Families were subjected to around-the-clock visits from deputies, who often arrived without evidence of a crime.
Criminal justice experts said they were stunned by the agency’s practices. They compared the tactics to child abuse, mafia harassment and surveillance that could be expected under an authoritarian regime.
Donor money is helping pay for a dizzying array of litigation filed by the president or against him.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/05/us/politics/trump-docket-legal-bills.html
It helps explain why he and his political allies have spent nearly $60 million of donor money on legal and compliance bills since 2015, far more than any other president.
President Trump has sparked dangerous lawlessness, but killing and destruction linked to political antagonisms are nothing new for this country.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/14/our-long-forgotten-history-of-election-related-violence
The likelihood of political violence was also apparent from the start. Trump’s 2016 rallies tipped over into displays of aggression directed at the media and at those who opposed him. Such is the chaos of today that we’ve nearly forgotten that, two years ago, Cesar Sayoc mailed pipe bombs to Obama, Clinton, and fourteen others he believed had treated Trump unfairly. Sayoc pleaded guilty; his lawyers described him as “a Donald Trump super-fan” who suffered from mental illness, leaving him vulnerable to the antagonisms of the political climate. The twenty-one-year-old Patrick Crusius was charged with fatally shooting twenty-three people in El Paso last year. The language of an anti-immigrant manifesto he allegedly posted before the shooting was noted for its echoes of Trump’s rationalizations for building his border wall. (Crusius pleaded not guilty.) This May, the Michigan legislature temporarily shut down, after armed militia members entered the capitol to protest the state’s stay-at-home order. A couple of weeks earlier, Trump had tweeted, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”
The U.S. President and the bureaucracy reacted slowly to the arrest of Paul Whelan, who was declared a spy and sentenced to sixteen years in a Russian prison colony.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-american-prisoner-in-russia-trapped-between-putin-trump-and-thoroughly-soured-us-russian-relations
For all their uncertainty about the exact origins of the case, U.S. officials understood perfectly how the Kremlin wanted it resolved. Russia’s Ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, was “unbelievably explicit” in meetings with White House officials, according to the former U.S. official. Initially, Antonov proposed trading Whelan for three Russians in U.S. prisons: Maria Butina, a woman who had grown close to Republican operatives and National Rifle Association officials, and was convicted of acting as an unregistered Russian agent, in April, 2019; Viktor Bout, a notoriously prolific arms trader who was apprehended in a sting operation in Thailand, in 2008, and convicted by a U.S. court three years later; and Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot serving a twenty-year federal sentence for a drug-smuggling plot.
President Trump will try to put the media on the ballot, and reporters face the increasing temptation to posture for those most eager to oust him.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/06/business/media/trump-election-journalists.html
Lewis Raven Wallace, the author of a provocative new case against detached, “objective,” journalism called The View From Somewhere, takes it further, arguing that reporters should get out of the White House briefing room entirely. “If they are serious about safeguarding democracy, they need to be building collective power around not even being in that room anymore” Mr. Wallace said in an interview.
The forced departures highlight souring relations between the two countries and Beijing’s increasingly heavy-handed tactics to limit independent journalism.
The Australian Financial Review reported that Chinese investigators sought to question Mr. Birtles and Mr. Smith about Cheng Lei, a Chinese-born Australian business news anchor for China’s CGTN television service who was detained in August.
At the height of his powers, the Black-nationalist leader was assassinated, and the government botched the investigation of his murder.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-day-malcolm-x-was-killed
When the shots went off on February 21st, the Ballroom descended into chaos. Shrieking audience members broke for cover. Betty dove beneath some chairs, shielding her children and shouting, “They’re killing my husband; they’re killing my husband.” Bradley, the shotgun man, dropped his warm weapon, wrapped in a green suit jacket, on the stage. Davis also dropped his weapon, to avoid being recognized. Hayer, the least experienced assassin, held onto his pistol, giving away his role in the plot. The shooters maintained a military crouch and headed for the rear exit, two hundred feet away. “I saw the three gunmen coming up the middle aisle,” Roberts said. From five feet away, Hayer shot at Roberts, who dodged. “The bullet went through my suit jacket,” he said. Roberts threw a chair, momentarily knocking Hayer down. When Hayer finally made it outside, he was shot in the leg by another of Malcolm’s guards. Bradley and Davis screeched off in a Cadillac, but the crowd caught Hayer, pummelling him. He was eventually pulled from the mob by the police and arrested.
