Robert Schlesinger, writing for NBC News:

Dr. Seuss Enterprises — the very profitable company which controls the estate of the late Theodor Seuss Geisel, the man behind the pen name — has decided of its own free will to stop publishing a half-dozen of his books because, the company told The Associated Press, they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” deploying stereotypes about Black and Asian people in a manner that Seuss’s own estate thinks is offensive and inappropriate.

The Fox outrage machine revved itself to high dudgeon over how this private company has decided to conduct its business, bemoaning the Seussian scalp-taking; the GOP’s culture-war ambulance chasers quickly followed suit. “First, they outlaw Dr. Seuss” — mind you, Theodore Geisel died in 1991 and its his own estate taking this action — “and now they want to tell us what to say,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a mendacious non sequitur while debating proposed election law reforms.

[…]

Let’s get some perspective here: Seuss Enterprises made $33 million last year, more than 650 million of his books have been sold around the world and they’re available in more than 100 countries. There is no significant move — and certainly not from Seuss Enterprises — to ban, burn or otherwise cancel Dr. Seuss. A private company has made a considered business decision by pulling a small fraction of the Seuss catalog (none among its top sellers).

Exactly why is this any of the business of the federal government? Surely Republicans, who supposedly believe the government should interfere in private business decisions as little as possible, don’t think the market should cease to work its infallible will; surely if Seuss Enterprises is erring and catering to a political correctness that nobody wants, market forces will correct it.

Schlesinger hammers his broader point home with a sharp analogy to Republicans’ persistent hard-on for the “free market” and voting rights:

Republicans have long declared their supposedly unwavering obeisance to the great invisible hand of the market; as former House GOP Leader Dick Armey liked to say, “Markets are smart; government is dumb.”

And yet several recent moments have made that commitment seem situational. Whether discussing Dr. Seuss, Mr. Potato Head, voting rights or Twitter, Republicans seem ill at ease with — or just ignorant of — the ways the mighty market actually functions.

[…]

Republicans have lost the presidential popular vote in seven of the last eight elections — or to put it another way, they have been losing political market share. But instead of adjusting their product (their candidates and policies) or how they sell it (their messaging), the GOP increasingly relies on government interference to maintain power, including the distortionary nature of the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate (which is evenly split despite the fact that Democrats represent 41 million more constituents), radical gerrymandering and restrictive voting laws

The whole Seuss issue was just manufactured outrage that actually led ignorant Republican consumers to purchase more Seuss books, directly benefiting the enterprise that made the decision to stop publishing six of his books in the first place.

The Republican Party doesn’t know who they are anymore; they didn’t even put together a party platform last year. Their only agenda is to obstruct real governance and “own the libs” whenever possible, hoping that concocted fury will be enough to hold their voting bloc together because they can no longer sell most of their (racist, homophobic, intolerant, bigoted) “principles” to a majority of the American electorate.

If you haven’t spent much time in an evangelical church, you may not be familiar with a practice I call “amen begging,” but it’s pretty straightforward concept. Essentially, “amen begging” is when a pastor encourages his audience to show support for a statement or claim he’s just made, a bit like a light up “APPLAUSE” sign one might find on the set of a television show filmed in front of a live studio audience. A pastor doing something along the lines of an “APPLAUSE” sign asking people to clap or feign laughter to make a mediocre sitcom joke seem funnier may appear insignificant on the surface, but I believe it has insidious consequences.

I believe what this really does is condition the congregation to respond positively and visibly for others to see when something spicy or controversial is said, when most audiences would respond negatively to such remarks. This allows for a normalization of the heated statement du jour among the congregation, creating a permission structure for less sure audience members to subscribe to whatever belief or idea was just voiced, and positioning them to be accepting of increasingly outlandish remarks, opening the door for complete inoculation and radicalization. The more “amen begging” that goes on in a particular church, the more cult-like that church is likely to be.

Time for an anecdote: I once had a pastor from the church I grew up in say to me “don’t question me, I’m a pastor” when I raised a concern about his interpretation of a particular bible verse. Rather than engage with the interpretation I offered or answer my question, he called me a wicked, deceived sinner. That is not the mark of a caring leader who wants to guide his sheep to the lord, it’s the mark of someone whose authority is illegitimate and whose professions of faith are hypocritical, who is personally benefiting from his leadership position. For what it’s worth, this pastor was someone who very frequently begged his audience for amens.

If a pastor has done his job correctly, his congregation will applaud or “amen” his sermons appropriately without instigation. An honest pastor’s biblically inspired words will serve as a conduit for divine influence amongst a congregation who think for themselves, while the way for a dishonest pastor to legitimize his claims is to rely on a Pavlovian conditioned response from a mindless audience who’ve been trained not to think for themselves.

