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Today's News (2019/12/30)
Dec. 30th, 2019 03:54 pmThis is a couple of days' worth.
How Disinformation Spreads, According to Chuck Todd
Chuck Todd has had a front-row seat for the spread of disinformation. Here’s how he sees it happening and the media’s role in it
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/how-disinformation-spreads-according-to-chuck-todd-interview-929912/
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I go off about this every so often, because the NASA study quoted here was pretty strong. Maybe a dude writing about it in a magazine will get more attention. But honestly, I kind of doubt it.
The Human Brain Evolved When Carbon Dioxide Was Lower
There is substantial but inconsistent evidence that as carbon-dioxide levels rise, they could affect human cognition.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/12/carbon-dioxide-pollution-making-people-dumber-heres-what-we-know/603826/
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What Trump has done to the courts, explained
No president in recent memory has done more to change the judiciary than Donald Trump.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/9/20962980/trump-supreme-court-federal-judges
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GOP predicts bipartisan acquittal at Trump impeachment trial
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/475754-gop-predicts-bipartisan-acquittal-at-trump-impeachment-trial
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The problem here is that white evangelicals (fundamentalists) believe that if you don't allow them to impose their religious beliefs on you, then you're violating _their_ rights, because rights for them are zero-sum. The article acknowledges some of that. And it's also why they're deeply into Trumpism.
White Evangelicals Are Terrified That Liberals Want to Extinguish Their Rights
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/12/white-evangelicals-are-terrified-that-liberals-want-to-extinguish-their-rights/
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Explosive new revelations just weakened Trump’s impeachment defenses
By Greg Sargent
Opinion writer
Dec. 30, 2019 at 6:58 a.m. PST
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/30/explosive-new-revelations-just-weakened-trumps-impeachment-defenses/
If Mitch McConnell is going to pull off his scheme to turn President Trump’s impeachment trial into a quick and painless sham with no witnesses, the Senate majority leader needs the story to be covered as a conventional Washington standoff — one that portrays both sides as maneuvering for advantage in an equivalently political manner.
But extraordinary new revelations in the New York Times about Trump’s corrupt freezing of military aid to Ukraine will — or should — make this much harder to get away with.
McConnell badly needs the media’s both-sidesing instincts to hold firm against the brute facts of the situation. If Republicans bear the brunt of media pressure to explain why they don’t want to hear from witnesses, that risks highlighting their true rationale: They adamantly fear new revelations precisely because they know Trump is guilty — and that this corrupt scheme is almost certainly much worse than we can currently surmise.
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Behind the Ukraine Aid Freeze: 84 Days of Conflict and Confusion
The inside story of President Trump’s demand to halt military assistance to an ally shows the price he was willing to pay to carry out his agenda.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/us/politics/trump-ukraine-military-aid.html
WASHINGTON — Deep into a long flight to Japan aboard Air Force One with President Trump, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, dashed off an email to an aide back in Washington.
“I’m just trying to tie up some loose ends,” Mr. Mulvaney wrote. “Did we ever find out about the money for Ukraine and whether we can hold it back?”
It was June 27, more than a week after Mr. Trump had first asked about putting a hold on security aid to Ukraine, an embattled American ally, and Mr. Mulvaney needed an answer.
[...]
What emerges is the story of how Mr. Trump’s demands sent shock waves through the White House and the Pentagon, created deep rifts within the senior ranks of his administration, left key aides like Mr. Mulvaney under intensifying scrutiny — and ended only after Mr. Trump learned of a damning whistle-blower report and came under pressure from influential Republican lawmakers.
[...]
Mr. Mulvaney is said by associates to have stepped out of the room whenever Mr. Trump would talk with Mr. Giuliani to preserve Mr. Trump’s attorney-client privilege, leaving him with limited knowledge about their efforts regarding Ukraine. Mr. Mulvaney has told associates he learned of the substance of Mr. Trump’s July 25 call weeks after the fact.
Yet testimony before the House suggests a different picture. Fiona Hill, a top deputy to Mr. Bolton at the time, told the impeachment inquiry about a July 10 White House meeting at which Mr. Sondland said Mr. Mulvaney had guaranteed that Mr. Zelensky would be invited to the White House if the Ukrainians agreed to the investigations — an arrangement that Mr. Bolton described as a “drug deal,” according to Ms. Hill.
Along with Mr. Bolton and others, Mr. Mulvaney and Mr. Blair have declined to cooperate with impeachment investigators and provide information to Congress under oath, an intensifying point of friction between the two parties as the Senate prepares for Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial.
