On Monday, leadership at VOA changed almost entirely. The Senate confirmation of President Trumps appointed head of USAGM Michael Pack was followed by the resignation of two top executives, Director Amanda Bennett and Deputy Director Sandy Sugawara, both deemed experienced independent journalists.

In her farewell message, Bennett said, "Michael Pack swore before Congress to respect and honor the firewall that guarantees VOA's independence, which in turn plays the single most important role in the stunning trust our audiences around the world have in us."

Pack, a conservative filmmaker who previously ran the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is also an ally of alt-right icon Steve Bannon and under investigation for potentially channeling money from a nonprofit to his film production company. He has already fired four directors across the organizationa purge that does little to ease concerns about editorial meddling. These firings include: Bay Fang of Radio Free Asia; Jamie Fly of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; Alberto M. Fernandez of Middle East Broadcasting Networks; Emilio Vazquez of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting; and Libby Liu of the Open Technology Fund.

Though those fired by Pack show no distinction along party linesFernandez and Fly were both Trump appointeesthe replacements of their bipartisan boards are now largely filled by Trump administration appointees. Packs decision has been criticized by congressional officials as an attempt to change the nonpartisan nature of the news outlet.

Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a statement on Wednesday saying, The wholesale firing of the agencys network heads, and disbanding of corporate boards to install President Trumps political allies, is an egregious breach of this organizations history and mission from which it may never recover.

Brett Bruen, director of global engagement on President Barack Obamas National Security Council, said that VOA does notpresent a Republican or Democratic voice to the world, He added that VOA has always put forward an American, a credible voice.

Founded in 1942, VOA is the largest US international broadcaster, delivering news and information to an estimated weekly audience of 280 million people. Its name comes from President Franklin Roosevelts speechwriter and American playwright, Robert Sherwood, who in 1939 prophesied:

"We are living in an age when communication has achieved fabulous importance. There is a new decisive force in the human race, more powerful than all the tyrants. It is the force of massed thought--thought which has been provoked by words, strongly spoken."

The force of mass thought would be represented by VOA, whose charter also states they will represent America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions.

VOA is not a device of the government; it is, in fact, created to be a tool to amplify and share American voices to people around the world. Key to the purpose of VOA is its firewall, which prohibits interference by any US government official in the objective and independent work the journalists do. The firewall protects VOAs ability to make final decisions on what stories to cover and how to cover it, even if it is government-owned.

VOA is part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media and is government-funded, but its core mission has always been to provide reliable and accuratethis also means unbiasednews.

The USAGM, previously called the Broadcasting Board of Governors, was founded to counter propaganda from countries with repressive regimes, offering its audience independent and reliable sources of news. It currently oversees VOA, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, ensuring that content on these platforms remain independent of political influence.

On the Voices of America website, there is a specific header for Press Freedom. The page monitors news of media repression in foreign countries and states that VOA is committed to press freedom around the world. Looking at this page after the events of the past week, one might suggest VOA start at its home base, the US.

In April, the VOA ran a story about the reopening of Wuhan, China, where the COVID-19 outbreak first emerged. After months of lockdown, the city reopened with a light show, which VOA documented and shared on social media.

This story was condemned by Trump and his social media director Dan Scavino Jr. The White House website ran an article under the headline Amid a Pandemic, Voice of America Spends Your Money to Promote Foreign Propaganda. Scavino chimed in, tweeting, American taxpayers paying for Chinas very own propaganda, via the U.S. government-funded Voice of America! DISGRACE!!

At a news briefing on April 15, Trump only had bad things to say about the broadcaster. "If you heard what's coming out of the Voice of America, it's disgusting. What things they say are disgusting toward our country," Trump said. "And Michael Pack would get in and do a great job."

VOA also received criticism for using widely watched and reputable data from Johns Hopkins University tracking COVID-19 cases and deaths around the world. The White House accused VOA of creating graphics with Communist government statistics to compare Chinas coronavirus death toll to Americas.

These attacks took the VOA executives by surprise. Rarely have they been called out by an administration in this fashion.

Im afraid I cant tell you what prompted it, said Bennett, then Director. I dont actually know. It just came out of the blue.

Though these attacks took Bennett by surprise, the Trump administration had been planning to make significant changes at VOA since 2018. Packs nomination to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media was stalled for two years.

It may be too early to tell what will come of Packs changes, but the direction he is taking VOA and USAGM may undermine their entire purpose. As head of USAGM, Pack is prohibited from interfering in VOA editorial processes. But as he has shown, he can dismiss and hire new members, those who can change the content and stories produced.

The voices of America might now be the voice of the American government. And this change will be noticed around the world.

In 1942, in its first broadcast, announcer William Harlan Hale said, We bring you Voices from America. Today, and daily from now on, we shall speak to you about America and the war. The news may be good for us. The news may be bad. But we shall tell you the truth.

The world was listening then as America fought Nazi Germany and a leaders grasp for tyrannical power; the world is listening now.

