Shocking… the Democrats voted to protect Big Tech.
US regulators have approved a record $5bn (£4bn) fine on Facebook to settle an investigation into data privacy violations, reports in US media say.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been investigating allegations that political consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained the data of up to 87 million Facebook users.
[…]
The FTC began investigating Facebook in March 2018, following reports that Cambridge Analytica had accessed the data of tens of millions of its users.
The investigation focused on whether Facebook had violated a 2011 agreement under which it was required to clearly notify users and gain “express consent” to share their data.
Taylor Swift has described herself as “sad and grossed out” by Scooter Braun’s acquisition of Big Machine Records, which holds the rights to her entire catalog up through 2017’s “Reputation,” calling the deal “my worst case scenario.” Swift said she was shocked to first learn of the transfer of her work through news accounts Sunday morning. Braun declined Variety‘s requests for comment.
Swift posted her impassioned reaction in a Tumblr post, which reads:
“For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in. I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past. Music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums.
[…]
“This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says ‘Music has value’, he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it.
“When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.
While Swift has the right to object to the sale, the fact is that she doesn’t own it. It’s not hers. She sold her music. And it’s not like she didn’t get any value for the sale. She received money, access to the industry, and help in her rise to fame and fortune. Could she have reached her current level of stardom without Big Machine Records? Maybe. But we know for sure the result of her relationship with BMR. And since BMR owns the music, they have every right to sell it or monetize it in any way they see fit.
Think of it this way… when an artist paints a painting or creates a sculpture and sells it, does the artist retain the right to control the art after it is sold? Of course not. Does the fact that it is art that the artist created on their bedroom floor when they were 15 change anything? Nope.
Swift may be upset, but it’s not like she didn’t get anything out of the deal.
Three years after ruling the Department of Public Instruction doesn’t have to submit proposed administrative rules to the guv for review, the state Supreme Court reversed course today and found the agency is subject to the requirement just like any other agency.
In a 4-2 decision, the court overturned that 2016 ruling. In doing so, the conservative majority found the Wisconsin Constitution gives the state superintendent the power to supervise public instruction.
But the Legislature grants the superintendent and DPI the power to promulgate rules. Therefore, the court ruled, lawmakers can set limits on that power.
“That the SPI also has the executive constitutional function to supervise public instruction does not transform the SPI’s legislatively delegated rulemaking power into a constitutional supervisory function,” Chief Justice Pat Roggensack wrote in the majority opinion that was joined by her fellow three conservatives.
MADISON, WIS. (AP) — The state Supreme Court is poised to release a ruling on whether the governor or the state schools superintendent controls Wisconsin school policy.
Republicans passed a law dubbed the REINS Act in 2017 that requires all state agencies to get the governor’s permission before writing regulations. The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed a lawsuit with the high court last year arguing then-Superintendent Tony Evers was writing regulations without then-Gov. Scott Walker’s approval.
[…]
The court ruled in 2016 that the schools superintendent doesn’t have to abide by a 2011 law similar to the REINS Act that requires agencies to get the governor’s permission before writing regulations.
Two thoughts… first, it’s hard to get excited over something that should be obvious to all. Second, it’s a travesty of justice that this was not a unanimous ruling. It just shows how hardcore partisan the liberals on the court have become and why the voters need to continue to correct for their bias.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s conservative-controlled Supreme Court on Friday upheld lame-duck laws limiting the powers of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul, handing Republican lawmakers a resounding victory.
The win was on procedural grounds only and the ruling isn’t the end of the legal challenges. Two other challenges to the laws themselves and not the process used to pass them are pending. One of those is in federal court, a move that Democrats hope gives them a better shot at sidestepping conservative judges.
Most of the laws — enacted just weeks before Republican Gov. Scott Walker left office after his November defeat — have been reinstated and are in effect while the legal challenges proceed.
A group of liberal-leaning organizations led by the League of Women Voters sued in January alleging the laws are invalid because legislators convened illegally to pass them in December. The groups maintained the Legislature’s session had ended months earlier and that the lame-duck floor session wasn’t part of the Legislature’s regular schedule.
