activescott's Notes

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President Trump pardoned his former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and a slate of other key figures charged in connection with their efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a U.S. pardon attorney.

The list includes several high-profile individuals connected to the effort to overturn the 2020 election: Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Boris Epshteyn and others.

The “fake electors” scheme sought to push former Vice President Mike Pence to certify Trump-supporting electors in those critical states instead of the true Electoral College votes cast for former President Biden. It took place in New Mexico and Pennsylvania, as well, though charges were never brought there. On Jan. 6, 2021, Pence declined to do so, and a mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol. Trump previously pardoned hundreds of supporters federally charged in connection to the riot, including those who attacked law enforcement that day. The efforts to challenge the 2020 election results have already had consequences, aside from convictions, for Trump’s allies. Giuliani was disbarred from practicing law in New York and the District of Columbia for making numerous false claims related to the 2020 presidential election and was forced to turn over most of his assets to two election workers he defamed. Eastman, Chesebro and Clark have also faced disciplinary action or proceedings. And several who were pardoned, including Chesebro, Powell and Ellis, had entered guilty pleas to state criminal charges stemming from their post-2020 election work. The Trump attorneys promoted baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud in the aftermath of 2020, and Eastman helped concoct the fake electors’ scheme, which aimed to keep the president in office. Trump faced a federal indictment on charges related to his effort to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, but special counsel Jack Smith moved to toss the case after the president was elected to his second term.

Instead of presenting a new indictment to the full panel after it rejected one of the counts, interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan gave the grand jury’s foreperson an updated version — not seen by the other grand jurors — to sign.

For a $400,000 mortgage at a 6.5 percent interest rate, the monthly payment on a 50-year mortgage is $2,254.87 compared to $2,528.27 for a 30-year mortgage. And yet, this modest decrease in monthly payments will be offset by a dramatic increase in interest payments: from $510,177.95 on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage to a staggering $952,920.53 on a 50-year mortgage.

The reality is that even 30 year mortgages don’t make sense and never did. A 30 year fixed rate mortgage would never be offered by private markets without government incentives. They nearly masked the fact that Americans couldn’t save and couldn’t afford housing. They went onto exacerbate the problem by making Americans primary if not so retirement investment in their home. This incentivize homeowners to value scarcity in housing as lower supply will create scarcity and drive up the price of their “investment”, but in this case, the investment is housing for others.

"The public perception of this case is that it's about politics," US Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote in the decision. "To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map."

The cities’ move to exempt the records from disclosure was a dangerous attempt to deny transparency and reflects another problem with the massive amount of data that police departments collect through Flock cameras and store on Flock servers: the wiggle room cities seek when public data is hosted on a private company’s server.

If a government agency is conducting mass surveillance, EFF supports individuals’ access to data collected specifically on them, at the very least. And to address legitimate privacy concerns, governments can and should redact personal information in these records while still disclosing information about how the systems work and the data that they capture.

Privacy in general matters because you never know how your data might be used even if you’re a good guy.

On Thursday, a Skagit County Superior Court judge ruled that pictures taken by Flock cameras in the cities of Sedro-Woolley and Stanwood qualify as public records, and therefore must be released as required by the state's Public Records Act, court records show.

Flock's cameras, also called automated license plate readers, continuously and indiscriminately capture time- and location-stamped photos of any passing vehicles. Those images are then stored, and information about the vehicles, including their condition, make, model and license plate number, is added to a searchable database controlled by the customer.

Last week's Skagit County ruling could oblige the dozens of Washington police agencies which use Flock cameras, ostensibly to help them find stolen vehicles, crime suspects and missing people, to release the photos and data they collect — an outcome privacy advocates warned was possible.

The ruling also exacerbated concerns about potential misuse of Flock data, which swelled after University of Washington researchers released a report Oct. 21 showing federal immigration agencies like ICE and Border Patrol had accessed the data of at least 18 Washington cities, often without their police departments' knowing. The report raised concerns that the agencies might be using the data to target and arrest immigrants as part of Trump's immigration crackdown.

Research by Harvard Business School Professor Alberto Cavallo illustrates the downward trend in the price levels for many retail goods, followed by an acceleration after tariff announcements. Prices on both imported and domestic goods have climbed modestly but steadily since March, even if the hike is still small relative to the size of the tariffs.

The researchers created indexes with daily prices collected by PriceStats, a private firm cofounded by Cavallo that provides online data for over 350,000 products sold by five major US retailers. The indexes allow them to track price changes in specific categories and from countries of origin. Overall, the prices of imported products have increased faster than those made in the US. An extended analysis, going back to January 2024, explores price changes of goods relative to their pre-tariff trend.