Silicon Valley Elites Are Making San Francisco Unsafe and Unlivable by Angelica abral
April 28 , 2023
Introduction:
(Mother Jones) San Francisco’s public officials and tech execs have been crying for years that the city is becoming more violent: the “reign of criminals who are destroying our city,” Democratic Mayor London Breed said in 2021, ends “when we take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement.” When Cash App founder Bob Lee was killed in April, Elon Musk called out the city’s district attorney: “Violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately. Is the city taking stronger action to incarcerate repeat violent offenders @BrookeJenkinsSF?” Ex-PayPal venture capitalist David Sacks compared Lee’s killing to a Los Angeles case where “a young woman was basically stabbed for no reason by a psychotic homeless person.” But what many assumed was the doing of a random, unhoused person ended in the arrest of a tech professional who knew Lee personally.
In fact, San Francisco has lower than average rates of violent crime compared to other major U.S. cities, and those rates have even decreased further since 2019. But the same old talking points have continued to thrive—and, with another high-profile case, just got worse.
In early April, former San Francisco Fire Commissioner Don Carmignani approached unhoused residents outside his mother’s home in the Marina District, among the city’s most expensive neighborhoods, and told them to leave, later alleging that they had threatened his family. One of those residents, Garett Doty, is accused of then beating Carmignani with a metal rod, from which he suffered injuries including a fractured skull.
Carmignani, well respected among city officials and a longtime part of the community, initially got the benefit of the doubt. But as with the killing of Bob Lee, Carmignani’s attack wasn’t exactly what it appeared. Doty’s public defender, releasing video of a similar attack, has tied Carmignani to a string of unsolved attacks on unhoused locals. And police cameras, reports neighborhood outlet Mission Local, recorded Carmignani—who has since missed two court appearances—warning his girlfriend not to speak to investigators.
The Other Big Election Winners? Private Prisons by Julia Lurie
November 9, 2024
Introduction:
(Mother Jones) Donald Trump’s win on Tuesday has sent private prison company stocks soaring as investors anticipate that the president-elect’s promises of mass deportation will increase the need for immigration detention.
Stocks for GEO Group and CoreCivic, the nation’s largest private prison operators, increased 42 percent and 29 percent respectively on Wednesday.
Financial news site Sherwood News concluded that GEO Group “was the single biggest winner in the US stock market — among companies of any size.”
“The GEO Group was built for this unique moment,” said GEO Group founder and executive chairman George Zoley on an earnings call on Thursday. He called Trump’s plans an “unprecedented opportunity.”
Zoley also noted, according to HuffPost, that GEO Group is well positioned to scale up its ICE detention bed count from 13,500 to more than 31,000. Contracts with federal, state, and local governments—which include 85,000 beds—could also be redirected towards federal needs. There would likely be a “scramble” for beds, he said, “and we believe ICE will have top priority on all available beds around the country.”
There is also this article by Brett Wilkins in Common Dreams:
The chairperson of a leading U.S. private prison corporation on Thursday gushed over the "unprecedented opportunity" presented by the prospect of Republican President-elect Donald Trump delivering on his campaign promise to begin the mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants on his first day in office.
As Common Dreamsreported Thursday, Trump's campaign confirmed that "the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrants" ever is set to start immediately after the former president returns to the White House on January 20.
GEO Group stock surged more than 56% from the close of trading on Tuesday, Election Day, to Friday's closing bell. Competitor CoreCivic shares skyrocketed 57% over the same period. By contrast, GEO Group stock saw just a 21% rise in the three months preceding Election Day. CoreCivic inched up just 11% over the same period.
"The GEO Group was built for this unique moment in our company's [and] country's history, and the opportunity that it will bring," GEO Group founder and chairperson George Zoley said during a Thursday.
Biden Administration's Probes of Police Agencies in Jeopardy by Isaac Avilucea, Russell Contreras
December 7, 2024
Introduction:
(Axios) Federal probes into alleged civil rights abuses by a dozen cities' police departments haven't led to any reform agreements during the Biden administration — and are unlikely to do so in Donald Trump's second term.
Why it matters: The investigations by President Biden's Justice Department came in response to allegations of systemic, unconstitutional misconduct by the police departments, such as using excessive force and conducting illegal traffic stops.
• Such probes often lead to court-ordered consent decree agreements, which require police to impose various reforms.
• But Trump suggested during the presidential campaign that he equates such pacts to "defunding the police," or weakening law enforcement.
Zoom in: During Trump's first term, his administration refused to enter into any consent decrees to reform police departments, even after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020 put pressure on law enforcement agencies.
caltreks comments: This may be yet another area where the argument that the difference between the Democrats and Republicans is trivial is simply not valid. Time will tell.
