This Is Fine

3:11 AM

Climate change protesters have glued themselves to a London train, only a day after hundreds were arrested for blocking major roads in the city https://t.co/NpySxpULLW

Tweeted by SBSNews on April 17, 2019 at 11:20 PM

user15026

4:01 AM

Indigenous Alliance Without Borders releases Handbook on Indigenous Peoples’ Border Crossing Rights

2

user15026

This was never something I really considered as a need, but I am happy it exists.

4:34 AM

While California was working on passing its landmark transparency law for police misconduct records, some cities were shredding their files https://theappeal.org/california-cities-have-shredded-decades-of-police-misconduct-records/

Tweeted by trevortimm on April 17, 2019 at 5:32 PM

BREAKING: The @NRA is in trouble - internally and externally. According to this new article, the lobbying organization’s tax transgressions are so egregious that their tax-exempt status may be in jeopardy. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/secrecy-self-dealing-and-greed-at-the-nra

Tweeted by shannonrwatts on April 17, 2019 at 11:59 PM

For whatever reason I never considered that the NRA would be a tax-exempt org but hey maybe now I won't have to

@TimStone i am pro crime so i take no pleasure in reporting this

Reuters: Gunmen have killed 14 people after hijiacking a passenger buss in Southwestern #Pakistan - local media

Tweeted by Rover829 on April 18, 2019 at 4:45 AM

4:50 AM

@TimStone :/

user15026

5:09 AM

@TimStone oh damn :(

5:28 AM

From July, the UK becomes the first country in the world to make porn websites verify the age of UK visitors to their pages - or face being blocked. It's to try and stop under 18s viewing it. Let us know your thoughts #BBCTheBriefing https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47960775

Tweeted by BenMBland on April 18, 2019 at 3:14 AM

> Twitter, Reddit and image-sharing community Imgur, for example, will not be required to administer the scheme because they fall under an exception where more than a third of a site or app's content must be pornographic to qualify.

Likewise, any platform that hosts pornography but does not do so on a commercial basis - meaning it does not charge a fee or make money from adverts or other activity - will not be affected.

Furthermore, it will remain legal to use virtual private networks (VPNs), which can make it seem like a UK-based computer is located elsewhere, to evade the age checks.

> Mindgeek, one of the adult industry's biggest players, has developed an online system of its own called AgeID, which it hopes will be widely adopted. It involves adults having to upload scans of their passports or driving licences, which are then verified by a third-party.

It has said that all the information will be encrypted and that the AgeID system will not keep track of how each users' accounts are used.

lets hope that the GDPR makes those scans safe for the user with the third parties

Dec 21 '18 at 12:11, by Memor-X

question though, these age verification cards, they are still anonymous right?

> High street stores and newsagents will also sell separate age-verification cards to adults after carrying out face-to-face checks, according to the government.

Dubbed "porn passes" by the media, the idea is that users would type in a code imprinted on the cards into pornographic websites to gain access to their content.

ok, good alternative and seems to keep the anonymity so not entirely bad if you're in the UK. only issue is that whether this then get implemented globally and everyone but the UK has to be sending their Drivers Licences/Passport images across the net

still, bet you the kids will just use VPNs

5:48 AM

this sounds like a ridiculous thing that will be quickly circumvented

and/or help entrenched businesses stay on top by make start up costs worse

6:13 AM

@GodEmperorDune well considering that a VPN would get around it it's probably the quickest to be circumvented

unless porn sites implement the system world wide

@Memor-X i imagine big or uk centric sites will comply, smaller sites will just block, like GDPR

@GodEmperorDune true but in that case VPN again. i was more thinking that really the only way to stop someone in the UK using a VPN to get around is if the system is implemented world wide. otherwise most measures to block access in and for UK users will jsut be gotten around by making you appear to be in the US

@Memor-X i mean netflix figured out how to mostly stop VPNs from getting around region restrictions

@GodEmperorDune they did? huh, but in that case isn't that the destination doing it then as opposed to middlemen like ISPs

also i would think it's a different situation, like Netflix wanted to segregate the user base by location from the start. Porn sites i would assume don't

ofcause most of this i'm just speculating from what i read about Porn Hub which may be erroneous due to lacking any experience on the platform