(CNN)An Ohio jury has ordered Oberlin College to pay $11 million to a bakery which said it was libeled and wrongfully accused of racially profiling students.
The case stems from the November 2016 arrests of three black Oberlin students at Gibson’s Bakery and market near the college’s campus in Oberlin, Ohio.
One student, Jonathan Aladin, was accused of attempted robbery for allegedly trying to “steal wine or otherwise illegally obtain wine” from the bakery, according to a defamation lawsuit. He would eventually confess in a written statement to buying alcohol illegally.
Two other suspects, Cecelia Whettston and Endia J. Lawrence, were arrested and accused of misdemeanor assault, court documents state.
After that, Oberlin staff members tried to discredit the family-owned bakery, the lawsuit says.
The shop said defamation and boycotts by Oberlin have had a “devastating effect on Gibson’s Bakery and the Gibson family.”
Oberlin College staff — including deans and professors — and students engaged in demonstrations in front of Gibson’s Bakery following the arrests of the three students, the lawsuit stated.
The suit also said Oberlin Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo and other college staff members “handed out hundreds of copies” of a flier to the community and the media stating that Gibson’s Bakery and its owners racially profiled and discriminated against the three students.
The court documents include a copy of the flier, which included the words “DON’T BUY.”
“This is a RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION,” the flier read, according to the lawsuit.
The flier also listed 10 of the bakery’s competitors and urged customers to shop there instead.
A Wisconsin appeals court has affirmed that officials must provide copies of electronic records in their original format.
The decision, released Wednesday, upholds a lower court’s order requiring state Rep. Scott Krug, R-Wisconsin Rapids, to turn over electronic copies of emails requested by The Progressive magazine editor Bill Lueders.
Lueders, who is president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said the decision represents “a major win for requesters in Wisconsin.”
You might remember that I have been pushing for this for years. I file open records requests from time to time and it frustrates the heck out of me when governments insist on printing emails to give to me. It’s wasteful and imposes undue expenses on the requester for no good reason. I’m glad to see the courts insisting that government abide by the state’s Open Record Laws.
It ain’t just New York. Social Justice superseded education a long time ago in far too many government school systems.
Three white female executives in the New York Education Department were demoted in favor of less-qualified people of color, a $90 million suit launched by the women claims.
The longtime officials say they were unfairly targeted as part of the department’s crusade against ‘toxic whiteness’ through its controversial racial equity plan.
Lois Herrera started at the DOE in 1986 as a guidance counselor and worked her way up to lead its Office of Safety and Youth Development.
In the suit filed Tuesday, she claims she saw the culture shift when Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Richard Carranza as the chancellor of NYC‘s public schools in April 2018.
Lois Herrera is one of three women suing the New York Education Department for $90m over claims they were demoted in favor of less-qualified people of color
By June the Harvard graduate – who was recognized in 2017 for contributing to the ‘safest year on record’ in city schools – was abruptly removed from her position and demoted three levels.
[…]
Herrera was never given any reasoning for her demotion but claims she was told, ‘If you’ve been with the DOE for more than 20 years, you are responsible for the problem,’ by LaShawn Robinson, the then executive director of the DOE’s Office of Equity and Access.
Robinson, who is black, reportedly told white attendees at a training seminar they ‘had to take a step back and yield to colleagues of color’ and ‘recognize that values of white culture are supremacist’.
[…]
Department insiders say that under Chancellor Richard Carranza, who was appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, administrators are subjected to endless lectures and workshops critiquing ‘whiteness’ and attempting to root out ‘white supremacy’ in the workplace.
Washington (CNN)The Supreme Court on Tuesday left in place a lower court ruling in favor of a Pennsylvania school district policy that allows some transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity.
This case is a challenge to a Pennsylvania’s school district’s policy that allows some transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. The plaintiffs are students who say the policy violates their privacy rights and constitutes sexual harassment in violation of Title IX, a federal law that bars discrimination based on sex in educational institutions that receive federal funds.
Tuesday’s ruling was issued without comment.