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The Voice Of America Is Not The Voice Of Trump - The Pavlovic Today

The globalization of the anti-racist movement inspired the same symbolic and polemical gestures in the United States, England, Belgium, France. Statues and monuments are shot down or tagged, signs of a memory that remains conflictual and of a non-consensual historical narrative.

Anti-racism demonstrations have found an echo outside of the United States; in Europe and the West Indies, in particular, where the memory of slavery and colonization still resonates with todays discrimination. Among the images that circulate, one means of action strikes peoples minds: The unbolting of statues that embody this past.

In several countries, protests are rising against the representation in public spaces of former figures linked to slavery or colonizationin the United States with the Confederate monuments, in England with the statue of a slave merchant thrown into the water in Bristol, in Belgium with the removal of the bust of Leopold II, or in France with the toppling of Colbert and Victor Schoelcher statues.

America: The memory of slavery, pain, and racism

The US South is still very much marked with symbols of the Civil War (1861-1865), 155 years after the end of the conflict that claimed 600,000 livesmore than all American deaths in the First and Second World Wars. Across the Southern states that had left the union to form their own country and maintain slavery, there are still many monuments and statues paying tribute to figures of that era: Generals, political leaders Some schools even continue to bear their names.

The Confederate flag also remains a symbol for some to express pride in their Southern identity, with the pattern pasted on roadsides, as stickers on the back of cars, or even waving alongside the current state flags. By 2015, the Washington Post had counted seven states that continue to use this emblem on their official banners: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

But these symbols are now arousing ever more indignation, especially since they have become rallying signs for the racist extreme right.

Dylann Roof, the perpetrator of the attack on a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, had taken a photo in front of this flag shortly before murdering nine worshippers.

In 2017, the Unite the Right demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia intended to denounce the removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate armies during the Civil War. This rally brought together white supremacists, members of the alt-right and even neo-Nazis.

The weekend was marked by clashes and ended with the death of a counter-demonstrator killed by the battering ram car of a white supremacist.

In 2020, the issue is still sensitive and returns to the forefront with the death of George Floyd. Several statues have been taken down, vandalized, or dismantled in Virginia and Alabama, but the gesture that caught the most attention was the removal of a General Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederate States.

Democratic Virginia Governor Ralph Northam announced on June 4 the removal of the equestrian statue, welcoming the support of the generals descendants, the Reverend Robert W. Lee, who sees the statue as a symbol of oppression.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, also called for the removal of Confederate statues from Capitol Hill.

The statues which fill the halls of Congress should reflect our highest ideals as Americans. Today, I am once again calling for the removal from the U.S. Capitol of the 11 statues representing Confederate soldiers and officials. These statues pay homage to hate, not heritage, she wrote on Twitter.

Most of these monuments were indeed erected at the end of the 19th century when these American states were implementing a policy of racial segregation. For the governor of Virginia, they also helped to spread a falsified reading of history, according to which the Confederates had fought above all for the right of the states in the face of aggression from the North, a vision that denies or diminishes the importance of slavery in the entry into the war.

In 2020, we can no longer honor a system that was based on the buying and selling of human beings, explained Governor Northam.

The question today is how to build a memory of the South that is meaningful for its inhabitants, but also reconciliatory, around common symbols. Because the majority of black Americans live in the southern states, which were once slavery and segregationist, explains historian Francois Durpaire, a specialist on the United States and professor at the University of Cergy and co-founder of the Bonheururs laboratory.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an association that fights discrimination, 114 Confederate monuments have been removed since 2015 but the racial and political divide remains. The removals take place mainly in places where there are large Black populations with active associations and a majority of Democratic voters.

England: The memory of colonization and dehumanization

Other countries are not spared by this inventory of figures from the past. In England, the video of the unbolting of the statue of Edward Colston made the rounds of social networks on June 7.

This monument was erected in 1895 in Bristol in homage to the Member of Parliament and merchant who financed many of the citys institutionsbut it turned out that he owed his fortune to the slave trade.

The maintenance of this statue had been the subject of debate for years and its toppling was ultimately decided by a crowd of demonstrators. In a statement, Prime Minister Boris Johnson acknowledged that George Floyds death had aroused anger and an undeniable sense of injustice but condemned those who break the law, attack the police and vandalize public monuments.

While regretting the manner in which the statue was demolished, Labour opposition leader Keir Starmer said it should have been removed years ago . You cant have a statue of a slave trader in Britain in the 21st century. According to the mayor of Bristol, it should end up in a museum.

But other statues are in the sights of activists, such as Cecil Rhodes on the Oxford campus. The businessman, born in 1853, was the prime minister of the Cape Colony in South Africa, convinced of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxons, one of the great architects of British imperialism and colonialism.

Much more sensitive, the statue of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was also targeted in front of the Parliament in London with the inscription was a racist added to the base.

The memory of slavery in Europe and Martinique

In Belgium, the equestrian statue of King Leopold II was removed from a square in Antwerp on June 9 after it had been defaced. It is now stored in the reserves of a local museum, the city council announced. Leopold II was the second King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, promoter of Belgiums civilizing mission to the Congo, where he established a brutal regime based on forced labor.