If you’re a member of a congregation where your pastor frequently tries to spur these inorganic reactions to his words, perhaps you should do some soul searching on whether or not you’re in the right place. A pastor’s role is to lead their congregations in their faith, but we’ve seen countless perversions of this model by corrupt, greedy individuals who benefit from their roles in the church at the expense of their congregations, whom they invariably lead astray. This tendency toward corruption has led many to believe spirituality and religion are best practiced on an individual level, and that argument holds water. However, I don’t necessarily believe that there can’t be healthy groups of people who practice their faith together without resulting in the cult-like, blind following of clergymen, but “amen begging” should be a red flag for those participating in religious organizations that their leaders may not be as genuine as they appear.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

— 2 Peter 2:1 

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

— 2 Corinthians 11:13-15

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

— 1 John 4:1

Jorge L. Ortiz, reporting for USA Today:

Even as the USA becomes the first country to reach half-a-million COVID deaths – the actual figure was 500,071 as of Monday at 4:40 p.m. EST – there are signs the pandemic may be abating, from the decreasing number of cases, hospitalizations and fatalities to the improved vaccine rollout and production. 

Amid this hopeful scenario, the emergence of coronavirus variants scrambles the picture of what the near future may look like.

[…]

Closing in on the one-year anniversary of the coronavirus outbreak being declared a pandemic – March 11, 2020 – it’s still not clear when the United States, which has reported more than twice as many cases and deaths as any other country, will have a hold on the health crisis.

It’s hard to know who to blame at this point. China? Trump? Ignorant people who refuse to wear masks? State governments who’ve managed to fuck up the response at every step of the way? Take your pick, really. Five hundred thousand deaths leaves plenty of blame to go around.

Ben Hall, reporting for News Channel 5 Nashville:

Police were warned Anthony Warner was making bombs in his RV more than a year before his Christmas morning attack in downtown Nashville.

The tip came from Warner's distraught girlfriend in August of 2019.

Police went to Warner's home the day of the complaint, but were unable to make contact with him.

The case was later closed as unfounded.

“He’s not home, case closed!”

She told officers that her boyfriend - Anthony Warner - "was building bombs in the RV trailer at his residence."

Yes, completely “unfounded.”

The police report states that an attorney who was also there and represented both the woman and Warner - told police that Warner "frequently talks about the military and bomb making."

Attorney Ray Throckmorton told police that Warner "knows what he is doing and is capable of making a bomb."

"I made a report on the spot for him to get checked out and I did all that I knew I could do," Throckmorton said.

The police suck at everything they do (except lynching black people and getting away with it). Defund the police. Fuck the police.

Charlie Warzel and Stuart A. Thompson, reporting for The New York Times:

Surrendering our privacy to the government would be foolish enough. But what is more insidious is the Faustian bargain made with the marketing industry, which turns every location ping into currency as it is bought and sold in the marketplace of surveillance advertising.

[…]

A source has provided [The New York Times with] another data set, this time following the smartphones of thousands of Trump supporters, rioters and passers-by in Washington, D.C., on January 6, as Donald Trump’s political rally turned into a violent insurrection.

[…]

The sacking of the Capitol was a shocking assault on the republic and an unwelcome reminder of the fragility of American democracy. But history reminds us that sudden events — Pearl Harbor, the Soviet Union testing an atomic bomb, the Sept. 11 attacks — have led to an overreach in favor of collective security over individual liberty that we’d later regret. And more generally, the data collected on Jan. 6 is a demonstration of the looming threat to our liberties posed by a surveillance economy that monetizes the movements of the righteous and the wicked alike.

The data we were given showed what some in the tech industry might call a God-view vantage of that dark day. It included about 100,000 location pings for thousands of smartphones, revealing around 130 devices inside the Capitol exactly when Trump supporters were storming the building.

[…]

The data presented here is a bird’s-eye view of an event that posed a clear and grave threat to our democracy. But it tells a second story as well: One of a broken, surreptitious industry in desperate need of regulation, and of a tacit agreement we’ve entered into that threatens our individual privacy. None of this data should ever have been collected.

[…]

This collection will only grow more sophisticated. This new data set offers proof that not only is there more interest in location data than before, but it is also easier to deanonymize. It gets easier by the day. As the data from Jan. 6 eerily demonstrates, it does not discriminate. It harvests from the phones of MAGA rioters, police officers, lawmakers and passers-by. There is no evidence, from the past or current day, that the power this data collection offers will be used only to good ends. There is no evidence that if we allow it to continue to happen, the country will be safer or fairer.

In our previous investigation, we wrote that Americans deserve the freedom to choose a life without surveillance and the government regulation that would make that possible. While we continue to believe the sentiment, we fear it may soon be obsolete or irrelevant. We deserve that freedom, but the window to achieve it narrows a little more each day. If we don’t act now, with great urgency, it may very well close for good.

Excellent reporting, you should really read the full article. For additional context, also check out their 2019 piece, “One Nation, Tracked” as well as CopyrightBro’s commentary on it.