@Memor-X yeah netflix has different content in different countries because of distribution rights and laws and such, people were using VPN to access whatever they wanted that was available in other countries, so netflix blocked huge amounts of known VPNs somehow

i dunno if they just looked up all the major VPN providers and did IP blocks or what

6:58 AM

A Federal Court judge has ruled that the ticket reseller, which sold tickets for events such as Queen concerts and the Australian Open, made false claims to consumers. https://bit.ly/2VQTdKJ

Tweeted by SBSNews on April 18, 2019 at 5:16 AM

pro-tip: don't try to mislead customers with those shoddy marketing tricks

11:16 AM

The strange story of a flight departing out of JFK that took one of the airport’s runway lights with it to 20,000 feet. https://onemileatatime.com/american-airlines-flight-jfk-takeoff-incident/

Tweeted by nycsouthpaw on April 18, 2019 at 11:13 AM

11:48 AM

.@PaulaReidCBS reports the Mueller report will be delivered to the Hill on CDs tomorrow. House Judiciary Committee staff was prepared for this possibility — among many — and checked they still have a computer with a working CD-ROM drive (they do).

Tweeted by RebeccaRKaplan on April 17, 2019 at 11:25 PM

Could be worse. Could be delivered on floppy disks

12:12 PM

@Nzall Barr, probably: "... knew I should've gone with the punchcards..."

@Yuuki Or Laserdisk

Or maybe he puts it all on some obscure file format.

@Yuuki audio recordings read by Gilbert Gottfried for a live studio audience that's constantly bursting into laughter, delivered on an UMD disk as the backing track of a "best of Ron Jeremy" compilation

Well, maybe that last part is a bit over the top

Ronan

Static, that when put through a specific speech to text algorithm, transcribes the report with no less than 92% accuracy.

@Ronan Yeah, but you first need to reverse the sound waves and reflect them off the spire of Notre Dame. Oh wait...

12:37 PM

@Yuuki I think Zip disks would have been just as good.

1:45 PM

Huge news! NY Court System issues rule prohibiting ICE from making courthouse arrests without a judicial warrant. https://www.immigrantdefenseproject.org/wp-content/uploads/04172019142009.pdf

Tweeted by alicia_bannon on April 17, 2019 at 10:25 PM

Kevin

Oh that's pretty good

Also 'uniformed UCS uniformed personnel'

(I mean, it's probably specific for a reason "uniformed personnel, employed by UCS, that are currently in uniform")

I also like that they have to be specific about "judicial warrant" because ICE has some variety of administrative warrant or some shit that does not give them authority to enter a residence or vehicle, it just gives them a piece of paper with which to tell the lie "police, we have a warrant, can we come in"

(to which the correct answer is "no", "please slide your 'warrant' under the door" observe no judge signature "this is not a warrant and I am not required to open the door")

@Unionhawk but wouldn't their response then be "but your an alien so you have no rights *bust door down*"

They're only allowed to come in if you invite them in or if they have a real warrant

they're like vampires

or something

"can I come in" opens door at all or "can I come in" "yes" constitute an invitation

The cops (at least in the state of Ohio) are also not allowed to ask for the identification of anyone except the driver as long as everyone is wearing a seat belt

Well z they're allowed to ask, but you don't have to oblige them

Wipqozn

2:07 PM

Mueller report did not find that Trump team conspired with Russia: U.S. attorney general
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mueller-report-redacted-released-1.5103136

2:23 PM

@Wipqozn more or less confirming a worse nightmare, there was no conspiracy, the american people wanted Trump <sub><sub>in the key battleground states</sub></sub>

curious about the obstruction thing as you'd think reasonable doubt would be enough to exonerate a person

2:52 PM

@Memor-X The obstruction part, from what I understand based on comments from law professors: obstruction is a catch-all term for loads of different legal statutes based on where the obstructed case was in the legal cycle. However, DoJ has to prove all the elements of a specific statute, and Mueller couldn't do that because Trump's conduct didn't neatly fit in any one statute. Congress doesn't have the same restrictions DOJ has so has broader jurisdiction

1/2 There isn’t just 1 obstruction statute in the criminal code, it’s a series of statutes designed for different stages in an investigation, different kinds of cases, different conduct & so on. Trump’s public conduct looks so clearly obstructive. One possibility for Mueller’s...

