Friday Round Up! 5/19/2023

Rudy. Santos. Trump. Durham. Yeah not much happened this week.

There was too much news this past week so let’s just get straight to it. Renato and I recorded a double episode of the podcast to cover it all:

My pieces this week:

• My analysis of the Durham report dud for Cafe Insider — this was basically the conspiracy theory version of Prego spaghetti sauce…it’s in there!

Additional articles worth reading (and documentaries worth watching):

• This pretty depressing piece in CNN on how the GOP attacks on “wokism” has basically resulted in the Defense Department backing off on its attempts to weed out extremism in the military

• This even more depressing PBS Frontline documentary on the rise of Clarence and Ginny Thomas, and how basically we’re all now just punching bags for their childhood traumas and personal grievances

• And ICYMI, this (hopefully less depressing but still not completely optimistic) Substack piece I wrote a while back on how the history of the Church Committee reveals why Jim Jordan’s “weaponization committee” is a complete sham

Noteworthy clips this week:

• My comments on the Supreme Court decisions in two big cases trying to hold social media companies responsible for “aiding and abetting” terrorism by knowingly allowing terrorism groups to use their platforms for recruitment, communication, and fundraising. One involved the interpretation of an anti-terrorism statute (the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA) and the other concerned whether Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act, which shields social media companies from liability for content posted to their platforms, covers the algorithms which “feed” people specific types of content based on their user activity (thereby facilitating radicalization, etc.). The Court unanimously found that social media’s role in the terrorist attack at issue too tenuous to constitute “aiding and abetting” under the anti-terrorism statute, and declined to reach the 230 issue. I think the Court got it right, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some serious questions that Congress needs to address given that these companies are facilitating radicalization and extremism:

Upcoming Events:

• Wine & Fries Happy Hour with Elie Mystal, author of Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution, Sunday, May 21 at 8 p.m. EDT. Zoom link will be sent to Wine & Fries subscribers at 5 p.m..

• Guest speaker Andrew McCabe, Wednesday, May 31 at 1 p.m. EDT. Zoom link will be sent to paid subscribers at 10 a.m. and a recording will be posted on Thursday

• June/July Wine & Fries members event: Introduction to the Enneagram (date/time TBA): Did you know that I am a trained and accredited instructor in the Enneagram? I began studying it before it became cool. Learn about this great tool for understanding yourself and the people around you!

That’s it for this week — hope to see many of you at Wine & Fries tomorrow night!