This video (see below) is longer than most that I link here. Still, if you are really interested in who Trump's nominee for Attorney General is, this is well worth the viewing time.
Explaining Science in Court with Comics February 5, 2025
Introduction:
(Eurekalert) Imagine being summoned as a juror in a murder trial. The expert responsible for analyzing DNA traces at the crime scene has just explained that they match the defendant’s profile. “Then the culprit must be them,” you think. At this point, however, the expert adds: “The sample, however, is partially degraded.” What does this mean? How does this information affect your judgment? The scientist further explains that there is a one-in-a-billion probability that other people could match the identified genetic profile. How significant is this new information? Is this probability high or negligible? What is your verdict now?
“The decisions being taken by members of juries are just so vitally important and often they’re shaped by their understanding of the forensic evidence that’s being presented,” explains Dr Andy Ridgway, Senior Lecturer in Science Communication at the University of the West of England, UWE Bristol, and one of the study’s authors. “They often have little to no science background and frequently lack prior knowledge of the forensic techniques they are expected to assess in making their decision.” This is a widespread issue, and scientific literature on the subject suggests that understanding of science in courtrooms is often quite limited.
The Evidence Chamber, the project within which the research described in JCOM was developed, was created precisely to explore how non-experts understand scientific evidence in judicial proceedings, combining forensic science, digital technology, and public engagement. The Evidence Chamber was developed by the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science at the University of Dundee (Scotland) in collaboration with Fast Familiar, a collective of digital artists specializing in interactive experiences. A team from UWE Bristol, including Izzy Baxter, a student studying for an MSc Science Communication at the time, was involved in analyzing the data collected during the research phase aimed at testing the use of comics as a tool for communicating forensic science.
The study involved about a hundred volunteers who participated as ‘jurors’ in mock trials.
With Dropped Enforcement, Trump Accused of 'Inviting a Corporate Crime Spree' by Jessica Corbett
March 4, 2025
Introduction:
(Common Dreams) U.S. President Donald Trump "is handing out 'get out of jail free' cards to corporate lawbreakers," declared Rick Claypool, author of a Tuesday report about the administration ending probes and enforcement actions against dozens of companies.
Claypool is a research director for the watchdog Public Citizen. His report "covers 429 separate investigations and cases against 361 corporations over alleged lawbreaking—including at least 25 involving allegations of criminal misconduct."
During the first six weeks since the inauguration, the researcher found, the Trump administration halted or moved to dismiss actions against 89 corporations—or 25% of the companies in Public Citizen's tracker of prominent cases.
"The consequences for the public when corporations face a diminished threat of enforcement are disastrous," Claypool warned in a statement.
"Meanwhile, honest businesses that are not Trump administration insiders—or that refuse to play along with the ultra-MAGA ideological agenda—may face serious disadvantages from Trump's politicized approach to enforcement."
Private Prison Companies Set to Make Billions Reopening Jails for ICE by Sophie Hurwitz
March 6, 2025
Introduction:
(Mother Jones) Late Wednesday afternoon, private prison company CoreCivic announced it would be reopening a notorious family detention center in South Texas, under an amended contract with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The facility, first built in 2014, will house up to 2,400 people, including children. It had been shut down last year to save costs, after years of reports suggesting poor treatment, including a report of one toddler who died due to a lack of medical care.
The reopening is part of a trend. CoreCivic isn’t the only company bringing back facilities. We are at the beginning of what looks like a private prison boom, as the groups profit off President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportation. They are set to make billions. As the Washington Post reported, the GEO Group and CoreCivic stand to benefit in particular from Trump’s immigration plans—the companies hold at least 16 vacant facilities that can be reopened within months for mass detention and deportation.
The GEO Group announced in late February that it would be reopening Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, as a “massive” immigration detention center with 1,000 beds. In California, ICE is considering repurposing and reopening the women’s prison FCI Dublin, closed last year due to mass sexual abuse, for immigrant detention. In Baldwin, Michigan, ICE and the GEO Group have expressed interest in reopening North Lake Correctional Facility, a former private prison shuttered in 2022. (A Biden administration order directed the Department of Justice to allow contracts with private prison groups to expire.) In Leavenworth, Kansas, CoreCivic looks likely to partner with ICE to reopen yet another shuttered private prison, documents obtained by the ACLU revealed.
As of February 27, ICE held 43,759 detainees, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan data-gathering organization. Trump is putting pressure on ICE to increase the number of arrests per day. His administration has already fired one ICE director, ostensibly for not deporting enough people.
As head of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem is one of the top law enforcement officials in the country. Hence the reason for posting the following article in this thread.
Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations By Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski
June 30, 2025
Introduction:
(ProPublica) In 2023, while Kristi Noem was governor of South Dakota, she supplemented her income by secretly accepting a cut of the money she raised for a nonprofit that promotes her political career, tax records show.
