Music: Vusi Mahlasela — ‘Faceless People’
Twitter once muzzled Russian and Chinese state propaganda. That’s over now
NPR reports: Dmitry Medvedev, a leading government official and former president of Russia, took to Twitter earlier this month to denigrate Ukraine in a post using language reminiscent of genocidal regimes. And Twitter didn’t stop him. In his 645-word tweet titled, “WHY WILL UKRAINE DISAPPEAR? BECAUSE NOBODY NEEDS IT,” Medvedev called Ukraine a “Nazi regime,” “blood-sucking parasites” and “a threadbare quilt, torn, shaggy, and greasy.” The post garnered more than 7,000 retweets and 11,000 likes. One response, though, asked Twitter…
Kremlin tries to build antiwar coalition in Germany, documents show
The Washington Post reports: When 13,000 demonstrators gathered at the Brandenburg Gate on Feb. 25 to call for an end to weapons supplies to Ukraine, the protest was led by Sahra Wagenknecht, a member of parliament for Germany’s far-left Die Linke party and a firebrand with national ambitions. Wagenknecht decried the prospect that German tanks, soon to be delivered to Ukraine, could once again be used to shoot at “Russian women and men.” “We don’t want Germany to be drawn…
‘A quick death or a slow death’: Russian prisoners choose war to get lifesaving drugs
The New York Times reports: In Russian prisons, they said they were deprived of effective treatments for their H.I.V. On the battlefield in Ukraine, they were offered hope, with the promise of anti-viral medications if they agreed to fight. It was a recruiting pitch that worked for many Russian prisoners. About 20 percent of recruits in Russian prisoner units are H.I.V. positive, Ukrainian authorities estimate based on infection rates in captured soldiers. Serving on the front lines seemed less risky…
Rightwing edgelords are the real threat to national security
Vice News reports: Since the beginning of the Biden Administration, the GOP has painstakingly attacked the Pentagon as a “woke” institution that’s somehow morphing the military and the nation into a soft power. Drag queen story hours and “DEI” (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) training have become buzzwords for institutional rot, popping up on Fox News and in congressional committees as national security threats destroying the Department of Defense. Then last week it was revealed that perhaps the most damaging unauthorized disclosure of U.S….
Why so many top Republicans want to go to war in Mexico
Zack Beauchamp writes: One of the hottest new ideas in Republican politics is, apparently, launching a war in Mexico. Three recent articles — in Rolling Stone, Politico, and Semafor — traced the rise of the proposal from obscurity to the party’s highest levels, finding ample evidence of the idea’s popularity in the GOP ranks. Former President Donald Trump, for example, has been asking for a “battle plan” to “attack Mexico,” specifically targeting drug cartel strongholds in the country. Every single declared Republican presidential candidate has endorsed…
The dangerous rise of ‘front-yard politics’
Derek Thompson writes: Several months ago, while walking through my neighborhood in Washington, D.C., I noticed an impressive number of front-lawn placards celebrating and welcoming refugees. The signs made me proud. I like living in a place where people openly celebrate tolerance and diversity. Several days later, my pride curdled into bitterness. As part of some reporting on housing policy, I found a State Department page offering advice to Afghans and Iraqis resettling in the U.S. The upshot: Stay away…
Consciousness begins with feeling, not thinking
Antonio Damasio and Hanna Damasio write: Please pause for a moment and notice what you are feeling now. Perhaps you notice a growing snarl of hunger in your stomach or a hum of stress in your chest. Perhaps you have a feeling of ease and expansiveness, or the tingling anticipation of a pleasure soon to come. Or perhaps you simply have a sense that you exist. Hunger and thirst, pain, pleasure and distress, along with the unadorned but relentless feelings…
Music: NOVA — ‘Samba De Orly’
Fox News’s settlement in the Dominion case is big news, except on Fox News
The New York Times reports: Fox News’s last-minute settlement with Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday earned banner coverage on every television news network but one: Fox News. The $787.5 million settlement was covered only three times by Fox News in about four hours after the settlement became public, amounting to about six minutes of coverage. For most of the day, including during the network’s prime-time shows, hosts appeared to be focusing on other issues, like illegal immigration and Covid-19’s possible…
Fox can claim tax writeoff for defamation settlement
The Lever reports: Fox’s massive settlement with private equity-backed voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems didn’t just spare the conservative news organization from a lengthy public defamation trial or a full public reckoning for its election lies — it could also mean a tax break as large as $213 million, according to a Lever review. On Tuesday, Fox News and its parent company Fox Corporation agreed to pay a $787 million settlement to Dominion, the largest-known media defamation payout in U.S. history, concluding two years of litigation over…
Top GOP lawyer decries ease of campus voting in private pitch to RNC
The Washington Post reports: A top Republican legal strategist told a roomful of GOP donors over the weekend that conservatives must band together to limit voting on college campuses, same-day voter registration and automatic mailing of ballots to registered voters, according to a copy of her presentation reviewed by The Washington Post. Cleta Mitchell, a longtime GOP lawyer and fundraiser who worked closely with former president Donald Trump to try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, gave…
With a heavy weight on his shoulders, Evan Gershkovich is standing tall
Jason Rezaian writes: As Evan Gershkovich appeared in a Moscow courtroom, everything about the stage-managed proceedings was designed to elicit a specific response. He was placed in a glass cage where cameras flashed around him. Local Russian journalists covering the appearance yelled words of encouragement to him. Courtroom security guards admonished them for doing so. And the judge presiding over Gershkovich’s case rejected his appeal to be released on bail. In short, everyone played their part. Everyone, that is, except…
World could face record temperatures in 2023 as El Nino returns
Reuters reports: The world could breach a new average temperature record in 2023 or 2024, fuelled by climate change and the anticipated return of the El Nino weather phenomenon, climate scientists say. Climate models suggest that after three years of the La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which generally lowers global temperatures slightly, the world will experience a return to El Nino, the warmer counterpart, later this year. During El Nino, winds blowing west along the equator slow…
Why the food system is the next frontier in climate action
Yale Climate Connections reports: While recent federal bills have advanced climate solutions through the lenses of infrastructure, electricity production, and transportation, policymakers are now turning their attention to another major source of planet-heating emissions: the food system. In its March 2023 report on U.S. biotechnology and biomanufacturing innovation, the White House emphasized a coming focus on climate-centric agriculture. In February, a group of House representatives launched a task force to ensure that the 2023 farm bill contains strong climate provisions….
Why the brain’s connections to the body are crisscrossed
R. Douglas Fields writes: Dazzling intricacies of brain structure are revealed every day, but one of the most obvious aspects of brain wiring eludes neuroscientists. The nervous system is cross-wired, so that the left side of the brain controls the right half of the body and vice versa. Every doctor relies upon this fact in performing neurological exams, but when I asked my doctor last week why this should be, all I got was a shrug. So I asked Catherine…