In court papers, lawyers for the plaintiffs argue that “forcing a teenager to share a locker room or restroom with a member of the opposite sex can cause embarrassment and distress.”
We don’t need, or want, the courts to decide every societal disagreement. This is a cultural issue that people can work out for themselves. If the folks in that Pennsylvania school district want to let people pick their own bathroom, fine. If the folks in Colorado have a different opinion, that’s fine too. The court should just leave some things alone for people to decide.
Judge Jill Karofsky announced her candidacy Thursday. She said she feels America is on the “wrong track” because the judiciary is becoming increasingly politicized and the rule of the law is being ignored for partisan reasons.
“The American judicial system is built on independent judges, not a system in which you decide what political team you’re on,” Karofsky wrote in the announcement. “We can see the corroding effect of big money on our judicial system, and it’s time to restore a sense of justice and honor to our legal system. I will follow the law, and I will protect our Wisconsin values.”
So she decries the politicization of the judiciary and vows to follow the law, but in the SAME STORY we get this:
“We will serve the needs of crime victims, we will stand up for racial justice and civil rights, we will protect the right to marriage equality, and we will never allow for the rights of women to be rolled back,” Karofsky wrote.
Um, I thought the courts were about following the law? Where is all of this “stand up for [insert liberal cause here]” stuff come from?
The 4-3 order handed down on Tuesday by the court’s conservative majority wasn’t the final say in the lame-duck lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin. But the court found that all of the former Gov. Scott Walker appointees – including those whose appointments that were rescinded by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers – can return to work while the appeal of the case proceeds.
“As we are only at the early stage of this appeal and in the context of a motion for temporary relief pending appeal, we express no position as to whether or not any of the Legislature’s arguments will ultimately prevail,” the court wrote. “We cannot say, however, that the Legislature’s arguments have ‘no likelihood of success on the merits,’ as the circuit court did.”
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The state Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging a firearms website that enabled a man to illegally purchase the pistol he used in a mass shooting at a suburban Milwaukee spa six years ago is liable in the killings, ruling that federal law grants the site operators immunity.
The court ruled 5-1 that the federal Communications Decency Act protects Armslist LLC, a firearms classifieds website. The act absolves website operators of any liability resulting from posting third-party content.
The nation’s high court on Monday wrestled with whether government spending records from the nation’s largest food safety-net program are records that Congress intended to be released under a key federal transparency law.
The Food Marketing Institute, which represents grocers and other retailers, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the issue after a lower court ruled that spending records from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could be released to the public.
Justices appeared conflicted between upholding the spirit of the Freedom of Information Law and the desire to stick to the literal meaning of the word “confidential.”
“One of the aims of FOIA was to make information public despite official willingness,” Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.
But Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch noted that the word “confidential” was presumed to mean something different in another section of the FOIA law. “Why should we give the same word two different meanings?” he said.
I can see why it would be nice for recipients to have their names kept secret. They don’t want to be harassed or marketed to. Also, there might still be a scrap of shame associated with receiving welfare that people don’t want to be shamed. Frankly, I don’t think there is a societal stigma on receiving food stamps anymore… at least if the line at Woodman’s is any guide.
But I don’t see any overriding governmental interest that would require this information to be kept secret. They are receiving public money and the taxpayers have a right to know where their money is going. This information should be public.
Good. And for the last time, there was nothing “lame-duck” about those laws.
MADISON – The state Supreme Court agreed Monday to quickly take up a lawsuit challenging lame-duck laws aimed at curbing the power of the state’s top Democrats.
The high court unanimously accepted the case before an appeals court finishes its work on the lawsuit, speeding up its final resolution.
The justices put the case on a fast track, agreeing to hear arguments May 15.
Other lawsuits are pending — one in state court and one in federal court — so the Supreme Court’s ruling in this case likely won’t be the last word on whether the lame-duck laws are valid.
This is a good reminder that the granting of licenses, permits, and other government permissions are, and have always been, a source of bribery and corruption. This is why we should have as little of it as possible, and where we do have it, the process and criteria should be completely transparent.
