Apr 032023
 

Yesterday, looking at the coverage, I decided thatright now we know as much about Trump**’s legal issues as we are going to know until he is arraigned, when the indictment will be unsealed. So instead of speculating, I’m going to feature other news today, and probably tomorrow, since I work ahead. So hopefully I won’t mention him again until Wednesday (with the possible exception of in the Video Thread.) So take a deep breath and go into a holding pattern for a while, and I’ll do the same. There is plenty of other news.  If you must speculate, or just really want to, I recommend Joyce Vance’s “The Week Ahead” on her Substack.  She is knowledgeable and cool-headed, and covers a number of “if”s which are likely to upset some people no matter how they are decided

Cartoon – 03 Cell RTL


(It weighed 2.5# – just over a kilo – and was nicknamed “the brick.” But it worked.)

Short Takes –

SPLC – TRASHING THEIR RIGHTS: ALABAMA TOWN USES ‘DEBTORS’ PRISON’ FOR PEOPLE WHO FALL BEHIND ON GARBAGE BILLS
Quote – Even though the concept of “debtors’ prison” has been declared unconstitutional, the town of Valley was dragged into the spotlight for its practice of arresting people who could not pay their bills. In November, 82-year-old Martha Menefield was arrested for owing $77 for trash pickup. Her story went viral online, and national media outlets carried it through several news cycles because of how preposterous the situation sounded. But Menefield’s case was not unusual. The city of Valley has been arresting its citizens for years over past-due trash bills, adding hundreds if not thousands of dollars to the owed amount in fines and court costs by the poorest of its residents.
Click through for story. Sorry about the shouting headline, though I can’t very well maintain shouting is not appropriate.

DU (LiberalArkie) – Google Co-Founder, Other Billionaires Are Issued Subpoenas in Lawsuit Over JPMorgan’s Ties to Jeffrey Epstein
Quote – The U.S. Virgin Islands issued subpoenas this week to Sergey Brin, Thomas Pritzker, Mortimer Zuckerman and Michael Ovitz to gather information for its civil lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase & Co. over the bank’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, according to people familiar with the matter.
Click through for a bit more. The source of the story is the WSJ, but it is paywalled. My respect for the USVI continues to increase. Stacey Plaskett is the House delegate from there. She’s not entitled to a vote on the floor, but she’s so competent she was an impeachment manager over Trump**, and she’s a ranking member on at least one Committee. Statehood for PR, DC, and USVI!

Food For Thought

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Jan 132021
 

It’s a tired day here in the CatBox, and my back pain is acting up.  WWWendy is coming late this afternoon.   Tomorrow will be touch and go, as I want to get as much rest as I can.  Friday is my hospital day all day.  Saturday is a WWWendy day.  It will tale some time to recover.  Happy Dump Trump** Hump Day!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:22 (average 5:28).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoons:

0113Cartoon

Short Takes:

From NY Times (Hat-Tip Lona): The Trump administration early Wednesday morning executed Lisa M. Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, whose death marked the first federal execution of a woman in nearly 70 years.

Ms. Montgomery, 52, was sentenced to death for murdering a pregnant woman in 2004 and abducting the unborn child, whom she claimed as her own. In pleas to spare her life, Ms. Montgomery’s supporters argued that a history of trauma and sexual abuse that marred her life contributed to the circumstances that led to the crime. Her case, unusual in part because so few women are sentenced to death, ignited debate over the role of offenders’ past trauma in criminal sentencing.

Despite a series of court orders that briefly blocked her execution, she was pronounced dead at 1:31 a.m. at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Ind., the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement. Her death, by lethal injection, is the 11th execution since the Trump administration resumed use of federal capital punishment in July after a 17-year hiatus.

If Montgomery had written a letter claiming that Trump** won the election, he would have given her a pardon. May Trump** receive mercy commensurate to the mercy he has shown.  RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!

From YouTube (Washington Post Channel): WATCH LIVE | House votes on articles of impeachment against Trump

 

You can watch Trump* become Trump** in real time.  RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Maddow To Trump: “What Did You Think Was Going To Happen?”

 

Tell it like it is, Rachel!  RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!

From YouTube (a blast from the the past): DONOVAN – The Universal Soldier

 

Ah… the memories!  RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!

