Alex Stamos is the former chief security officer at Facebook, and still their chief excuse officer.
Washington Post
We must also remember that in the summer of 2016, every major media outlet rewarded the hackers of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) with thousands of collective stories drawn from the stolen emails of prominent Democrats. The sad truth is that blocking Russian propaganda would have required Facebook to ban stories from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and cable news — not to mention this very paper. Since the election of Donald Trump, print and television news organizations have staffed up and provided a critical service to Americans, but they have never adequately grappled with their culpability in empowering Russia’s election interference.
In a sense this is absolutely true. It wasn’t just the Trump campaign that jumped onto WikiLeaks material and waved it in front of rallies — both newspapers and news channels leapt to publish information even though they knew that material had been stolen. This wasn’t the Pentagon Papers. It wasn’t secret CIA black sites engaged in torture. This was the internal email of private citizens and organizations engaged in no crime, whose positions—both personal and political—were deeply wounded by the way this material was published, sensationalized, and scoured for headlines. The media doing so knew the material was stolen. Knew the version of the information they were getting was incomplete. Knew they were being fed selective materials expressly for the purpose of generating controversy and division within the Democratic Party. And they ran with it big time.
On the other hand, this whole piece from Stamos is a juvenile attempt to dodge responsibility for not just empowering the distribution of stolen material, but providing a platform for propaganda efforts of all types. That included knowingly assisting efforts to distribute information they knew to be false, ignoring warnings about the source of the propaganda efforts, and providing those efforts with sophisticated tools to maximize the damage to the electorate.
There are no heroes in this piece. Both Facebook and more traditional media knowingly participated in the dissemination of propaganda, even when they were aware that they were doing as part of an effort deliberately designed to cause harm to the democratic process. Yes, those activities are protected by the First Amendment. But not everything that is legal is just, or moral, and it certainly wasn’t harmless. That both types of media can shrug and hide behind “the public’s right to know” fails to hide the truth: Both subverted the electoral process in exchange for profit.
Still, Stamos’ lengthy “we only jumped off the same bridge as everyone else” editorial is far, far short of a confession to everything Facebook did—before and after—the election, that caused harm to the process. In this finger-pointing exercise. several more fingers should be pointed back at the author.
Deals on Both Sides of the Atlantic
Quentin Letts on the deal no one likes, almost no one wants, and everyone is getting.
Daily Mail
For two years, May had been promising a Brexit that would allow Britain to regain full control of its borders, money and laws, all while doing business with the E.U. and striking its own trade deals with non-E.U. countries such as the United States. Her draft agreement turns out to be less ambitious. Despite having to pay a “divorce bill” of 39 billion pounds (about $50 billion in U.S. dollars), Britain may remain tied to E.U. rules and trade restrictions for an undefined period.
It’s a position that leaves the hard-Brexiters screaming, and the No-Brexiters furious, and the Soft-Brexiters … actually, May may be the only representative left for that team.
Prime ministers are used to being criticized in the House of Commons but, normally, they can rely on the support of at least half the chamber. On Thursday, May was savaged by all sides: in front of her, behind her, from the left, the right, pro- and anti-E.U. In those three hours, only a handful of members of Parliament pledged support for her plan. Meanwhile, two members of her cabinet resigned. One of them was clever, soft-spoken Dominic Raab, who had been the Brexit secretary. If the guy supposedly overseeing the policy didn’t like it, where is that meant to leave the rest of us?
Here’s a not-so-radical-though: Don’t do it. May could admit the whole thing was a mistake, put her government up for a quick vote, and see where the electorate stands now that the madness seems to have passed. Sure, it would likely be political suicide. But it would also be … what’s that word? Brave.
Ezekiel Emanuel on the possibility of a bipartisan drug deal.
Washington Post
As elections last week made clear, voters still care a lot about health care. And chief among their concerns are exorbitantly high drug prices. The only point of disagreement is how to bring them down.
Oddly enough, however, conservatives and liberals might be closer on this issue than you expect.
One party is calling for price negotiations between the federal government and drug manufacturers; the other is calling for Medicare to unilaterally set prices.
Which one is the Democratic proposal, and which one is Republican?
