The Trump wannabes are hoiking up their posturing pants whilst we wonder if Biden can achieve an FDR-style presidency (Biden-Trump Thread #127)

[TheNorthWestPawsage]

We're still here.

Previous thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4173050-Bidens-not-a-dogs-dinner-Champ-Major-and-Snowflake-know-a-President-when-they-sniff-one-Trump-thread-126

I would feel strongly that world leaders ought to have to follow the same Facebook rules as any other person.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/04/donald-trump-facebook-white-house

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/biden-aims-to-restore-species-protections-weakened-by-trump-joe-biden-fish-and-wildlife-service-donald-trump-national-marine-fisheries-service-barack-obama-b1860141.html

Sure:

apnews.com/article/california-gun-politics-government-and-politics-3d72caa3b52667b2a450cae41a087468

'“Like the Swiss Army knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle,” the judge said in his ruling’s introduction.'

No wonder some Americans have a warped view of what is "normal"

@prettybird

No wonder some Americans have a warped view of what is "normal"

I remember very clearly a convention at which I was present shortly after the Hungerford killings in 1987. The British delegates were in a state of shock about them: it was a new idea to us that a nut with a gun would go out and kill so many people for no apparent reason. The American delegates couldn't at all understand why we were surprised and upset: they thought it was quite usual for a gunman to go on a killing spree and in fact a mere fifteen deaths was nothing to get into a tizzy about because it could have been much worse.

When Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma eight years later the position was reversed; the British were quite accustomed to nutters planting bombs (it had been happening quite a lot here what with the IRA and all) and didn't entirely understand why the Americans were shocked about it. Upset, yes, obviously anyone would be, the death-toll was higher than usual for a bomb, but surprised?

"Normal" is what you are accustomed to, really.

Biden’s first major foreign policy achievement.

BREAKING. EU Commissioner for Economy Gentiloni in London: “The G7 tax deal is a extraordinary result and it wouldn’t have been possible without the recent change of the US administration. Multilateralism is back. Yellen was crucial. 6 months ago we were in the middle of nowhere“

Secretary Janet Yellen

twitter.com/SecYellen/status/1401140688952102912?s=19
The G7 Finance Ministers have made a significant, unprecedented commitment today that provides tremendous momentum towards achieving a robust global minimum tax at a rate of at least 15%.

What a lot of people there are under that tweet who want corporations to pay a far lower percentage of their income in taxes than is paid by poor citizens of the countries that will apply to.

Basic rate of tax in this country for people earning between £12,571 and £50,270 is 20%. Rate of tax for corporations earning many millions is to be a horrendously high 15%.

I don't think the people saying "well thanks a bunch, my investment in the corporations was doing very nicely" can have taken in the fact that they'd be paying either 20% or 40% on that investment income, 45% if they earn £150,000 or more.

www.businessinsider.com/gop-has-become-even-greater-threat-democracy-than-trump-2021-6?r=US&IR=T

Someone let Trump out again.

No idea what NC did to deserve a visit.

Delusional. Dangerous. Déjà vu.

China, Fauci and hoaxes: Donald Trump targets usual suspects in return to stage
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/06/donald-trump-north-carolina-speech-republicans-china-fauci-coronavirus?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Stuck record.

Trump trolled after being accused of wearing his pants 'backwards' at North Carolina speech
www.rawstory.com/trump-north-carolina-2653252825/

I did see a bit of chitchat about his garments but decided not to delve too deep.

Or at all, really.

This is okay.

www.msnbc.com/opinion/trump-s-august-election-reinstatement-theory-even-worse-it-looks-n1269716

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/justice-department-fbi-budget-capitol-attack_n_60b7e6c5e4b0169ca9709229?ri18n=true

I thought I'd kept but cannot find a map of what cell-phones went where on January 6th; it was clear that the majority of those at the Capitol during the riot had come there from Trump's rally.

Did anyone else keep that? Going through all the threads from then looking for it is too daunting for me!

Yes, I know the map you're talking about.

Googling "january 6 cellphone map" brings up lots of results, some in the WaPo or NYTimes and behind paywall.

There's a map mentioning an animation here, but I couldn't play it: flowingdata.com/2021/02/08/tracking-capitol-rioters-through-their-mobile-phone-data/

It links to the NYT article below – a rather scary article about tracking.

They Stormed the Capitol. Their Apps Tracked Them.
Times Opinion was able to identify individuals from a trove of leaked smartphone location data.
www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/opinion/capitol-attack-cellphone-data.html

Someone also did a map of people making Parler posts during that time – presumably from the data publicly available on the posts.

twitter.com/mikesington/status/1349314822958026753

Oh good lord. That's led me to a very much more scary article about smartphone-tracking and surveillance capitalism. The NYT seems to be making a project of exploring this.

In theory I knew this stuff, but it really drives it home seeing it all written down in one place.

The power of this surveillance data is obvious. What we don't know – yet – is what that power will be used for.

I think we're about to discover that. And I don't just mean in the circumstances of a criminal investigation (where there's a legally well-defined, controlled basis for invasion of privacy).

Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/location-tracking-cell-phone.html

I have known for years that everyone's cellphone was a locator device and made it possible for various organisations (including the CIA, the FBI, MI5 and MI6, as well as ordinary old British Plod) to know where anyone was at any given moment if they felt they needed the information; what baffles me is why anyone really thinks Bill Gates needs to inject chips into people in order to find them.

Thanks for the maps. (grin)

At the moment we're in a situation where private companies are collecting more data than the police and security services (at least in the UK).

The UK police would never get a warrant to collect this data like this on ordinary citizens who are not suspected of crimes.

All this data is being quietly collected in the background by apps, bundled up and sold on.

Most users aren't giving their informed consent: either they've given no active consent at all; or they believe they've consented to eg receiving weather reports for their location. They have no idea the extent of the tracking, and the number of different sources of data which are now being combined.

Facebook using people's Likes of music and car-repair shops to target messages that "Dems are pro Black people" vs "Dems are anti Black people" will seem like very small beer when the mass-surveillance chickens come home to roost.

The incredible thing is, this hasn't been driven in the first instance by the bodies one might think to be wary of, eg governments (enemy or friend) and state security apparatus. This has been driven by advertiser wanting to sell you their brand of washing powder; and by Facebook & Friends wanting click revenue from the washing powder salesfolk. This is why they've worked together to build these surveillance structures.

Makes me boggle.