HUMORLESS QUEERS

Trump violates the Iran Deal; the Senate will choose if they want to appoint a torturer to head the CIA, with Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing coming up; AT&T and Novartis pay hundreds of thousands to Trump’s personal attorney; Ticketmaster wants to use facial recognition at concerts; and an update on the attempt to make discrimination in auto lending easier.

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

Ticketmaster enters the facial recognition business

Twitter thread by Kelsey Davenport‏  on what the Iran Deal has already accomplished

Operatives from the Israeli intelligence firm Black Cube used false identities to track & dig up dirt on Obama officials behind the Iran deal.

Donate to the Ida B. Wells monument! http://www.idabwellsmonument.org

The post Trump violates the Iran Deal (E49) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

The post Trump violates the Iran Deal (E49) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

Massachusetts passed a good criminal justice reform bill. Five years later, we still don't know who built the Boston Marathon bombs. The Senate makes it easier for auto lenders to discriminate against people of color. And James Comey, bitch please. 

The post James Comey, Please Stop (E48) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

If you want to support the show, you can do so on Patreon for as little as $1 a month. You’ll get access to bonus content each month and help us keep the show going! 

The ACLU gets us a little closer to shining light on black box algorithms, with some progress on a court challenge to the Computer Fraud Abuse Act. ICE puts out a horrific Digital Muslim Ban. Trump tries to murder the Census. Foreign governments are using stringrays to spy in D.C., and no one seems to be doing anything about it. Israel fires on peaceful protestors during the March of Return. And we revisit Gina Haspell, who remains a terrifying choice to run the CIA.

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

State Department proposes more surveillance of social media, communications, and travel – More on the #DigitalMuslimBan

54 academics send a letter to DHS opposing the proposal

COMMENT HERE to make your voice heard to oppose the Digital Muslim Ban! https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=DOS-2018-0002

We just got one step closer to understanding black box algorithms (Privacy SOS)

US suspects cellphone spying devices in DC (AP)

D.C., Maryland and Virginia join states and cities in lawsuit to block citizenship question from 2020 Census

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: BOSTON JEWS SHUT DOWN ISRAELI CONSULATE TO PROTEST VIOLENCE ON GAZAhttps://t.co/9wP79QcdAr #EnoughOccupation #WeSayDayenu

— IfNotNow (@IfNotNowOrg) April 3, 2018

Finally, a REMINDER to call your Senators to tell them to OPPOSE Mike Pompeo’s nomination to the State Department. We told you all about that in Episode 45, which is here if you missed it.

Finally, here are three organizations to donate to INSTEAD of millionaire Andrew McCabe:

1. The #NoCopAcademy campaign is doing some of the most impactful youth-directed organizing in the country right now. The campaign needs funds: https://donorbox.org/nocopacademy 

2. People in Puerto Rico continue to struggle. You can support a critical mutual aid project which is doing incredible local work. Proyecto Apoyo Mutuo Mariana needs ongoing support: https://www.paypal.me/proyectoapoyomutuo

3. Support the young people of @HUResist who have entered the 4th day of their occupation at Howard University. Their demands are here: https://twitter.com/HUResist/status/978102656785895424 & you can donate to them here: https://www.paypal.me/HUResist 

The post Fight the Digital Muslim Ban (E47) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

The post Fight the Digital Muslim Ban (E47) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

Cambridge Analytica's use of the private data of friends and family of people who took a personality quiz, in order to find the "emotional center" of voters. Also: Deleting Facebook, Uber's self-driving car killing a pedestrian in Arizona, and Cynthia Nixon challenging Andrew Cuomo for Governor of New York. 

The post Waking up to Surveillance Capitalism (E46) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

Trump fires Tillerson, picks Mike Pompeo to replace him at State and Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo at the CIA. We discuss Pompeo’s extremist views and hawish desire for war and Haspel’s participation in torture at a CIA blacksite. We also tackle Democratic complicity in the face of these two torture supporters advancing in the cabinet.