6 Days Until the Big FLUSH!!

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Jan 122021
 

It’s a tired/busy day here in the CatBox.  First, although I feel queasy, I have not Republicated in over 24 hours.  Yesterday, Deborah confirmed what I had suspected is the reason for my Republicosis.  When the Oncologist increased my pain medication that made me more prone to Republicitis.  I found a stool softener that I can take with my stent.  That made me more prone to Republicosis.  I kept taking it and a laxative at max dose, so when the shit hit the fan, the shit really hit the fan.  It took four days of Imodium to finally have a better day.  Now it’s a matter of getting my condition stabilized on the right balance of medications.  It will stake some time.  Tomorrow is a WWWendy day, but she won’t come until the evening, so I should be in the saddle tomorrow.  Tuesday is a flush your Republicans day.  I sure hope I have no more to flush.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:22 (average 6:36).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Driven over the edge by his expulsion from Twitter, a deranged Donald J. Trump ordered his two adult sons to hand out flyers with his tweets on them.

The incident occurred at three o’clock Sunday morning, when Trump, wide awake and in a state of extreme agitation, had an idea for a tweet but no platform on which to broadcast it.

Wearing his bathrobe, he summoned his adult sons to the Oval Office and scrawled his tweet on a piece of paper with one of the Sharpies that had served him well in the past.

Reportedly, Trump then commanded Eric and Don, Jr., to go to the nearest copy shop and order ten thousand flyers containing his tweet to hand out on street corners.

According to Trump’s plan, supporters desiring to retweet his tweet would also go to copy shops and hand out flyers, a system he claimed was “better than Twitter.”

Dang Andy! I suspect that the twit* will get writers’ cramp so fast that he’ll stop abusing tweets and go back to abusing twats!  RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!

From Crooks and Liars: If only Rep. Devin Nunes had somewhere like a television station to run to so he could communicate with other conservatives. After the news that Amazon is booting the far right social media site Parler off of its web hosting service, Nunes ran to Fox “news” to gripe to host Maria Bartiromo about how terrible it is that they will no longer have the platform to spread their lies and hatred unabated.

Barf Bag Alert!!

 

Let’s call this what it is. Treason is not included as a right included in the First Amendment. Can you count Nunes’ lies?  RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!

From OPB (Hat-Tip Daily Kos Elections Digest): U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, considered the most moderate Democrat in Oregon’s Congressional delegation, reportedly told House Democratic colleagues on Friday that he was against impeaching President Donald Trump for inciting the mob that broke into the U.S. Capitol.

Then Schrader likened the attempt to remove Trump to a “lynching,” according to reports from ABC News.

The comment on a caucus call drew immediate criticism from some of Schrader’s allies.

Mark Wiener, a powerful Portland political consultant who has worked for Schrader for years dating back to when the congressman served in the Oregon Legislature, quickly tweeted out that his company, Winning Mark, would be severing ties with the legislator.

“Comparing the impeachment of a treasonous President who encouraged white supremacists to violently storm the Capitol to a “lynching” is shameful and indefensible,” Wiener tweeted.

I supported Schrader, even though he’s a “moderate democrat”, but this goes way too far. He needs to be primary challenged in 2022.  RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!

From YouTube (Robert Reich Channel): Without Accountability, the Next Coup Will Succeed

 

Of course the Reich on the left, Robert Reich, is right. The Reich on the right, the Republican Reich, is guilty. All must be punished. As long as the Republican Reich exists, America will not be safe!  RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!

From YouTube (a blast from the past): JOAN BAEZ ~ Joe Hill ~

 

Ah… the memories! Wherever people are trying to defend human rights, Republicans will be trying to murder them!  RESIST and REMOVE the Republican Reich!!

7 Days (1 Week) Until the Big FLUSH!!

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Nov 142020
 

It’s a busy day here in The CatBox.  WWWendy is coming, and so is a notary for my will.  I have no more news on Nameless as I slept all afternoon and night.  He hasn’t replied yet today.  Tomorrow my schedule is up in the air, as I have a video meeting with former prison volunteers and prisoners.  Have a great weekend.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:39 (average 5:18).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: In an interview with VICE News Tonight on Wednesday, two members of the grand jury investigating Breonna Taylor’s fatal shooting by Lousiville, Kentucky, police shared why they decided to speak up and describe how the proceedings took place. “I needed Breonna’s mom and the community to know that it wasn’t the grand jury that made this decision. It was Daniel Cameron and his office,” one of the jurors said. Both requested to remain anonymous. “Puppets, we were used as puppets,” the second juror said. “They thought we were just gonna do exactly what they told us to do. Keep our mouths closed and just vote on this and walk out of that room, and it didn’t happen that way.”

The two jurors in the Taylor grand jury first spoke up last month against the lies Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron told throughout the investigation and trial. Cameron claimed that the grand jurors in the case agreed that officers involved were justified, and announced as a result that no charges would be pursued against the Louisville Metro Police officers who killed Taylor during a botched no-knock warrant execution.

Following the announcement, an anonymous juror identified as “Grand Juror #1” by attorney Kevin Glogower said that the grand jury not only disagreed that certain actions taken by the police that night were justified, but that it was never given the opportunity to indict any officer for homicide.