How Disinformation Spreads, According to Chuck Todd
Chuck Todd has had a front-row seat for the spread of disinformation. Here’s how he sees it happening and the media’s role in it
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/how-disinformation-spreads-according-to-chuck-todd-interview-929912/
-----
I go off about this every so often, because the NASA study quoted here was pretty strong. Maybe a dude writing about it in a magazine will get more attention. But honestly, I kind of doubt it.
The Human Brain Evolved When Carbon Dioxide Was Lower
There is substantial but inconsistent evidence that as carbon-dioxide levels rise, they could affect human cognition.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/12/carbon-dioxide-pollution-making-people-dumber-heres-what-we-know/603826/
-----
What Trump has done to the courts, explained
No president in recent memory has done more to change the judiciary than Donald Trump.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/9/20962980/trump-supreme-court-federal-judges
-----
GOP predicts bipartisan acquittal at Trump impeachment trial
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/475754-gop-predicts-bipartisan-acquittal-at-trump-impeachment-trial
-----
The problem here is that white evangelicals (fundamentalists) believe that if you don't allow them to impose their religious beliefs on you, then you're violating _their_ rights, because rights for them are zero-sum. The article acknowledges some of that. And it's also why they're deeply into Trumpism.
White Evangelicals Are Terrified That Liberals Want to Extinguish Their Rights
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/12/white-evangelicals-are-terrified-that-liberals-want-to-extinguish-their-rights/
-----
Explosive new revelations just weakened Trump’s impeachment defenses
By Greg Sargent
Opinion writer
Dec. 30, 2019 at 6:58 a.m. PST
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/30/explosive-new-revelations-just-weakened-trumps-impeachment-defenses/
If Mitch McConnell is going to pull off his scheme to turn President Trump’s impeachment trial into a quick and painless sham with no witnesses, the Senate majority leader needs the story to be covered as a conventional Washington standoff — one that portrays both sides as maneuvering for advantage in an equivalently political manner.
But extraordinary new revelations in the New York Times about Trump’s corrupt freezing of military aid to Ukraine will — or should — make this much harder to get away with.
McConnell badly needs the media’s both-sidesing instincts to hold firm against the brute facts of the situation. If Republicans bear the brunt of media pressure to explain why they don’t want to hear from witnesses, that risks highlighting their true rationale: They adamantly fear new revelations precisely because they know Trump is guilty — and that this corrupt scheme is almost certainly much worse than we can currently surmise.
-----
Behind the Ukraine Aid Freeze: 84 Days of Conflict and Confusion
The inside story of President Trump’s demand to halt military assistance to an ally shows the price he was willing to pay to carry out his agenda.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/us/politics/trump-ukraine-military-aid.html
WASHINGTON — Deep into a long flight to Japan aboard Air Force One with President Trump, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, dashed off an email to an aide back in Washington.
“I’m just trying to tie up some loose ends,” Mr. Mulvaney wrote. “Did we ever find out about the money for Ukraine and whether we can hold it back?”
It was June 27, more than a week after Mr. Trump had first asked about putting a hold on security aid to Ukraine, an embattled American ally, and Mr. Mulvaney needed an answer.
[...]
What emerges is the story of how Mr. Trump’s demands sent shock waves through the White House and the Pentagon, created deep rifts within the senior ranks of his administration, left key aides like Mr. Mulvaney under intensifying scrutiny — and ended only after Mr. Trump learned of a damning whistle-blower report and came under pressure from influential Republican lawmakers.
[...]
Mr. Mulvaney is said by associates to have stepped out of the room whenever Mr. Trump would talk with Mr. Giuliani to preserve Mr. Trump’s attorney-client privilege, leaving him with limited knowledge about their efforts regarding Ukraine. Mr. Mulvaney has told associates he learned of the substance of Mr. Trump’s July 25 call weeks after the fact.
Yet testimony before the House suggests a different picture. Fiona Hill, a top deputy to Mr. Bolton at the time, told the impeachment inquiry about a July 10 White House meeting at which Mr. Sondland said Mr. Mulvaney had guaranteed that Mr. Zelensky would be invited to the White House if the Ukrainians agreed to the investigations — an arrangement that Mr. Bolton described as a “drug deal,” according to Ms. Hill.
Along with Mr. Bolton and others, Mr. Mulvaney and Mr. Blair have declined to cooperate with impeachment investigators and provide information to Congress under oath, an intensifying point of friction between the two parties as the Senate prepares for Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial.
