In 2021, anything can be turned into culture-war fodder. Republicans are hoarding Goya beans and Aunt Jemima syrup to own the libs. The Muppets have been canceled. Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head, too. A Michelin-starred restaurant in Manhattan eliminating meat from its pricey menu? That, my friends, is cancel culture.
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Israeli security forces spent the weekend beating and arresting Palestinian worshippers at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. Coming late in the holy month of Ramadan, these attacks—featuring batons, tear gas, stun grenades, and other weapons, and which followed the deadly shooting of a 16-year-old Palestinian boy in the West Bank by Israeli forces—have been widely broadcast on social media. Videos show terrified barefoot worshippers rushing toward exits and children being pushed around by well-armored police. Читать дальше...
I’ve been thinking a lot about Liz Cheney. Her courage in standing up to Donald Trump and the increasingly authoritarian Republican Party shouldn’t make her exceptional—ideally, she would have a considerable amount of company—but it does. Having broken with the Republican Party myself, I know that the initial break eventually led me to an almost complete cutoff with the right side of the political spectrum and a somewhat reluctant embrace of the left. I will be curious to see if Ms. Cheney follows the same path. Читать дальше...
As WikiLeaks was riding to global fame a decade ago by publishing archives of leaked American military and diplomatic files, its founder, Julian Assange, liked to call his organization an “intelligence agency of the people.” The slogan conjured an ideal of gathering and disseminating information solely to improve public understanding of the world and to enable democracy to better function, without the presumed machinations of a nation-state spy agency. But by 2016, WikiLeaks had famously been co-opted by Russia’s GRU. Читать дальше...
In Silicon Valley, what passes for innovation often means copying the hot new thing, and right now that new thing is Clubhouse: an app that provides audio chat rooms for people to discuss whatever they want. Facebook, Twitter, and other major social networks are all racing to introduce their own audio chat products as fast as they can cobble them together. Their moment may have already come and gone: According to recent reports, downloads of the Clubhouse app have dropped precipitously over the past month. Читать дальше...
Last August, Missouri voters made themselves perfectly clear when they voted to expand the state’s Medicaid program, passing a ballot measure with 53 percent of the vote. It was just the latest in a series recent victorious expansion campaigns in red-leaning states including Maine, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Utah, aimed at plugging a gaping hole in the Affordable Care Act created by the Supreme Court. While the high court’s 5-4 ruling in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius was, in 2012... Читать дальше...
