Category: news

A review of the latest news and weirdness.

Take Action: There’s nothing OK about the idea of a Muslim registry

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My colleague Khadija at MomsRising asks how we will explain this to our kids. How can I tell my son, who only has a dawning understanding of how our nation was founded on the principle of religious freedom, that our own government is preparing to single out people based on their faith or ethnicity and take away their rights?

As a Jewish family we are even more profoundly aware of how dangerous this kind of thinking is. The racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim fervor that has been inspired and embraced by Donald Trump is more than reminiscent of Weimar Germany when Hitler was able to step in to a leadership vacuum and wasn’t taken seriously by the people who thought he was crazy until it was much too late.

Please join me in signing this open letter to President Obama now to protect Muslim families from having to register.

 

(Photo: Dorothea Lange – American internees in mess hall line at Tanforan Assembly Center San Bruno CA April 29, 1942.)

Keep Pounding: how grassroots organizing and popular protest defeated NC’s bathroom governor

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Analysis from Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling on how Pat McCrory shoved through unpopular policies (including but very definitely not limited to HB2) and then wasn’t able to hide from the people thanks to the Moral Monday protest movement!

Pushing back hard on McCrory worked. The seeds of his final defeat today were very much planted in the summer of 2013. And it’s a lesson for progressives in dealing with Trump. Push back hard from day one. Be visible. Capture the public’s attention, no matter what you have to do to do it. Don’t count on the media to do it itself because the media will let you down. The protesters in North Carolina, by making news in their own right week after week after week, forced sustained coverage of what was going on in Raleigh. And even though it was certainly a long game, with plenty more frustration in between, those efforts led to change at the polls 42 months after they really started.

Keep Pounding.

Source: Why Pat McCrory Lost and What It Means in Trump’s America – Public Policy Polling

“Aberrations”

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So many import and disturbing updates in Micah Sifry’s latest First Post at Civicist: Aberrations.

This point from Evan Osnos in The New Yorker probably freaked me out the most:

“Since Election Day, Trump has largely avoided receiving intelligence briefings, either because he doesn’t think it’s important that he receive them or because he just doesn’t care about them. George W. Bush, in the first months of 2001, ignored warnings about Osama bin Laden. Only in our darkest imaginings can we wonder what warnings Trump is ignoring now.”

Also, I learned a new word “Americanism.”

The Real Voter Fraud: How Trump Used Facebook to Suppress Voting

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This is the story of how the Trump campaign used data to target African Americans and young women with $150 million dollars of Facebook and Instagram advertisements in the final weeks of the election, quietly launching the most successful digital voter suppression operation in American history.

Throughout the campaign, President-Elect Donald J. Trump shrewdly invested in Facebook advertisements to reach his supporters and raise campaign donations. Facing a short-fall of momentum and voter support in the polls, the Trump campaign deployed its custom database, named Project Alamo, containing detailed identity profiles on 220 million people in America.

With Project Alamo as ammunition, the Trump digital operations team covertly executed a massive digital last-stand strategy using targeted Facebook ads to ‘discourage’ Hillary Clinton supporters from voting. The Trump campaign poured money and resources into political advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, the Facebook Audience Network, and Facebook data-broker partners.

Source: How the Trump Campaign Built an Identity Database and Used Facebook Ads to Win the Election – Startup Grind – Medium

Annals of Normalization

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My friend and mentor Micah Sifry wrote Annals of Normalization: The Trump-Times Meeting about the very real danger of normalizing Trump’s presidency, highlighting how The New York Times is literally incapable of reporting on him accurately.

So, in the first 15 minutes of Trump’s meeting with the Times’ top brass, he offers a completely unrehearsed word salad, reminiscing about things that didn’t happen. And then the meeting continues without anyone blinking and saying, excuse me sir, nothing you just said makes any sense.
This is Trump’s reality distortion field. And even on their home turf, surrounded by colleagues, no one at the Times had the gumption to really puncture it.

Women with feelings: we can’t win

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Apparently the mere existence of women’s emotions is perceived negatively. At the end of this article, supposedly-liberal Bill Maher even went on to criticize Ellen DeGeneres for crying on TV because (he says) it makes women look weak and not qualified to be President. WTF!

“Women are not making it up when they say they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t,” said Stephanie Shields, the psychology professor who conducted the study. “If you don’t express any emotion, you’re seen as not human, like Mr. Spock on ‘Star Trek,'” she said. “But too much crying, or the wrong kind, and you’re labeled as overemotional, out of control, and possibly irrational.”
[…]
“When men express anger they gain status, but when women express anger they lose status,” Yale social psychologist Victoria Brescoll, who conducted three experiments on how people perceive female anger, said in an interview.
– The crying game: male vs female tears – Yahoo! News

I’m so angry I could cry. Damn you, feelings!

Burma is burning

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Here’s an update on Burma that I just posted at the FORpeace blog:

[avatars in red t-shirts] Over the past week there have been countless demonstrations around the world is support of freedom and democracy in Burma. Even in the virtual world of Second Life there has been a red t-shirt campaign and a "human chain" action to bring people together, spread the word, and show support for the people of Burma. On Flickr you can see many more pictures of this innovative action as well as photos from demonstrations around the world calling for peace and justice in Burma.

[Israeli protest]Our colleagues at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship have been hard at work and have a lot of information to share including this list of Burma events around the U.S. and the world, a collection of statements from Buddhist communities in support of their brethren in Burma, and most importantly an updated list of what we can do to support the people marching for democracy in Burma.

Continue reading “Burma is burning” →

Libby gets off

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Anyone surprised?

President Bush commuted the sentence of former aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Monday, sparing him from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case. Bush left intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation for Libby, according to a senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision had not been announced.
– Bush Commutes Libby Prison Sentence – washingtonpost.com

It’s the definition of impunity.

Welcome to politics, Dr. Lessig

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This is pretty exciting news. Lawrence Lessig has been the leadership driving the Creative Commons and “free culture” movement. He is brilliant and widely respected in geek circles. Last week he announced that he is shifting his research and advocacy away from intellectual property issues and toward the corrupting influence of money in politics.

I suggest he look up my friends at Democracy South as well as other grassroots activists who have been working on this issue for many years.

Draft the Bush twins

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According to Lawrence Korb, a former senior Pentagon personnel official now affiliated with the Center for Defense Information and the Center for American Progress:

The current use of ground forces in Iraq represents a complete misuse of the all-volunteer military…

If the United States is going to have a significant component of its ground forces in Iraq over the next five, 10, 15 or 30 years, then the responsible course is for the president and those supporting this open-ended and escalated presence in Iraq to call for reinstating the draft.
– Experts: Force increases may not be enough – Military News, Marine Corps News, opinions, editorials, news from Iraq, photos, reports – Marine Corps Times

And… Continue reading “Draft the Bush twins” →