In what experts described as a highly unusual arrangement, the nonprofit routed funds to a personal company of Noem’s that had recently been established in Delaware. The payment totaled $80,000 that year, a significant boost to her roughly $130,000 government salary. Since the nonprofit is a so-called dark money group — one that’s not required to disclose the names of its donors — the original source of the money remains unknown.
Noem then failed to disclose the $80,000 payment to the public. After President Donald Trump selected Noem to be his secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, she had to release a detailed accounting of her assets and sources of income from 2023 on. She did not include the income from the dark money group on her disclosure form, which experts called a likely violation of federal ethics requirements.
Experts told ProPublica it was troubling that Noem was personally taking money that came from political donors. In a filing, the group, a nonprofit called American Resolve Policy Fund, described the $80,000 as a payment for fundraising. The organization said Noem had brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars.
There is nothing remarkable about a politician raising money for nonprofits and other groups that promote their campaigns or agendas. What’s unusual, experts said, is for a politician to keep some of the money for themselves.
As Political Violence Surges, Trump Shuts Down a Top Prevention Program By Mark Follman
June 26, 2025
Introduction:
(Mother Jones) Since March, the Trump administration has dismantled a leading office at the Department of Homeland Security whose mission was averting terrorism and targeted violence. The Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, known as CP3, has been stripped of funding, and most of its 40-plus personnel have been fired, reassigned, or otherwise pushed out. Amid this process, the White House temporarily put in charge a 22-year-old Trump superfan who arched an eyebrow for his agency portrait and has zero leadership experience in government, let alone in national security.
The demise of CP3 comes as the White House has diverted major law enforcement and security resources toward deporting undocumented immigrants. It also comes as high-profile acts of political violence have surged in the United States.
The list of recent devastation includes an ISIS-inspired truck massacre in New Orleans, the bombing of a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, and a spate of antisemitic attacks—including the murder of a young couple working for Israel in Washington, DC; an arson attack against the governor of Pennsylvania; and a fiery assault on peaceful marchers in Boulder, Colorado. Last year, a health care CEO was gunned down point-blank in Manhattan, and President Trump barely avoided death from an assassin’s bullet on the campaign trail. Twelve days ago, a right-wing extremist in Minnesota targeted Democratic state lawmakers in a deadly gun rampage, killing former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her spouse, and gravely wounding two others. The nation is now also on heightened alert after Trump ordered the bombing of Iran, a major state sponsor of terrorism.
Though political extremism has been rising, it is almost never the only factor in targeted violence, including with most, if not all, of the above cases. Most perpetrators are also driven by a mix of rage and despair over acute personal problems, such as financial or health crises—and many are suicidal. This complexity was a focus of CP3’s $18 million in annual grants to state and local partners. Drawing on long-established public health research, the office worked with law enforcement, educators, faith leaders, and others to use “upstream” interventions with troubled individuals who may be planning and moving toward violence.
Trump’s Deportation Machine Has Diverted Some 42,000 Crime Fighters From Other Tasks By Samantha Michaels
October 2, 2025
Introduction:
(Mother Jones ) President Donald Trump’s deportation army is growing by the day, and a shocking number of its foot soldiers don’t even work for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The vast majority, in fact, come from other law enforcement agencies.
In January, the Trump administration started deputizing Justice Department officers to work for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, which focuses on mass deportations. (A second ICE division, Homeland Security Investigations, investigates child exploitation and weapons trafficking, among other transnational crimes.) ERO recruits from other sources, too, including HSI and local police departments. According to ICE’s website, ERO has more than 6,100 deportation officers. But as of August, per the Cato Institute, it was receiving support from about 42,000 non-ERO personnel, including roughly 28,000 federal officials and more than 13,000 state and local ones.
Put another way: Only about 13 percent of the personnel carrying out Trump’s deportation agenda are employed by ICE’s primary deportation unit; the rest are pulled from other jobs, primarily crime-fighting jobs. The administration “is deprioritizing all other types of criminal law enforcement,” says the Cato Institute’s David Bier, who tracked down this data from ICE.
At some federal agencies, a huge chunk of the workforce has been diverted. Case in point: About 1,500 personnel from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were helping ERO in August. That’s more than 1 in 4 of ATF’s staff. Meanwhile, ICE told the Cato Institute that more than 12,000 HSI personnel were helping ERO—which is more than the total staff listed on HSI’s website. (ICE did not respond to my request for clarification.)
Conclusion:
For an administration that has been sending military troops into cities in the name of thwarting violent crime, diverting local crime-fighters for civil enforcement duties seems a curious choice. “Obviously there’s another agenda here that is not based on public safety,” Bier says.
