technocrit

“They have fun while doing it, which is deeply disturbing. We expect some level of decorum from government officials,” says Phoebe, a member of Harbor Area Peace Patrols, who snapped the photo of the masked agents driving out of San Pedro on Tuesday morning.

... By the time Trump arrived, corruption had been normalised as realism. Trump merely stripped it of its polite fictions – not only in domestic politics but in foreign policy, where the US has long cloaked its violence in the language of democracy and human rights. Trump’s extrajudicial killings of unidentified individuals via unilateral military strikes in Latin American waters, for example, are not a break with American precedent but its most naked expression, the open performance of practices that past administrations enacted beneath the cloak of deniability and euphemism. Likewise, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brutality and cruelty under Trump are not new. It is instead largely a dramatised, made-for-TV version of what Barack Obama – who earned the title of “deporter in chief” – pioneered over the years in which he built the career of Tom Homan, now Trump’s so-called border czar. Like Trump, Obama was a great admirer of Homan, awarding him a 2015 Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service to honour his passion for rounding up immigrants, separating children from their parents and caging people in detention camps.

The brazenness of Trump’s corruption and cruelty – the nepotism, the grift, the self-dealing, the open auctioning of government contracts and justice – does not shock us because it feels like an honest expression of what we already knew: that American government and institutions serve the wealthy individuals who own them, whether directly or indirectly through their donations and lobbyists or via networks of influence, bribery and extortion. The outrage that might once have followed is replaced by a weary recognition that things have always worked this way...

Abby Martin’s new documentary feature, Earth’s Greatest Enemy, takes stock of the US war machine’s environmental damage, tracing a devastating landscape of destruction from poisoned military bases to melting Arctic horizons.

The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has withdrawn its $1.5 million grant proposal to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) due to funding terms forcing a compromise on its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

"The White House just marked the end of the console wars; DHS is posting deep fried Halo memes. We are somewhere else entirely."

The Milwaukee School of Engineering is largely powerless to kick ICE out of a building it wanted to turn into a new academic center, according to audio of a meeting obtained by 404 Media.

Republicans are attempting to foreclose the ability of cities and states to seek damages linked to climate change.

Early in the morning, between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. Agents descended upon a small community in Oxnard in full tactical force, blocked off the street, were seen tying a minor’s hands with zip ties, and remained in the area up until 9:00 a.m. Agents were seen pepper-spraying protestors, throwing tear gas, and hitting them with batons. One community member protesting today was arrested.

jfc.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has unanimously approved another large settlement for hundreds of people who alleged they were abused as children while in the county’s care.

The IBM Digital Asset Haven, developed with Dfns, aims to offer banks, governments and enterprises a full-stack platform for token custody, governance and compliance.

On Tuesday, Japan’s parliament installed Sanae Takaichi, the new leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), as prime minister. The elevation to power of this ultra-nationalist, pro-war figure comes with a new ruling coalition that is rapidly pushing establishment politics even further to the right.