-old partner, Adolfo Lopez. He lacked basic rights and felt shunned even by his own family because of his sexual preference. "Being gay was the embarrassment of the family and I always lived with that," he told Reuters. Cuba's family code, a set of measures and regulations that establishes the rights of all Cubans, regardless of sexual orientation, to marry and adopt children, changed everything, Delgado says.

But activists and experts consulted by Reuters say the sweeping, government-led campaign to promote the law did more to moderate entrenched homophobia and machismo than the fine print of the code itself - which governs the totality of family relations and not just issues related to sexual orientation.

"There is no doubt that it represents a change...not just legislative, but also in mindset," said Adiel Gonzalez, a 32-year-old activist and professor.

"Some say that (change) is solely due to the code, but that is false," said Gonzalez, adding that changes in attitude existed before, but the discussion around the law helped people to accept other sexual orientations.[!]

For months ahead of the referendum, the government flooded Cuba's TV, radio and newspapers, which it controls, to promote the law. The government also put up billboards on national roadways and held parades, while Communist Party leaders, including President Miguel Diaz-Canel, repeatedly touted the measure.

That one-sided media push did not sit well with everyone. Cuba's Catholic Church, in a missive just before the referendum, said the state's overwhelming support and control of the media had stifled voices of opposition.

The government said at least half [!] of the island's 11 million residents participated in town-hall style meetings prior to the vote aimed at discussing and refining the measure.

Cuba registered 75 same-sex marriages in October, according to state newspaper Trabajadores. That is more than 2% of the total 3,300 marriages reported for the month, the data shows.[...]

However, same-sex households in the United States account for 1.5% of homes occupied by couples of any sex, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. [...]

Cuban transgender medical student Ariana Mederos, of Matanzas, recalls two years earlier explaining to her university rector that "he" was now a "she."

At the time, she was unprotected by the recently approved Family Code.

"I cried. I thought I was going to give up my career," she told Reuters, recalling the day. "But just as I thought it was over, he told me, 'We are going to support you throughout your transition and you will have all our support, including that of your professors.'"

Mederos says she too believes attitudes shifted in Cuba with the discussion ahead of the referendum.

"Cuba is changing and I am proof of that," she says. "I've seen positive changes but there is still much to fight for."

14 Nov 22

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The surveillance advertising to financial fraud pipeline

Monday (October 2), I'll be in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab. On October 7–8, I'm in Milan to keynote Wired Nextfest.

Being watched sucks. Of all the parenting mistakes I've made, none haunt me more than the times my daughter caught me watching her while she was learning to do something, discovered she was being observed in a vulnerable moment, and abandoned her attempt:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2014/may/09/cybersecurity-begins-with-integrity-not-surveillance

It's hard to be your authentic self while you're under surveillance. For that reason alone, the rise and rise of the surveillance industry – an unholy public-private partnership between cops, spooks, and ad-tech scum – is a plague on humanity and a scourge on the Earth:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

But beyond the psychic damage surveillance metes out, there are immediate, concrete ways in which surveillance brings us to harm. Ad-tech follows us into abortion clinics and then sells the info to the cops back home in the forced birth states run by Handmaid's Tale LARPers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/29/no-i-in-uter-us/#egged-on

And even if you have the good fortune to live in a state whose motto isn't "There's no 'I" in uter-US," ad-tech also lets anti-abortion propagandists trick you into visiting fake "clinics" who defraud you into giving birth by running out the clock on terminating your pregnancy:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/15/paid-medical-disinformation/#crisis-pregnancy-centers

The commercial surveillance industry fuels SWATting, where sociopaths who don't like your internet opinions or are steamed because you beat them at Call of Duty trick the cops into thinking that there's an "active shooter" at your house, provoking the kind of American policing autoimmune reaction that can get you killed:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/14/us/swatting-sentence-casey-viner/index.html