Frances figures of Jules Ferry or Colbert were not spared. The former gave his name to countless streets and schools and is immortalized with several statues for having established secular, free, and compulsory education for all. But Jules Ferry was also a convinced supporter of colonialism, especially in Indochina.

As for Colbert, this minister of Louis XIV was the author of the code noir which legislated slavery in the French colonies. On June 6, demonstrators, belonging in particular to the Black African Defence League, called for his statue in front of the National Assembly to be unblocked.

In any case, the historical inventory of public places related to racism is not finished. In 2019, the city of Bordeaux which prospered like Nantes and other cities thanks to the slave trade decided to put up plaques mentioning the slave-owning past of people who gave their names to streets. On June 8, the association Memoire et Partages also wrote an open letter to the President of the Republic calling for further changes in Biarritz, La Rochelle, Le Havre, and Marseille.

However, in overseas French territories, Martinique has indeed long done a job of remembrance, in particular thanks to Aime Cesaire, deputy of the island from 1945 to 1993 and mayor of Fort-de-France from 1945 to 2001. He was a staunch anti-colonialist and he reflected that position in the Martinican public agenda.

A militant group decapitated the statue of Josephine de Beauharnais in the 1970s. She was the wife of Napoleon, who re-established slavery after his first abolition during the Revolution. She was Martiniquean and belonged to the clan of slave settlers. But Cesaire had the great intelligence to leave the headless statue and cover it with red paint, symbolizing the blood of slaves, to offer it as a narrative of the history of Martinique.

Reconciling a painful past with a hopeful future

The events we have seen in recent days are not new. Both ancient and recent history has often witnessed acts of vandalism and even destruction of memorial objects, generally for reasons of denial of their legitimacy by a section of the population. This is even more evident when these objects of a symbolic nature are placed in public view.

Faced with certain sensitive subjects such as slavery, the political authorities sometimes take the lead in rewriting history. As such, the city of Bordeaux has been encouraged to look into its slave past by installing explanatory plaques in certain streets bearing the names of slavers as well as a sculpture in the gardens of the city hall in order to pursue a work of remembrance.

In this way, historical facts, without intrinsically changing, are made and re-made according to the times, the issues at stake, and the evolution of consciousness. Since it is men who make history, sometimes under conditions that they themselves have chosen, we should read the sequence of real historical events against the yardstick of a reasonable ideal.

You can follow Professor Mohamed Chtatou on Twitter: @Ayurinu

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Destroying the Statues of Slavers to Rewrite History - Morocco World News

In its evening newsletter then, the White House blasted the service under the headline Amid a Pandemic, Voice of America Spends Your Money to Promote Foreign Propaganda. The crime, as described by Dan Scavino, Mr. Trumps social media director, was positive reports on how China had handled its coronavirus outbreak. Mr. Trump promptly picked up the chorus. If you heard whats coming out of the Voice of America, its disgusting, he told a White House news briefing on April 15. What things they say are disgusting toward our country. And Michael Pack would get in and do a great job.

What evidently rankled the White House was a clip showing people celebrating the lifting of the lockdown in Wuhan, which accompanied a straightforward account by The Associated Press. V.O.A. officials were dumbfounded. It just came out of the blue, said Amanda Bennett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning veteran of Bloomberg News, The Wall Street Journal and The Philadelphia Inquirer, who announced her resignation Monday as director of the V.O.A. The deputy director, Sandy Sugawara, formerly of The Washington Post and United Press International, also resigned.

Ms. Bennett and Ms. Sugawara did not link their departures to the long-delayed confirmation of Mr. Pack, who becomes head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the parent organization of the V.O.A., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and some regional foreign broadcasters. In her farewell message, Ms. Bennett assured V.O.A. staffers that Michael Pack swore before Congress to respect and honor the firewall that guarantees V.O.A.s independence, which in turn plays the single most important role in the stunning trust our audiences around the world have in us.

It may be that Mr. Pack will respect the firewall he is sworn to maintain. His past is patchy he hired Mr. Bannon, an icon of the alt-right, as a consultant on two documentaries, including one about Adm. Hyman Rickover. He is also under investigation by the District of Columbia attorney general for possibly channeling money from a nonprofit group he oversees to his for-profit film production company. And he was confirmed along party lines. Before that, he had worked at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Council on the Humanities and served as president of the conservative Claremont Institute.

None of that confirms that if left to his own judgment, Mr. Pack would do Mr. Trumps or Mr. Bannons bidding, especially if it meant flouting the V.O.A.s legally mandated independence. What is certain, given Mr. Trumps record and his statements about V.O.A., is that this is what the administration expects and will forcefully demand. Mr. Trump wants a bullhorn, not a diplomatic instrument, and he insists on loyalty.

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New Boss May Test Voice of Americas Credibility - The New York Times

This was worth the time to listen to, as I have been grappling with this as an intellectual. I also appreciated the (I assume) spontaneous questions Steve asked. I would have to read the book to digest the point of this material more adequately. A couple of things though ...