“I came out of my chair and said he just lied,” Juror #1 told VICE on how he responded to the announcement of no charges. He then filed a motion to allow the 12 jurors to speak publicly about what happened during the trial. In a rare incident of grand jury records being made public, a judge ruled that records could be released in order for jury panelists to speak publicly about the case, Daily Kos reported. Days after the motion was approved, a second juror confirmed Juror #1’s statement that charges to consider were limited.

Both jurors spoke to VICE Media Wednesday to give some insight into how the trial took place; one even brought a notebook with notes taken during the trial. His notes depicted not only how he responded to the evidence presented, but how he processed it, giving a glimpse into how the jurors were thinking during the trial.

If the DA in any grand jury case decides he wants to keep a grand jury from indicting a ham sandwich as non-kosher, he can claim that he went to a kosher deli for a ham and cheese. It’s really that easy, because that’s the only evidence they hear. The only reason the cops weren’t indicted is to help Republican police cover-up the murder they committed.  RESIST!!

From Willamette Week: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s chief of staff Nik Blosser is leaving her office to join the transition team for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

In his new role on the Biden-Harris transition team, Blosser will serve as the state lead in the intergovernmental affairs office. Brown says Blosser’s early and continued involvement in the pandemic response gives him “a unique understanding of the needs of Americans suffering from COVID-19 and the needs of the communities they live in.”

“I am heartened that President-elect Biden, Vice President-elect Harris and their transition team have selected Nik for this important role,” Brown said in a statement Thursday. “He has my full support, and I am confident he will help President-elect Biden and his team support states in their approach to this crisis and the long recovery that will follow.

Joe and Kamala have gotten themselves one thoroughly qualified staffer in Blosser. Oregon leads the way!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast for Women’s Rights): The Most Perfect Album | Dolly Parton | 19th Amendment

 

Full equality for women is certainly long overdue. They would have equality if Republicans did not demand they be kept barefoot, pregnant, in the kitchen and owned. I just hope Dolly doesn’t burn her bra in protest. The fire department might not be able to put it out.  RESIST!!

66 Days Until the FLUSH!!

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Everyday Erinyes #236

 Posted by at 9:00 am  Politics
Oct 172020
 

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

It’s no secret and should be no surprise to anyone here that I don’y think we should be talking about “packing the court” but rather about “UNpacking the court,” and I’m glad and grateful that Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi are heading toward phrasing it this way (“packing the courts is something Republicans do” – Speaker Pelosi.) So I’m not crazy about this title. But the content here is highly educational, and definitely thought provoking.
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Packing the Court: Amid national crises, Lincoln and his Republicans remade the Supreme Court to fit their agenda

The 9-member Chase Court in 1867, dominated by Northern Republicans.
Alexander Gardner/The U.S. Supreme Court

Calvin Schermerhorn, Arizona State University

As a political battle over the Supreme Court’s direction rages in Washington with President Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, history shows that political contests over the ideological slant of the Court are nothing new.

In the 1860s, President Abraham Lincoln worked with fellow Republicans to shape the Court to carry out his party’s anti-slavery and pro-Union agenda. It was an age in which the court was unabashedly a “partisan creature,” in historian Rachel Shelden’s words.

Justice John Catron had advised Democrat James K. Polk’s 1844 presidential campaign, and Justice John McLean was a serial presidential contender in a black robe. And in the 1860s, Republican leaders would change the number of justices and the political balance of the Court to ensure their party’s dominance of its direction.

Overhauling the Court

When Lincoln became president in 1861, seven Southern states had already seceded from the Union, yet half of the Supreme Court justices were Southerners, including Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of Maryland. One other Southern member had died in 1860, without replacement. All were Democratic appointees.

The Court was “the last stronghold of Southern power,” according to one Northern editor. Five sitting justices were among the court’s 7-2 majority in the racist 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling, in which Taney wrote that Black people were “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.”

Some Republicans declared it “the duty of the Republican Party to reorganize the Federal Court and reverse that decision, which … disgraces the judicial department of the Federal Government.”

After Lincoln called in April, 1861 for 75,000 volunteers to put down the Southern rebellion, four more states seceded. So did Justice John Archibald Campbell of Georgia, who resigned on April 30.

Chief Justice Taney helped the Confederacy when he tried to restrain the president’s power. In May 1861, he issued a writ of habeas corpus in Ex Parte Merryman declaring that the president couldn’t arbitrarily detain citizens suspected of aiding the Confederacy. Lincoln ignored the ruling.