There's just a lot of ways that compiling deep, nonconsensual, population-scale surveillance dossiers can bring safety and financial harm to the unwilling subjects of our experiment in digital spying. The wave of "business email compromises" (the infosec term for impersonating your boss to you and tricking you into cleaning out the company bank accounts)? They start with spear phishing, a phishing attack that uses personal information – bought from commercial sources or ganked from leaks – to craft a virtual Big Store con:

https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/safety-resources/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes/business-email-compromise

It's not just spear-phishers. There are plenty of financial predators who run petty grifts – stock swindles, identity theft, and other petty cons. These scams depend on commercial surveillance, both to target victims (e.g. buying Facebook ads targeting people struggling with medical debt and worried about losing their homes) and to run the con itself (by getting the information needed to pull of a successful identity theft).

In "Consumer Surveillance and Financial Fraud," a new National Bureau of Academic Research paper, a trio of business-school profs – Bo Bian (UBC), Michaela Pagel (WUSTL) and Huan Tang (Wharton) quantify the commercial surveillance industry's relationship to finance crimes:

https://www.nber.org/papers/w31692

The authors take advantage of a time-series of ZIP-code-accurate fraud complaint data from the Consumer Finance Protection Board, supplemented by complaints from the FTC, along with Apple's rollout of App Tracking Transparency, a change to app-based tracking on Apple mobile devices that turned of third-party commercial surveillance unless users explicitly opted into being spied on. More than 96% of Apple users blocked spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

In other words, they were able to see, neighborhood by neighborhood, what happened to financial fraud when users were able to block commercial surveillance.

What happened is, fraud plunged. Deprived of the raw material for committing fraud, criminals were substantially hampered in their ability to steal from internet users.

While this is something that security professionals have understood for years, this study puts some empirical spine into the large corpus of qualitative accounts of the surveillance-to-fraud pipeline.

As the authors note in their conclusion, this analysis is timely. Google has just rolled out a new surveillance system, the deceptively named "Privacy Sandbox," that every Chrome user is being opted in to unless they find and untick three separate preference tickboxes. You should find and untick these boxes:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/how-turn-googles-privacy-sandbox-ad-tracking-and-why-you-should

Google has spun, lied and bullied Privacy Sandbox into existence; whenever this program draws enough fire, they rename it (it used to be called FLoC). But as the Apple example showed, no one wants to be spied on – that's why Google makes you find and untick three boxes to opt out of this new form of surveillance.

There is no consensual basis for mass commercial surveillance. The story that "people don't mind ads so long as they're relevant" is a lie. But even if it was true, it wouldn't be enough, because beyond the harms to being our authentic selves that come from the knowledge that we're being observed, surveillance data is a crucial ingredient for all kinds of crime, harassment, and deception.

We can't rely on companies to spy on us responsibly. Apple may have blocked third-party app spying, but they effect nonconsensual, continuous surveillance of every Apple mobile device user, and lie about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

That's why we should ban commercial surveillance. We should outlaw surveillance advertising. Period:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/03/ban-online-behavioral-advertising

Contrary to the claims of surveillance profiteers, this wouldn't reduce the income to ad-supported news and other media – it would increase their revenues, by letting them place ads without relying on the surveillance troves assembled by the Google/Meta ad-tech duopoly, who take the majority of ad-revenue:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

We're 30 years into the commercial surveillance pandemic and Congress still hasn't passed a federal privacy law with a private right of action. But other agencies aren't waiting for Congress. The FTC and DoJ Antitrust Divsision have proposed new merger guidelines that allow regulators to consider privacy harms when companies merge:

https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FTC-2023-0043-1569

Think here of how Google devoured Fitbit and claimed massive troves of extremely personal data, much of which was collected because employers required workers to wear biometric trackers to get the best deal on health care:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/google-fitbit-merger-would-cement-googles-data-empire

Companies can't be trusted to collect, retain or use our personal data wisely. The right "balance" here is to simply ban that collection, without an explicit opt-in. The way this should work is that companies can't collect private data unless users hunt down and untick three "don't spy on me" boxes. After all, that's the standard that Google has set.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/29/ban-surveillance-ads/#sucker-funnel