Gurri is correct, the amount of information out there is just overwhelming and growing geometrically every day. Working in the sciences, it really is impossible to be fully informed on a topic because there is just so much material even in rather narrow disciplines. So to understand any topic, even a Ph.D. level of research would only give you a general perspective on a narrow aspect of a culture, or a particular topic. On the other hand, a Ph.D. does make you more aware of how little you know, so it tends to lead to a little more humility.

On Science:

I think one thing the general public doesn't understand is that people like Fauci are basically saying "this is what I know and these are the best recommendations I have at the moment". At least as a trained scientist, I recognize that models trying to estimate events where we don't have all the information will get things wrong. So what? Do you want nothing, or do you want to get __some__ idea of what is happening with the best models we have? If you don't understand geometric growth, well, SARS-CoV-2 is a good lesson. If you don't understand how frightening it could be, try modeling this kind of stuff for your own self! You are getting the digested information of someone who has been working on this stuff for years, and the inaccuracies, be them as they may, are just a reality. Well digested knowledge is still a lot better than listening to someone snake-oil salesman tell us to drink bleach -- even if drinking bleach ultimately does turn out to be the right answer after much study (which I most certainly doubt).

I think part of the problem is that we have taught science in undergraduate courses as a collection of facts. I do recall that undergraduate physics and chemistry was filled with "we know, we know, we know". The master's degree was "we basically know, we basically know", and the PhD was, "we don't know a darn thing except for a couple of puny islands of knowledge, and even that we don't fully understand". Few people get that far, so they get out with the "we know" nonsense, and they find later than it can be shot full of holes.

On Alternatives:

I grant that we scientists don't always get it right. Evidently, this is where the pseudo-experts have seized the moment (pseudo-experts: people who know some of the language and have read a limited foundation of the literature but do not have the kind of discipline that comes from really having to do science all their life and research a topic at some of the deepest levels). They don't say "I don't know". They have "THEeeeeeeeee answer". ... and since they don't have any reputation to lose, if they fail, they go on to the next answer.

When you do science for a living, you come to appreciate some general consistencies and patterns that occur that are helpful signposts. Any particular solution to any specific problem will details that we can get wrong, but the over-arching features will not be wrong and when the details become available (in a year or two from now with SARS-CoV-2), those facts will become properly refined.

Summary then ...

I see that Steve (and Sarah) are asking some of the right questions. One notable goal of The Dispatch is that there is some effort in the short term (1 week - 2 weeks) to digest information and provide an intelligent summary. That is, I think, an important goal of journalism, is it not? Not merely to whittle out snippets of news, but to contextualize it within a framework and to try to get the different perspectives. Gurri does point out that you need to listen to views left and right and understand them. It does pass through your conservative filters, but that is like passing things through my scientific filters. There are liberal filters, but it is important for liberals to also understand what conservatives think. I don't think I can go all the way to listening to alt-right or communists, but right- or left-leaning is something everyone can do. As more of a liberal than a conservative, I'd say that whereas I don't always agree with Steve, or Jonah, or David, or Sarah, at least I can listen to them. The extremes of the right and the left get a bit intellectually dishonest and I can only listen to it for a short time before I have to turn it off.

At any rate, I think the goal is right, in this time of information overload, to provide some level of digested information that helps people gain some bearing. I do hope that it will finally slow down a little bit because I feel pulled in all different directions without any sense of bearing presently.

Originally posted here:

License to Analyze Media - The Dispatch

As protests and uprisings sweep across the nation and world, Americas profane aesthetics face extinction desecrations of Christopher Columbus, Robert E Lee and Frank Rizzo, all symbols of whiteness and white supremacy, force imperialism, racism, and capitalism to see further days of reckoning and perhaps one day, The End of Policing.

In Darkwater, W E B Du Bois wrote the discovery of personal whiteness is a 19th and 20th century matter This assumption that all whiteness alone is inherently and obviously better than browness or tan leads to curious acts Whats the effect on a man or a nation when it comes passionately to believe such an extraordinary dictum as this?

E Frances White compared James Baldwins and Toni Morrisons perspectives on white identity construction: For Baldwin, whiteness was about a false claim on innocence that depended on the demonization of blackness. Both Baldwin and Morrison expose the fragility of whiteness, and in the process disrupt any notion of pure whiteness, distinct from, and in opposition to, blackness.

In regards to white privilege, Toni Morrison remarked, So scary are the consequences of the collapse [of it] that many Americans have flocked to a political platform that supports and translates violence against the defenseless as strength. These people are not so much angry as terrified, with the kind of terror that makes knees tremble.

Statue desecration strikes a nerve and makes the knees tremble for many white supremacists that believe in protecting the permanence of white superiority found in unassailable figures. On May 31, the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument was removed in the city of Birmingham. Just one day later in Fort Myers, Florida, the Sons of Confederate Veterans removed a bust of Robert E Lee. By weeks end, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, and North Carolina all implemented speedy plans for monument and statue removal in their respective cities.

After protesters toppled an eight-foot statue of Jefferson Davis, he was hauled onto a tow truck like a heavy piece of trash. This and more removals created a backlash of alt-right counter-protesters prepared to defend remaining statues around the country. More moderate citizens defended their right to comfort through expressing their own pride of heritage and history as seen in the defense of Davis monuments elsewhere.

