you. greetings and sal you tell us you know it seems that everyone these days rather than just rolling up the sleeves and doing a little the hard work or trying to fix the problems we face would rather just let technology do the dirty work for us it seems to be one of the sad truth of the 21st century you know rather than sweeping up your own mess several do it for you tired of parallel parking your car hello auto park too tired to pick up the remote just to have alexa change the channel for you rather than do real detective work just let they show recognition technology tell you who and who and which suspect to

arrest yes that was the case recently in detroit michigan when police arrested 42 year old black man robert julian williams on a felony warrant for larceny after facial recognition technology fingered him was the perpetrator of shoplifting $3800.00 worth of watches from a shy mellow store the computer said you did it so that's a wrap case closed looking down on let's go grab you know starbucks and maybe pepper pepper spray a few protesters on our way there but not so fast no no no no turns out this crime fighting facial recognition technology has a pretty major fatal flaw the new york times reports that while facial recognition systems have been dangerously used by police for more than 2 decades recent studies by mit and the national institute of standards and technology or nist have found that while the technology works relatively well on white men the results are less accurate for other demographic. pics in part because they lack of diversity in the

images to use to develop the underlying databases and this flaw in the programming has now made poor father of 2 robert williams famous famous for potentially being the 1st u.s. citizen arrested for a crime he did not commit because of a failed algorithm as n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden chillingly tweeted this is the story of your future told today. so let's take a dive into the today's future dangers as we start watching the hawks. if you want to know what's going on the city the streets you want to. listen to what she says see the prices joyce just stay and see. grey's suggests least systemic deception is to late show but she is out with some pretty tough job as. well corben watching the hawks i am tired of these

4 warmish or so look at this the 1st known case of facial recognition technology fingering someone for a crime did not commit whatsoever because it just couldn't read minority faces that well. from eyewitness testimony. given to our digital technology somehow discrimination still things to find its way. it's frustrating it's aggravating the fact that there was a young child present when he was arrested is also extremely problematic but the thing that i look at here is that there's so many people who counted on this being the make or break technology to where you know we would have been eradicated humans actually having to decide who committed the crimes and then the find out that these this facial recognition software was utilized mostly by white people's facial

recognition which obviously looked entirely different than that of african-americans so it's pegging anyone who happens to be black and anybody else who happens to be black yeah which is literally one of the problems that we've had over the years with the police is this is the entire point they can't get all the difference between black men and women when you know chasing down a suspect you know it's just the bar goes where in the detroit police now say the from now on after this kind of amazing failure the only news still photos not like security video footage. in due use by their facial recognition software and then it will only be used in violent crimes which to me is kind of like ok but what if it gets that wrong going to accuse a somebody of a violent crime which is far worse penalty than $3800.00 worth of shoplifting exactly i don't see how that's hopeful because if this point if you're only going to use it in upper level crimes which i would consider buying crime because they carry a much harsher penalty and often times when a police officer is responding to a to someone who they feel as though they've committed a violent crime they are

a lot more aggressive anyway so the odds of this person being being beaten being treated in a very different way because of him being a suspect of a violent crime are a lot higher and if this technology gets it wrong. which is more than likely will we're still going to have some serious problems it truly is i mean yes williams' case was dismissed they find but after 2 weeks the other in the a.c.l.u. points out as a result of his rule arrest williams who is completely innocent of this his d.n.a. sample is now with law enforcement his mug shot is with law enforcement but he is now no longer an anonymous innocent even though he never actually committed a crime and that's that to me is a dangerous precedent that's why we cannot rely on technology to solve all our problems we still act because technology as great as it can be it's still designed by people and people are flawed it exactly seen this with them with the algorithms adelir them that are used to decide whether or not someone is released from jail or prison these same issues are there it was supposed to be

a system that was set up to be colorblind and what we see is that the inputs how the data with created are often by people who themselves are not colorblind and you have the exact same issues using these different forms of technology as you would with human interaction most definitely robert williams wrote actually about his experience he said quote my daughter's can't see me being handcuffed as you mentioned and put in the police car but they can see me use this experience to bring some good into the world that means helping make sure my daughters don't grow up in a world where their driver's license or facebook photos could be used to target track or harm them and i hope that that is a world that we all have to get together and start fighting against because that scares me of just you know innocent people being because look we're innocent till proven guilty in this country just because someone who gets arrested doesn't mean that they're guilty of the crime and it doesn't just because a computer says somebody did something wrong doesn't mean they're guilty of a crime and this is a very dangerous and frightening to me absolutely have definitely agree you know

