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Month: May 2019

Facebook’s banning of Alex Jones and other bigots misses the real problem

Facebook’s banning of Alex Jones and other bigots misses the real problem

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April Glaser writes: [After banning Infowars, Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson, and other inflammatory figures like far-right personalities Laura Loomer and Milo Yiannopoulos, white supremacist politician Paul Nehlen, and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan] Facebook didn’t share what rules specifically were violated or what the process was for reviewing its rules. Presumably, if Thursday’s actions reflect a new approach that Facebook is now taking—or at least a new sense of urgency—then far more than seven accounts would have been…

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Rory Stewart declares he would like to become Britain’s prime minister

Rory Stewart declares he would like to become Britain’s prime minister

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The Guardian reports: Rory Stewart has declared he wants the prime minister’s job, becoming the first cabinet minister to openly do so, as he warned the Conservatives the party would lose 4m votes if it pursued a hard version of Brexit to “outdo Nigel Farage”. Stewart, who was made international development secretary this week, said “yes” when asked if he would throw his hat into the ring to become prime minister, but insisted he was not keen for Theresa May…

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Why the Russia investigation will continue

Why the Russia investigation will continue

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John Sipher writes: Although Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe is over, and although President Trump on Friday again described the probe as a “Witch Hunt,” the FBI is almost certain to continue its counterintelligence investigation into Russian espionage efforts related to the 2016 election. More important, they will continue to search for Americans working on behalf of the Kremlin. The inability to establish that the Trump campaign conspired in a “tacit or express” agreement with the Russian government is…

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Trump’s new favorite network embraces Russian propaganda

Trump’s new favorite network embraces Russian propaganda

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Kevin Poulsen reports: When it comes to putting disinformation in front of American eyeballs, Vladimir Putin has long been able to count alt-right social media stars like Alex Jones and Mike Cernovich as reliable allies. Now the One America News Network, a pro-Trump cable news and commentary channel, is joining them in embracing some of Moscow’s most vile fake news. On Wednesday OANN aired a segment claiming to reveal that dozens of members of the Syrian Civil Defense, a humanitarian…

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Trump won’t let human rights stand in the way of a trade deal with China

Trump won’t let human rights stand in the way of a trade deal with China

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The New York Times reports: The United States and China are racing to clinch a historic economic treaty as early as next week that could drastically reshape relations between the world’s two largest economies. But as negotiations reach their final stages, the sensitive subject of human rights has been left conspicuously off the table. China has faced growing condemnation from human rights groups in recent months for its detention of up to one million ethnic Uighurs and other minority Muslims…

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South Africa struggles to confront a legacy of apartheid

South Africa struggles to confront a legacy of apartheid

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Christopher Clark writes from Zolani: On the outskirts of this overcrowded township in South Africa’s Cape Winelands, Phumlani Zota, a 32-year-old pig farmer, sifted through piles of waste in a refuse dump beneath the Langeberg mountains, filling a burlap sack with scraps of food for his livestock. “There is not enough land here,” he told me. Yet on all sides, the impoverished settlement was hemmed in by great tracts of white-owned farmland, neat rows of fruit trees and grapevines punctuated…

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Why speech is a human innovation

Why speech is a human innovation

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By Tom Siegfried Except for various cartoon characters, the Geico Gecko and Mr. Ed, animals can’t speak. Yet they have a lot to say to scientists trying to figure out the origins of human language. Speaking isn’t the only avenue for language. After all, linguistic messaging can be transmitted by hand signals. Or handwriting. Or texting. But speech is the original and most basic mode of human communication. So understanding its origins ought to generate deeper comprehension of language more…

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Biodiversity crisis is about to put humanity at risk, UN scientists to warn

Biodiversity crisis is about to put humanity at risk, UN scientists to warn

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The Guardian reports: The world’s leading scientists will warn the planet’s life-support systems are approaching a danger zone for humanity when they release the results of the most comprehensive study of life on Earth ever undertaken. Up to 1m species are at risk of annihilation, many within decades, according to a leaked draft of the global assessment report, which has been compiled over three years by the UN’s leading research body on nature. The 1,800-page study will show people living…

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Inslee rolls out sweeping climate plan, setting new standard for 2020 Democrats

Inslee rolls out sweeping climate plan, setting new standard for 2020 Democrats

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Think Progress reports: Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democratic presidential candidate who has dedicated his entire campaign to addressing the climate crisis, unveiled his first major policy proposal Friday morning. The ambitious plan charts a course other presidential contenders may follow as climate change becomes a top issue for the crowded primary field. Calling climate change “the defining challenge of our time” in a statement, Inslee described his proposal as “a bold and aggressive national policy” to slash greenhouse gas…

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If William Barr continues to defy subpoenas, Watergate offers House Democrats several options

If William Barr continues to defy subpoenas, Watergate offers House Democrats several options

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Michael Conway writes: The House Judiciary Committee grappled 45 years ago with the same thorny issue that it faces this week: how to respond to an executive branch defiantly refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas. That committee is currently dealing with the Trump administration’s refusal to comply with its subpoena for the unredacted report (and its supporting documents) of special counsel Robert Mueller and contemplating issuing one to compel the testimony of Attorney General William Barr, who refused an invitation…

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Watergate had the Nixon tapes. Mueller had Annie Donaldson’s notes

Watergate had the Nixon tapes. Mueller had Annie Donaldson’s notes

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The Washington Post reports: The notes, scribbled rapidly on a legal pad, captured the fear inside the White House when President Trump raged over the Russia investigation and decreed he was firing the FBI director who led it: “Is this the beginning of the end?” The angst-filled entry is part of a shorthand diary that chronicled the chaotic days in Trump’s West Wing, a trove that the special counsel report cited more than 65 times as part of the evidence…

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Major media outlets’ Twitter accounts amplify false Trump claims on average 19 times a day, study finds

Major media outlets’ Twitter accounts amplify false Trump claims on average 19 times a day, study finds

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Media Matters reports: Major media outlets failed to rebut President Donald Trump’s misinformation 65% of the time in their tweets about his false or misleading comments, according to a Media Matters review. That means the outlets amplified Trump’s misinformation more than 400 times over the three-week period of the study — a rate of 19 per day. The data shows that news outlets are still failing to grapple with a major problem that media critics highlighted during the Trump transition:…

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Martin Buber’s vision of Zionism as a cultural rather than political movement

Martin Buber’s vision of Zionism as a cultural rather than political movement

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Adam Kirsch writes: In 1917, when the Zionists were celebrating Britain’s endorsement of their aims in the Balfour Declaration, Buber objected that he did not envision the redemption of the Jews as something that could be achieved through political victories. Later, after Buber moved to Jerusalem, in 1938, he opposed a Jewish declaration of statehood, arguing that Palestine should become a binational state shared by Arabs and Jews. And, after the State of Israel came into being, in 1948, Buber…

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