The thing to understand here is that it wasn’t just the insurrectionists at the Capitol that were being tracked, and they weren’t specifically targeted for this tracking beforehand. Granted, they’re probably a little bit stupider on average than most Americans, but probably not to the extent that they were more susceptible to the tracking and data collection that made it possible for a private company to compile all this information and recreate minute-by-minute itineraries of their little field trip to D.C.

Everyone’s phones (Android devices to a greater degree than iPhones, but still) are collecting troves of data about their lives and their behavior, practically at all times, and turning it over to creepy companies you’ve never heard of that can sell it or use it themselves to do astoundingly unethical, privacy-invasive shit like what we’ve seen here. Sure, there are some settings you can change to make it harder for them to spy on you, and CopyrightBro is committed to helping you understand what you can do, but this problem is too big to be solved by any amount of accountability journalism, hard hitting exposés from the New York Times, or even attempts by well intentioned companies like Apple to pressure their competitors to play by a fair, understandable set of rules. This problem requires sweeping regulation.

This is so much bigger than any one company, but it bears repeating: #deletefacebook

The point of the stimulus checks is to help people who are in tough spots, and to keep people spending money so that the economy doesn’t stall and enter a downward spiral of layoffs → less spending → more layoffs → even less spending.

Many people are surprised to realize that our congressional leaders cut one specific group out of the stimulus bill with surgical precision. Anyone who was claimed as a dependent by their parents does not get a stimulus check of their own, and parents don’t get the extra stimulus for any children who are over the age of 16. This leaves a large group of people — primarily consisting of young adults (mainly college aged students) and those with disabilities who are unable to care for themselves — who get no help and whose parents receive no help for them.

The determination for who is viewed as a dependent and is therefor ineligible for a stimulus payment was made by the IRS based on the parent’s most recent tax filings, which was either for 2019’s taxes if they were prompt in filing, or 2018’s taxes if they hadn’t filed for 2019 by the time the stimulus checks were cut, which many hadn't. This means that when the stimulus checks went out this spring, they were using information about who to send them to that was outdated by anywhere from 3 months to nearly two years. This is a devastatingly porous structure. An individual could’ve flown the coop in the fall of 2018 and their parents could've claimed them as a dependent (since they lived at home for the first half of 2018). This means that by the time the checks were going out, this person could’ve been living independently and supporting themselves for nearly two years, and they would not receive the stimulus check, despite likely having mountains of student debt on top of the usual expenses of living by oneself. Furthermore, having only been out of school for a year or two, they would likely be one of the first employees to be let go when their employers need to lay off a few folks on account of the pandemic. So again, one of the most financially vulnerable groups of people, recent college students and recent graduates, were cut out of a stimulus program that would’ve benefitted them the most, and also would’ve benefitted the economy the most because they would’ve been the least likely to just throw the extra money into a savings account.

Then, with the second round of stimulus checks, they did the same thing again. It’s brutally unfair, and there’s absolutely no justification or explanation for it. It’s criminal, and young people should remember this when politicians ask for their votes.

Fortunately, it looks like President Biden’s proposed plan will include a full stimulus amount for ALL individuals claimed as dependents. Alicia Adamczyk, reporting for CNBC:

Unlike the last two relief measures, Biden’s plan includes payments for non-child dependents, including many college students and those with disabilities. It would also expand eligibility for those payments to mixed-status families in which one parent is an immigrant.

Nothing is set in stone yet and no bills have passed, but at least someone in the federal government has finally acknowledged this gaping hole in the previous stimulus packages.

When day comes we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice.

…

If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare it. Because being American is more than a pride we inherit; it’s the past we step into and how we repair it.

…

But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.

…

We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised, but whole; benevolent, but bold; fierce and free.

…

We will rise from the gold-limned hills of the West. We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South. We will rebuild, reconcile and recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country our people diverse and dutiful will emerge battered and beautiful.

When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it—if only we’re brave enough to be it.

From a White House press release:

The National Garden will draw together and fix in the soil of a single place what Abraham Lincoln called “[t]he mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart.” In the peace and harmony of this vast outdoor park, visitors will come and learn the amazing stories of some of the greatest Americans who have ever lived. The National Garden will feature a roll call of heroes who deserve honor, recognition, and lasting tribute because of the battles they won, the ideas they championed, the diseases they cured, the lives they saved, the heights they achieved, and the hope they passed down to all of us — that united as one American people trusting in God, there is no challenge that cannot be overcome and no dream that is beyond our reach.

I actually like this idea a lot. It sucks that it was born out of racism, a white man’s desperate attempts to coddle his base full of white people who are uncomfortable with their shrinking privilege in a society that is waking up to the injustices that were for so long perpetuated by a white ruling class, but if we include a truly diverse cast of historical figures, from various backgrounds and various areas of achievement, this statue garden could be one of the best things to come out of a nightmare of a presidency. We all have both light and dark inside us; if done properly, this garden could be a place for nuanced conversations about the often-flawed human beings that made America what it is today.

