Tag: politics

License Plate Readers Are Creating a US-Wide Database of More Than Just Cars

At 8:22 am on December 4 last year, a car traveling down a small residential road in Alabama used its license-plate-reading cameras to take photos of vehicles it passed. One image, which does not contain a vehicle or a license plate, shows a bright red “Trump” campaign sign placed in front of someone’s garage. In the background is a banner referencing Israel, a holly wreath, and a festive inflatable snowman.

Another image taken on a different day by a different vehicle shows a “Steelworkers for Harris-Walz” sign stuck in the lawn in front of someone’s home. A construction worker, with his face unblurred, is pictured near another Harris sign. Other photos show Trump and Biden (including “Fuck Biden”) bumper stickers on the back of trucks and cars across America. One photo, taken in November 2023, shows a partially torn bumper sticker supporting the Obama-Biden lineup.

These images were generated by AI-powered cameras mounted on cars and trucks, initially designed to capture license plates, but which are now photographing political lawn signs outside private homes, individuals wearing T-shirts with text, and vehicles displaying pro-abortion bumper stickers—all while recording the precise locations of these observations. Newly obtained data reviewed by WIRED shows how a tool originally intended for traffic enforcement has evolved into a system capable of monitoring speech protected by the US Constitution.

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When Government Becomes The Enemy Of Liberty, Principles Are The Antidote to Politics

Only four percent “of US adults say the political system is working extremely or very well.” Sixty-five percent say we “always or often feel exhausted when thinking about politics.” Yet, we keep doubling down, thinking that more attention on politics will somehow fix what ails society.

In 2020, candidates spent over $14 billion seeking the presidency. This was double the amount spent in 2016. The 2024 presidential campaign is far from over. How much will candidates spend this time to fix our attention on politics?

If you are one of those who find politics dispiriting, C. S. Lewis would understand. In his essay “Membership,” contained in his collection The Weight of Glory, C. S. Lewis wrote, “A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion: to ignore the subject may be fatal cowardice for the one as for the other.” Politics, Lewis explained, is not “the natural food of the mind” but a “necessary evil.” However, too much emphasis on politics has become “a new and deadly disease.”

Lewis compared fresh fruit to canned fruit. The latter can be necessary for storage, but Lewis observed he had met people who learned to prefer the tinned fruit to the fresh.

Similarly, among us are those who prefer to weigh the promises of candidates as a pathway to societal advancement rather than shore up the foundations of a free society.

If candidates still fix your mind on their empty promises, Ralph Waldo Emerson has an instant mindset cure. In his essay “Experience,” he wrote, “A political orator wittily compared our party promises to western roads, which opened stately enough, with planted trees on either side, to tempt the traveler, but soon became narrow and narrower, and ended in a squirrel-track, and ran up a tree.”

Running ourselves up trees has consequences. Milton Friedman, in Capitalism and Freedom warned, “The use of political channels, while inevitable, tends to strain the social cohesion essential for a stable society.”

Friedman continued, “Every extension of the range of issues for which explicit agreement is sought strains further the delicate threads that hold society together.”

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Gitmo and Politics

It is always dangerous to human freedom and due process when politics interferes with criminal prosecutions. Yet, present-day America is replete with tawdry examples of this.

The recent exposures of the political machinations of the Chief Justice of the United States in the presidential immunity case is just one sad example of the highest judge in the land determined to change the law, even at the cost of sacrificing good jurisprudence; and this from a jurist who once promised the Senate that he envisioned himself as a mere baseball umpire – just calling balls and strikes. Now, he is a historical revisionist, ruling that the Framers actually wanted an imperial presidency.

His rationale was his understanding of history – not the laws, not precedent, not the Constitution, not morality; a first in modern Supreme Court history.

But this awkward behavior, in which he also engaged when he changed his mind at the last minute and saved Obamacare from constitutional extinction because he was convinced that Mitt Romney would defeat Barack Obama in 2012, sends messages to those who enforce the law and those who interpret it that due process can take a back seat to politics.

That is happening at the prosecution of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Here is the backstory.

After the dust settled from the attacks on 9/11 and the federal government responded by assaulting the Bill of Rights at home and innocent Afghani peasants abroad, it declared that the mastermind of the attacks was Osama bin Laden. It never charged bin Laden with any crime, but it dispatched a team of killers to assassinate him in his home, which they did. Then the feds decided that bin Laden was not the mastermind; Mohammed was.

By the time of bin Laden’s death, Mohammed had been captured and had undergone years of torture at the hands of the CIA, and he was incarcerated at the prison camp at Gitmo. He was eventually charged with conspiracy to commit mass murder and was put into the hands of a military tribunal, which Congress had established at the insistence of the George W. Bush administration believing that military men on a military court would administer swift and rough justice.

