Here are some of the topics that have caught my attention as I’ve been browsing the internet:
Celebrating the Most Effective Member of His Majesty’s Government
12 years ago today I was appointed Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office and moved into Downing Street. I’ve already outlasted four Prime Ministers and have been in charge here longer than Thatcher, Blair, Churchill and Disraeli.
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) 8:28 AM ∙ Feb 15, 2023
Why the Media Adopts Right-Wing Narratives
Press Watch’s Dan Froomkin explains why so many reporters and editors reflexively adopt right-wing narratives in their political coverage.
“You might think that after so many years of being lied to, yelled at, and denigrated by Republican leaders – after a violent attempted insurrection that many Republicans still defend – editors in our major newsrooms would tell their staffs to treat Republican narratives with considerable skepticism.
But nothing matters to these very accomplished journalists more than “not taking sides.” They are particularly terrified of being seen as liberal. And they desperately want an exciting horse race to cover in 2024. So they refuse to publicly acknowledge what has become of the modern Republican Party.
Since writing and speaking the truth would (they think) make them look partisan, they adopt Republican narratives instead.”
Froomkin highlights recent stories about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), the national debt limit, the mishandling of classified documents, and the Chinese balloon to demonstrate how right-wing framing dominates so much of the mainstream media’s coverage.
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FBI Uses Informants To Trap Protesters
The FBI is back to using tactics that entrap people into committing crimes they otherwise would not have initiated.
The Guardian’s Ed Pilkinton reports, “The FBI’s use of an informant to infiltrate Black Lives Matter in Denver during the wave of protests over the 2020 police killing of George Floyd has prompted concern in Congress that the federal agency is once again abusing its powers to harass and intimidate minority groups.
Ron Wyden, the Democratic senator from Oregon, is calling for the FBI to explain how it came to recruit a violent felon as an informant who then went on to gain prominence among Denver racial justice activists. The informant is alleged to have encouraged protesters to engage in increasingly violent demonstrations while trying to entrap them in criminal misdeeds.”
“If the allegations are true, the FBI’s use of an informant to spy on first amendment-protected activity and stoke violence at peaceful protests is an outrageous abuse of law-enforcement resources and authority,” Wyden told the Guardian.”
Pilkington describes a few examples of how the FBI’s paid informant tried to get Black Lives Matter protesters to break the law, a series of events chronicled in the new podcast series Alphabet Boys.
He writes: “As 2020’s long hot summer of protests deepened, Windecker became more prominent in the Denver scene. He also became more proactive in his advice, encouraging activists to consider taking the protests to the next level.
He told one Black Lives Matter leader: “I can teach you how to shoot a gun, to hand-to-hand combat, all the way up to like blowing up fucking buildings and guerrilla warfare tactics and sabotage.”
Audio clippings from the undercover recordings obtained by Aaronson reveal what Windecker then went on to ask the activist: “How extreme do you want it to go? Do you want to learn to shoot a gun and throw someone around, or do you want to go all the way uptown? If that’s what you want to do, I can make it happen.”
The podcast reports that Windecker went on to give an activist $1,500 to buy a gun for him, which led to the individual being arrested on weapons charges. Aaronson also alleges that the informant helped to organize a series of demonstrations in August 2020 that led to violent assaults on police stations.”
That’s outrageous. And I hope the Senate will do something because I doubt this example of the actual weaponization of the federal government will interest Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as he chairs the new Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
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Taking On Junk Fees
President Joe Biden is right to focus on battling junk fees in the third year of his administration. It is politically popular, a rare area of potential bipartisan agreement, and a misleading practice that the government should tackle.
Semafor’s Jordan Weissman explains the dynamics behind the president’s decision to highlight the issue:
“The White House estimates that Americans pay about $64 billion annually in fees, which include penalties for late credit card payments and bank overdrafts, as well as sneaky cable, airline, and hotel charges. Economists argue that these sorts of fees end up warping markets by allowing companies to hide the true cost of their services from shoppers.
They’ve paid special attention to the ways consumers end up fooled by “drip pricing,” the maddening practice perfected by airlines, hotels, and ticket vendors where companies advertise one price tag to customers, then jack it up by tacking on a bunch of unavoidable fees (see that massive AirBnb “cleaning fee” you may have paid recently).
But other opaque fees can be problematic as well. Early service cancellation charges may lock customers into bad deals that hinder competition. Ticky-tack overdraft fees let banks quietly harvest billions in revenue from poorer customers.
Neale Mahoney, a Stanford economist who joined the administration as a special policy advisor in June, argues that these practices have created a vicious cycle, where businesses must use tactics like drip pricing or risk losing out to competitors who do. “This practice is becoming more and more pervasive,” Mahoney told Semafor. “We need to root it out across industries.”