Chief Justice Roger Taney.
Chief Justice Roger Taney tried to limit Lincoln’s powers in the Civil War.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Remaking the Court

To counter the court’s southern bloc, Republican leaders used judicial appointments to protect the president’s power to fight the Civil War. The Lincoln administration was also looking ahead to Reconstruction and a governing Republican majority.

Nine months into his term, Lincoln declared that “the country generally has outgrown our present judicial system,” which since 1837 had comprised nine federal court jurisdictions, or “circuits.” Supreme Court justices rode the circuit, presiding over those federal courts.

Republicans passed the Judiciary Act of 1862, overhauling the federal court system by collapsing federal circuits in the South from five to three while expanding circuits in the North from four to six. The old ninth circuit, for example, included just Arkansas and Mississippi. The new ninth included Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Minnesota instead. Arkansas became part of the sixth, and Mississippi, the fifth.

In 1862, after Campbell’s resignation and McLean’s death, Lincoln filled three open Supreme Court seats with loyal Republicans Noah H. Swayne of Ohio, Samuel Freeman Miller of Iowa and David Davis of Illinois. The high court now had three Republicans and three Southerners.

The 1863 Prize cases tested whether Republicans had managed to secure a friendly court. At issue was whether the Union could seize American ships sailing into blockaded Confederate ports. In a 5-4 ruling, the high court – including all three Lincoln appointees – said yes.

Congressional Republicans spied a way to expand the court while solving what amounted to a geopolitical judicial problem. In 1863, Congress created a new tenth circuit by adding Oregon, which had become a state in 1859, to California’s circuit. The Tenth Circuit Act also added a tenth Supreme Court justice. Lincoln elevated pro-Union Democrat Stephen Field to that seat.

And after Chief Justice Taney died in 1864, Lincoln selected his political rival, Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, an architect of national monetary policy, to replace him. With Chase, Lincoln succeeded in creating a pro-administration high court.

Unpacking the Court

After Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, who succeeded him, soon began undoing Lincoln’s achievements. He was a Unionist Democrat given the vice presidency as an olive branch to the South. He rewarded that gesture in part by pardoning rank and file Confederates. Johnson also opposed civil rights for newly-freed African Americans.

He also threatened to appoint like-minded judges. But the Republican-dominated Congress blocked Johnson from elevating unreconstructed Rebels to the high court. The Judicial Circuits Act of 1866 shrank the number of federal circuits to seven and held that no Supreme Court vacancies would be filled until just seven justices remained.

The Philadelphia Evening Telegraph’s Democratic editor sighed that at least Republicans “cannot pack the Supreme Court at this moment.”

Noah H. Swayne.
Lincoln appointed three Republicans to the Court in 1862, including then-Judge Noah H. Swayne.
Library of Congress Brady-Handy Collection

Courting paper money

Republicans refused to consider nominating Johnson in 1868, picking General Ulysses S. Grant instead. He won, and after President Grant’s inauguration, Congress passed the Circuit Judges Act of 1869, raising back to nine the number of Supreme Court justices.

Shortly after, Republicans faced a financial problem of their own making.

Beginning in 1862, Congress had passed three Legal Tender Acts – initially to help finance the war, authorizing debt payments using paper money not backed by gold or silver. Then-Treasury Secretary and current Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase had crafted the legislation.

But in an 1870 case, Hepburn v. Griswold, Chase reversed himself in a 4-3 decision, ruling the Legal Tender Acts unconstitutional. That threatened national monetary policy and Republicans’ cozy relationship with industries reliant on government sponsorship.

President Grant, preparing for Chase’s ruling, was already working on a political solution. On the day of the Hepburn decision, he appointed two pro-paper-money Supreme Court nominees, William Strong of Pennsylvania and Joseph P. Bradley of New York. Comparing the Republican administration to “a brokerage office,” a Democratic newspaper howled that “the attempt to pack the supreme court to secure a desired judicial decision … (has) brought shame and humiliation to an entire people.”

It also brought a Republican majority to the high court for the first time.

Chief Justice Chase opposed revisiting the paper money issue. But the Supreme Court about-faced, ruling 5-4 in the 1871 cases Knox v. Lee and Parker v. Davis that the government could indeed print paper money to pay debts. Chase died in 1873, and his successor Morrison Waite championed the Republican pro-business agenda.

Careful what you wish for

Republican transformation of the federal judiciary in the 1860s and 1870s served the party well in the Civil War and constructed a legal framework for a modernizing industrial economy.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

But in the end Lincoln and Grant’s high court appointments ended up being disastrous for civil rights. Justices Bradley, Miller, Strong and Waite tended to constrain civil rights protections like the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees equal protection of laws. Their rulings in United States v. Cruikshank in 1876 and Civil Rights Cases in 1883 both sounded the retreat on Black civil rights.