there is some hope though facial recognition biometric technology moratorium act which was introduced recently in congress would ban the government's use of facial recognition and other biometric technology nationwide that was done by senator ed markey jeff merkley. paul are you on a personally of all or do so which i hope that gets voted in because it's you know we need that kind of that because let's not rely on technology anymore good things come out of the house yes. essence magazine is a cultural staple for african-american women the popular black women's magazine was birthed in 1980 out of a need for journalism that spoke to black issues it elevate the concerns of people of color and filled the void for black women largely left out of mainstream media from its inception essence magazine was well respected largely circulated and the mentally popular edward lucas founding c.e.o. and publisher of essence started the magazine with 3 black men seeking to transform the lives of black women and change the media landscape throughout the ebbs and

flows and print media essence has remained stable converting not only to digital media platforms but also elevating its key event the essence festival the annual event brings in major corporate sponsors like 18 t. coca-cola chase bank mcdonald's procter and gamble and others not to mention big name celebrities but on the heels of its 50th anniversary essence is under fire as scathing article titled the truth about this was published on medium dot com the group called black female anonymous lists several grievances including a toxic work environment sexual harassment pay inequity and intimidation the group is calling for the immediate resignations of essence top brass including the current c.e.o. recalling dennis black the male anonymous claims c.e.o. dennis's surface level commitment to black women is driven by greed and a botcher a sexual appetite. there is no doubt that you sation with extreme sexual harassment

workplace bullying and the firing of pregnant women and new moms a rock essence essence has the night the claims in a 2 page statement for their part essence called for an emergency zoo meeting with the editor being concerned about the revelation going on in the middle of essence this and sponsors being visibly upset but black female anonymous has given them 5 business days to respond or they will release personal testimonials on day 6 they've eventually launched a change dot org petition calling for signatures in support of the resignation of named as an executive. wow this is an incredible story mel as someone who obviously is not in the key demographic for essence magazine in case you didn't notice. i think it's important that people understand why what makes this story important what makes what. these people wrote on medium so important why is what's happening over here since you know how does that relate to the bigger conversation that we've been having about me too and workplace discrimination things like that in several

ways essence has been known in the black community as the epitome of black journalism as the epitome of celebration of black woman who'd in the black community it came about in a time in an era where black women weren't seen on the covers of magazines were barely mentioned in magazines and for the past 50 years have been the name in the game for black news i'm black journalism at a time where we're seeing a lot of black journalists not only be unemployed but black black magazines go out of business essence has been one that has been able to maintain its name its standing corporate donors corporate sponsors in large part due to the immense popularity of the essence festival which is the number one rated black festival in america but also because essence has for the past few years been able to pull in celebrities entertainers in addition to telling the stories of everyday black americans and innovators who are largely left out of the mainstream media and given that cultural impact especially for black women to think that they have them have

a management staff who is now accused of being predatory and to fire a pregnant woman because she got pregnant that's some heavy heavy accusation and dangerous stuff at the end of the day. and be guilty of this what is black females anonymous like how is that how are this group tied into like me to things like that so the belief right now is the black females anonymous is a group of black women who are currently employed or have and have been employed by essence at various levels some of them at the executive levels others who have helped with the essence fest and many of them have. grievances with the c.e.o. himself because of accusations of sexual harassment explicit sexual harassment where they're talking about being threatened if they were to speak many of them being threatened with their career specifically and as we're a media but those in media have the very strong they have a very strong cultural influence but also recognize that in many cases when you speak out that means the end of your career so there are women who are 4 very

serious about not necessarily having their names attached because they are afraid of what that blowback could look like especially with black media not necessarily being as big as some of the you know mainstream white media so there are so few places that you can go to after you've reached the giant which yes it's considered it's also have some i noticed when you were talking we're going to talk about the story interesting that this is a magazine predominantly directed towards black women yet it seems to be started and stuff jordi of black men at the top executive level does not seem like a little bit of boy wait a minute shouldn't shouldn't be women who are speaking to women exactly and in researching this story with everything that i knew about essence and i grew up with it all around the house my mom was a huge fan of it i did not know that black men started the magazine because once you talk about essence or you see everything that essence does there isn't a outward influence of black men you just see the celebration of black women so to know that there are men in there that are not only committing these sexual abuse atrocities but are also committing atrocities as it relates to pay equity and then

the hiring and firing specifically of of black women who are pregnant as well as black women who have recently delivered which you know is a federal issue when it comes to employment it's pressuring to know that that type of thing is going on it's interesting too because we go to get more fibrous and before the personal stories start coming out that's an interesting move and i'm going through but i also think it's one that showcases just how serious that it this is that they are willing to go detail after detail about what's happening also that they chose to do it during the middle of essence this that is the cold. nation a bent for essence magazine man a good good story and we will stay on it will definitely stay on it already everybody as we go to break remember that you can also start watching the hawks on demand through the brand new portable t.v. app which is available on every platform that you can possibly find the portable t.v. app so definitely download that check yourself coming up while we've discussed efforts to defund the police now there are calls to be fun to be a veterans advocate laurie riley topic joins us next to discuss that and we don't

want to miss this day to what. we.

