 09 November 19 Your Wonderful and Indispensable Work
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08 November 19
Andy Borowitz | Bloomberg Offers Trump Ten Billion Dollars to Leave White House by End of Day
Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "The former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg upended the 2020 Presidential race on Friday by offering Donald J. Trump ten billion dollars to leave the White House by the end of the day."
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Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez questions Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., Oct. 23, 2019. (photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "The former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg upended the 2020 Presidential race on Friday by offering Donald J. Trump ten billion dollars to leave the White House by the end of the day."
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Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez questions Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., Oct. 23, 2019. (photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
A Facebook Ban on Political Ads Would Be a Major Blow to the Left. Just Look at AOC's Campaign.
Ryan Grim, The Intercept
Grim writes: "Though it hasn't been widely explored, the campaign of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fueled her rise, and the rise of a movement, by deftly combining on-the-ground organizing with sophisticated targeting on Facebook - the type of targeting that she has called for Facebook to ban if it will not commit to blocking ads that contain lies."
EXCERPTS:
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The judge said that the Trump administration's justification for the rule's existence was 'flatly untrue.' (photo: Andrew Caballero-reynolds/Getty)
Ryan Grim, The Intercept
Grim writes: "Though it hasn't been widely explored, the campaign of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fueled her rise, and the rise of a movement, by deftly combining on-the-ground organizing with sophisticated targeting on Facebook - the type of targeting that she has called for Facebook to ban if it will not commit to blocking ads that contain lies."
EXCERPTS:
Yet as insurgent candidates are within striking distance of realigning Democratic Party politics, Democrats — including Ocasio-Cortez — are pressuring Silicon Valley to cut off the very route that they have taken to power by banning political advertising on social media. Last week, progressives cheered when Twitter announced a ban on political ads, and Google is reportedly considering moving in that direction as well.
Ocasio-Cortez was quick to endorse the move, and progressives largely cheered it. She added that she believed the ban should extend to any social media company unwilling to take responsibility for fact-checking:
This is a good call. Technology - and social media especially - has a powerful responsibility in preserving the integrity of our elections.
Not allowing for paid disinformation is one of the most basic, ethical decisions a company can make.
/1 twitter.com/jack/status/11…
Many folks have asked whether I believe all social media political ads should be banned outright.
I believe that if a company cannot or does not wish to run basic fact-checking on paid political advertising, then they should not run paid political ads at all. /2
2,381 people are talking about this
By the end of Ocasio-Cortez’s thread, she seemed to be leaving some wiggle room in her position, noting she runs social media ads herself, and only wants companies to block “outright disinformation: wrong vote records, etc.”
The problem with asking Facebook to censor ads, critics argue, is that it puts too much power in the hands of those in a privileged position to determine what is true and what is false. Facebook, in its halting efforts at fact-checking, has aligned with an independent organization that allows the right-wing Daily Caller, itself a jumble of misinformation and propaganda, to serve as a fact checker. The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, meanwhile, routinely declares obviously true things said by progressive politicians, including Ocasio-Cortez, to be false.
If the point of fact-checking is to enforce some objective standard, why would @GlennKesslerWP use a Walmart-funded think tank as reference material for wage fairness?
That’s like citing the foxes to fact-check the hens.
Here’s 4 Geppettos for your contested Pinocchiostwitter.com/andrewperezdc/…
7,155 people are talking about this
Zuckerberg has steadfastly refused to adopt a ban so far, but the pressure is building. Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and chair of the Democratic National Committee, writing in the Guardian, put the debate over political ads in apocalyptic terms, savaging the company for “shirking its responsibility to filter out lies.”
“As long as it continues to abdicate responsibility for content on its platform, Facebook is a very real threat to civic society,” he warned, adding that consumers who continue to use the platform “add another nail to the coffin lid of democracy.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s filings with the Federal Election Commission tell the narrative of how her campaign unfolded. She spent virtually nothing on ads on Twitter, and the platform is relatively small enough that if the Silicon Valley ban on political ads stopped at Twitter, the world would go on for insurgent candidates. Indeed, Twitter CFO Ned Segal said that the company made less than $3 million from political ads during the 2018 midterm elections, a drop in the bucket. That’s not the case for Facebook, however. According to estimates by the nonprofit Tech for Campaigns, out of $623 million spent on digital advertising for the 2018 cycle, $284 million of that was spent on Facebook. (That’s on $55 billion in total revenue.)