Then, his lawyers argued successfully to the Supreme Court that conspiracy is not a war crime and thus not triable before a military tribunal. In so ruling, the Court overruled an appellate court decision written by the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice back when he was an appellate judge – another Supreme Court first.

Then Congress changed the format of the tribunals so that they’d follow the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and effectively turned them into federal courts in Cuba with military trappings.

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We Need a New System, Not a New President

Unfortunately, the presidential race is devoid of any discussion of what is actually the most important issue facing the American people: whether to continue the political and economic systems under which we have all been born and raised — that is, the welfare state, the national-security state, and the regulated/managed economy — or to replace this way of life with a system based on the principles of economic liberty, voluntary charity, and a limited-government republic.

The assumption is that our statist way of life is now permanent and that we are consigned to living under it forever. Therefore, the mindset is that we just need to elect the best person to oversee and run it.

Thus, it has become standard for presidential candidates to present their plans on how they are going to reform, fix, streamline, and improve this statist way of life. Most everyone gets all excited over what his or her particular candidate is going to do to make things better.

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Historian warns four out of five major predictors for CIVIL WAR in the United States have already happened

A noted historian, demographer and author is warning that the United States is on the verge of another civil war.

Neil Howe, who co-authored the book “The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy,” noted that four out of five predictors for a crisis have already happened, leaving the country on the edge of unparalleled internal conflict. (Related: The catalyst for the next US civil war?)

In a recent interview with the Daily Signal, Howe summarized the factors he considers are pushing the American nation toward a possible civil war.

He said the first of four that have come to pass is a “crisis over debt,” which Howe referred to as a “new tea party movement,” which manifested during the 2010 political conflicts under the same name.

The second is a WMD (weapon of mass destruction) attack on a major American city, this being the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York City. Howe said the terrorist attacks accomplished this prediction by bringing destruction and enduring consequences.

The third was the pandemic, specifically the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic which swept across the world beginning in 2020.

The fourth one was Russia invading a former soviet republic. This was fulfilled when Russia began its special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, and it connects with his prediction of international tensions reaching a fever pitch.

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CCP Tried to ‘Steal’ Assembly Seat, NY Dem Politician Claims

Queens Assemblyman Ron Kim has come forward with explosive allegations of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interference in New York’s political landscape. 

The Korean-American politician claims that CCP-affiliated groups attempted to unseat him in the recent Democratic primary, raising alarm bells about foreign influence in local elections.

Kim, who narrowly won his primary battle in the 40th District by just 443 votes, told New York Post reporters, “There were clear patterns of foreign influence trying to dictate the outcome of the election — groups with ties to mainland China and the CCP.”

“They were trying to steal the Flushing seat.”

The assemblyman’s revelations come on the heels of a high-profile arrest that has sent shockwaves through New York’s political circles. 

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Scientists use deep learning algorithms to predict political ideology based on facial characteristics

A new study in Denmark used machine learning techniques on photographs of faces of Danish politicians to predict whether their political ideology is left- or right-wing. The accuracy of predictions was 61%. Faces of right-wing politicians were more likely to have happy and less likely to have neutral facial expressions. Women with attractive faces were more likely to be right-wing, while women whose faces showed contempt were more likely to be left-wing. The study was published in Scientific Reports.

The human face is highly expressive. It uses a complex network of muscles for various functions such as facial expressions, speaking, chewing, and eye movements. There are more than 40 individual muscles in the face, making it the region with the highest concentration of muscles. These muscles allow us to convey a wide range of emotions and perform intricate movements that are essential for communication and daily activities.

Humans infer a wide variety of information about other people based on their faces. These includes judgements about personality, intelligence, political ideology, sexual orientation and many other psychological and social characteristics. However, while humans make these inferences almost automatically in their daily lives, it remains contentious which exactly characteristics of faces are used to make these inferences and how.

Study author Stig Hebbelstrup and his colleagues wanted to explore whether it is possible to use computational neural networks to predict political ideology from a single facial photograph. Computational neural networks are a class of algorithms inspired by the structure and function of biological brains. They consist of interconnected nodes, called artificial neurons or units, organized into layers. Each neuron takes input from the previous layer, applies a function, and passes the output to the next layer.

The primary purpose of computational neural networks is to learn patterns and relationships within data by adjusting the connections between neurons. This learning process, often referred to as training or optimization, is typically achieved using a technique called backpropagation. This means that after an error is made in the outcome, changes are applied to the functions in preceding nodes in order to correct it.