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[follow-up-news]

A new federal rule will prohibit schools from charging low-income students transaction fees when their families electronically deposit funds into their lunch accounts.  The policy was announced Friday by the Agriculture Department, which administers the national program that serves billions of student lunches and breakfasts every year.  The ban on the “junk fees,” which will go into effect in the 2027-28 academic year, applies to students eligible for free and reduced-price school meals — those whose annual household incomes are 185% or less of the federal poverty level, which equals $57,720 maximum for a family of four. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a government agency that aims to ensure fairness in the marketplace, estimated in a report in July that school meal payment processors collect more than $100 million in transaction fees a year. The report said the fees disproportionately burden lower-income households, which tend to make smaller, more frequent electronic deposits into their children’s accounts. That means that although students who qualify for reduced-price school meals cannot be charged more than 30 cents for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch, many families end up paying additional costs because of the fees they incur every time they deposit money into their meal accounts.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ryan W. Briggs, Max Marin, and Ellie Rushing at Philadelphia Inquirer:

BETHEL PARK, Pa. — In the sea of caps and gowns, Thomas Matthew Crooks hardly stood out. Few people clapped when his name was called. A YouTube video of his graduation two years ago from Bethel Park High School shows a slender and bespectacled student receiving his diploma with a soft smile. But the class of 2022 awoke Sunday to learn that the 20-year-old Allegheny County man was notorious, the shooter in the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during a rally that left an ex-firefighter, Corey Comperatore, dead and two other attendees wounded. U.S. Secret Service counter-snipers killed Crooks moments after he opened fire on the Saturday night rally from a nearby rooftop. The FBI said Sunday they believed he acted alone. He had not been on the bureau’s radar.

Crooks’ actions shocked residents in his hometown, sparked countless conspiracy theories online, and prompted investigators to begin combing through every aspect of his life, looking for motive. The mystery has been fueled by a near-total absence of Crooks’ social media postings, political writings, or other digital fingerprints. Several former classmates appeared on national television Sunday, quickly casting Crooks as a stereotypical loner who was bullied heavily during his time at Bethel Park. One of them, Jason Kohler, told reporters Sunday that students tormented Crooks “almost every day” and that he often wore “hunting” outfits to class. “He was just an outcast,” Kohler said, “and you know how kids are nowadays.” Yet, two former students interviewed by The Inquirer disputed the characterization. They did not recall specific incidents of violence or other antagonism involving their now-infamous classmate in the community they described as generally tight-knit.

[...] The slight traces of public information Crooks left behind leave few clues about his political ideology. Federal campaign finance records show he made a $15 donation to progressive political action committee in 2021 after President Joe Biden’s election, but later registered as a Republican, according to Pennsylvania voter data. His father was a registered Libertarian, his mother a Democrat. Crooks’ body was found on the rooftop of an agricultural tool manufacturing plant a few hundred feet from the rally with an AR-style semiautomatic rifle — legally purchased by his father. The shooter was wearing a T-shirt promoting “The Demolition Ranch,” a YouTube channel for gun enthusiasts. If Crooks maintained any personal social media presence, it went largely undetected on Sunday. Discord, an instant messaging platform mainly used by video gamers, released a statement acknowledging Crooks held a “rarely utilized” account that contained no information relevant to the shooting.

Sigafoos did not recall Crooks making political overtures in class, but rather as someone interested in how government works, and “not trying to insert his own beliefs into it.” Another former classmate did not share this view. Max R. Smith recalled taking an American history course with Crooks as a sophomore. He did recall Crooks making political statements — but they shed no light on his actions Saturday. “He definitely was conservative,” he said. “It makes me wonder why he would carry out an assassination attempt on the conservative candidate.” Smith recalled a mock debate in which their history professor posed government policy questions and asked students to stand on one side of the classroom or the other to signal their support or opposition for a given proposal. “The majority of the class were on the liberal side, but Tom, no matter what, always stood his ground on the conservative side,” Smith said. “That’s still the picture I have of him. Just standing alone on one side while the rest of the class was on the other.”