Excerpted from: 'In Praise of the FloydRebellion and Statue Desecration'.

Counterpunch.org

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Down with symbols - The News International

Gay pride flag. (Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP Photo)

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The LGBTQ community has officially and emphatically been included in the protection offered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In three consolidated cases called Bostock v. Clayton County Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Civil Right Acts Title VII prohibition of discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sex includes a prohibition against discriminating against gays, lesbians, and transgendered people.Ad Policy

Archconservative Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as the four liberal justices: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Often, when you have one of these opinions signed by both liberal and conservative justices, the decision is very narrow. In such situations, its not unusual for one side or the other to write whats called concurring opinions, in which they will agree with the outcome but offer their own, usually more expansive, reasons for arriving at the conclusion.

Not this time. Gorsuch wrote a civil rights opinion whose main substance could have been written by Sotomayoror Thurgood Marshall or Harvey Milk. Here are two sentences from the opinion that I never expected to hear from a conservative justice appointed by Donald Trump and approved by Mike Pence: The statutes message for our cases is equally simple and momentous: An individuals homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions. Thats because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.

That is no half measure. Those sentences are a complete victory for the activists and advocates and lawyers and allies who have long said that discrimination against the LGBTQ community is illegal. It is also, by far, the biggest legal win for the transgender community, ever.

It is not a perfect ruling. While any of the liberal justices could have written the same opinion in substance, the chief justices decision to let Gorsuch write it gave Gorsuch a chance to lay intellectual cover for future bad decisions he will make. Gorsuch is doing whats called a textualist reading: Hes saying that when the text is clear, he doesnt have to go back to the original intent of the lawmakers. Which sounds good, until you remember that Gorsuch claims special powers to know when the text is clear and when it is unclear.Current Issue

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In this case, Gorsuchs interpretation of the text comports with a modern understanding of the law. In another case, however, Gorsuch might decide that an archaic definition is clear, while in still another he might decide the text is unclear and look at what Thomas Jefferson would have wanted. Gorsuchs interpretation of the text is going to work against a robust protection of rights more often than it works to promote them.

But that can be a problem for another day. Today, Gorsuch divined that the text of Title VII clearly protects gay and trans people, which is a happy conclusion and the right conclusion. It is also, it must be said, the same conclusion a mere mortal could have come to by simply looking at the last 30 years of legal precedent.

Despite the seismic nature of the ruling, no new rights were granted in this case. Thats because many lower federal courts have deemed that the LGBTQ community is functionally protected by Title VII since the 1989 case Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. In that case, the court ruled that employers could not discriminate against people who didnt conform to the sexual stereotype preferred by their employer. Its basically the no, she doesnt need to smile more case.

The Bostock case came about all these years later not as part of a progressive effort to make those Title VII protections apply explicitly to the LGBTQ community, but as the result of decades of conservative activism, led by groups like the Federalist Society and the judges they support, to get the LGBTQ community excluded from the protections many judges and scholars think they already enjoy. The conservative goal has been to force Congress to rewrite Title VII to explicitly include LGBTQ people, thus giving conservative political candidates another culture-war issue to fight about, while trusting total gridlock in Washington to prevent any such rewrite from ever happening.

The majority opinion shifts the burden away from the courts and puts it squarely on anti-LGBTQ politicians to continue this fight. If conservatives want to change the law, they are now free to organize and elect congresspeople and senators who oppose LGBTQ rights and want to run on a platform rewriting the Civil Rights Act to exclude them.

One way to know that this was a major victory for the LGBTQ community is that alt-right forces are having a meltdown over the decision. (Ben Shapiros tears taste particularly delicious right now.) While Gorsuchs majority opinion was just 33 pages, Justice Samuel Alitos dissent was 54 pages, and included 172 pages of appendices that he offered as evidence, clear as I can tell, of the importance of genitalia over time. Trying to include all of this supposed evidence briefly crashed the Supreme Court website when the opinion was initially released. Anything that makes Alito this mad is, almost by definition, very good.

Still, the more important dissent might have been written by alleged attempted rapist Brett Kavanaugh. Yes, the justice that Susan Collins vouched for dissented from an LGBTQ rights opinion, something that Collins herself pretended not to notice when she tweeted out support for the courts decision in Bostock. Kavanaugh argued that whether or not he thinks the LGBTQ community should be included in Title VII protections is irrelevant, since we are judges, not Members of Congress. Under the Constitutions separation of powers, our role as judges is to interpret and follow the law as written, regardless of whether we like the result. He, like the conservative lawyers who argued this case, pretends that Title VII does not already include the LGBTQ community, and argues that it is not the role of the court to extend the scope of that law.