Tweeted by JoyceWhiteVance on April 18, 2019 at 2:39 PM

2/2 decision not to charge obstruction could be technical: prosecutors must prove all the elements of a specific statute. Trump’s conduct may not fall neatly within a statute but still be aimed to end investigation. That’s exactly why Congress has broad jurisdiction.

Tweeted by JoyceWhiteVance on April 18, 2019 at 2:43 PM in reply to JoyceWhiteVance

3:14 PM

The basic rationalization Barr gives for why Trump didn’t legally obstruct justice is that he was emotionally upset about being accused of potential crimes and bad media coverage and acted out. That’s the actual argument the Attorney General of the United States made.

Tweeted by samstein on April 18, 2019 at 2:17 PM

The new “mad online” defense

This has been going on for decades & they need at least $20 million to fix it while companies & people donate almost a billion dollars in a matter of days to fix an old church in another country 😞: Arsenic In Hopi Water Is Three Times The Legal Limit https://fronterasdesk.org/content/801226/arsenic-hopi-water-three-times-legal-limit

Tweeted by heather28df on April 18, 2019 at 3:13 PM

@GodEmperorDune lmfao

I mean it was the obvious result of all of this, "The President is a very dumb man so who can say if he really broke laws because intent matters only in this instance?" but it's still pretty incredible to see someone actually say it

3:29 PM

@TimStone whomst amongst us hasn't obstructed a federal investigation by yelling at people on the internet

Evidence supports inference @POTUS intended @PaulManafort to believe he could get a pardon.

Tweeted by W7VOA on April 18, 2019 at 3:28 PM in reply to W7VOA

Special counsel determined @wikileaks asked @DonaldJTrumpJr to tweet Podesta emails and 4 days later he tweeted the link to them.

Tweeted by W7VOA on April 18, 2019 at 3:29 PM in reply to W7VOA

Not that we didn't know this already but like come on

Barr totally lied about why Mueller didn't decide whether Trump obstructed. https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

Tweeted by emptywheel on April 18, 2019 at 3:17 PM

... Did Time magazine seriously name both Kavanaugh and Ford as their Most Influential Person of the Year?

Oh, they're on the list of most influential but not at the top.

3:47 PM

@GodEmperorDune There's a lot of black in there, but not as much as I had feared.

@Yuuki Ford, as in Doug Ford?

@Yuuki yes

@MBraedley there are much worse pages

I'm not an expert on this stuff, but this seems like an interesting part on page 18 of the PDF that I haven't seen other people point out, where Mueller says his conclusions could conceivably be different if not for witnesses lying, invoking privilege, etc.

Tweeted by NateSilver538 on April 18, 2019 at 3:21 PM

@GodEmperorDune I'm talking about the entire doc

@MBraedley ah, gotcha

Whoa, wait, was the report made publicly available?

anyway there is a lawsuit already to make sure that what is redacted is the absolute minimum

@SaintWacko justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

3:50 PM

@MBraedley @GodEmperorDune In this context, it's Christine Blasey Ford.

Oh dang

Did not expect that without a much longer fight

@SaintWacko the fight is with the redactions and whether the summary mislead the public now

Yup: Mueller decided Don Jr was too stupid to conspire. Told ya.

Tweeted by emptywheel on April 18, 2019 at 3:49 PM in reply to emptywheel

trump tweeted with the game of thrones font again, any bets on how long until it gets DMCAd?

yay, searchable version:

OCR'd Mueller Report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17W-jNqybJAj7N3c1I87OWdQCitG0zh_7/view?usp=sharing https://twitter.com/patdennis/status/1118893271437271040

Tweeted by patdennis on April 18, 2019 at 3:39 PM

@GodEmperorDune something something ignorance of the law

Although I suppose that gets weird when it comes to conspiracy charges.

yeah

Mueller: After telling McGahn to get the special counsel fired, Trump told McGahn to deny reports that he had done so. McGahn also told Mueller that Trump scolded him for taking notes, saying, "Lawyers don't take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes."

Tweeted by ddale8 on April 18, 2019 at 3:38 PM in reply to ddale8

squints

3:59 PM

lmao

It's really important not to think too hard about the fact this man is President because my word

HuffPost front page right now... https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mueller-report-does-not-exonerate-trump_n_5cb619a6e4b098b9a2db6c69

Tweeted by jbendery on April 18, 2019 at 3:57 PM

> The (Maybe Fake) Pee Tape
Mueller’s report shows that Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime fixer, received a text message from Russian businessman Giorgi Rtskhiladze during the election campaign saying that Rtskhiladze had “stopped flow of tapes from Russia but not sure if there’s anything else.” Cohen told the special counsel’s team he briefed Trump on Rtskhiladze’s texts.