#EXCLUSIVE: @GayleKing spoke with @Apple CEO Tim Cook about the assault on the Capitol and what he thinks needs to happen next.

See more of @tim_cook's interview Wednesday on @CBSThisMorning when he'll announce a major new initiative, that's not a new product. pic.twitter.com/QPYyoDVFv7

— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) January 12, 2021

I can’t quite imagine what this could be. There are a few things I think it could be, but none seem any more likely than the next.

King made it a point to clarify that Apple’s announcement is not necessarily related to Cook’s comments about holding Donald Trump accountable, and that this announcement/interview was already scheduled. It wouldn’t be like Apple to just whip something up in the days following the attack on the Capitol; this is something they’ve been working on for a while. That said, it did seem relevant enough that they made room in the interview for questions about what should happen to Trump and others who incited the insurrection, so that leads me to think this is something related to politics. Some people think it will be COVID related, but that just doesn’t seem likely to me. Apple has already done the contact tracing thing, and it was rather poorly received. I can’t think of much else they could do in that realm, especially things that would be more well-implemented.

If I’m correct that it will be more related to politics than COVID, there are a number of projects I would like for Apple to be working on that seem within their wheelhouse and could solve some of the problems with our politics. A search engine or social media network that actually values privacy and doesn’t lead people to misinformation would be great, but those both seem too close to “products”, even though they aren’t products in the physical-device sense.

If I had to guess what we’re going to see, I would say they’ll announce something along the lines of a software framework or program that is designed to spur citizens to take more initiative in shaping our politics. Maybe some sort of donation program, or a way to contact legislators and share feedback. Highly unlikely given the challenges of working with 50 different state governments, but what if they’d worked out a secure, verifiable platform for digital voting; that would be revolutionary and absolutely more exciting than any product they could announce.

Time will tell, but I’m very excited to hear what they’ve got to say.

UPDATED: 01/12/21, 23:30

From a statement by Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD) and his wife on the death of their son, Tommy:

Tommy Raskin had a perfect heart, a perfect soul, a riotously outrageous and relentless sense of humor, and a dazzling radiant mind. He began to be tortured later in his 20s by a blindingly painful and merciless ‘disease called depression,’ as Tabitha put it on Facebook over the weekend, a kind of relentless torture in the brain for him, and despite very fine doctors and a loving family and friendship network of hundreds who adored him beyond words and whom he adored too, the pain became overwhelming and unyielding and unbearable at last for our dear boy, this young man of surpassing promise to our broken world.

On the last hellish brutal day of that godawful miserable year of 2020, when hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of people all over the world died alone in bed in the darkness from an invisible killer disease ravaging their bodies and minds, we also lost our dear, dear, beloved son, Hannah and Tabitha’s beloved irreplaceable brother, a radiant light in this broken world.

He left us this farewell note on New Year’s Eve day: “Please forgive me. My illness won today. Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me. All my love, Tommy.”

This is absolutely gut wrenching.

The fact that Raskin had to experience the Capitol siege the day after his son’s funeral is just unconscionable. And for him to still be working at this point, doing interviews and holding his colleagues accountable, is nothing shy of heroic.

I hope his family is able to find as much solace as they can amidst these impossibly difficult events, and may Tommy truly rest in peace.

Tony Romm and Rachel Lerman, reporting for The Washington Post:

Amazon suspended the pro-Trump social network Parler from its Web-hosting service this weekend, a move that threatens to darken the site indefinitely after its users glorified the recent riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Describing Parler merely as a “pro-Trump social network” is a bit rosy, let’s not get it twisted. From racism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, and white supremacy, to outright calls for and plans to commit physical violence and anti-democratic terrorism/insurrection like what we saw at the U.S. Capitol, hate speech and vitriol are omnipresent and essential elements of the Parler experience. It is/was a home and a breeding ground for Nazis and Proud Boys.

The e-commerce and Web-hosting giant said Parler had violated its terms of service given its inadequate content-moderation practices, adding in a letter that it would implement its punishment just before midnight Pacific time Monday.

The move by Amazon Web Services, or AWS, marks the latest and most crippling blow for the pro-Trump social network, which has emerged as a haven for conservative users who have fled more mainstream Silicon Valley sites that crack down on harmful, viral falsehoods online. Earlier this week, Apple and Google removed Parler’s app from their stores for smartphone downloads, similarly citing concerns that posts on Parler could contribute to violence.

Parler’s whole schtick was that they were going to be an unmoderated online space for free speech, but they have never been the beacon of free speech they claimed to be. The free speech cover was a thin veneer for an operation intended to provide a Wild West environment for Trump’s base to drive one another closer and closer to the edge of complete delusion and radicalization.