This is significant, because it is exactly the same argument John Roberts made in his dissent from the marriage-equality decision, Obergefell v. Hodges. In that case, Roberts wrote: Understand well what this dissent is about: It is not about whether, in my judgment, the institution of marriage should be changed to include same-sex couples. It is instead about whether, in our democratic republic, that decision should rest with the people acting through their elected representatives, or with five lawyers who happen to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal disputes according to law.More from Mystal

I dont know if Roberts has changed his mind on marriage equality. But I do know that when Kavanaugh effectively read Robertss own argument against marriage equality back to him, Roberts declined to go in for another round.

Robertss decision to switch sides is an important sign. Given the polarization of American politics, its unlikely that new LGBTQ rights laws are going to be written any time soon. Conservative politicians are very good at stoking MAGA fears over which bathroom people use, while many purple-state Democrats would rather hope for gay and trans rights than fight for them. If were not going to get new, robust laws about equality, then were going to need courts to continue including the LGBTQ community in what equal rights laws already exist.

Bostock is a significant civil rights victory and, with Gorsuch and Roberts on board, it feels durable as well. But make no mistake: Anti-LGBTQ discrimination has not been defeated. To risk a war analogy: This case is like surviving the Battle of Britaininvading Normandy and kicking the fascists off the continent is still a long way off.

Republicans will try to use this judicial defeat to motivate their base to show up to vote on November 3. Liberals have to be equally motivated to turn out in November and defend this victory.

Originally posted here:

Neil Gorsuch Stuns the Nation, Does the Right Thing - The Nation

Eventually, some of the same principles also came to apply to the Voice of America. VOA is a U.S.-based radio station that was originally created in 1942 to rally the troops. Long perceived as an arm of the U.S. government, it was less successful as a news operation than RFE/RL and the BBC World Service, which maintained reputations for impartiality. To better compete, in the 1970s it was given more independence. But from the beginning it was always intended, as its mission statement still clearly says, to represent America, not any single segment of American society. VOA was never meant to be the tool of one political party, but rather to present America from a broad, nonpartisan perspective. Its most successful programs by far had no politics at all: VOAs Jazz Hour at one point had 30 million listeners and a cult following inside the Soviet Union.

Compared with the cost of a nuclear arsenal, these tactics were dirt cheapand yet they probably did more to undermine communist ideology than all of the U.S. military put together. Over time, the American-backed broadcasters in Europe and Russia built up the trust that helped break the spell of communism and bring down the regimes.

When the Cold War ended, many forgot about these tools. But through the 1990s, the 2000s, and the 2010s, VOA and RFE/RL kept working; Radio Free Asia, along with sister stations broadcasting into Cuba and the Middle East, were added to the group. They kept doing the same job, using the same principles, only in more countries than before. On relatively small budgets, sometimes in difficult conditions, they have kept operating as surrogates in countries that dont have a free press, where journalism is dangerous and governments are not transparent, putting out hundreds of reports in dozens of languages. Through them, and thanks to them, some parts of the world learn about America, and sometimes about their own countries, too.

All of these institutions gathered under the U.S. Agency for Global Media umbrella have had their ups and downs. They have had better and worse leaders; there have been arguments about how much popular programming to do on the native-language stations, and how much serious news. There have been periods of low morale, staff problems, oversight issues. Last year, Radio Mart, which broadcasts into Cuba, put out some conspiratorial, anti-Semitic material about George Soros, after which eight people were fired. Successive White Houses tried to shape the broadcasters in various ways, and sometimes became annoyed by the output of one network or another. Until this week, however, no U.S. administration had actually set out to destroy Americas international broadcasters or remove their independence. But now, finally, one has.

The author of this action is Michael Pack: colleague of Steve Bannon, producer of a documentary film on Clarence Thomas, and a person so indifferent to the subject of international broadcasting that several people who have met him told me they thought he didnt really want the job. (Because they still work with him, they asked to remain anonymous.) The Trump administration nominated him as the CEO of the Agency for Global Media two years ago, but his nomination languished in the Senate, not least because Republican senators were unenthusiastic; one congressional staffer who met Pack told me that he seemed to know nothing, had not bothered to read a 101 on the agency. Asked about his priorities for the complex broadcasting services, he would respond, according to another interlocutor, with vague phrases like Give me some time and I need to think about it. Pack is also under criminal investigation for allegedly misdirecting money from a nonprofit to his private company, normally the kind of thing that gives the Senate pause. But for reasons that are still unclear, President Trump finally got interested in his nomination this spring, started making calls, and leaned hard on the supine Republican Senate leadership to vote him in.

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The Voice of America Will Sound Like Trump - The Atlantic

Picks of the week

Cautionary TalesWhat is the value of a life? How much can scientists learn from the search for a smallpox vaccine? And why dont humans listen to warnings until its too late? The new season of Tim Harfords podcast about lifes big mistakes asks some timely questions in six mini-episodes. There are lessons to be learned along the way, with tales of people sitting in a packed cabaret bar while a fire spread through a hotel and the danger of relying on other people to guide you to safety. Hannah Verdier

Rabbit HoleIf youve not yet fallen down the rabbit hole that is the Rabbit Hole podcast from the New York Times, prepare to be enlightened and a little freaked out. Alongside producer Andy Mills (Caliphate), the tech columnist Kevin Roose examines whether the internet is doing something to us that is profoundly changing who we are, from radicalisation via YouTube to all-knowing algorithms and PewDiePies rise from online celebrity to hero of the alt-right. Perfect for fans of the similarly brain-wobbling Reply All. Hannah J Davies

Chosen by Max Sanderson

During the past couple of months, as horror stories emerged from Italy of doctors forced to choose which patients receive ventilation, and politicians debate whether to prioritise the health of their citizens or the economy, Ive often asked myself the same question. Who defines how much a life is worth?