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The judge said that the Trump administration's justification for the rule's existence was 'flatly untrue.' (photo: Andrew Caballero-reynolds/Getty)
A Judge Struck Down a Trump Policy That Would Have Let Health Workers Refuse Abortion and Sex Reassignment Services
Ema O'Connor, BuzzFeed
O'Connor writes: "A federal judge struck down a Trump administration rule that would have allowed health workers to refuse to perform or assist with medical procedures like abortion, assisted suicide, or sex reassignment services on Wednesday, saying it violated the Constitution and that President Donald Trump's Department of Health and Human Services made 'flatly untrue' claims to justify the rule's existence."
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Thomas Rousseau, the leader of Patriot Front, shown during the 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. (photo: Midnight Films)
Ema O'Connor, BuzzFeed
O'Connor writes: "A federal judge struck down a Trump administration rule that would have allowed health workers to refuse to perform or assist with medical procedures like abortion, assisted suicide, or sex reassignment services on Wednesday, saying it violated the Constitution and that President Donald Trump's Department of Health and Human Services made 'flatly untrue' claims to justify the rule's existence."
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Thomas Rousseau, the leader of Patriot Front, shown during the 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. (photo: Midnight Films)
They Are Racist; Some of Them Have Guns. Inside the White Supremacist Group Hiding in Plain Sight.
Carol Schaeffer and Fritz Zimmermann, ProPublica
Excerpt: "Patriot Front is perhaps the most active white supremacist group in the nation."
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Activist groups including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, MoveOn.org, Oxfam, and the ACLU hold a rally in front of the White House to mark the anniversary of the first Trump administration travel and refugee ban in Washington, D.C., Jan. 27, 2018. (photo: James Lawler Duggan/Reuters
Carol Schaeffer and Fritz Zimmermann, ProPublica
Excerpt: "Patriot Front is perhaps the most active white supremacist group in the nation."
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Activist groups including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, MoveOn.org, Oxfam, and the ACLU hold a rally in front of the White House to mark the anniversary of the first Trump administration travel and refugee ban in Washington, D.C., Jan. 27, 2018. (photo: James Lawler Duggan/Reuters
Despite Hateful Social Media Attacks, Local Voters Elect Muslim American Candidates
Rupa Shenoy, PRI
Shenoy writes: "Safiya Khalid quit Facebook at one point during her campaign for a seat on the City Council of Lewiston, Maine, because she was getting so many hate-filled messages. Someone even posted her home address."
afiya Khalid says the recent elections send a powerful message.
Protests in Algeria. (photo: Getty)
Rupa Shenoy, PRI
Shenoy writes: "Safiya Khalid quit Facebook at one point during her campaign for a seat on the City Council of Lewiston, Maine, because she was getting so many hate-filled messages. Someone even posted her home address."
afiya Khalid says the recent elections send a powerful message.
“You don't win elections on the internet,” the 23-year-old said. “You win them at the doors.”
Khalid quit Facebook at one point during her campaign for a seat on the City Council of Lewiston, Maine, because she was getting so many hate-filled messages. Someone even posted her home address.
“I even saw one that said, ‘I will shoot you,’” she said. “One that said, ‘You should be stoned.’”
It was overwhelming for her, even though Khalid is used to challenges. She came to Lewiston with her family when she was 7, along with thousands of other refugees from Somalia who helped revive the dying mill town. Lewiston became a diverse spot in an overwhelmingly white state. It’s experienced some tension and racism, but Khalid said she grew up feeling welcomed.
“I am an example that Lewiston is such a progressive city,” she said, pointing out that the people who attacked her online are not the voters she met during the months of door knocking. “The negative comments and then, you know, the trolls were not from Lewiston. Some may be from Maine, but the majority were across the country from Mississippi to Alabama.”
Khalid won with nearly 70% of the vote and will be the youngest member of the Lewiston City Council, and its first Somali American. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said across the country, 34 Muslim American candidates won local elections out of more than 80 who ran. It’s part of a trend that began with last year’s election, with more diverse candidates choosing to run for office.
This week, a Somali American woman won a seat on the St. Louis Park, Minnesota, City Council. In Virginia, Ghazala Hashmi, an Indian American college administrator who came to the US as a child, was elected to the Virginia state senate from a district that’s been Republican for decades.
“It was sort of a test to see the ways in which the community might respond to a candidate such as myself,” Hashmi said, adding that her bid for office was in part a response to the rise in hate crimes across the country.
“I knew that we had to speak up and start representing ourselves, and we had to become visible,” she said.
She said she had her fair share of trolls and hateful messages. But Hashmi ended up helping turn her whole state blue, giving Democrats a majority in the state Legislature. Even though Hashmi said the demographics of her district haven’t changed in the past few years — it’s still majority white, minority African American.
“So, that has not changed,” Hashmi said. “But I believe perceptions have changed.”