The gunman who killed rallygoer Corey Comperatore and attempted the assassination of Donald Trump at Saturday night’s Butler, PA rally was not only a registered Republican but also a vehement conservative.

This should hopefully put an end to the right-wing’s nonsensical claim that a “violent leftist”/”Antifa” tried to kill Trump.

[jaatanilsolanki]

Islamabad High Court Grants Bail to Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in Corruption Case

On Friday, Islamabad High Court granted former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan two weeks of bail in a corruption case. This decision was made just a day after the Supreme Court declared his arrest “invalid and unlawful.” Despite Mr Khan’s arrest being upheld by the Islamabad High Court, a three-member Supreme Court bench deemed it “illegal” and ordered his immediate release. The hearing on…

[probablyasocialecologist]

America isn’t suffering from a housing shortage. Housing production has lagged behind household growth since 2010, but this doesn’t account for the massive overhang of housing produced in the previous decade. Fueled by the housing bubble of 2000-07, 160 homes were added to the stock for every 100 households formed during the aughts, our analysis of Census Bureau data shows. This level of production created a huge surplus of housing, which has yet to be fully absorbed. Put differently, from 2000-21, the nation grew by 18.5 million households. To maintain an adequate inventory of vacant housing, which historically would be 9.3% of the total, the housing stock needed to expand by 20.2 million units. Instead, it grew by 23.7 million housing units, producing a surplus of 3.5 million units.

[...]

It’s conceivable that a huge increase in supply would eventually lead to lower prices. But that would require a major intervention in the market, and the case for it is weak. U.S. housing policy should focus less on adding to the already ample stock of housing and more on raising the incomes of low-income households and giving them access to good-quality housing in safe neighborhoods. We know how to do this. Raising minimum wages to the living-wage level will help the working poor afford housing. Zoning reform can encourage the production of multifamily housing, accessory apartments, and other less-expensive housing formats. Subsidized construction should be targeted for supportive housing and for affordable rental housing in places with actual housing shortages. The most effective housing assistance for low-income households is not found in building more units but in helping low-income households afford the units that already exist through housing vouchers for renter households and down-payment assistance for home buyers. The U.S. cannot build itself out of its housing crisis.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #22

June 7-14 2024

Vice-President Harris announced that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is moving to remove medical debt for people's credit score. This move will improve the credit rating of 15 million Americans. Millions of Americans struggling with debt from medical expenses can't get approved for a loan for a car, to start a small business or buy a home. The new rule will improve credit scores by an average of 20 points and lead to 22,000 additional mortgages being approved every year. This comes on top of efforts by the Biden Administration to buy up and forgive medical debt. Through money in the American Rescue Plan $7 billion dollars of medical debt will be forgiven by the end of 2026. To date state and local governments have used ARP funds to buy up and forgive the debt of 3 million Americans and counting.

The EPA, Department of Agriculture, and FDA announced a joint "National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics". The Strategy aimed to cut food waste by 50% by 2030. Currently 24% of municipal solid waste in landfills is food waste, and food waste accounts for 58% of methane emissions from landfills roughly the green house gas emissions of 60 coal-fired power plants every year. This connects to $200 million the EPA already has invested in recycling, the largest investment in recycling by the federal government in 30 years. The average American family loses $1,500 ever year in spoiled food, and the strategy through better labeling, packaging, and education hopes to save people money and reduce hunger as well as the environmental impact.

President Biden signed with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy a ten-year US-Ukraine Security Agreement. The Agreement is aimed at helping Ukraine win the war against Russia, as well as help Ukraine meet the standards it will have to be ready for EU and NATO memberships. President Biden also spearheaded efforts at the G7 meeting to secure $50 billion for Ukraine from the 7 top economic nations.