Its a question that is explored immaculately in one of my favourite pieces of audio; the aptly titled Playing God from Radiolab. With the journalist Sheri Fink as our guide, the story focuses on a single hospital in New Orleans ravaged by Hurricane Katrina (which is also the focus of Finks book Five Days at Memorial). What follows is a masterclass in how audio can be used to recreate a moment in time.

As usual, the Radiolab team bring the unfolding narrative to life with simple scripting and subtle sound design to create a sense of tension that, at times, verges on unbearable. Added to this is their use of space something Ive written about before which leaves you alone to writhe in contemplation, much like I imagine the healthcare workers in that hospital had to.

Its definitely not an easy listen and is one some may find distressing but its an incredibly important story, to try to give us a sense of what happens, what should happen, when humans are forced to play God?

The Guardians new podcast, Innermost, begins on Tuesday. Hosted by Leah Green it will journey into the secret lives of listeners around the world, as they tell their stories in their own words.

Why not try: In Weird Cities | The Rewatchables | 27 Club

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Why human beings are so irrational, and never learn podcasts of the week - The Guardian

Twitter is turning up the heat on podcast superstar and the Bro sen One, Joe Rogan. His buddy Joey Diaz is also facing the music.

Rogan has long drawn the ire of far-leftists. He uses his massive podcast following to promote, among others, left and right-leaning speakers.

He describes himself as a mostly liberal. Yet liberals see him as a toxic man whos giving a platform to dangerous, alt-right ideas.

But now that several of his comedian friends are facing sexual misconduct allegations, liberals on Twitter are taking their shot.

They should pray they dont succeed.

Joe Rogans friends keep getting caught with their pants down.

First, it was Louis CK.

Last week, Chris DElia was accused of predatory sexual misconduct involving multiple underage girls.

Allegations now surround roastmaster Jeff Ross.

Rogans good friend Joey Diaz is also facing the music after this misogynistic rant, which Joe Rogan, sadly, indulges:

It is nothing short of awful, and Rogan should have to answer for this enabling behavior (and Joey Diaz? Youre on your own). But to call for the mans job would be akin to firing every person whos ever laughed at a racist joke.

But theres more.

This clip of comedian Bill Burr clapping back at Rogan for not wanting to wear a mask just went viral:

These examples give liberals every reason to see Rogan as a problematic meathead. But hell be the first person to tell you hes stupid.

Joe Rogan is not easy to peg down. He fits multiple conflicting archetypes. Hes an MMA fighter and commentator who has a jujitsu grip on the minds of bros all across the country.

But the comedian is also a loud proponent of psychedelics, and he has a curious mind that enrages people who want him to choose a side. He doesnt like Donald Trump. He doesnt like Joe Biden.

Hes interviewed alt-right demigods like Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens. But hes also publicly endorsed Bernie Sanders.

Liberal publications like Slate call his podcast:

a rambling, profane interview program in which the host is often high, loves to talk about cage fighting.

Within the same article, author Justin Peters quotes Rogan as saying, I go left on everything. Basically except guns.

But he pushes back on key ideas of the left, like the illusion of gender, the reality of the wage gap, and what he deems as outrage culture. That already put progressives in a frenzy. And then, the clips above pushed them over the top.

But, as bad as those clips are, they should realize he serves a bigger purpose in the ecosystem.

While some would argue that Joe Rogan is a gateway to the alt-right, I would argue that hes an even larger gateway away from the alt-right.

The idea that hes converting out-loud male-feminist types over to the Darkside is laughable. But he does appeal to the silent majority who are witnessing the battle between sides and trying to decide. In that way, his left-leaning sentiments nudge many in the liberal direction.

Essentially, hes like progressive training wheels. Hes the one guy who might be able to reach someone in a red state whos supporting Trump by default and get them to understand the progressive ideas touted by Bernie Sanders or Andrew Yang.

If liberals someday actually managed to cancel him, these undecided people could go full-MAGA. And there could be a lot of them, considering hehas the most popular podcast in the world.

And as crazy as both extremes can be at times, whats so wrong with swaying to the middle?

Try to cancel him if you want, but theres another option: encourage him to have guests that you want to see. Like him or hate him, Joe Rogan is open to new ideas as long as your outrage doesnt end up radicalizing him, too.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.

More:

Canceling Joe Rogan Would be the Left's Worst Nightmare - Here's Why - CCN.com

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Alt-Right strategic opinion is convinced that the assertion of incremental claims over the upper reaches of the Galwan river valley in Ladakh reflects the habitual greediness of China which nibbles away at borders in a near continuous expansion of territory.