Private companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google have absolutely no constitutional obligation to provide their services to companies who violate their rules or whose values they disagree with. Facebook and Twitter have no obligation to allow users who incite violence and inspire coups to enjoy their platforms. Publishers have no obligation to publish books by seditious senators. It is not censorship and it is not a violation of Parler’s or anyone else’s first amendment rights, it’s the free market at work. Parler, immediately upon its launch, became an infinite cesspool of hatred. Since hate speech is not protected by the first amendment, it’s important to understand that not only can private companies refuse to do business with them, but even if it were Congress that had banned Parler, it still wouldn’t be an infringement of anyone’s first amendment rights. However, that’s exactly what Republicans have tried to assert.

Over the past few days, the far right has gotten a small taste of the social justice they deserve for the first time as the big tech companies have finally stood up to them, one by one. Faced with this incomprehensible reality where their actions have actual consequences, far right mouthpieces from Capitol Hill to trailer parks have been left spluttering, the only semi-coherent talking point they’ve been able to stitch together is that the radical left and big tech have teamed up to cancel and deplatform conservatives. Your dime-a-dozen Trumpers are embarrassing themselves by advertising their primitive understandings of “freedom of speech,” while their Republican elected officials CONTNUE to mislead those very same idiots by perpetuating misinformation about what type of speech the first amendment actually protects and from whom. Cynical assholes Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley have learned no lessons. They deserve to be expelled from the Senate and they deserve to be shamed publicly, never to be taken seriously again.

Bringing things full circle, Parler was funded by the Mercer family, who were directly involved in the Cambridge Analytica scandal that unethically collected mountains of personal data from American voters’ Facebook pages and used it to build profiles of them, which were then used to send them highly targeted ads designed to influence how they voted. Most people familiar with the Cambridge Analytica scandal know that the Trump campaign paid them to help target and turn out persuadable voters in key precincts of swing states, but most people don’t know that before Cambridge Analytica was hired by the Trump campaign (which was only after Trump won the nomination) they had previously been helping none other than Ted Cruz who, with their help and despite his perpetual “I just shit the bed” face, went from the bottom of the list of serious contenders to the last man standing before Trump ultimately clenched the nomination.

Hopefully Parler won’t find another company willing to host their site for any amount of money, but if Republicans are good at anything, it’s finding others whose morality is trumped by their greed.

I was going to title this article “Rest-in-Peace, Parler,” but after 0.5 seconds of consideration, it occurred to me that that would be far too kind a sentiment for the greedy, ill-intentioned assholes at Parler.

Should’ve happened a long time ago, but silencing this manipulative, selfish, petty monster is an important step in holding our democracy together for the next two weeks. I wonder if Elon Musk had anything to do with it, his tweet was clever and spot on.

For what it’s worth, Shopify also disabled Trump’s online store. Now Amazon needs to step up and remove all Trump merchandise from their marketplace.

The last time the Capitol Building was overrun was over two centuries ago, when it was taken by the British in 1814. As was the case in 1814, the individuals laying siege to the U.S. Capitol Building are insurrectionists, terrorists. Their actions are seditious and treasonous, but the difference is that these people hail from the United States, not Britain.

Nonetheless, they are still terrorist insurgents. They are ignorant, hateful, cowardly racists, homophobes, and xenophobes who are terrified at the thought of a United States that doesn’t go out of its way to favor and cater specifically to the whims of straight white Christians. They are not patriots.

The implications of this coup on the long term (or short term) health of our nation are unknowable. Personally, I am in awe, and I am furious.

Here’s what I think should’ve happened to them. They should have been gunned down by the United States Capitol Police. They should have been treated as enemy combatants, a threat to be neutralized as swiftly and efficiently as possible, and as enemy combatants, they should be afforded no constitutional rights. The fact that the Capitol Police were so laughably unprepared for this, juxtaposed with their ludicrous over-preparedness during the Black Lives Matter protests, is another blinding example of institutional racism.

What do I think should happen to the insurrectionists now? I think they should all be immediately arrested and held without bail to face trial for treason. The odds of that happening are slim, so here’s to hoping they spread plenty of vicious COVID cases amongst themselves and their families.

What did Donald Trump say to them? He affirmed “this election was stolen from us, it was a landslide”, and followed it up with “we love you, you’re very special.”

The question now, is what should happen to Donald Trump.

Twitter and Facebook should immediately ban him from their platforms lest he continue to pour gasoline on the flames, but that’s just the start. He is clearly unfit for office. He needs to be ousted from the presidency immediately. He deserves to be impeached and removed from office immediately. At this point, I wouldn’t put it past Mitch McConnell. If impeachment is not the solution lawmakers choose to take, then the 25th amendment should be invoked. Let Mike Pence take over for the next two weeks and facilitate the transition to Biden’s administration. I wouldn’t necessarily put it past Pence and the Cabinet at this point, either. Once he’s out of office, he needs to be put in jail to rot. I wouldn’t even take the death penalty off the table at this point: his actions have cost countless lives and had an immeasurable destructive impact on the foundations of our democracy.

