Zuckerberg’s so-called shift toward privacy

Zuckerberg’s so-called shift toward privacy

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Zeynep Tufekci writes: I was tempted to roll my eyes on Wednesday when Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, posted a manifesto outlining his plan to make social networking more “privacy-focused” and less about the public disclosure of information. Why take seriously someone who has repeatedly promised — but seldom delivered — improvements to Facebook’s privacy practices? This is a company, after all, that signed a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission agreeing to improve how it handles the personal…

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Donald Trump ‘has become an agent of climate change’

Donald Trump ‘has become an agent of climate change’

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Think Progress reports: The Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to weaken or dismantle climate efforts would increase CO2 emissions by more than 200 million tons annually, taking a severe toll on public health, according to a new report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at New York University’s (NYU) law school. Sectors responsible for nearly half of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are benefiting from rollbacks and weakened regulations at the expense of U.S. residents, according…

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Using RICO to take down the Trump Organization and its boss

Using RICO to take down the Trump Organization and its boss

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Garrett M. Graff writes: It took prosecutors a while to figure out how to use RICO [the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] effectively, but by the mid-1980s, federal investigators in the Southern District of New York were hitting their stride under none other than the crusading United States attorney Rudy Giuliani, who as the head of the Southern District brought charges in 1985 against the heads of the city’s five dominant Mafia families. Ever since, S.D.N.Y. prosecutors and…

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Rep. Adam Schiff hires prosecutor who fought Russian organized crime to lead investigation of Trump Administration

Rep. Adam Schiff hires prosecutor who fought Russian organized crime to lead investigation of Trump Administration

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Jeffrey Toobin writes: Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has hired a veteran prosecutor with experience fighting Russian organized crime to lead his investigation of the Trump Administration. Last month, according to a committee source, Daniel Goldman, who served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 2007 to 2017, joined the committee’s staff as a senior adviser and the director of investigations. The hiring of Goldman,…

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Want to combat hate? Stop the hazing of Ilhan Omar and start listening

Want to combat hate? Stop the hazing of Ilhan Omar and start listening

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Wajahat Ali and Rabia Chaudry write: The firestorm around Rep. Ilhan Omar’s recent tweets about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and criticism of Israel has drawn attention to what language rises to the level of anti-Semitism, the shameful double standards for Muslims and people of color, and how anti-Semitism is often hypocritically used as a political bludgeon. GOP leadership has called for an official censure and her removal from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and House Democrats called…

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White supremacists have launched a stealthy propaganda offensive

White supremacists have launched a stealthy propaganda offensive

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Carla Hill writes: American white supremacists are facing a dilemma: They want to share their hateful ideology, but they don’t want to face the consequences. They want to find an audience for their racism and anti-Semitism, but they don’t want to get caught. Under increased scrutiny from law enforcement and the media, how do they disseminate their racist ideas and recruit new members, but also limit the risk of doxing, firing and ostracism that comes with public exposure? Within the…

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Why Zionism is incompatible with the rule of law

Why Zionism is incompatible with the rule of law

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I'm a Jew. I'm not a Zionist. I believe Israel is a key ally. I also believe the current gov't of Israel is a menace & a serial human rights violator & many of its policies are not in the U.S. interest. Being critical of that gov't is in the interest of both the US & Israel. — David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) March 5, 2019

The Tunisian-Italian rapper who won over Europe’s most anti-immigrant country

The Tunisian-Italian rapper who won over Europe’s most anti-immigrant country

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Rachael Allen writes: One rainy Monday evening in October, a cheering crowd welcomed Ghali Amdouni back to Milan, his hometown. Born to Tunisian immigrants, Ghali, as he is known, was raised by his mother in a poor neighborhood where for a time they slept on carpets and cooked with camping stoves. Tonight, she stood beside him onstage and blew kisses to the nearly 13,000 people who had come to hear him perform trap music, the originally grim variety of hip-hop…

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Unrepresentative democracy: The defining political fact of our time is that the public’s main concerns are being ignored

Unrepresentative democracy: The defining political fact of our time is that the public’s main concerns are being ignored

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Tim Wu writes: We are told that America is divided and polarized as never before. Yet when it comes to many important areas of policy, that simply isn’t true. About 75 percent of Americans favor higher taxes for the ultrawealthy. The idea of a federal law that would guarantee paid maternity leave attracts 67 percent support. Eighty-three percent favor strong net neutrality rules for broadband, and more than 60 percent want stronger privacy laws. Seventy-one percent think we should be…

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The shameless smearing of Ilhan Omar

The shameless smearing of Ilhan Omar

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Just randomly overheard @realDonaldTrump on @CNN call @RepAdamSchiff "little shifty Schiff." Doubt it will even make the papers. Think for a second what would have happened if @IlhanMN or @RashidaTlaib had said that. Then ask yourselves what explains the double standard — Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) March 3, 2019 Paul Waldman writes: The whole purpose of the Democrats’ resolution [ostensibly rejecting anti-Semitism] is to enforce dual loyalty not among Jews, but among members of Congress, to make sure that criticism of…

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Debunking the myth that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic

Debunking the myth that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic

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Peter Beinart writes: It’s a bewildering and alarming time to be a Jew, both because anti-Semitism is rising and because so many politicians are responding to it not by protecting Jews but by victimizing Palestinians. On February 16, members of France’s Yellow Vest protest movement hurled anti-Semitic insults at the distinguished French Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut. On February 19, swastikas were found on 80 gravestones in Alsace. Two days later, French President Emmanuel Macron, after announcing that Europe was “facing…

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Rumours grow of rift between Saudi king and crown prince

Rumours grow of rift between Saudi king and crown prince

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The Guardian reports: There are growing signs of a potentially destabilising rift between the king of Saudi Arabia and his heir, the Guardian has been told. King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are understood to have disagreed over a number of important policy issues in recent weeks, including the war in Yemen. The unease is said to have been building since the murder in Turkey of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the…

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Global warming has already raised the risk of more severe droughts in Cape Town

Global warming has already raised the risk of more severe droughts in Cape Town

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Cape Town residents queuing for water during the water crisis. Shutterstock Mark New, University of Cape Town; Friederike Otto, University of Oxford, and Piotr Wolski, University of Cape Town Between 2015 and 2017 South Africa’s South Western Cape region experienced three of its lowest rainfall years on record. This led to the progressive depletion of water supply reservoirs and by the summer of 2017/18 there was a real danger that – without drastic reductions in water use – the region,…

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On a continent wracked with epidemics, millions turn to traditional healers

On a continent wracked with epidemics, millions turn to traditional healers

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The New York Times reports: Across the African continent, according to the World Health Organization, there are about 80 times as many traditional healers as there are medical doctors. Millions of Africans consult healers but, studies suggest, usually do not admit it if they see doctors, too. In Congo, doctors now fighting Ebola believe that many of their patients first get infected while visiting such healers. They may arrive at the home of someone like Mr. Muriisa [who the reporter…

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