In remaking the court in Republicans’ image, the party got what it wanted – but not what was needed to fulfill the promise of “a new birth of freedom.”The Conversation

Calvin Schermerhorn, Professor of History, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, of course our issue at this point is not merely the Supreme Court, but all the lower federal coourts as well. There have been some mighty unqualified people pushed into positions where they have no business. At any level, I definitely would not, myself, put impeachment off the table. At SCOTUS, I believe we have two justices now (and will have three soon barring a miracle) who have pretty demonstrably lied at their confirmation hearings (and as much as I dislike him, Gorsuch is not one of them.) For obvious reasons, I’m not that conversant of the other benches, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t unqualified and vulnerable people there. In fact, there certainly are. I hope you ladies are willing to help find them and get them out to the maximum extent possible.

The Furies and I will be back.

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Everyday Erinyes #229

 Posted by at 10:00 am  Politics
Aug 222020
 

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Like TC, and others, this time of action for racial justice is not my first rodeo. And I know, because I remember, that we made mistakes last time around. Most, maybe all, under the umbrella that we assumed that winning was winning (at least we “wypipo” assumed that. I don’t think black or brown people were ever really fooled.)

Now is a time when we are seeing a light at the end of a tunnel (and we hope it won’t be a train). We won’t know for a while what kind of light it is, but in the hope that it will be the blessed light of day, I welcome advice on how to avoid previous mistakes (which are still being made, actually) and find ways to truly advance.
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Diversity pledges alone won’t change corporate workplaces – here’s what will

Words alone won’t make corporate America more diverse. Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

Kimberly A. Houser, University of North Texas

Dozen of companies, from Apple to Zappos, have reacted to George Floyd’s killing and the protests that followed by pledging to make their workforces more diverse.

While commendable, to me it feels a bit like deja vu. Back in 2014, a host of tech companies made similar commitments to diversify their ranks. Their latest reports – which they release annually – show they’ve made little progress.

Why have their efforts largely failed? Were they just empty promises?

As a gender diversity scholar, I explored these questions in my recent paper published in the Stanford Technology Law Review. The problem is not a lack of commitment but what social scientists call “unconscious bias.”

Big tech, little progress

Today’s efforts to promote diversity are certainly more specific than the tech industry’s vague promises in 2014.

In 2020, sports apparel maker Adidas pledged to fill at least 30% of all open positions with Black or Latino candidates. Cosmetics company Estée Lauder promised to make sure the share of Black people it employs mirrors their percentage of the U.S. population within five years. And Facebook vowed to double its number of Black and Latino employees within three years.

Companies have also committed at least US$1 billion in money and resources to fight the broader societal scourge of racism and support Black Americans and people of color more broadly.

Unfortunately, if past experience is any indication, good intentions and public pledges will not be enough to tackle the problem of the underrepresentation of women and people of color in most companies.

In 2014, Google, Facebook, Apple and other tech companies began publishing diversity reports after software engineer Tracy Chao, investor Ellen Pao and others called attention to Silicon Valley’s white male-dominated, misogynistic culture. The numbers weren’t pretty, and so one by one, they all made public commitments to diversity with promises of money, partnerships, training and mentorship programs.

Yet, half a decade later, their latest reports reveal, in embarrassing detail, how little things have changed, especially for underrepresented minorities. For example, at Apple, the share of women in tech jobs rose from 20% in 2014 to 23% in 2018, while the percentage of Black workers in those roles remained flat at 6%. Google managed to increase the share of women in such jobs to 24% in 2020 from 17% in 2014, yet only 2.4% of these tech roles are filled by Black workers, up from 1.5% in 2014. Even companies that have made more progress, such as Twitter, still have far to go to achieve meaningful representation.

I believe one of the reasons for the lack of progress is that two of their main methods, diversity training and mentoring, were flawed. Training can actually harm workplace relationships, while mentoring places the burden of changing the system on those disadvantaged by it and with the least influence over it.

More importantly, however, you can not solve the problem of diversity – no matter how much money you throw at it – without a thorough understanding of its source: faulty human decision-making.

A problem of bias

My research, which relies on the behavioral work of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, explains that because humans are unaware of their unconscious biases, most underestimate their impact on the decisions they make.

People tend to believe they make hiring or other business decisions based on facts or merit alone, despite loads of evidence showing that decisions tend to be subjective, inconsistent and subject to mental shortcuts, known to psychologists as heuristics.

Male-dominated industries, such as tech, finance and engineering, tend to keep hiring the same types of employees and promoting the same types of workers due to their preference for applicants who match the stereotype of who belongs in these roles – a phenomenon known as representative bias. This perpetuates the status quo that keeps men in prime positions and prevents women and underrepresented minorities from gaining a foothold.

