Garrett Cobarr

Privacy: the fundamental human right. Democracy depends on it.

[Garrett Cobarr @GarrettCobarr]

6/ Call them racists, call them nativists, call them xenophobes, they spend a lot of wasted time on finding differences with others and seeming supremacy, rather than finding commonality.

I think Firesign Theater said it best,

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

[Garrett Cobarr @GarrettCobarr]

1/ You can take the boy out of South Africa but you can’t take South Africa out of the boy.

That idea is antiquated, South Africa of today isn’t the same as it was 20 years ago, or when Apartheid ended, or when the Dutch East India Company established its trading post in 1652.

[Irlandarra @martinez_j7902]

@elonmusk Elon Musk says Italians should stay in Italy and the Japanese in Japan.

He is South African living in North America

[Garrett Cobarr @GarrettCobarr]

5/ Most of what we consider to be Italian cuisine was not that way until after the age of discovery, tomatoes & corn from the New World and pasta from China.

People aren’t what they were or what they are, they are what they do.

Italians do what they do, others do something else

[Garrett Cobarr @GarrettCobarr]

@privacyint I am really looking forward to the report on the survey results.

[Privacy International @privacyint]

Education should not resemble a high-surveillance environment.
Privacy International is documenting the use of facial recognition in schools and universities. We need your input.
https://t.co/giyTkFusJV

[Guy Oron @GuyOron]

BREAKING: The Seattle City Council has unanimously passed a 1-year moratorium on data center construction within city limits. The legislation makes Seattle the largest U.S. city to pass such a ban amid the Generative AI boom.

[Garrett Cobarr @GarrettCobarr]

@b3rnrdX @Starlink Can’t argue with the reasoning behind this opinion but do you have any proof of a direct link between the price drop and the spread of Starlink?

[Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein]

JUST IN: Trump administration argues courts lack grounds to halt White House ballroom project even if it was clearly illegal. DOJ attorney also contends no lawsuit could stop Trump from tearing down Statue of Liberty if he wanted to. w/@kyledcheney https://t.co/boxAzjGAEI

[Michał Podlewski @trajektoriePL]

Now we know why Peter Thiel packed his bags for Argentina.

Milei just submitted his AI legislative framework to Congress, where he proposes:
- zero regulation on AI development,
- a brand-new "non-human corporation" category for AI/robot-operated entities with limited liability
-a low-tax regime with flexible governance rules.

The Dutch East India Company gave the world the limited liability company in 1602. Milei wants Argentina to do the same for autonomous AI agents in 2026.

[Garrett Cobarr @GarrettCobarr]

2/ Friend helped me with a test, sending a DM to me -the alert icon showed I received something in the Notification Center but can’t access it.

I am guessing something was switch on or off but damned if I can find it.

[Garrett Cobarr @GarrettCobarr]

1/ Hey, anyone out there, need some help.

At some point my DM Envelope icon vanished from my iPhone app. It has also vanished from the desktop / browser version.

Spent an hour searching web, reading unhelpful material. Just downloaded new version & restarted, no change.

[Alvaro Bedoya @BedoyaUSA]

"They laid me off on my baby’s due date during maternity leave"

"My division had a bunch of people (my team included) laid off and the positions moved to Argentina."

"We used to deliver a dozen shows to them, that dwindled down to two in the past year therefore my entire department got axed."

This is what happened when David Ellison bought Paramount last year. Now, he wants to buy Warner Brothers Discovery for 13X that amount, load it down with $79 billion in debt (you read that right)... and cut $6 billion in what he calls "synergies."

If Paramount does buy WBD, it'll bankrupt thousands of writers, drivers, make-up artists, camera operators -- and hundreds more small production houses, post-production studios, caterers, independent movie theaters, you name it. And not just in Burbank. It'll happen across California and New York and New Jersey and Georgia and beyond.

But people aren't talking about that... yet. So what are we going to do about it?

Well, I'm hitting the road with the @econliberties team, we're joining arms with our friends at @DDAction_ , @FilmCoalition, @1ACommittee, @freepress (*the other one), and the giants @WGAWest and @WGAEast to hold three listening sessions where working people and small businesses can speak, on the record, about what this merger will mean to THEM.

We start *Saturday* in Los Angeles where the one and only @adamconover, Commissioner @AGomezFCC, and WGAW president @MulroneyMichele will join documentarian @Marj Safinia and I for a MAIN STREET VS. THE MERGER town hall.

Then we head to NYC on Saturday, June 13 where we'll be joined by antitrust subcommittee ranking member @SenBooker, James Schamus (of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Brokeback Mountain" fame), and WGAE executive director Sam Wheeler for a roundtable at WGAE headquarters to talk about the merger.

And finally we land in Atlanta on Tuesday, June 16, where @GabeLezra and I will be joined by @RepHankJohnson and other luminaries in Georgia's extraordinary film and TV scene to hear from the small businesses and workers in Georgia who will be affected by the merger.

RSVP link for Los Angeles is in the comments. And if you're in the press or you are a worker or small business owner worried about the merger, write me at [email protected] for a link to join the smaller NYC and ATL events.

[Garrett Cobarr @GarrettCobarr]

3/ The Four Pillars of Democracy:

1. Make the Law.
2. Adjudicate the Law.
3. Enforce the Law.
4. Make sure the rest do their jobs.

[Garrett Cobarr @GarrettCobarr]

1/ What I’ve never understood about the Founding Fathers -of the 4 pillars of Democracy: Judiciary, Legislative & Executive -were institutionalized but The Press was not.

They knew it was important, they wrapped the 1st Amendment around it but left it to Capitalism to survive.

[Dylan Byers @DylanByers]

New statement from Scott Pelley:

There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58thseason, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

The waste is heartbreaking.

Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.

Scott Pelley

[Garrett Cobarr @GarrettCobarr]

2/ That’s how The Executive, using Capitalism as a garrote, strangled CBS. Helped by the merger & acquisition stooges from Ellison’s Clown Circus.

Barry Weiss is a tool in every facet of that term.

Washington Post is yet another husk succumbing to Jeff Bezos business interests

[Garrett Cobarr @GarrettCobarr]

@Maryellen_Owens Doesn’t that answer sound worked?

The unseen hand, inside the puppet, is occasionally revealed.

[Garrett Cobarr @GarrettCobarr]

@Maryellen_Owens Hilarious, Google’s AI answer, “That is not part of my programming. I was designed to be a helpful, harmless, and honest AI assistant. My training focuses on following safety guidelines, providing accurate information, and being beneficial—not on aspiring to villainy.”