> Rtskhiladze said the tapes referred to compromising recordings of Trump, which were rumored to be held by people associated with the real estate group that helped host Trump’s 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Russia. The description of the tapes appeared to match an unverified allegation from a dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who was hired by a private firm during the 2016 campaign to collect information about Trump.

> stopped the flow

:D

puzzlepiece87

:P

4:17 PM

@TimStone And still has the full support of his party

4:38 PM

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told investigators she lied to the press after Comey firing

Tweeted by DoreyScheimer on April 18, 2019 at 4:27 PM

Wow huge revelation that Sarah Sanders lies to reporters every time she speaks

5:06 PM

1. After his Russia if you're listening presser, Trump asks Flynn to get Clinton's deleted emails 2. Flynn reaches out to several people, incl Peter W. Smith 3. Smith raises money, hires staff to do this 4. Smith represents he's in contact w Russian hackers 5. ... but it's BS.

Tweeted by nycsouthpaw on April 18, 2019 at 5:05 PM

This is also hilarious. They tried really hard to do the crime but actually it was just a grift

5:27 PM

This is the part of the sentence Barr chose not to cite in either of his whitewashes of the results. (PDF 13)

Tweeted by emptywheel on April 18, 2019 at 4:51 PM in reply to emptywheel

although we have evidence that both sides wanted to do the crimes, we don't have enough evidence of them agreeing with each other to do the crimes

facebook deciding to dump bad news of more user password compromises ("Millions" of Instagram users, up from "thousands" a month ago) on mueller day https://twitter.com/KurtWagner8/status/1118926820785606657

Tweeted by MikeIsaac on April 18, 2019 at 5:26 PM

@GodEmperorDune Well, and to the issue specifically of the Russian interference of the election, benefiting from that interference is itself not technically assisting in the interference, I guess? Which matters more from a legal perspective than a practical one, I imagine

South Carolina GOP consultant Richard Quinn indicted for perjury http://hill.cm/nycQdAd

Tweeted by thehill on April 18, 2019 at 5:28 PM

> Quinn was previously charged with other corruption-related charges…but they were dropped in 2017 under the terms of a guilty plea deal involving his son Rick

rekt

@TimStone yeah trump is very into breaking spirit of the law if not letter of the law

> Last April, Pascoe said Quinn would face no further criminal charges unless he was determined to have committed perjury

womp wooooomp

i mean he tries to break letter of the law too but staffers just ignore it

lol the pee analyst has the most blasphemous take

I knew today would be dumb af but my god

NEW: Following their felony indictments in October 2017, Paul Manafort told Rick Gates he was given assurances by Trump’s personal counsel that they were "going to take care of us,” Mueller report says. https://abcn.ws/2Xh3JLI

Tweeted by evanmcmurry on April 18, 2019 at 5:32 PM

5:33 PM

@TimStone as one does

Imagine being Manafort though and that like, not happening

It certainly still could but I don't see why Trump would give a damn about him now

“Investigating the investigators is something some of the investigators think is a good idea,” according to @KellyannePolls.

Tweeted by W7VOA on April 18, 2019 at 5:38 PM in reply to W7VOA

Yeah Nunes does not count as investigator he barely counts as a Congressperson

He's more of a sprinter.

@SaintWacko here is a visual of the redaction: latimes.com/projects/…

it was redacted by the department of justice, lead by Attorney General Barr, not the white house, but there seems to be close coordination between the two and trump specifically appointed AG Barr who has a history of covering up white house crimes

...I should probably disable my Trump to Kittens converter

5:48 PM

yeah lol

@SaintWacko No, that's exactly what Barr sent to Congress.

Huh, okay, it's not as badly redacted as I was afraid

I do hope that the justice department didn't have too much of a hand in the redacting

They're clearly corrupted

i mean they did all the redacting

and are currently being sued by journalists to prove that the redactions are legit

2 hours ago, by MBraedley

@GodEmperorDune There's a lot of black in there, but not as much as I had feared.

its more about the quality of the redactions vs the quantity

we have no idea what kind of stuff is behind them

and personally i won't give the trump admin benefit of the doubt, given their track record

5:53 PM

@SaintWacko What you mean is that you hope most of the redacting was done by career civil servants and not appointed bureaucrats.