Counterintuitively, it is President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar who have proposed federal price controls for drugs. Yes, that’s right: Republicans — the supposed champions of the free market — have proposed tying U.S. drug prices to those set by 16 foreign countries, what Trump and Azar dubbed an “international price index.”
Which would have the seemingly perverse effect of tying US drug prices not to the best price our government might negotiate with manufacturers, but to the prices that other governments can negotiate. That’s quite a position for the people who don’t want to go along with any international law or regulation. But honestly … sure. Okay. Let’s go with either. Let’s go with both. And if the Republicans get to cry “See, we can be bipartisan!” by passing something that Democrats want in the first place, let them.
Of course, Republicans may never acknowledge that they endorse cost-effectiveness thresholds for drug prices. Yet while unveiling his proposal, Azar called it “more radical” and “more revolutionary” than anything Democrats offered. For those of us who were accused of wanting to create “death panels” in the Affordable Care Act, this is as surreal as it gets.
The biggest reason this will still have difficulty, is that Republicans know that, no matter what the contents of the final bill, they’re likely to be primaried from the right if they sign on.
Trump’s Troop Deployment Stunt
Dana Milbank on the non-dollar cost of Trump’s pointless deployment.
Washington Post
President Trump is reportedly planning to celebrate Thanksgiving once again at his members-only Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, feasting on (if previous menus repeat) a 24-dish extravaganza of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, marshmallow sweet potatoes, red snapper, leg of lamb, grilled diver scallops, stone crab, ahi tuna martinis, Maine lobster bisque, short ribs, beef tenderloin and seven desserts.
It will likely all be topped off by what the president calls “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake” — available exclusively to members ($200,000 initiation fee) and guests.
Things will be rather less sumptuous along the southern border, to which Trump, just before the midterm elections, ordered some 5,600 troops, with another 1,400 on the way, to contain the “national emergency” posed by the approaching caravan of Central American families seeking asylum.
Honestly, any television program that doesn’t spend national turkey day showcasing this picture-perfect example of the new feudalism deserves to be eaten along with the stuffing.
Since the election, Trump has forgotten about the mortal peril posed by the caravan “invasion” — he has mentioned the “caravan” only once, and only when asked — but the troops he ordered to act in this political advertisement can’t forget. They will remain on the border through Thanksgiving, the New York Times reported, eating MRE rations, living in tents without electricity, receiving neither combat pay nor hostile-fire pay.
Because Trump can demonstrate his utter disregard and disrespect for the troops all he wants, and his supporters will still scream at people who dare to kneel against injustice.
2018 Insight
Donna Edwards on why Nancy Pelosi must be the next Speaker.
Washington Post
I remember when I was sent to Congress in a special election in 2008, having beaten an eight-term incumbent for whom then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi had campaigned. I was the progressive champion. I brought to the table a 20-year career as a nonprofit lawyer, advocate for women and progressive philanthropist. I was in no mood to support Pelosi and the “corporate Democrats” she represented. I was wrong.
As soon as I was sworn in by the first female speaker, I began to appreciate the power of that role and her understanding of it. Once the election was over, it was over; I was her member. First, she wanted to know my aspirations and how she could help me achieve them.
Really, would everyone just go read Edwards’ piece. And bookmark it, please.
Nancy MacLean on Democratic gains in state governments.
The Guardian
The long-term future of the United States will not be decided in the nation’s capital. It will be decided in the states – and that’s where the biggest story of the 2018 election is.
For years, Democratic Party leaders and funders focused on the federal level as the place to win major reform, and all but ignored state legislatures. Where the left was not paying attention, the extreme right stepped into the breach.
It’s almost as if someone was out there shouting we needed a 50 state strategy and Very Smart People keep telling him he was wrong, and didn’t understand how things worked, and should get out out of the way. And yes, I am still bitter.
By focusing on the states, Koch-allied strategists and the elected officials with whom they worked achieved a tightening chokehold on America’s political system. And they nearly got away with it – until some on the left proved they could learn from being outfoxed.
This election day, intense state-level organizing by Democrats secured stunning wins. Collectively, these wins constitute a promissory note toward long-term success. True, Democrats only won back about 40% of what they lost in the Tea Party waves of 2010 and 2012; there’s plenty more ground to make up. But last Tuesday staunched and reversed the bleeding.