As for his pathetic minions and mouthpieces who incited this rebellion, namely Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Rudy Giuliani, they should face jail time. All the representatives and senators who challenged the results of the election should be expelled from Congress. This parasitic weed has deeply intertwined itself in our national politics, and we must rip it out, root and stem, before it chokes the life out of the Great American Experiment.

---

If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.

— Ulysses S. Grant

How much do you want to bet it’s a white guy?

How much do you want to bet that if it is a white guy, the president, right wing congressional leaders, nor the mainstream news outlets will call him a “terrorist”?

I’ve listened to a few episodes of the “Noble Blood” podcast, and this episode about the King Edward II of England, and his lover Piers Gaveston is really fascinating. It reminds me a bit of Renly Baratheon and Loras Tyrell from Game of Thrones.

Also worth noting: the host does a great job of contextualizing same sex relationships during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, before that predisposition was given a label and took on an entire identity. Men today often seem compelled to perform a particular lifestyle upon acknowledging their same sex attractions, but that’s actually a very recent phenomenon, and prior to a few decades ago, that wasn’t the case at all. I’m glad the host took the time to make sure listeners understand that while we have labels for men in positions similar to Edward II and Piers Gaveston, they did not define themselves in this way.

It’s a fascinating story, and well worth a listen.

Drew Harwell and Ellen Nakashima, reporting for The Washington Post:

A security executive with the video-tech giant Zoom worked with the Chinese government to terminate Americans’ accounts and disrupt video calls about the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy activists in Tiananmen Square, Justice Department prosecutors said Friday.

[…]

Prosecutors said the China-based executive, Xinjiang Jin, worked as Zoom’s primary liaison with Chinese law enforcement and intelligence services, sharing user information and terminating video calls at the Chinese government’s request.

Jin monitored Zoom’s video system for discussions of political and religious topics deemed unacceptable by China’s ruling Communist Party, the complaint states, and he gave government officials the names, email addresses and other sensitive information of users, even those outside China.

We’ve known Zoom has plenty of issues for a while now, but this is outrageous. Where is our strongman president when foreign adversaries are directly impeding American citizens’ freedom of speech? He’s made a huge issue about social media companies and their alleged censorship of conservative voices (which is bullshit), but now that there’s real censorship of Americans by China, he’s silent, either too stupid to understand what’s going on, too selfish to care, or so pathetic that he’s still nursing his post-election wounds.

The first amendment was designed to protect Americans against government overreach, but I never imagined we would have our first amendment rights challenged or stripped away by another government than our own. There has to be consequences for this.

Hartley Carlton, reporting for MacRumors:

Facebook has today attacked Apple in a series of full-page newspaper ads, asserting that iOS 14's privacy changes regarding data gathering and targeted advertising are bad for small businesses (via Bloomberg).

The ads are running in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, feature the headline "We're standing up to Apple for small businesses everywhere."

Earlier this year, Apple introduced a number of privacy changes that curb the ability of companies like Facebook to gather data on users and target adverts. In ‌‌iOS 14‌‌, Apple has made the "Identifier for Advertisers," used by Facebook and its advertising partners for ad targeting, an opt-in feature, providing more transparency for users who would prefer not to be tracked in apps and on websites. The update simply asks users if they want to agree to ad tracking or prevent cross-app and cross-site tracking to provide targeted ads.

I was going to post the text of the ad and pick it apart line by line, but it would be a waste of time. Facebook has committed a logical fallacy, completely misrepresenting what Apple has chosen to do (which is give people more control over what data they share with big companies) as some sort of offensive play against small businesses. It’s a strawman argument designed to make small businesses look like the victims of Apple’s “forced software update”.

John Gruber recently wrote about this on Daring Fireball, again making the salient point that the privacy issue boils down to entitlement:

The entitlement of these fuckers is just off the charts. They have zero right, none, to the tracking they’ve been getting away with. We, as a society, have implicitly accepted it because we never really noticed it. You, the user, have no way of seeing it happen. Our brains are naturally attuned to detect and viscerally reject, with outrage and alarm, real-world intrusions into our privacy. Real-world marketers could never get away with tracking us like online marketers do.

This so clearly isn’t about small businesses not being able to advertise as effectively, it’s about facebook no longer being able to run behind you with a shop-vac, sucking up every crumb of data you leave behind. Don’t think they aren’t still trying though, Apple’s privacy tools are just limiting their ability to do so a little, taking them down from an industrial grade shop-vac to a consumer grade Dyson.

But still, let’s humor Facebook for a second and respond to their strawman argument. Here’s my take: if you built a small business that relies on Facebook (for advertising or any other aspect of your business), then you built a shitty small business. You put all your eggs in one basket, so captivated by the reach they could offer you that you didn’t consider the risks of relying on a company whose business model was inherently unethical and who could pull the rug out from under you at any moment. The problem here is not Apple giving people control over their own data, it’s that your small business was built on a foundation of stolen information that facebook gobbled up and turned into something you could use to target potential customers with. Looks like it’s time for you to find a more honest way to reach potential new customers.