This problem is amplified by confirmation bias and the validity illusion, which lead us to be overconfident in our predictions and decisions – despite ample research demonstrating how poorly humans are at forecasting events.

By failing to make objective decisions in the hiring process, the system just repeats itself over and over.

How AI can overcome bias

Advances in artificial intelligence, however, offer a way to overcome these biases by making hiring decisions more objective and consistent.

One way is by anonymizing the interview process.

Studies have found that simply replacing female names with male names on resumes results in improving the odds of a woman being hired by 61%. AI could help ensure an applicant isn’t culled early in the vetting process due to gender or race in a number of ways. For example, code could be written that removes certain identifying features from resumes. Or a company could use neuroscience games – which help match candidate skills and cognitive traits to the needs of jobs – as an unbiased gatekeeper.

Another roadblock is job descriptions, which can be worded in a way that results in fewer applicants from diverse backgrounds. AI is able to identify and remove biased language before the ad is even posted.

Some companies have already made strides hiring women and underrepresented minorities this way. For example, Unilever has had fantastic success improving the diversity of its workforce by employing a number of AI technologies in the recruitment process, including using a chatbot to carry on automated “conversations” with applicants. Earlier this year, the maker of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Vaseline jelly said it achieved perfect parity between women and men in management positions, up from 38% a decade earlier.

Accenture, which ranked number one in 2019 among more than 7,000 companies around the world on an index of diversity and inclusion, utilizes AI in its online assessments of job applicants. Women now make up 38% of its U.S. workforce, up from 36% in 2015, while African Americans rose to 9.3% from 7.6%.

Garbage in, garbage out

Of course, AI is only as good as the data and design that go into it.

We know that biases can be introduced in the choices programmers make when creating an algorithm, how information is labeled and even in the very data sets that AI relies upon. A 2018 study found that a poorly designed facial recognition algorithm had an error rate as high as 34% for identifying darker-skinned women, compared with 1% for light-skinned men.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

Fortunately, bias in AI can be mitigated – and remedied when problems are discovered – through its responsible use, which requires balanced and inclusive data sets, the ability to peer inside its “black box” and the recruitment of a diverse group of programmers to build these programs. Additionally, algorithmic outcomes can be monitored and audited for bias and accuracy.

But that really is the point. You can take the bias out of AI – but you can’t remove it from humans.The Conversation

Kimberly A. Houser, Assistant Clinical Professor, Business and Tech Law, University of North Texas

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, “you can take the bias out of AI – but you can’t remove it from humans.” So true. Many of us are worried that technology – including but not limited to AI – will dehumanize us. But with creativity, and good will, there is no reason we can’t use it to make ourselves more human – in the good senses of compassionate and creative, not in the negative senses of flawed and unpredictable.

Gary Larson – whom you will remember as the creator of The Far Side – and who has been terribly missed since he retired – credits his return to active cartooning entirely to the discovery that drawing digitally is fun. So that cartooning for him is now fun again. I hope we can learn something from that as we pursue greater fairness and diversity as well.

The Furies and I will be back.

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Everyday Erinyes #225

 Posted by at 9:40 am  Politics
Jul 252020
 

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Most of us have probably seen the story about the Michigan teenager (14 IIRC – oh, wait, 15, at least now) who was placed into juvenile detention because she failed to complete her virtual homework. That was in mid-May. Most of us also probably thought that was an over-reaction – and possibly an over-reach – on the part of the courts. I certainly feel it was an over-reaction. But it was not an over-reach. And it was not because of skin color alone, though that was a factor. The key word in all the stories is “probation.” She was on probation. Most people have heard of it but are not familiar with the details of how it works.

At some point in time, the young lady was convicted of some offense which resulted in her being put on probation. Note that I do not claim that she did it (it’s briefly described in the article), nor do I claim that a “white” child in the same circumstances would have been convicted – that is where the skin color comes in. But the result was to put her into probational status.

All societies, including ours, have a social contract – there are things which are “done” and things which are “not done.” None of these things are in any statute books – it’s purely a matter of people agreeing. Of course, people don’t always agree – and it can get comical – but there’s no reason for a court of law to get involved. Failure to do homework would ordinarily be in social contract territory.

But if a person is on probation, there are behaviors normally covered by the social contract which can now come under the territory of probation, and which can therefore violate not just the social contract, but also the conditions of probation. And not all of those actions and inactions are always written down in the terms of probation. The courts have leeway to determine what constitutes a violation of probation. And a violation of probation can put a probationer right (back) into detention. Regardless of skin color, gender, or other social status. And that is what happened to “Grace.”