HHS announced $500 million for the development of new non-injection vaccines against Covid. The money is part of Project NextGen a $5 billion program to accelerate and streamline new Covid vaccines and treatments. The investment announced this week will support a clinical trial of 10,000 people testing a vaccine in pill form. It's also supporting two vaccines administered as nasal sprays that are in earlier stages of development. The government hopes that break throughs in non-needle based vaccines for Covid might be applied to other vaccinations thus making vaccines more widely available and more easily administered.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $404 million in additional humanitarian assistance for Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and the region. This brings the total invested by the Biden administration in the Palestinians to $1.8 billion since taking office, over $600 million since the war started in October 2023. The money will focus on safe drinking water, health care, protection, education, shelter, and psychosocial support.

The Department of the Interior announced $142 million for drought resilience and boosting water supplies. The funding will provide about 40,000 acre-feet of annual recycled water, enough to support more than 160,000 people a year. It's funding water recycling programs in California, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada and Texas. It's also supporting 4 water desalination projects in Southern California. Desalination is proving to be an important tool used by countries with limited freshwater.

President Biden took the lead at the G7 on the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. The PGI is a global program to connect the developing world to investment in its infrastructure from the G7 nations. So far the US has invested $40 billion into the program with a goal of $200 billion by 2027. The G7 overall plans on $600 billion by 2027. There has been heavy investment in the Lobito Corridor, an economic zone that runs from Angola, through the Democratic Republic of Congo, to Zambia, the PGI has helped connect the 3 nations by rail allowing land locked Zambia and largely landlocked DRC access Angolan ports. The PGI also is investing in a $900 million solar farm in Angola. The PGI got a $5 billion dollar investment from Microsoft aimed at expanding digital access in Kenya, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The PGI's bold vision is to connect Africa and the Indian Ocean region economically through rail and transportation link as well as boost greener economic growth in the developing world and bring developing nations on-line.

[tomorrowusa]

Russia is heavily invested in installing their puppet Donald Trump back in the White House. They are relying on low information voters who get all their news from social media to help them.

US intelligence has assessed that Russian operatives were behind a fake video purporting to show someone destroying mail-in ballots in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, that circulated on social media Thursday. “The IC (Intelligence Community) assesses that Russian actors manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an individual ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania, judging from information available to the IC and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities,” said a joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The agencies said that the video is part of an ongoing Russian effort to “raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans” in the final days of the 2024 campaign. CNN reported earlier Friday that US investigators suspected that Russian operatives were behind the fake video, according to two sources briefed on the matter.

And it's not just Pennsylvania. Russia is probably behind this incident in Georgia.

Georgia election official says battleground state fended off cyberattack likely from a foreign country

Tell people you know in real life not to get news from social media – Twitter/X, TikTok, and the various Facebook offshoots in particular. When you see stuff on such platforms it's not much more credible than people writing on public bathroom walls. Accounts which claim to be news sources can be fakes which have intentionally similar names to legit news sources.

FYI: I don't consider Tumblr to be social media. There actually is content moderation here. 🙂

There are still legit free sources of reliable news such as CNN, NPR, the BBC, the PBS NewsHour, and The Guardian. And while not free, you can get the New York Times digital edition for just $1 a week for a year in an introductory offer.

If somebody you know personally is spreading disinformation from Russia or the GOP (almost the same thing), bluntly tell them it's bullshit and direct them to a legit news source. People are more likely to listen to people they know. So speak up!

And if there are any posts you find helpful from this blog, feel free to share them with people you know who are not on Tumblr.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Hello RTA 👋🏻 What do you think about the US Federal Government's allocation of 6.5 million dollars for African Parks? These people talk about the BRF behaving so meekly with H&M and but the US government is awarding them millions in grant and yet there's no uproar about this?

I ask this with all due respect, anon: Did you actually look into this or are you reacting to the number?

Because all the data is there and publicly available. And when you look at the data (or you ask a fed - hello, there), the data tells you it's actually not a big deal.

The total US government budget in FY24 (October 1, 2023 - September 30, 2024) is $1.7 trillion. To be more specific, that's $1,754,300,000,000.00. $6.5 million is 0.00037%. It's the federal equivalent of a toothbrush from the dollar store. Or a pair of sunglasses for Charlotte in the Duke of Cornwall budget.