To train this neural network, researchers used a set of publicly available photos of political candidates from the 2017 Danish Municipal elections. These photos were provided to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) for use in public communication by the candidates themselves. The authors note that these elections took place in a non-polarized setting. The candidates have not been highly selected through competitive elections within their parties and are thus referred to as the “last amateurs in politics” by Danish political scientists.

The initial dataset consisted of 5,230 facial photographs. However, the researchers excluded photos of candidates representing parties with less-defined ideologies, that could not be classified as left- or right-wing, photos of faces that were inadequate for machine processing, and those that were not in color.

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Kamala’s brother-in-law fleeced BILLIONS from U.S. taxpayers to funnel into left-wing groups, lawyers

Americans, and specifically U.S. taxpayers, are in for more financial raping should Kamala Harris get installed into the White House.

Kamala’s brother-in-law Tony West, who headed up the Department of Justice‘s (DOJ) Civil Division back during the Barack Obama years, is poised to “claim the crooked crown” from Kamala in the event her backers are successful in pulling off another election heist.

West, who is married to Kamala’s sister Maya, invented what the New York Post described as an “Honest Graft” by manipulating the purse strings of the DOJ’s Judgment Fund, which is used to settle civil suits against the federal government.

Until 1977, Congress had to approve any settlement of a civil suit against the federal government over $100,000. That year, Congress removed the cap and basically gave the DOJ a blank check to pay any and all settlements from the Judgment Fund at its own discretion.

“Run by the Treasury Department, the Judgment Fund’s secrecy is so complete that our often-penetrated CIA might study it for lessons,” the Post‘s Daniel Huff and Clark S. Judge write.

“The limited data released omits recipients, the facts underlying the case, and often the lawyers involved. By statute, attorneys’ fees awarded need not be disclosed.”

Detailed information about the flow of money in and out of the Judgment Fund is so secretive, in fact, that a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study found that “no one knows the number of claims processed by the federal government each year.”

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How AI’s left-leaning biases could reshape society

The new artificial intelligence (AI) tools that are quickly replacing traditional search engines are raising concerns about potential political biases in query responses.

David Rozado, an AI researcher at New Zeland’s Otago Polytechnic and the U.S.-based Heterodox Academy, recently analyzed 24 leading language models, including OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini. 

Using 11 different political tests, he found the AI models consistently lean to the left. In the words of Rozado, the “homogeneity of test results across LLMs developed by a wide variety of organizations is noteworthy.” 

LLMs, or large language models, are artificial intelligence programs that use machine learning to generate and language.

The transition from traditional search engines to AI systems is not merely a minor adjustment; it represents a major shift in how we access and process information, Rozado also argues.

“Traditionally, people have relied on search engines or platforms like Wikipedia for quick and reliable access to a mix of factual and biased information,” he says. “However, as LLMs become more advanced and accessible, they are starting to partially displace these conventional sources.”

He also argues the shift in the sourcing of information has “profound societal implications, as LLMs can shape public opinion, influence voting behaviors, and impact the overall discourse in society,” with the U.S. presidential election between the GOP’s Donald Trump and the Democrats’ Kamala Harris now just over two months away and expected to be close. 

It’s not difficult to envision a future in LLMs are so integrated into daily life that they’re practically invisible. After all, LLMs are already writing college essays, generating recommendations, and answering important questions. 

Unlike the search engines of today, which are more like digital libraries with endless rows of books, LLMs are more like personalized guides, subtly curating our information diet. 

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What No One Said at the DNC

What stands out most from the 2024 Democratic National Convention is not what was said, but rather what was left unsaid.

Take the 2020 DNC—a year everyone wishes to forget, certainly, but one that the Democrats in particular are keen to strike as far from the history books and the minds of the American people as can reasonably be done. The first day of that convention opened with Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser discussing how she created Black Lives Matter Plaza as a place for America to work through its racial reckoning. The keynote speaker, Michelle Obama, deplored the circumstances of the nation and its leadership. 

“Here at home,” she intoned, “as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and a never-ending list of innocent people of color continue to be murdered, stating the simple fact that a black life matters is still met with derision from the nation’s highest office.”

The remainder of the convention was chock-full of activist grievances against American society. A litany of accusations tripped off the tongues of speakers. Americans were guilty of “COVID-19, structural racism, police violence against black bodies, violence against members of the trans community.”

A certain Kamala Harris, then candidate for vice president, took the time to explain to Americans how the course of the COVID-19 pandemic was both a punishment for and illustration of their many sins. The virus, she said, “is not an equal opportunity offender: black, Latino, and indigenous people are suffering and dying disproportionately.” 

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