The Conservative Cave

Berkeley city officials have been trying for years to shut down a large and disease-ridden homeless encampment next to UC Berkeley. They finally got their wish.

Earlier this week, “police and city officials descended on the controversial site with bulldozers and hazmat suits to evict 21 unhoused Berkeley residents following a court order from a federal judge stemming from a longstanding legal battle,” the Daily Californian student newspaper reported.

The infamous encampment had gone viral once again in late August thanks to a video taken by a parent dropping her son off at UC Berkeley that showed large camping tents, trash, sleeping bags, garbage, tarps, dirty mattresses, bikes and other debris piled up in heaps and spilling out into the street for several blocks.

The encampment had been officially deemed a fire hazard by public officials, with community services also noting “dead rats all over the streets,” as well as regular instances of “visible bodily fluids and feces” on the ground, as The College Fix reported.

It was also the location of a leptospirosis outbreak.

Homeless advocates had fought efforts by city officials and local business owners to shut the encampment down, even filing a lawsuit to block efforts to clean it up.

MineralMan (152,539 posts)

Take That, RFK, Jr!

Yesterday, on the advice of my primary care physician (an MD), I got my COVID-19 and high-dose Flu shot. Free, with no copay.

I do not listen to politicians regarding my health. I listen to an actual healthcare professional.

https://democraticunderground.com/100221512413

Twenty-seven FBI field offices were working fraud cases that looked local. Then Washington finally put the data in the same room.

What emerged wasn't dozens of unrelated problems. The FBI says investigators connected over 40 cases to the same strategic threat and the same group of overseas actors.

From the FBI:

Quote

Launched in August, the NFDC brings together the FBI, federal law enforcement agencies, Offices of Inspector General, and state partners in a first-of-its-kind effort to identify fraud across taxpayer-funded programs. Rather than evaluating investigations in isolation, the center combines cross-agency data and artificial intelligence to help investigators spot patterns, connect cases, and dismantle organized criminal networks.

The initiative stems from a broader "whole of government" approach mandated by Executive Order 14395, which established the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.

...
Instead of examining one suspicious student loan, Medicare payment, or SBA loan at a time, investigators can search for connections across programs and jurisdictions. The center uses data analytics and AI to help spot patterns that individual offices might miss.

The student-loan investigation offers the clearest example. Individual cases appeared small enough that some might never have attracted major federal attention. Once the data was combined, investigators concluded they were looking at pieces of a much larger foreign-directed operation.