feel. that's right we've entered global depression still no longer a recession to get the recession. or depression this will last a few years. the world is driven by dreamers shaped by the one percent of those. who dares thinks. week here to ask.

government inefficiency is a topic that never seems to go away the more money thrown at certain agencies the worse their outcomes seem to be but we rarely hear consensus around deep on being government agencies actually as bad as they get the call to fund them at higher levels or melting one agency that consistently seems to make headlines is the us department of veterans affairs the v.a. is funding levels have nearly doubled in the past decade with not much to show for it a recent article in the hill called should we be

a 2 explores the topic here to tell us more about her article as veterans advocate and political consultant laurie riley topping welcome. thank you for having me. laurie you wrote a very strong piece in a nice correlation with the deep on the police movement what are some of the inefficiencies you've noticed in the v.a. that aren't being solved by the additional funding. so one of the big things centers around mental health care and suicide prevention not spent a very important topic over the past few years unfortunately we have a lot of service members who are in their transition to that are in status go through a lot of. but the cult and the torsional system funding for smell health specifically has seen some of the highest increases that we haven't seen a decrease in the amount of veterans who are committing suicide so i use that as a very pertinent example because as the v.a. has started to branch out and look for other solutions they've realized that

suicide isn't just a health care problem it's a multifaceted problem and oftentimes there are community organizations on the ground who may have more access that may be able to intervene and they have seen that these community organizations can sometimes provide assistance outside of the health care context that is very beneficial to somebody who may be struggling and may be contemplating suicide so i use that as a primary example of some of the inefficiencies again it's largely been treated as a health care problem up until now but we see it is much more complex than that it's interesting when you look at the money because of your article you made no but in 2000 when the entire veterans affairs budget was about 45000000000 now appear a nice long drawn out wars later the veteran affairs budget since that is asking for $243000000000.00 this fiscal upcoming fiscal year 202021 that's a massive jump how does the v.a. justify the budget increase in the wake of mounting calls from bad turns and their

families of abuse neglect and other issues we've seen take place at the v.a. . so i think you bring up an important point by noting that we've been engaged in 2 long drawn out conflicts since 2001 and i don't want to take away from that because that is important we did see an influx of new veterans as a result of those conflicts so of course we would expect to see some increase in funding to care for their needs however with that being said and as i concluded in the article i think we've seen over and over again particularly in d.c. that money alone doesn't solve problems and unfortunately lawmakers continue to. to revert to this tactic and quite frankly it's lazy on their part it's easier for them to say oh more funding and allocate more funding it is a lot harder for them to conduct searching oversight and determine the root of problems what's causing them and propose policy solutions that solve those problems so while we would expect to see some increase in the budget i think you're right i

think 243000000000 is is quite astronomical and as i alluded to i think that we could invest some of that money perhaps in community organizations there are lots of them on the ground that are already doing the type of services that veterans need that extend beyond health care that extends beyond disability benefits that help with things like education employment housing these are all things that the v.a. says that they help veterans with but isn't really their primary focus and that they're not as strong at so we have these preexisting organizations in many communities that many veterans can go to and so rather than trying to recreate these programs within the federal system it seems like it would be much more efficient to use the existing framework a lot of times there's pushback that veterans needs are unique and while that is true to some extent veterans are also people that are also members of their communities and there are unique demographic factors that influence the housing

market is very different in individual communities across the country so i don't think that we want to focus too much on the fact that veterans are different we don't want to make them. seem like they are some sort of so very different people i mean again they're still members of their community so just to reiterate i think that a lot of that funding could be better spent in these community programs and then there's also the effect that if we're funding these different community that benefits non-veterans as well exactly exactly group point and since you're the expert here marie i want to ask you about the report. of waste fraud and mismanagement but a plague to be a for decades we know that they are there they have been lifted not only in terms of the federal agency but also what we're seeing at the state level and you know communities basically shouting down what's happening how can the agency overcome these hurdles are there specific examples of what you think they could do to ensure that they get their head above water. so i think that's the $1000000.00 question or

i guess the $243000000000.00 question but was it a case maybe you know the v.a. is such an interesting example because it's been plagued with scandals since it was created during the harding administration and in the very 1st director of the v.a. was caught in a contracting schedule and served time in prison for that so this culture of waste fraud and abuse has unfortunately been around just as long as the v.a. itself and one thing that i say often is that you can't legislate culture and we see over and over again that congress seeks legislative solutions to cultural problems and i think they need to have a better working relationship with those who work at the agency as well as veterans themselves because it's going to take a lot more of a deep dive and a lot more hard work to get to the bottom of these cultural issues than just issuing a report or allocating more funding like we've seen so i wish i had a more precise answer for you in terms of here are the things that we need to do