In other words, the constituents got to know her. Which might sound overly simple, but it’s what Abrar Omeish experienced, too. She’s the daughter of Libyan immigrants, who won a seat on the Fairfax County School Board in Virginia.
“Some people honestly couldn’t get past the hijab. You have people who ask, ‘Where are you from?’ Several people would say, “Well, are you an Islamic person?”” Omeish recalled. “It’s been weird to have humanizing myself be part of our strategy conversation as a campaign team. I’m trying to focus on policy, I’m trying to focus on voter outreach. And we have to have conversations about how do we make me more relatable, human, because there are so many misconceptions that come before that.”
But those are the conversations Muslim Americans have to have, said Salam al-Marayati, who’s president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
“I think this is a moment for American Muslims to declare their independence from whatever is happening in the Middle East, [to say] that we do not look to the Middle East as a reference for Islam, that we see within ourselves what Islam means, and therefore creating that independent American Muslim identity,” he said. “We're at that cusp of defining who we are for our fellow Americans.”
But Imam Omar Suleiman, who was trolled and attacked after delivering a Muslim prayer in front of the Texas state Legislature, said this is just the beginning of the challenges these Muslim American elected officials will face.
READ MOREProtests in Algeria. (photo: Getty)
Algerian Protesters Are Still in the Streets, Months After Pushing Out Longtime President Bouteflika
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "In Algeria, protests against corruption, the jailing of opposition leaders and the army's powerful role in national politics have entered their ninth month."
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Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "In Algeria, protests against corruption, the jailing of opposition leaders and the army's powerful role in national politics have entered their ninth month."
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This overhead view showed the Keystone Pipeline oil spill from November 2017 near the South Dakota-North Dakota border. (photo: Grand Forks Herald)
Sioux Tribes Amplify Calls Against Pipelines After Keystone Spills 383,040 Gallons
Natasha Rausch, Grand Forks Herald
Rausch writes: "Tribal leaders in the Dakotas are bolstering their protests against the expansion of the Dakota Access oil pipeline and the installment of the Keystone XL line, after hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil spilled in northeastern North Dakota last week."
Natasha Rausch, Grand Forks Herald
Rausch writes: "Tribal leaders in the Dakotas are bolstering their protests against the expansion of the Dakota Access oil pipeline and the installment of the Keystone XL line, after hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil spilled in northeastern North Dakota last week."
The incident reinforced worries about a spill from the highly contested Dakota Access Pipeline and the yet-to-be-installed Keystone XL pipeline.
ribal leaders in the Dakotas are bolstering their protests against the expansion of the Dakota Access oil pipeline and the installment of the Keystone XL line, after hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil spilled in northeastern North Dakota last week.
The Keystone pipeline released about 383,040 gallons of oil in Walsh County, the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality said Thursday, Oct. 31. There was no indication at the time that the spill had an impact on drinking water, according to an official at the state’s division of water quality.
The incident reinforced worries about a spill from the highly contested Dakota Access Pipeline and the yet-to-be-installed Keystone XL pipeline.
“This is what pipelines do,” said Chase Iron Eyes, lead counsel for the Lakota People’s Law Project. “They spill.”
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe protested the installment of the Dakota Access Pipeline for nearly a year before newly minted President Donald Trump reversed his predecessor’s order and allowed the pipeline’s construction to continue. The tribe is still battling the line in court and disputing Texas-based Energy Transfer’s plan to double capacity from 570,000 barrels per day to 1.1 million. In South Dakota, tribes are protesting plans for the Keystone XL pipeline.
“This latest Keystone leak demonstrates why we stood against Dakota Access in the first place, why we’re doing so again now, and why we’re prepared to fight Keystone XL every step of the way,” Iron Eyes said in a Tuesday news release from the Lakota People’s Law Project.
“They keep bringing these projects to our homelands against our wishes,” Oglala Sioux Tribe President Julian Bear Runner said in the release. “It’s an ongoing pattern of environmental racism.”
Two years ago, the Keystone pipeline spilled more than 200,000 gallons in northeastern South Dakota, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Later reports showed the spill was likely double what was originally recorded.
"Pipelines are not safe, they are not secure, and they present a danger to our natural resources, our cultural resources, and our people," said President Rodney M. Bordeaux of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota.
On Wednesday, Nov. 13, the North Dakota Public Service Commission will hold a hearing on the plans to double the Dakota Access Pipeline’s capacity. Standing Rock Tribal Chairman Mike Faith said he hopes allies will support the tribes in their message.
“That pipeline should be pulled out of the ground,” he said. “And Keystone XL should be stopped as well.”
Bordeaux said Rosebud will continue to support Standing Rock, saying: “The next seven generations are depending on us to make sure our cultural and natural resources are more than just a memory."
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