This is a mature topic, but we’re going to be straightforward. Practically everyone in America who’s older than like 13 and has an internet connection watches porn, lets not kid ourselves or feel ashamed about it; it’s normal.

Nicholas Kristof, from The New York Times:

[Pornhub] is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags. […]

It is monetizing video compilations with titles like “Screaming Teen,” “Degraded Teen” and “Extreme Choking.” Look at a choking video and it may suggest also searching for “She Can’t Breathe.”

What Kristof has done here is hardly journalism, it’s conjecture. Just because he was able to dream up a list of shocking search terms does not necessarily mean that many (if any) of the results yielded by such searches actually contain depictions of the terms included in the query, an unfortunate fact that is so obvious, even he was forced to acknowledge it.

Pornhub is like YouTube in that it allows members of the public to post their own videos. A great majority of the 6.8 million new videos posted on the site each year probably involve consenting adults, but many depict child abuse and nonconsensual violence. Because it’s impossible to be sure whether a youth in a video is 14 or 18, neither Pornhub nor anyone else has a clear idea of how much content is illegal.

I won’t say that there are no videos on Pornhub that break the rules, nor will I say that it can’t be used by those who seek to spread such content, but “many” is doing a lot of work here.

Facebook removed 12.4 million images related to child exploitation in a three-month period this year. Twitter closed 264,000 accountsin six months last year for engaging in sexual exploitation of children. By contrast, Pornhub notes that the Internet Watch Foundation, an England-based nonprofit that combats child sexual abuse imagery, reported only 118 instances of child sexual abuse imagery on its site over almost three years

A lot of work. I’ve spent my fair share of time on Pornhub, and I’ve never stumbled across any kiddy porn, but it’s really no wonder I haven’t, given that needle-in-a-haystack ratio.

Columnists are supposed to offer answers, but I struggle with solutions.

Your struggles are evident, Mr. Kristof.

If Pornhub curated videos more rigorously, the most offensive material might just move to the dark web or to websites in less regulated countries. Yet at least they would then not be normalized on a mainstream site.

More pressure and less impunity would help. We’re already seeing that limiting Section 230 immunity leads to better self-policing.

And call me a prude, but I don’t see why search engines, banks or credit card companies should bolster a company that monetizes sexual assaults on children or unconscious women. If PayPal can suspend cooperation with Pornhub, so can American Express, Mastercard and Visa.

I don’t see any neat solution. But aside from limiting immunity so that companies are incentivized to behave better, here are three steps that would help: 1.) Allow only verified users to post videos. 2.) Prohibit downloads. 3.) Increase moderation.

These measures wouldn’t kill porn or much bother consumers of it

Given that Pornhub’s best content is user generated, and they just got rid of practically all of it in one fell swoop, I wouldn’t be so certain that this isn’t going to kill porn or bother consumers of it (it occurs to me that Kristof must not watch porn: perhaps he has a very strict wife, or maybe he has a fire-and-brimstone pastor whose sermons are a sufficient deterrent).

Again, I’m sure there is some number of videos on Pornhub that are illegal or unethical, but taking action without knowing how big a problem is (no matter the case) seems likely to inhibit one’s ability to respond effectively to address the issue without creating other problems. And that’s exactly what happened.

Jordan Valinsky, reporting for CNN Business:

The changes took the number of videos on the website from 13.5 million videos down to a little under 3 million. […]

"Due to the nature of our industry, people's preconceived notions of Pornhub's values and processes often differ from reality — but it is counterproductive to ignore the facts regarding a subject as serious as CSAM, " Pornhub said in a previous statement to CNN Business.

"We have zero tolerance for CSAM. Pornhub is unequivocally committed to combating CSAM, and has instituted an industry-leading trust and safety policy to identify and eradicate illegal material from our community."

Pornhub sounds like they were scared for their life, and their reaction supports that assessment: they chose to go with the nuclear option. Rather than just hiring more moderators or looking into solutions like artificial intelligence to flag videos that could be against the rules, they removed nearly 80% of their content after being stiff armed by Kristof and the credit card networks.

Freedom of the press is important, so there’s not much we can do about reporting like this, other than dismiss it as flawed and take that into account when judging the credibility of future work from the journalists or publications involved. However, it’s clear that of the entities involved here, some of them are well overdue for some regulation, but Pornhub isn’t one of them. I hadn’t considered it much until this point, but it doesn’t take much attention to realize that credit card network companies weird enormous power, and they’ve just demonstrated that they’re willing to wield it to drive companies they don’t like out of business. The United States only has four major credit card networks (the aforementioned three, plus American Express), and while they’re independent companies, in a world where physical currency is becoming less and less relevant, it’s outrageous that four companies have gatekeeping roles over virtually ALL of the United States’ digital/electronic commerce.