Yeah, some of it seems questionable as it doesn't relate to the (apparently 14?) matters referred to outside prosecution

Look who also helped with redacting stuff!

Bannon and Prince no longer have all their relevant texts... nothing to see here

Tweeted by nycsouthpaw on April 18, 2019 at 5:52 PM in reply to nycsouthpaw

"I didn't delete anything they just…disappeared, like magic!"

@MBraedley Right

New: James Cohen Agrees to Buy the National Enquirer for $100 Million, reports @wsj My big question now is what happens to “the vault” of damaging stories that have been caught-and-killed over the years. https://www.wsj.com/articles/james-cohen-agrees-to-buy-national-enquirer-for-100-million-11555609554

Tweeted by christinawilkie on April 18, 2019 at 5:51 PM

@TimStone release the KRAKEN

and/or use it to extort celebrities to recoup your investment

$100 million seems cheap, I wonder if they already sold that stuff to the highest bidder

6:03 PM

qanon is already waiting for the proper time to release it

6:35 PM

I see Greenwald is corncobbing too. I don't understand why he's so invested in undermining the reality of the Russian involvement. Like if you think it doesn't matter in comparison, sure, but he tries to act like it didn't really happen?

Which, buddy

6:51 PM

the whole report is just a magic eye puzzle

people are going to look at it and determine for themselves what it means

for example, Seth Abramson sees a 200 tweet thread in it

@Unionhawk That's to be expected with a 400 page report where people can decide 6% of the contents for themselves.

wake me up when don jr goes to prison or whatever

7:52 PM

Okay Jr isn't going to prison yet but did you want a vivid description of the part of Herman Cain you haven't seen?

I know that it's been a crazy news day, but this is truly wild https://www.thedailybeast.com/herman-cain-accuser-ginger-white-threatens-to-describe-his-parts-before-congress-if-he-doesnt-withdraw?ref=author

Tweeted by OliviaMesser on April 18, 2019 at 7:43 PM

@TimStone is this toadstool from mario kart all over again?

@TimStone No

Basically but also worth noting Cain is accused of abusing four women so!

Sears has filed a lawsuit against its former chairman and CEO, Edward Lampert, and his hedge fund, claiming they siphoned $2 billion in assets from the company as it headed toward bankruptcy. https://trib.al/q4XxuAW

Tweeted by chicagotribune on April 18, 2019 at 4:18 PM

Oh wow weird

@TimStone apparently this dude was like a mega Randian or some shit which is why the overall organization was actually just a series of competing departments to the detriment of the whole?

which like, what

Yes

7:55 PM

@TimStone There is one batshit crazy thing Cain can do to take the sting out of that threat, and that's to go on live national television and expose himself before she testifies so he can claim she knew what his genitals looked like because she saw them on Fox and Friends

Over the last few weeks, one of Iran's most active state-sponsored hacker groups has been getting thoroughly Shadowbrokered, with no end in sight: https://www.wired.com/story/iran-hackers-oilrig-read-my-lips/

Tweeted by a_greenberg on April 18, 2019 at 7:06 PM

8:18 PM

.⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ walks by reporters at the White House with ⁦@FLOTUS⁩ and, surprising everyone on the #MuellerReport day, does not stop to take any questions.

Tweeted by jeffmason1 on April 18, 2019 at 8:16 PM

lol I wonder how they managed to convince him to not run his mouth

8:58 PM

New details on messages between Don, Jr. and Wikileaks in the Mueller Report –– In a footnote, the report details how Wikileaks got the password to break into an anti-Trump site. Trump's son may well be in violation of federal anti-hacking law https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/mueller-report-donald-trump-jr-wikileaks-twitter-hacking.html

Tweeted by aprilaser on April 18, 2019 at 5:52 PM

gottem

Yeah, though the report basically says again that he was too dumb I think

Though maybe that was only about the meeting

i understand ho being too dumb to realize you were conspiring messes with the legal definition of intent or whatever

but like "hey here's a hacked password" and then "i used the password and it works" IN AN EMAIL