Nine years after the C.I.A. blacked out parts of Ali Soufan’s book, the agency has finally allowed a more complete version of his story to be published.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/us/politics/ali-soufan-memoir-cia-torture.html
According to the book, the accidental act of showing Mr. Zubaydah a wrong photograph while asking about someone else helped Mr. Soufan uncover a crucial fact: Mr. Mohammed was the planner of the Sept. 11 attacks. Three years later, in 2005, the C.I.A. misled the Justice Department into believing that big break followed its use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” when seeking renewed legal blessing for its torture program.
With the election hanging in the balance, Republican leaders continue a long fight over voting rights.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/07/who-gets-to-vote-in-florida
The scrutiny that followed focussed on Florida’s balloting problems. Another factor received far less attention: a Republican effort, beginning before the election, that prevented thousands of eligible voters from casting ballots.
Under a new national security law, the police are targeting the social media accounts of executives, politicians and activists. American internet giants are struggling to respond.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/technology/hong-kong-national-security-law.html
When officers swarmed him at a Hong Kong shopping mall last month, they pulled him into a stairwell and pinned his head in front of his phone — an attempt to trigger the facial recognition system. Later, at his home, officers forced his finger onto a separate phone. Then they demanded passwords.
Everyone has an opinion when it comes to the stunning results of DARPA’s AlphaDogfight trials, now hear what the skipper of a fighter squadron thinks.
via The Drive: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35947/navy-f-a-18-squadron-commanders-take-on-ai-repeatedly-beating-real-pilot-in-dogfight
In true gamesmanship fashion, the guns-only BFM engagement was the setting for the AlphaDogfight contest. So what jumped out at me about the engagements? Three main points. First was the aggressive use of accurate forward quarter gun employment. Second, was the AI’s efficient use of energy. Lastly was the AI’s ability to maintain high-performance turns.
Tech oracle Jaron Lanier saw the evils of social media platforms before anyone else. Now he talks about whether Twitter activism really works, how to fix Facebook, and why he won’t be joining Silicon Valley’s overlords in New Zealand.
via GQ: https://www.gq.com/story/jaron-lanier-tech-oracle-profile
Every day Google and Facebook and other tech companies become more powerful and sophisticated by analyzing you and your choices—what you click on, how long you pause to watch an ad or a YouTube video—and the stories you write and the songs you record, and they charge advertisers money to access this information, and grow their own companies with it, but they don’t pay you for your contribution. They don’t even really acknowledge that you are contributing, as if artificial intelligence came from nowhere, instead of from data derived from you and me. “In the information age,” Lanier said, “we’re all workers and consumers and entrepreneurs at the same time.” What if, Lanier suggested, we got paid for our labor in this system? By recognizing the roles we play in building the future, Lanier said, we might give ourselves a chance to be meaningful participants in it. “When a person is empowered to make a difference, they become more of a full person,” he said. “They awaken spiritually.”
Phillips had been waiting for me to arrive for half an hour. He was desperate to talk to someone, even if that person…
via London Review of Books: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n15/james-lomax/diary
was sitting next to a Coca-Cola sales exec on the flight to Ashgabat. ‘I hope you’ve got the right-sized photo,’ he said. ‘If you haven’t …’ He gave a short, sharp whistle through his teeth and jerked his thumb backwards: ‘Home you will go.’ Arrivals in Turkmenistan can only get visas at the airport and it is a notoriously hit and miss affair. I showed the man my photo. I would have to present it to the immigration officials, along with my letter of invitation and my official fee in cash. He produced his noticeably larger photo. ‘Or maybe you could pay a little extra.’ He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and laughed. I laughed with him.
Myka and James Stauffer adopted a toddler from China and shared every step of the process with their online audience. Except the last.
via The Cut: https://www.thecut.com/2020/08/youtube-myka-james-stauffer-huxley-adoption.html
In the Stauffers’ case, most of the vitriol was aimed at Myka. One Instagram account, Cancel Myka Stauffer, which goes by the handle @mykastauffer.liar, has more than 11,000 followers. An online petition with more than 154,000 supporters demanded that Myka’s monetized videos with Huxley be removed from YouTube. Followers appeared angry not only on behalf of Huxley but also because Myka had committed the ultimate influencer sin: ghosting on those who’d become invested in her story right when the plot twisted.