Quick Pitches
Esquire’s Jack Holmes has compiled a list of all of the bans Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has enacted. “Freedom means the government bans something new every day. Just ask the newest rising star in the Party of Small Government—at least according to very savvy politico types—Florida Governor Ronald DeSantis. He cut his teeth as a national figure by styling his state as the last bastion of human freedom in the United States during the pandemic, a place where the government wouldn’t make you do anything ever. But DeSantis is almost inevitably going to run for president, and now that the pandemic is finished as a public policy issue, he needs some grand public gestures to get him into the news cycle and onto the Fox News airwaves on a regular basis. It’s certainly more fun than talking about his record on Medicare and Social Security. Enter the bans.” (Jack Holmes, Esquire)
The epidemic of Russian officials falling out of windows claimed another victim. “Marina Yankina, head of the department of financial provisions for the Western Military District, was found dead on a sidewalk on Wednesday morning, according to multiple local reports. She is just the latest in a growing list of Russian military officials, defense industry figures, war critics, and gas and oil execs to die suddenly and mysteriously since the start of the full-scale invasion last year.” (Allison Quinn, The Daily Beast)
Here’s another consequence for Russian President Vladimir Putin after he decided to invade Ukraine: “Over the past year, as Western governments have ramped up weapons deliveries to Ukraine and economic sanctions against Moscow, U.S. and European security services have been waging a parallel if less visible campaign to cripple Russian spy networks. The German case, which also involved the arrest of a senior official in the BND, Germany’s foreign intelligence service, followed roll-ups of suspected Russian operatives in the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Poland and Slovenia. The moves amount to precision strikes against Russian agents still in Europe after the mass expulsion of more than 400 suspected Russian intelligence officers from Moscow’s embassies across the continent last year.” (Greg Miller, Souad Mekhennet, Emily Rauhala, and Shane Harris of The Washington Post)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar shares a Black History Month-focused edition of his weekly analysis of news, sports, and culture. (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Substack)
Greg Olear has some questions about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who operates with impunity despite being under indictment since 2015—and who just had seven(!) top aides accuse him of bribery and abuse of office: “We think of “strongman regimes” running entire nations, like Italy under Mussolini, Chile under Pinochet, or, more recently, Putin’s Russia. But the same principles applied by strongmen in the notorious dictatorships Ben-Ghiat writes about in her book are now being employed by politicians in individual U.S. states. A good example can be found in Texas. The state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, is ultimately responsible for the execution of all laws within the Lone Star State. The buck stops with him. And yet, if the allegations against him are true, he is egregiously, breathtakingly corrupt.” (Greg Olear, Prevail)
Morton Salt created the “when it rains, it pours” slogan to advertise how its discovery that adding magnesium carbonate would keep its salt, unlike its competitors at the time, from clumping in damp weather. (Dan Lewis, Now I Know)
If you liked—or missed—Y2K, you may have another chance to experience it to a lesser extent in about 15 years. “The year 2038 problem is a problem caused by how some software systems store dates. When these dates reach 1 second after 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038 they will incorrectly show the date 20:45:52 on Friday, 13 December 1901.” (https://theyear2038problem.com/)
“When a gang of gambling cheats sussed out how to beat the house, they inadvertently highlighted a loophole from a shuffled deck. It took a magician-turned-mathematician to reveal how.” (Shane Keating, BBC Future)
Major League Baseball demonstrated this year’s new rules for reporters. You can see some of the slides and videos shared at the event. (Al Yellon, Bleed Cubbie Blue)
Major League Baseball announced that it is directing umpires to call the balk rule strictly this season. This change is related to new pitch clock rules, which make it vital for everyone to be clear about when a pitcher starts his pitching motion. The results were chaotic, though, the last time MLB tried to do this. (Jeff Passan, ESPN)
Molly Knight previews the upcoming World Baseball Classic, the first in six years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She writes, “Maybe it’s because it’s been six years since the last WBC, or maybe it’s because this year’s rosters are absolutely loaded with superstars, but I am extremely excited for these games to start, more so than ever before. It’s simply no longer possible for me to get my baseball fix from interminable spring training games. Plus, the guys I most want to see in March won’t be toiling around Scottsdale or Fort Myers, anyway.” And, yeah, the Dominican Republic’s lineup will be pretty amazing to watch. (Molly Knight, The Long Game)
The Dominican Republic lineup for the WBC is 🔥🔥🔥
— Baseball Is Dead (@baseballisdead_) 11:51 PM ∙ Feb 9, 2023
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