The young lady has petitioned to be released from detention, and that is what this story is about. I present it without further comment.
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Judge Won’t Free Michigan Teenager Sent to Juvenile Detention After Not Doing Online Schoolwork

ProPublica Illinois is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force. Sign up for The ProPublica Illinois newsletter for weekly updates.

PONTIAC, Mich. — A Michigan family court judge on Monday denied a motion to release a teenager who has been held at a juvenile facility since mid-May for violating probation after not doing her online schoolwork, saying the girl will benefit from ongoing treatment there.

“I think you are exactly where you are supposed to be,” the presiding judge of the Oakland County Family Court Division, Mary Ellen Brennan, told the 15-year-old. “You are blooming there, but there is more work to be done.”

The decision came despite an argument from the attorneys of the teenager, Grace*, that the therapy and educational support she receives at the facility are inadequate and a statement by the prosecutor that his office supported her release. Caseworkers for the court and Children’s Village, where she is being held, testified she should be kept at the facility until she completes the monthslong program.

 

After the hearing, Grace and her mother, Charisse, embraced for more than a minute, the first time they have had physical contact since May 14 because of COVID-19 restrictions. They sobbed audibly through their masks before leaving the courtroom separately.

During the two-hour hearing at the Oakland County court, Brennan also mounted a defense of her initial decision in May to place Grace in detention for the probation violation, devoting about 45 minutes to recounting the troubled relationship between the girl and her mother.

Brennan began by speaking directly to the girl, saying she wanted to ensure the information was on the record: “This morning for you, respectfully, it is going to get worse before it gets better. Because I am about to go over all the crap, all the negative, all the prior attempts at helping. I am going through it all.”

The case, which has drawn national scrutiny, was detailed in a ProPublica Illinois investigation co-published last week with the Detroit Free Press and Bridge Magazine. It has sparked several protests outside the courthouse, and members of Congress, state lawmakers and Birmingham Public Schools board members have called for Grace’s release. The Michigan Supreme Court’s oversight agency has opened a review of the procedures in the cases.

Monday’s hearing came after Grace’s new attorney, Jonathan Biernat, filed a motion Thursday asking the court to review the case and send her home.

Brennan limited discussion to Grace’s “progress and engagement” in the treatment program. She denied Grace’s attorneys’ attempts to discuss her original decision to detain the teenager for the probation violation and would not allow testimony from Grace’s special education teacher.

The prosecutor’s office has until Friday to respond to Biernat’s motion to reconsider the ruling on the probation violation, and Brennan said she will then issue a written opinion.

Grace was a high school sophomore in Birmingham Public Schools when she was charged with assault and theft last year, for incidents in which she bit her mother’s finger and pulled her hair and stole another student’s cellphone.

 

She was placed on probation in mid-April and, among other requirements, was to complete her schoolwork. Grace, who has ADHD and receives special education services, struggled with the transition to online learning and fell behind when Groves High School stopped in-person learning because of COVID-19. Her probation officer filed a violation against her on May 5, two weeks into the probation.

On May 14, Brennan found Grace guilty of violating probation for “failure to submit any schoolwork and getting up for school.” She ordered her detained, concluding Grace was a “threat to (the) community” based on the prior charges of assault and theft. Grace was placed in secure detention at Children’s Village, in suburban Detroit, for about three weeks and then transferred to a residential treatment program within the facility.

The decision to detain Grace came while the state was operating under an order from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to eliminate any form of detention or residential placement unless a young person posed a “substantial and immediate safety risk to others.”

At Monday’s hearing, Grace’s case coordinator at Children’s Village and the judge, reading from the caseworker’s report, said the girl has behaved well and has been engaged with the treatment program. She has met all the goals, was the “star resident” one week this month and is currently at the second of five stages in the program. Each stage takes about a month to complete, the case coordinator said, and she recommended that Grace complete the program. That would take another three and a half months, she said.

The court caseworker also recommended that Grace stay in the program. “They have made significant progress,” the caseworker, Ashley Bishop, said. “In speaking with mom, she reports they have been able to communicate much better, (Grace) is more self-aware, she is more serious, she is more thoughtful.”

“When I read this report, this is as good as it gets. … This is excellent. She is on point, she is doing well, she is engaged,” Brennan said. She later said, “The worst thing I can do is say you are doing great, now let’s get you home and watch the whole thing blow up.”

But Grace, speaking to the judge, said her good behavior indicated she was ready to go home. “I know I can control myself. … That altercation should not be defining who I should be now,” she said, adding: “I can be respectful. I can be obedient. I feel like that is being completely disregarded, no offense.”