Our columnists and contributors give their rankings.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/opinion/rnc-best-worst-night-2.html
Héctor Tobar Trump’s signing a pardon and staging a naturalization ceremony, with grateful people of color. These prime-time acts of White House theater were a cynical attempt to erase years of race-baiting and anti-immigrant rhetoric. We haven’t forgotten, Mr. President: You’re still the same man who questioned Barack Obama’s citizenship, praised white supremacists and caged thousands of immigrant children.
A taxpayer-funded trip was used to aid the President’s reëlection effort.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/at-the-republican-national-convention-a-vacuous-pompeo-speech-for-an-empty-trump-foreign-policy
As Trump seeks reëlection, some of the toughest criticism on his foreign policy is from other Republicans, including a scathing joint condemnation last week by seventy-five senior Republican officials from four Administrations. “Without question, Trump has denigrated our standing with friends and with foes. They all think less of us,” Richard Armitage, one of the signatories, and the Deputy Secretary of State during the George W. Bush Administration and Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan Administration, told me. “Our standing globally has not been this low since the end of the Cold War and probably not since before World War Two. . . . People don’t really care about us. They’re so over us because of this guy.”
Our columnists and contributors give their rankings.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/opinion/rnc-best-worst-night-3.html
Matt Labash Like most Americans, I lost sleep, staying up all night waiting to receive the words of the electrifying Mike Pence. (JK! I’d rather watch fingernails grow.) I wouldn’t buy a used Hyundai from this guy, let alone buy what he tells me about Donald Trump. He is the perfect embodiment of insincere sincerity. He doesn’t believe a word he says, and I don’t either. The only thing he believes in any longer is how high D.J.T. tells him to jump — over the shark, over the chasm of respectability, etc. The greatest gift Donald Trump has given us, is making Mike Pence completely unviable to be a future president of the United States. For that, we owe him.
The great irony, and outrage, of Pence’s speech is that, as the head of the White House’s coronavirus task force since February, he’s had a unique and closeup view of Trump’s actual response to the pandemic.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/mike-pences-big-lie-about-trump-and-the-coronavirus-at-the-republican-national-convention
The great irony, and outrage, of Pence’s speech is that, as the head of the White House’s coronavirus task force since February, he’s had a unique and closeup view of Trump’s actual response to the pandemic. The constant belittling of the virus’s threat; the claims that it would go away of its own accord; the quack remedies, including injecting disinfectant into stricken patients; the squabbling with governors, even Republican ones, who called out the inadequacy of his actions; the urging states to reopen their economies even as they failed to meet the guidelines that Pence’s task force had laid down; the months of defiant refusal to wear a mask; and, in the end, the decision to effectively give up on the whole thing and move on.
Our columnists and contributors give their rankings.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/opinion/rnc-best-worst-trump-night-4.html
Ross Douthat The inability of any speaker, civilian or politician, to resolve the tension between the usual incumbent claims that Things Have Never Been Better and the grim reality of the Covid-19 death rate and the unemployment rate. There were other tensions — blaming Biden for being too tough on crime in the 1990s and blaming him for being too lax on crime now; claiming Americans won’t be safe in Biden’s presidency by citing trends that have worsened under Trump. But the basic problem for this convention is that the Republicans were trying to sell an incumbent administration that failed to prevent a continuing crisis — evident in the very design of the convention itself — and nobody tonight, up to Trump himself, had any rhetorical solution save evasion.
The most terrifying thing is not that Putin might have issued orders to kill perceived enemies but that anyone from the ruling circle can use the over-all dysfunction and impunity of Putin’s system to do so on their own.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/what-navalnys-poisoning-really-says-about-the-current-state-of-putins-russia
In the killing of Nemtsov, the trail appeared to lead to security forces and officials close to Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman ruler of Chechnya who makes a demonstrative performance of his loyalty, regularly calling himself Putin’s “foot soldier.” A Moscow court convicted a handful of Chechen men for the murder, but prosecutors declined to follow the chain of culpability any higher. Similarly, when Verzilov was poisoned, he had been looking into the killings of three Russian journalists in Africa, who themselves had been investigating the private army of Evgeny Prigozhin, a powerful businessman close to the Kremlin and the defense ministry.