however i think that it's just going to be unfortunately a long process and as we've been discussing i think that investing in community programs that aid veterans outside of the v.a. itself that partner with the v.a. that is one step in the right direction but i think there are certainly other solutions and i think part of that is relying on people outside of the beltway who are on the ground who are providing these services and getting their perspective as well one of the challenges with me is budget is that they have a very large centralized management structure at their central office in washington d.c. and one of the things that comes up often is do you. they really need to be have so many high level political appointees in their central office can they have some sort of a restructuring where again they're hearing from more folks on the ground more folks in communities and you know those 2 points tied together but i think that something that could be beneficial to the agency as a whole as well you mentioned you know sending money to community based spending

which then not only helps the veterans but also helps that community you know you mentioned i think one of the biggest problems in washington is that too far and too often it's throw money at it you know i'm talking earlier in the shoulder you know we're talking earlier in the show about you know everyone just kind of well throw technology at it will draw money out it why do you think the washington specifically it's so easy for people just to fall in that trap of just shovel more money shovel more money is it just because it looks good on a reelection bid each year. i think that that's absolutely the primary reason particularly on the house side because it's the house that's doing the budget related matters when you're running for reelection every 2 years a lot you don't have a lot of down time and so you need to have specific accomplishments that you can point to to your constituents to say here are all of the things that i did and having a piece of legislation with your name on it or that you voted for cosign that's something that's tangible that translates well to constituents so while you're

doing oversight there may not be a direct tangible outcome in the same way that a signed piece of legislation provides you so again i think that that's really the primary reason is that people want tangible things that they can run on for re-election and we've seen reelection is the top priority of many congressmen they all start out saying that that's not going to be how they operate but very quickly they acclimate to the system and it's all about fundraising getting reelected and so it's very easy to fall into this trap it's a lot harder to do the work to really find those policy solutions that we've been discussing very truly really talking thank you so much for coming on educating our audience is always always a pleasure. thanks for having me. hard today we on the show with a look at the shocking dare i say rather humbling power and scope of mother nature in recent years months and days of giving us an incredible record breaking a ray of giant scale feats of nature in brazil for example mother nature cooked up

a record breaking heightening bowl back on march 4th of this year when the world meteorological organization recorded a bolt that lasted a little over 16 seconds long to understand the magnitude of that record breaking lightning bolt remember that your typical lightning bolt lasts just point 2 seconds 16 seconds point to say that's a serious lightning bolt one that i hope to never see. all right everybody that is our show through the day remember everyone in this world we're not told that we love them up so i tell you all i love you i am tired rover and i'm in mexico keep on watching all those hawks out there and have a great day and night. during

the vietnam war u.s. forces also bomb to neighboring laos it was a secret war. and for years the american people did not know. how much it is officially that we bombed a country per capita and all as human history millions of unexploded bombs still in danger lives in this small agricultural country jordyn wieber going to continue to happen. even today kids in laos full victim to bombs dropped decades ago is the us making amends for the tragedy in laos won't help to the people need in that little land on. oz no t.v. no crowd. no shots.

action to go. no. points your thirst for action. but hey folks next up on dennis miller plus one will talk to joe testa to our we have a shared experience on monday night football so we'll pick his brain about that alone has got a new show on a.b.c. i think it's thursdays at 8 o'clock it's called holy moly huge gigantic shoe and golf miniature golf. of blown up stuff curry's on it rob riggle and joe's the straight man so the energy between him and regular will talk to. holy molly on

dennis miller plus one right after this. hey folks welcome to dennis miller plus one today's guest is a great sportscaster and i really enjoyed his work joe tessa torre joe is known for his talented insight on a.b.c.'s p.-n. and his play by play commentary pushchair that are the color. on monday night football he also hosts the a.b.c. show holy moley alongside rob riggle and steph curry it's in its 2nd season on n.b.c. joey what shake and how you do it dennis thanks for having me on man it's it's nice to get to know you this with think i said hello to you had a conner mcgregor fight about half a year ago and this is a very nice invitation to receive for you bet i'm good man yeah we sites other

ringside then you mean it was it was so funny i remember like braiding walked in and it might benefit from a matrix or something everybody in the entire story and it was just like. and then he started there are going to mart is the owner it was the raiders and i thought there is the coolest haircut in the worst hair cut on the planet. truly truly it was so funny because that was you go there you sit there and big you said that kind of regret or flight ringside like mcconaughey strolling in like you know 6 foot 9 tyson fury strolling in like baker mayfield was an afterthought because brady and or davis i think are about a week's worth of sports headlines alone just the fact that they sat next to each other well baker better get that quarterback rating up around 90 years are going to be had an afterthought in cleveland to produce and sell.