In doing so they also constantly test the limits to which they can push the adversary and give no reprieve to those inadequately resolved to fight back. China cares not a whit about legalities or diplomatic niceties. Chinas expansionist claims in the South China Sea clearly evidence such opinions as being well founded (Vijay Gokhale Speech Pune).

Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace -a South Asian Strategic affairs analyst of repute says India like all other countries which share a border with China have only three choices. First, retaliate against expansionism by copy-cat capture of poorly defined territory held by China. Second, resist expansionary claims actively on the ground and diplomatically. Third lie back and accept the rapeAshley Tellis on Chinas Galwan adventurism

Indias hyperactive media and its hotly contested politics does not permit our leadership to even consider the third option. Leadership must appear competent and strong if it is not to suffer in one or the other of the many elections which are always happening at the center, in the states or at the local level.

The first option of copy-cat incursions into the neutral, ill-defined territory has some salience. The only problem is that this active strategy will require a constant stream of additional resources to continually outwit the adversary in a low intensity conflict along a 3500 km long border at high altitudes. A daunting and resource intensive option.

In effect, the default option is what we have done thus far- remain watchful, anticipate adversary intentions, take counter measures and in the event of an unstoppable ingress seek to contain it and double up on diplomatic channels to flag it for eventual resolution.

This is a long game in which consistency of strategy and theatre command tactics is key. India lacks the persistence for either. Resource allocation is always a problem. Playing a war game, in which, the best outcome is just to maintain the status quo, does not galvanize citizen support either. Peaceniks will always want to convert the border into a zone of tranquility as if beggars can be choosers.

Bharat Karnad, a seasoned, security analyst who has long sounded the alarm against expansionary China, advocates we take a leaf from the Pakistani war book to contain a much bigger adversary- in their case India- via the induction of first use tactical nuclear weapons.

The advisability of deploying such lethal weapons along a poorly defined border between India and China is debatable. The doctrine of first use requires a finely honed set of compulsory triggers for initiating action. Is this possible, with line of control infractions happening often, sometimes inadvertently. Factoring in restraint to avoid an overkill reaction for small or temporary infractions, risks undermining the first use resolve itself.

Luckily for us, the Indian security and diplomatic establishments are highly professional institutions with sophisticated protocols, honed over decades, including diplomatic and trade incentives/sanctions, to deal with overseas friends and foes.

It remains unclear however whether we are as well versed to deal with those in between- like China. China feels, somewhat mistakenly, that it has become big enough not to need a friend and can buy whatever support it needs to legitimize its overseas ambitions of pushing the US to second place.

India can in no way either stymie this objective nor can it hope to collaborate to do so. That is a game for the big boys, not us. Consider that Indias GDP only equals the combined GDP of the five bigger ASEAN economies Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Philippines. There are lessons to be learnt in the wily, circumspect manner they manage China to their advantage.

Consider also, that over the last two decades (2000-2018) the ASEAN big five grew at a respectable 8.5% per year (nominal terms) versus 10.5% for India. To us it appears that we are pulling well ahead of ASEAN. But to the big five, it is China, which continues to be the lodestar of prosperity with a 14.3% nominal growth over this period (WB data).

Using nominal growth data here is more appropriate because business is more concerned with current money values unlike economists who measure and compare in constant terms to get to the bottom of what policies work and why. For business what matters is whether the customer has the US$ required to buy their products and service their investments.

In terms of near-term business prospects, the ASEAN big five do better than us. Their combined trade (import plus export), in current US$, was 3X of ours in 2019 (Trade Map International Trade Statistics) though we have closed the differential since 2001 when the it was 6.5X. Versus China we remain a minnow with their trade being 5X of ours in 2019, with only a marginal improvement since 2001

What does all this have to do with the China-India relationship? The sheer dominance of China in the region deserves respect- much like we demand respect from our smaller neighbors. After the diplomatize and polite chatter is done, economic size matters, as does an evidenced history of exercising economic muscle.

Tellis points out that the big difference between the US and China is that the former has a century old, recent history of asserting power across the global, the continuing physical capacity to do so and institutions to match. Similarly, we must recognize, the vast differentials in the path dependencies between China and India.

Over the past three decades, China has persistently pulled away from parity with India. Its manner, of asserting itself globally, is unseemly an example India would do well not to emulate, once the time is ripe. But, did not the United States also go through The Ugly American phase in the 1960s and 1970s?

Also, Emperor Xi at 67, might have hastened Chinas global muscularity to a fault. Has he fallen into the classic strong man trap of trying to achieve superstardom in his working life? If so, then he will have stretched Chinas resources beyond sustainable levels and the fiscal strain should start showing up soon.

It is in this context, that Indias tepid response to the latest Chinese adventurism should be viewed. China is tiring slowly. India is just getting started hopefully, this time around we will shed the mantle of being the perennial high potential economy and become one. India must play the long game and tire out an ageing adversary not by engage aggressively by boxing above its weight as Alt-Right nationalists would want.

This commentary originally appeared in The Times of India.

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Neighborly discord in the Galwan Valley - Observer Research Foundation