So according to the African Parks website, they have three US federal partners.

US Fish and Wildlife Service (aka federal wildlife conservation). FWS grants help the conservation of plants and wildlife in protected areas across central and western Africa and elephant conservation. The Multinational Species Conservation Acts is a group of federal laws mandating for the US government to support conservation programs for certain species. One of the acts is the African Elephant Conservation Act which requires the federal government to assist African conservation programs that protect the African Elephant, of which African Parks is one. (The African Elephant Conservation Act, by the way, is what regulates ivory trade in the US.)

FWS's work with African Parks is likely part of the International Affairs program, and African Parks is just one of FWS's many partners in this area so FWS's portion of $6.5 million is pretty small. In the FY24 budget, FWS asked for $26.7 million for their International Affairs program, which has two tracks - international conservation and international wildlife trade. I suspect that the African Parks money is coming from the 'international conservation' part of the budget, which is about $13 million (so half of their total FY24 request).

If you'd like to learn about what FWS funds in their International Affairs program, here's their FY24 budget justification. International Affairs is pages 165-182. The section specific to the Africa Regional Program (through which African Parks' money comes) is page 171 or IA-7.

US Agency for International Development (aka federal humanitarian aid to developing nations). USAID also supports African Parks's conservation efforts. More specifically, their grants support a protected area between the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic in three ways; management of the protected area, wildlife conservation, and helping the communities who live within the protected area develop sustainable livelihoods.

(Quick disclaimer here first - USAID's budget is tied in with the Department of State's so it's not as easy to read as FWS's is.)

USAID's work with African Parks probably comes via their partner accounts. In FY24, they requested about $32 billion for those partner accounts. Partner accounts can be fully funded by USAID or or partially-funded. The bottom line here is that whatever portion African Parks is getting from USAID, it's not even a drop in the bucket

You can read about USAID's work and their FY24 budget justification here. You'll notice that the budget justification doesn't discuss anything concerning Africa. That doesn't mean they aren't funding work in Africa, just that the work they're doing/supporting in Africa is bundled into one of the other programs or that their programs in Africa aren't as high a priority as the ones specifically mentioned in the justification.

US Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affars (aka a FBI and DEA for international cooperation). INL's grants to African Parks goes towards conservation law enforcement, everything from training and education to technology and communications and it includes quality of life and welfare programs for the rangers.

In their FY24 budget justification, INL asked for $1.4 billion, of which they report about $51.9 million is planned to be allocated to Africa. And like the other agencies, whatever portion of $6.5 million is INL's, it's really small. Inconsequential, in the grand scheme of things.

Here is State's FY24 budget justification. INL's section is pages 156 - 160 (in adobe, or document pages 146-150). The section on Africa's allocation is page 157 (document page 147).

So to answer anon's question, no one's in an uproar about US federal grants to African Parks because, frankly, it doesn't matter. It barely registers. Plus the money is going towards conservation and protecting endangered species...is that really something worth being upset over?

Anyway. Some other federal spending in the neighborhood of $6.5 million to show what I mean by how not-a-big-deal it is:

The Department of Defense spends $6.5 million on the planning of facilities for the Naval Reserves. The planning, you guys.

The Department of Agriculture's Office of the Chief Financial Officer needs $6.6 million annually in operating expenses.

The USDA's National Veterinary Stockpile gets $6 million to prepare for and respond to animal disease outbreaks.

The Department of Energy spends $6.3 million on energy loan guarantees to Native American tribes.

$6.1 million is reserved for competitive wildlife conservation grants exclusive to Native American tribes.

The EPA spends $6.5 million on grants for safe drinking water across the US.

The Office of Public Affairs and Engagement in the Department of Transportation needs $6.2 million in operating expenses.

Since this is already a pretty long post, I'll leave it here. But if anyone's interested in a quick explainer of how federal spending/budgets work, let me know. 'tis the season and all (plus a presidential election means the federal budget gets a little more attention than it usually does).