She and her attorney argued she has been “deprived” of education and therapy. She has between 30 and 60 minutes of individual therapy twice a month and has had three joint sessions with her mother. Before being detained, she was meeting with a therapist twice weekly in addition to family therapy and academic tutoring, Grace and her mother have said.

“I believe placement in my home with the same, consistent therapy that I was getting beforehand, and love and support that will always be around me, will be a benefit for myself, my mom, my family and my community,” Grace said.

For school, Grace has been provided packets of material from the local district, which she said have been inadequate. “I am getting behind in my actual schooling while here. The schooling here is beneath my level of education,” she said. “And I know you may not seem to think this is a punishment, but in my heart, I feel the aching and the loss as if it were a punishment.”

 

For the first segment of the hearing, Brennan detailed Grace’s contentious relationship with her mother, during what she referred to as “the crazy years,” citing police records and child welfare reports mostly from 2017 and 2018. The reports describe Grace yelling, pushing, punching and biting her mother, and her mother’s inability to control her daughter, the judge said. She also mentioned Grace’s mental health treatment and troubles at school, including her theft of school technology, as well as social services support to help resolve conflicts between the mother and daughter.

The ProPublica investigation cited the police reports and other records about Grace’s behavior, including that she entered a court diversion program in 2018, at her mother’s request, for “incorrigibility.” At that time, Grace agreed to participate in counseling and not use electronic devices.

However, in filing the probation violation, the probation officer, who did not appear in court Monday, only cited incomplete schoolwork. She said Charisse reported that her daughter was not doing work, though the mother has said she spoke out of frustration. Charisse subsequently has said her daughter needed time to adjust to remote learning.

Brennan, who is running for reelection, said on Monday she had not felt it was safe to send Grace home after the probation violation because of the “numerous incidents of domestic violence,” and she didn’t want to put them in a “hot box” together when families generally were staying at home during the pandemic.

“She was not detained because she didn’t turn her homework in,” Brennan said at one point during the hearing, taking a long pause to look out at the courtroom. “She was detained because I found her to be a threat of harm to her mother based on everything I knew.”

At the original probation violation hearing in May, Grace’s mother testified that her daughter had not caused her any physical harm during the probation period. Grace said at Monday’s hearing that there had been no physical altercations between the two after the original assault charge in November and there is no police record of any.

In issuing the decision, Brennan said she wanted the girl to succeed, urging her to “give yourself a chance to follow through and finish something.”

She also cited the teenager’s work with a program at Children’s Village to prepare shelter dogs for adoption. “I want you to finish. The dogs want you to finish. Truly,” she said.

Biernat, Grace’s attorney, said after the hearing that he plans to appeal the decision. “We want her back at home with her mother,” he said.

As Grace and her mother hugged before saying goodbye, Charisse told her to “stay strong.”

With her head on her mother’s shoulder, Grace replied: “I can’t.”

ProPublica is using middle names for the teenager and her mother to protect their identities.

 

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, I promised no further comment, and I’ll stick to that. I’ll just say anything you can do to lead this story toward a happy ending will be appreciated deeply.

The Furies and I will be back.

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Jul 102020
 

It’s a busy day, here in the CatBox.  We’ve arranged to have a palliative care nurse to come change my pain patch when WWWendy is away.  We’re still searching for a shower aide.  Wish me luck.  Tomorrow, please expect no more than a Personal Update or Open Thread.  It’s a WWWendy stink, patch, and shower day.  TGIF!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:11 (average 5:30).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0710TrumpVirusMap

Map Reference  (click through for interactive map).

US Cases: 3,221,938
US Deaths: 135,869

Short Takes:

From Crooks and Liars: Ohio state Rep. Nino Vitale (R) on Tuesday encouraged his constituents to “stop getting tested” for COVID-19.

In a Facebook post, Vitale suggested that the government is using COVID-19 tests to create a “dictatorship.”

“Are you tired of living in a dictatorship yet?” Vitale asked. “This is what happens when people go crazy and get tested. STOP GETTING TESTED!”

“It is giving the government an excuse to claim something is happening that is not happening at the magnitude they say it is happening,” he continued. “Have you noticed they never talk about deaths anymore, just cases? And they never talk about recoveries. They just keep adding to numbers they have been feeding us from over 3 months ago!”

Is that typically Republican or what? And the rabid Nazi Republican Sheeple said BAA-A-A-A-A-A!!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (Adam Schiff Channel): Rep. Schiff on MSNBC: With Trump, Justice Delayed is National Security Denied

With criminal Fuhrer Trump* Justice is ALWAYS delayed, and national security is ALWAYS denied.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast played at Woodstock): Santana:SOUL SACRIFICE:Woodstock Music Festival, August, 1969


Dedicated to all who were at Woodstock or wanted to be. Ah… the memories!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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