Perhaps a lesser considered aspect of this move: it will cost lives. I don’t know how many, but I’m sure there are a number of people (mostly men ((see: the Coolidge effect)) but likely some women, as well) who have been refraining from hooking up with people, satiating their needs, consciously or unconsciously, by watching more porn. Getting rid of most of the biggest porn site’s best videos is going to leave those people a lot less satisfied, and more of them will go back to hooking up, likely spreading COVID in some cases. Granted, one on one encounters aren’t as risky massive church services or large thanksgiving gatherings, but this still a horribly timed move. At best, it demonstrates a lack of forethought; at worst, a lack of concern with the pandemic and a lack of respect for the lives of others, not only on the part of Pornhub for removing all the videos, but also on the part of the credit card networks and the New York Times journalist who started this snowball rolling down its hill, prudish Mr. Nicholas Kristof.

Mr. Kristof, if you don’t want to be seen as a prude, then don’t act like one. You are singlehandedly bringing about Pornhub’s downfall, for less than 200 confirmed instances of videos that break the rules. Seriously, go fuck yourself (in silence, without any porn).

It seems like the U.S. is just a few days away from rolling out the first COVID-19 vaccine. I’m not an anti-vaxxer by any stretch of the imagination (gets your kids their shots), but something about this vaccine process just isn’t sitting quite right with me. In all likelihood, and hopefully, this post won’t age well, and in a few years we can talk about how silly we were to be worried about it, but as of right now, I don’t want the COVID vaccine.

Most of all, I don’t trust big Pharma. They’re one of the most egregiously exploitative industries in world history, and report after shocking report keeps proving this. It sucks that they’re going to reap all the credit and the profit for saving everyone. The opioid epidemic is completely their fault, but now we’re going to act like they’re heroes because they’ve ostensibly concocted a vaccine for a virus that has caused far less death and suffering than the products they’re usually pumping out.

Furthermore, it seems like it happened too quickly and with too much coordination. Back in March, they were predicting it would be at least 12-18 months before we would have a viable vaccine. Now, here we are and multiple companies happened to cut that time in half, making this the most successful vaccine production campaign ever, and they ended up with a finished product that’s 94% effective? It just seems a little too good to be true.

What doesn’t seem too good to be true is the period of time for which the vaccine is effective. Presumably because the COVID-19 virus mutates rather quickly, the vaccine is only predicted to provide about three months of protection. Logistically, if everyone were in line to get the vaccine, I don’t think we’ll have enough to vaccinate everyone in America for many months, given that one vaccination requires two injections spaced a few weeks apart. That means that the number of people who can be vaccinated is half of the number of doses we have. So if everyone has to get back in line for another round of two shots after three months, it seems like we won’t ever catch up unless the companies manufacturing them can miraculously increase their output.

On a different note, some people have had severe allergic reactions to the vaccine, so at what point should we start to wonder about the risks? Not only the short term risks of possible allergic reactions, but what about long term risks? This is a brand new vaccine, we don’t know what long term effects it could have. If you’re an elderly person, there’s a good chance you could die from COVID, so you probably don’t need to worry about long term effects, but if you’re a young, healthy person, you should consider whether this vaccine will do more damage to you in the long run than COVID itself could.

Further contributing to my safety concerns, the Trump administration has hopelessly politicized this process. Their political strategy has been to rely almost entirely on the promise of a vaccine rather than preventing the spread of the virus in the first place, so I don’t exactly trust them to have followed all the necessary safety guidelines. As I said before, this feels like a rush job. Plus, if you wanna talk crazy conspiracy theories, then it’s worth acknowledging that if the government (or a private entity, @bigpharma) ever were going to try to get the majority of the population drinking some kool-aid, this would be the time to pull that lever. I don’t believe that’s what’s happening, but this would be a great opportunity.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t get the vaccine. I’m just saying it’s a decision you need to make carefully, and that we should be asking questions rather than falling in line like sheep.

Worth noting that wearing a mask is a lot different, and you’re not a sheep for wearing one. Wearing a mask has no long term or short term risks, and you should absolutely wear a mask unless you’re a selfish asshole, in which case, you should wear a sign that says as much.

Netflix has a new, four-part docuseries that walks through the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster in an explanatory way while still being respectful of the tragedy of the event. It features a lot of interviews with NASA personnel, as well as heartbreaking accounts from the families of the astronauts who were killed. It’s really interesting and insightful; if you’re interested in the history of the United States’ space programs, or if you just don’t know much about what happened with the Challenger, this docuseries is well worth your time.

A broader societal question occurred to me while I was watching this. American history has no shortage of tragedies, but the ones people tend to obsess over and analyze endlessly (I’m thinking of JFK’s assassination, 9/11, the Challenger disaster, etc.) have something in common. They all feature people dying in violent, gruesome ways, on camera. It makes you wonder.

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President Reagan's address to the nation in the aftermath of the explosion actually included a line that is one of my favorite quotes: “The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted, it belongs to the brave.”