The only reason that we shouldn’t have a 50 state strategy — is that we’re overdue for at least two more states.
Stuffin’ the thoughts and prayers
Leonard Pitts on the definition of our insanity.
Miami Herald
As it happens, [the Thousand Oaks shooter], in a post left on a social-media platform in the middle of his killing spree, has already given us the reason he did it. “Fact is, I had no reason to do it,” he wrote, “and I just thought, f--- it, life is boring, so why not?”
So the reason is, there was no reason. The reason is, why not?
And for all the pontifical certainty of TV talking heads and newspaper pundits, that’s probably the explanation that comes closest to the truth. Not just for Thousand Oaks, but also for Littleton, Las Vegas, Parkland, Orlando, Aurora, Annapolis, Tucson, Sutherland Springs, for all the places where they’ve printed up T-shirts declaring themselves “Strong” after bullets shattered the peace.
The motive may be incomprehensible. The means are perfectly visible.
This shooter, like every shooter, killed whole universes of meaning and possibility.
In arrogant disregard of its own bloody truths, America gives the power to do that to virtually every adult. And that power has been used so frequently that many of those in the Thousand Oaks killing field turned out to be survivors of another killing field, the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas. One of the Vegas survivors, Telemachus Orfanos, died.
Because America has developed into a parody of itself. One that utterly fails to recognize the values that gave it moral worth, and doesn’t just treasure its worst sins, but twists them into virtues.
2020 foresight
David Von Drehle on the topic that, like it or not, will dominate the news in a few months.
Washington Post
The axiom that parties define themselves through the process of choosing a candidate has never been more true. Democratic identity is up for grabs; it will be decided through this melee and not behind closed doors thanks to the neutering of the “superdelegates.” Is this the party of working stiffs or the party of Harvard and Apple? Is it a party of the left or a centrist party? Is it the party for women and minorities, or do white guys still hold some sway? Such questions will be the undercurrents of the race — indeed, they are already swirling in the competition to lead the party as speaker of the House.
The lists of potential candidates are piling up, and no doubt many of these names are getting not just idle thoughts of running, but visitors sitting down to promise support in every form. And at this point it is really, really difficult to see what’s going to happen — except that it when it happens, it will likely seem almost an inevitable as it now appears inscrutable.
George Monbiot reminds everyone that there is an even bigger story to keep in mind.
The Guardian
It was a moment of the kind that changes lives. At a press conference held by climate activists Extinction Rebellion last week, two of us journalists pressed the organisers on whether their aims were realistic. They have called, for example, for UK carbon emissions to be reduced to net zero by 2025. Wouldn’t it be better, we asked, to pursue some intermediate aims?
A young woman called Lizia Woolf stepped forward. She hadn’t spoken before, but the passion, grief and fury of her response was utterly compelling. “What is it that you are asking me as a 20-year-old to face and to accept about my future and my life? … This is an emergency. We are facing extinction. When you ask questions like that, what is it you want me to feel?” We had no answer.
That, by God, is a good question. Or it’s an awful question. But it’s one that demands a good answer.
Softer aims might be politically realistic, but they are physically unrealistic. Only shifts commensurate with the scale of our existential crises have any prospect of averting them. Hopeless realism, tinkering at the edges of the problem, got us into this mess. It will not get us out.
Trying to reach some compromise with climate change at this point is like searching for compromise with a bullet that has already been fired. Immediate and drastic action must be taken — because immediate and even drastic results are coming.
Some Literary hindsights
Danielle Allen on enlightenment from reading the oldest literature.
Washington Post
We start with the “Epic of Gilgamesh.” From ancient Mesopotamia, this poem, considered the oldest literary text on the planet, tells the tale of how an unjust, selfish, grasping king is reformed and learns to serve the interests of his people. The first recorded political problem in the world is sexual assault.
In David Ferry’s translation, we hear this when Gilgamesh is introduced:
Neither the father’s son
nor the wife of the noble; neither the mother’s daughter
nor the warrior’s bride was safe. The old men said:
“Is this the shepherd of the people? Is this
the wise shepherd, protector of the people?”
