Patrick's Notebook

With every camera focused on impeachment, Republicans and Democrats vote to continue invasive Patriot Act provisions.

Authored by: BARBARA BOLAND | TheAmericanConservative.com

While cameras were trained on the impeachment hearings in the House, lawmakers slipped away last week to vote for a continuing resolution that, if passed by the Senate, will fund the government through December 20.

But that’s not all it will do. Democratic leaders added language that extends some of the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, tucked into a section of this must-pass bill titled “Other Matters.”

It includes an extension of three Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authorities until March 15, 2020, and section 215, which, as Edward Snowden exposed, the government uses to justify sweeping mass surveillance, warrantless search powers, and the call detail records (CDR) program.

By sneaking this provision into a must-pass bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi forced liberal Democrats to choose between allowing these provisions to sunset or funding the government. » Read the rest of this entry «

Native Americans are still here — and Thanksgiving is a day of remembrance and activism for us
Authored by: ALLI JOSEPH | Salon.com

Plagues, fires, taking from giving — these are the associations many of my relatives have with traditional American Thanksgiving, all the way back to our ancestors. This history of generosity and hospitality by the original people of these lands that were taken away and who were destroyed by illness is well articulated in Native American poet Allison Adelle Hedge Coke’s poem “America, I Sing Back.”

Oh, before America began to sing, I sung her to sleep,
held her cradleboard, wept her into day.
My song gave her creation, prepared her delivery,
held her severed cord beautifully beaded.

My song helped her stand, held her hand for first steps,
nourished her very being, fed her, placed her three sisters strong.

Coke illustrated the tenuous grasp the arriving settlers had on life and how the inhabitants of the “Americas” helped them to survive by guiding them and showing them the agricultural “three sisters” method of growing corn, beans and squash (still referred to in the “Farmer’s Almanac” today). For the subsequent hundreds of years, Indian people, and the wrongs done to our contributions and us, have been forsaken.

On Thanksgiving Day at noon, as they have for the past 46 years, Native Americans whose heritage lies in the band of Indians called Wampanoag will gather on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts, to commemorate a National Day of Mourning. The United American Indians of New England’s website, which requested organizing and food-serving volunteers for this year’s gathering, declares “We Are Not Vanishing. We Are Not Conquered. We Are As Strong As Ever.” It is a message that lives in the hearts and minds of indigenous people the world around: We are still here. » Read the rest of this entry «

According to The Wall Street Journal, neither patients nor doctors have been notified of the data collection and storage.

A “bombshell” new report from The Wall Street Journal describes a secret project from Google and healthcare giant Ascension to store data on millions of Americans, a move that critics of the tech conglomerate decried as another example of overreach.

“When will someone go to jail?” wondered mathematician and musician David C. Lowery. “That would stop this shit real fast.”

when will someone go to Jail? That would stop this shit real fast.

Google’s secret “Project Nightingale” gathers personal health data on millions of Americans https://t.co/4gurOtrUw4

— David C Lowery (@davidclowery) November 11, 2019

According to the Journal, Google and Ascension made the decision last year to collect the data across 21 states in an initiative named “Project Nightingale.”

Google in this case is using the data, in part, to design new software, underpinned by advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning, that zeroes in on individual patients to suggest changes to their care. Staffers across Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent, have access to the patient information, documents show, including some employees of Google Brain, a research science division credited with some of the company’s biggest breakthroughs. » Read the rest of this entry «

Ocasio-Cortez and Omar call on Stephen Miller to resign after top Trump aide exposed as ‘Bonafide White Nationalist’
“This type of racism and hatred has no place in our government,” said Omar. “Miller needs to step down. Now.”

Content from CommonDreams.org and SPLCenter.org

In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage, according to leaked emails reviewed by Hatewatch.

The emails, which Miller sent to the conservative website Breitbart News in 2015 and 2016, showcase the extremist, anti-immigrant ideology that undergirds the policies he has helped create as an architect of Donald Trump’s presidency. These policies include reportedly setting arrest quotas for undocumented immigrants, an executive order effectively banning immigration from five Muslim-majority countries and a policy of family separation at refugee resettlement facilities that the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General said is causing “intense trauma” in children.

Hatewatch exposes the racist source material that has influenced Miller’s visions of policy. That source material, as laid out in his emails to Breitbart, includes white nationalist websites, a “white genocide”-themed novel in which Indian men rape white women, xenophobic conspiracy theories and eugenics-era immigration laws that Adolf Hitler lauded in “Mein Kampf.”

Hatewatch reviewed more than 900 previously private emails Miller sent to Breitbart editors from March 4, 2015, to June 27, 2016. Miller does not converse along a wide range of topics in the emails. His focus is strikingly narrow – more than 80 percent of the emails Hatewatch reviewed relate to or appear on threads relating to the subjects of race or immigration. Hatewatch made multiple attempts to reach the White House for a comment from Miller about the content of his emails but did not receive any reply. » Read the rest of this entry «

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

Tulsi Gabbard has stones. She has the kind of stones born of a life dedicated to the cause of serving others.

She is the direct opposite of Hillary Clinton, for whom all causes serve herself and her enormous narcissism and pathology.

So seeing Gabbard go directly after Hillary Clinton after her debate performance the other evening where she explicitly called out both the New York Times and CNN (the hosts of the debate) for the hit jobs on her puts to rest any idea she’s someone else’s stalking horse.

Two weeks ago I asked if five tweets from President Trump changed U.S. foreign policy for good, Gabbard does him two better with these three tweets of absolute, Oscar Wilde-like beauty.

Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a …

… concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and …

… powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.
It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly. » Read the rest of this entry «

CIA analysts involved in the intelligence assessment of Russia’s activities during the 2016 US election have begun to hire attorneys, as Attorney General William Barr expands his investigation into the origins of the Russia probe, led by US Attorney John Durham.

The prosecutor conducting the review, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, has expressed his intent to interview a number of current and former intelligence officials involved in examining Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, Brennan told NBC News. -NBC

NBC learned of the ‘lawyering up’ from three former CIA officials “familiar with the matter,” while two more anonymous leakers claim there’s tension between the Justice Department and the CIA over what classified documents Durham has access to.

With Barr’s approval, Durham has expanded his staff and the timeframe under scrutiny, according to a law enforcement official directly familiar with the matter. And he is now looking into conduct past Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, a Trump administration official said. » Read the rest of this entry «

China ramped up Soybean purchases from Brazil last week, despite President Trump showboating a potential $50 billion agriculture deal with Beijing.

Multiple traders told Reuters that Brazilian soybeans are more appealing to commercial importers, especially ones from China, who are looking for deep discounts.

As of last week, Beijing hasn’t lifted 25% tariffs on US soybeans nor granted new waivers to state-owned businesses, indicating that China isn’t ready to buy US agriculture products, as of late October.

China typically sources most of its soybeans from the US between October and January, then from South American countries in early 1Q. But this year, according to traders, as the trade war continues to escalate to the point of return, China is abandoning US markets despite positive sentiment from President Trump’s tweets. » Read the rest of this entry «