Nevada faces complaints about secrecy in awarding licenses to sell marijuana in the state’s booming legal marketplace, boiling over into lawsuits and legislation that appear poised to pry open the process.
Several companies have sued the state tax department, arguing that no one knows for sure the criteria officials use to award new licenses. They complain the state releases no information about who seeks and receives permission to sell cannabis to adults, many of them tourists, in the nearly 2-year-old market.
They will ask a judge Monday to freeze the granting of marijuana dispensary licenses, at least temporarily, until the courts decide whether it’s “arbitrary and capricious and violates the constitution,” one lawsuit says.
The hearing will focus on a second wave of dispensaries approved in December to open into an evolving regulatory environment where local lawmakers are considering allowing pot lounges on or near the Las Vegas Strip.
The companies say Nevada unconstitutionally picked winners and losers from 462 applicants for 61 new dispensary, cultivation, laboratory and production licenses.
“Licenses that admit a select few to such a lucrative enterprise must be made in a way that is open and transparent,” said attorney Vincent Savarese, who wrote the constitutional challenge on behalf of Serenity Wellness Center and 10 other companies that were turned away.
(CNN)The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine will not consider race or national origin as a factor in its admissions process, according to an agreement the school entered with the Department of Education in February.
The agreement concludes a 14-year-long investigation into the school’s use of affirmative action in its admissions process after someone who did not end up applying to the school filed a complaint with the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights in 2004. The Department of Education’s office began the investigation in July 2005, according to department spokeswoman Elizabeth Hill.
The agreement states that the school of medicine will stop considering race and/or national origin “as part of the holistic admissions process.” If the school decides to use race as a factor in the admissions process again, it must notify the Department of Education and provide a “reasoned, principled explanation” for why it plans to do so, according to the agreement.
The complainant said that the Texas Tech School of Medicine’s “expected use of race as one of many factors in the admissions process” was a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to a letter from the Department of Education obtained by CNN.
On a more serious note… 14 YEARS!?!? How is that kind of lethargy in our justice system providing justice for anyone?
The Columbia County District Attorney’s Office is apparently closed indefinitely, and nobody’s saying why — not even to judges and county leaders.
On Monday morning, a sign affixed to the DA’s office public window on the first floor of the Columbia County Courthouse stated: “Office temporarily closed — no staff available. Please check back this afternoon — sorry for the inconvenience.”
At about 2 p.m. Monday, Assistant District Attorney Jordan Lippert told the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office officers who operate the security system at the courthouse’s entrance that pretrial conferences have been canceled.
Lippert declined to say anything on the record as to why the office is closed and when it might reopen.
“I have no comments,” he said.
[…]
It was not clear whether the closure is related to Friday’s unanimous decision by the County Board’s Human Resources Department, that an unnamed employee has filed a “credible” harassment complaint against at least one person in the DA’s office, also unnamed.
The committee’s decision, made after a protracted closed-session discussion Friday, is based on a letter the complaining employee submitted to Ruf in February. Ruf said he could not comment on the nature of the alleged harassment. The matter has been turned over to the County Board’s Judiciary Committee for further investigation; the Judiciary Committee oversees the operations of the DA’s office.
Conservative Brian Hagedorn added to his narrow lead over rival Lisa Nuebauer in the state Supreme Court race after the first wave of county canvasses were completed, according to a WisPolitics.com tally.
And he’s likely to get another bump once Outagamie County finishes its canvass after it already discovered a reporting error due to the technical issues it had on the night of the election.
Hagedorn emerged from Election Day with a 5,960-vote leader over Neubauer. The tally shows Hagedorn has added 111 votes in the 24 counties that either posted final results on their websites or relayed the information following a request from WisPolitics.com.
[…]
Outagamie County has since posted updated unofficial nights that added 69 votes to Hagedorn’s margin. The AP numbers had Hagedorn at 19,206 and Neubauer at 15,419. The updated unofficial numbers pushed Hagedorn to 19,662 and Neubauer to 15,766.
Parts of laws the GOP-controlled Legislature adopted curtailing executive branch powers are back in place after a state appeals court Wednesday temporarily suspended a ruling that struck them down.