Gilgamesh, the king, starts off as not just a tyrant, but a sexual predator, who uses his power and position to assault and rape the women of his city-state. It is only after he is challenged, humbled, and made to accept his mortality and inevitable death that Gilgamesh returns to his city a changed man. He becomes a good king who uses his power to enforce justice … though that enforcement is pretty limited when it comes to paying for his actions before he goes on his monster-hunting, immortality-seeking quest (complete with an alternative version of the universal flood story recounted in the Bible as the story of Noah). On the one hand, it’s horrible to see that in the very first story that we can perceive as a story, the main character shares the worst traits of the powerful. Including unchecked sexual assault. On the other hand, it’s both profound and horrible that even at the time of the story’s composition, that the author and audience recognized that this was wrong; that Gilgamesh’s kingship did not authorize his actions. The amazing thing about the story of Gilgamesh isn’t the special effects—the monstrous bulls, beast-men, and immortal boatmen—it’s how recognizable the characters and their actions remain today.
Leonard Pitts on another literary character who revealed his mortality last week.
Miami Herald
Stan Lee, the great Marvel Comics writer and editor, died Monday.
And somehow, even though he was 95 years old and his health has been dicey the last couple of years, it comes as a shock. Somehow, I guess, I thought he would live forever.
He will, of course, in the metaphorical sense. The characters he co-created in the early ’60s’ big bang that birthed what we comics nerds call the Marvel Universe, will still be here long after we’re all gone. There will always be an Iron Man, a Thor, a Fantastic Four and a Doctor Doom. There will always be X-Men and Avengers, Daredevil, Hulk, Galactus and the Black Panther. There will always be a Spider-Man.
I met Stan Lee on a genuinely dark and stormy night in 1978. It was so dark and stormy, that even though a large hall had been reserved for Lee’s visit to my college campus, only about half a dozen people challenged the storm and struggled through the deluge to drag our sodden selves into the first row of chairs. Lee didn’t seem discouraged by the turn out. He talked about the things that you would expect him to talk about — his early days in the industry, the origin of his characters, and his still shifting relationship with Jack Kirby. Maybe the small audience did have an effect, because Lee spoke to us more seriously than the way he generally appeared in public. He didn’t just hit us with “excelsior!” and “’nuff said.” He talked about things he thought he had done wrong. Why some of the characters he had created were problematic, his frustrations in trying to bring characters to life in other mediums, and how hard it was to resist constantly tweaking, tweaking, tweaking those origins even when most of the characters were barely a decade old.
Lee had been writing comics for almost 20 years before he wrote the characters and books for which he will be remembered. Because comics in 1961 … sucked. The comics code steamrolled every comic to follow such a flat path that every character was a cross between Superman and Officer Friendly and stories ranged from superficial and boring to silly and boring.
Stan was ready to quit, but his wife, Joan, challenged him. Before you quit, she told him, why not just for once try writing comics the way you’d like to see them done.
The result was a book created with Kirby called “The Fantastic Four.” It was a revelation. For the first time, here were characters who, for all their outlandish abilities, had personalities and problems like real human beings, who bickered and didn’t always like one another and who lived, not in some fictional Metropolis or Gotham, but in the heart of an actual city, New York.
You might say that Stan Lee learned a lot from Gilgamesh. The best stories, the stories that are still read thousands of years later, are those that speak to people’s faults, and to their abilities to change. And you might also say that Gilgamesh had a problem that Stan Lee would recognize — he had great power, but didn’t recognize that it came with great responsibility. At least, not until he’d lost his best friend, dived to the bottom of the sea, and had an ill-timed run in with a hungry snake. And if that doesn’t sound like a Stan Lee plot … well, it does.
He was one of the seminal figures in modern pop culture. And he was the first writer I ever consciously imitated. If you ever read something of mine that includes agile alliteration and awesome adjectives, that’s a little homage to Stan. He was my hero.
‘Nuff said, Leonard. Nuff said.
Note—I’m not here this week. Or at least I’m only here for APR duties because I forgot to pawn them off on … I mean, politely request someone else to step in while I was away. But the truth is, I didn’t ask anyone, because I didn’t want to ask anyone. APR isn’t quite my Sunday worship, but it is communion of a sort. Pass the donuts.