Call your Senators and tell them NO on Pompeo and NO on Haspel! 202-224-3121

If you want to support the show, you can do so on Patreon for as little as $1 a month. You’ll get access to bonus content each month and help us keep the show going!

Win Without War has a strong statement against Mike Pompeo: 

During his tenure as CIA Director, Pompeo has been accused of radically politicizing the agency and colluding with ideologically driven organizations to misrepresent intelligence. Throughout his career he has been a proponent of torture, denied climate science, promoted anti-Muslim views, and opposed diplomacy with Iran.

With impending, high level diplomatic needs — from North Korea to trade negotiations — Mike Pompeo is a dangerous choice for Secretary of State.

See also:  Mike Pompeo’s Disturbingly Consistent Friendships with Anti-Muslim Bigots

Nominates Gina Haspel to run the CIA

Propublica, “CIA Cables Detail Its New Deputy Director’s Role in Torture“:

As the CIA’s video cameras rolled, security guards shackled Abu Zubaydah to a gurney and interrogators poured water over his mouth and nose until he began to suffocate. They slammed him against a wall, confined him for hours in a coffin-like box, and deprived him of sleep.

The 31-year-old Zubaydah begged for mercy, saying that he knew nothing about the terror group’s future plans. The CIA official in charge, known in agency lingo as the “chief of base,” mocked his complaints, accusing Zubaydah of faking symptoms of psychological breakdown. The torture continued.

Haspel headed up first US black site torture center (in Thailand) after 9/11 in context of global war on terror.  She Oversaw specifically brutal torture of Abu Zubayda & others, and  when transferred back to CIA HQ she signed off on the order to Thailand center to destroy the video evidence of the torture.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/politics/cia-deputy-director-gina-haspel-torture-thailand.html

Will Dems roll over and let this happen?

The instability of this administration in just about every area weakens America.

If he’s confirmed, we hope that Mr. Pompeo will turn over a new leaf and will start toughening up our policies towards Russia and Putin.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) March 13, 2018

The Democrats who voted to confirm Pompeo were:

Joe Donnelly of Indiana

Dianne Feinstein of California

Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire

Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota

Tim Kaine of Virginia

Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota

Joe Manchin of West Virginia

Claire McCaskill of Missouri

Jack Reed of Rhode Island

Brian Schatz of Hawaii

Chuck Schumer of New York

Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire

Mark Warner of Virginia

Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island

And here are the 16 Democrats who moved the bank deregulation (S. 2155) bill forward: https://twitter.com/justicedems/status/973583527445958656

Say NO to the CLOUD Act; Keep it out of the Budget bill

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/cloud-act-dangerous-expansion-police-snooping-cross-border-data

Image via Jared Enos

The post Say No to Torturers (E45) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

The post Say No to Torturers (E45) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

Republicans are getting ready to shred the rules on 25 of the 38 largest banks in the country…and 16 Democrats are helping them do it! Alexis discusses the #BankLobbyistAct and tells you what you can do to stop it.

The Democrats supporting the #BankLobbyistAct are voting for:  Making discrimination in lending easier https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/opinion-how-this-senate-banking-bill-could-open-the-front-door-to-housing-discrimination

More likely future bailouts, per the Congressional Budget Office https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/05/senate-banking-bill-would-boost-the-chances-of-more-bank-bailouts-cbo-report-says/?utm_term=.80368d08049c

Rolling back the rules on foreign banks + big U.S. banks https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2018/02/28/447264/fact-sheet-senates-bipartisan-dodd-frank-rollback-bill/

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

The 16 Democrats who voted to advance the BankLobbyistAct

Banks that finance assault weapons manufacturers

Call script from Indivisible: https://www.indivisible.org/resource/republicans-planning-unravel-wall-street-reform/

Image via Fibonacci Blue on flickr

The post What Financial Crisis? (E44) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

The post What Financial Crisis? (E44) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

Comey being Corney, Banner drops at the Department of Labor, Boston Police spying on citizens through social media, and the latest Democratic cave on DACA.