The new ruling intensified the disarray in state government created by the passage of — and subsequent legal fight over — the laws, passed in a December lame-duck session just before Evers took office.
The ruling, issued Wednesday by a three-judge panel of the state District III Court of Appeals, temporarily stayed a ruling issued last week by Dane County Circuit Court Judge Richard Niess.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and GOP lawmakers sparred Wednesday about who is at fault for the chaos. They also clashed over the status of 82 state government appointments made by former Gov. Scott Walker, which Evers rescinded after last week’s ruling.
Evers’ office contended the appointments, which include a University of Wisconsin System Regent and a Public Service Commissioner, remain vacant. But an attorney for Republican lawmakers said the Walker appointees are back in their jobs. The court did not weigh in on that question.
If there was any doubt as to the importance of the upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court election, the outrageous ruling by rogue Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess should vanquish it. The leftists have shown that they are willing to use the power of the judicial branch to advance their radical agenda without scruples or remorse. Against such an onslaught, a Supreme Court comprised of strict constitutionalists serves as the last bastion against the judicial usurpation of our representative government.
In the waning days of the last legislative session, the Legislature passed a series of laws to shore up their gains of the previous eight years before the Democrats assumed control of the executive branch. In a clear violation of the separation of powers principle and a gross overreach of judicial authority, a single, lowly Dane County judge ruled that the entire extraordinary season was unconstitutional, and thus, all of the laws duly passed during the session are unconstitutional. In his ruling, Judge Niess ignored the clear wording of the Constitution, the statutes, and decades of legislative practice by both major political parties. Judge Niess’ ruling was not based on law. It was based on advancing a liberal political outcome.
If you wondered what that outcome was, Democrats Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul quickly confirmed it as they moved swiftly after the ruling to withdraw the state from the federal Obamacare lawsuit and begin the process of replacing the 82 people appointed by Gov. Scott Walker who were confirmed in that session.
The ruling is such an egregious overreach that if it holds, it would invalidate hundreds of laws passed over the past several decades. The Legislature has been meeting in extraordinary seasons for years, as is their prerogative, to pass legislation. The most recent extraordinary session was to listen to Governor Evers’ budget address. But before that, taxpayer funding for Fiserv Forum, redistricting, campaign finance laws, government funding laws, and much more have been passed in extraordinary sessions.
In all, the Legislature has held over two dozen extraordinary sessions over the previous two generations for the purpose of passing laws supported by both Democrats and Republicans. If extraordinary sessions are themselves unconstitutional, as Judge Niess’ preposterous partisan ruling states, then all of those laws would be unconstitutional.
Thankfully, Dane County Judge Niess’ ruling will likely be stayed by an appeals court this week before being completely overturned. If Dane County voters have any fidelity to the rule of law, Niess will be run off the bench for his blatant abuse of power. He is a disgrace.
The judicial system is designed to correct for rogue and incompetent judges by allowing bad decisions to be appealed through multiple higher courts. But if the same rabid partisanship that infects Judge Niess is permitted to spread to the Supreme Court, the Legislature and governor will be relegated to merely being entertaining political theater because the austere tyrants in black robes will make all of the real decisions.
Judge Niess, Governor Evers, and Attorney General Kaul tipped their hands to how they will neuter the power of the Republican-led Legislature if the radical leftists take control of the state Supreme Court. They will follow the path of the leftist horde after Governor Walker was elected. They will get a fellow traveler on the Dane County bench to rule laws they do not like as unconstitutional, and then act by judicial and executive fiat. Except this time, instead of the Supreme Court overturning bad rulings and showing deference to the Constitution and the tenets of representative government, a leftist-dominated court will set the leftist agenda into stone.
On April 2, or anytime this week via early voting, it is critically important that Wisconsin elect Judge Brian Hagedorn to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He has demonstrated the appropriate humility, firm adherence to the Constitution, and deference to representative government necessary to protect the individual rights of Wisconsinites. If the Supreme Court is to remain a bulwark for individual liberty and representative government, we need to elect justices like Brian Hagedorn who believe in those principles.