The post Fight back with the same vigor (E43) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

We discuss the reauthorization of the warantless surveillance program, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act; using Newt Gingrich's Congressional Review Act for good instead of evil, the latest garbage from Betsy DeVos, and rant about Trump's attempts to make American education worse.

The post Mass Surveillance SOS (E42) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

Two Acting Directors enter, one Acting Director leaves? We break down what’s going on at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and why it matters who runs it. We also discuss a very important privacy case that will be argued before the Supreme Court on November 29 called United States v. Carpenter. We talk the latest on the Trump tax scam and Ajit Pai’s plan to kill net neutrality, and read some great listener mail!

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

Report: Too many being sent to Allegheny County Jail

Why the CFPB matters: a Twitter thread

Why Leandra English is the legitimate Acting Director

If you want to support the show, you can do so on Patreon for as little as $1 a month. You’ll get access to bonus content each month and help us keep the show going!

The post CFPB Thunderdome (E41) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

The post CFPB Thunderdome (E41) appeared first on HUMORLESS QUEERS.

We talk about some of the amazing wins from the November election, and have a nice, big celebration. Then, we talk about the Trump tax scam, all the ways it screws the not-rich, and how you can fight back. (We call it the “Cut cut cut Americans Act”)

And in episode 40.5 (which you can get if you become a Patreon subscriber), Alexis talks about her newest adventures in boxing. 

ELECTION HIGHLIGHTS:

—ME expands Medicaid

—Dems pick-up full control of NJ *and* WA

—Dems win VAGov, AG, wave in Assembly (majority unclear; VA house could be 50/50)

—Dems win Charlotte, St Pete, Manchester, NYC

—Dems leg pick-up in VA(x15), NJ(x3), GA(x2), NH

—Civil-rights attorney as Philly DA

—Dems flipped GA house seats

—flipped Fayetteville, NC mayoral

—elected two Black LGs (Justin Fairfax for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia; Sheila Oliver in NJ)

—Ravi Bhalla elected first Sikh mayor of Hoboken, NJ

—trans woman defeats anti-LGBT bigot who held a seat for 25 years in VA (Danica Roem for Delegate)

—trans woman of color elected to MN council (Andrea Jenkins)

—Seema Singh Perez was elected to the Knoxville City Council; She’s the first South Asian woman on the Council and a member of the DSA.

—lesbian mayor elected in Seattle (Jenny Durkan)

—Dems flipped a Trump-won MI state House seat

—DSA candidate unseats GOP whip in VA (Lee Carter)

—Hala Ayala and Elizabeth Guzman — the first Latinas to be elected to the VA House of Delegates

—For the 1st time in Boston City Council history, half of the council is both women AND people of color.

—Vernetta Alston, a queer black progressive death penalty attorney, won an election for Durham, NC city council.

—Melvin Carter elected first black mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota.

—a Democrat won the supervisor race in Hempstead, Long Island for the first time in 100 years (Laura Gillen)

—Voters oust Rob Astorino, the GOP executive of Westchester County, who has been fighting affordable housing tooth-and-nail. Lost to George Latimer

MENTIONED ON THE SHOW

Fight back against the Trump/GOP tax scam at: trumptaxscam.org

More resources on the GOP tax scam:

Joint Committee on Taxation Distribution Tables Confirm Skewed Priorities of House Tax Bill

Doubling Exemption on Estate Tax, Then Repealing It, Would Give Millions to Wealthiest Heirs

House GOP’s Child Tax Credit Expansion Excludes Millions of Children in Lower-Income Working Families

.@RepChrisCollins (R-NY) on tax reform: “My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again.'” (@cimarcos)

Interview with LaVaughn Williams

Speech by Danica Roem

Lee Carter singing Solidarity Forever

The post November election wins!