The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) exists to defend people’s constitutional rights. Its California chapters (later backed up by the national organization) recently backed off its defense of alt-right protesters. It’s a nuanced stance, and a confusing statement didn’t help. People think of the ACLU as a highly liberal organization. It has recently defended imprisoned…
The Trump White House sees itself as balanced and unifying on the violence in Charlottesville. Its talking points are full of true facts and balance, but on this issue, no balanced perspective exists. These are the facts about Charlottesville: A mass of protestors who self-identify as the “alt-right” came to Charlottesville and shouted white supremacist…
The Daily Stormer — the site that sponsored the white nationalist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia this weekend — has apparently been under attack. It appeared that the hacker collective Anonymous took it over, then the site owners regained control, and then GoDaddy cancelled its domain registration. The GoDaddy part is true, but as I’ll show, the…
This weekend brought white supremacist marches, Nazi salutes, counter-protests and vehicular murder to Charlottesville, Virginia. You probably joined everyone from Orrin Hatch to Justin Trudeau in condemning it. Now what? You’re against racism. Good for you. You posted your outrage on Facebook. A bunch of people who agree with you and are also against hate and…
James Damore, a Google engineer, published an internal manifesto about gender and discrimination at the company. He’s either a sexist tech bro or a First Amendment hero bravely proclaiming forbidden truths, depending on your perspective. His generalizations about how women think are the problem here — they’re what got him fired. A fresh look at the…
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and several other government organizations are completing a report on global climate science. Someone leaked a late draft to the New York Times, which published it. The 545 page report is a great case study on how (and how not) to summarize technical information. The executive summary features telling…
I feel for Michael Surbaugh, Chief Scout Executive for the Boy Scouts of America. He got the thankless job of apologizing for Donald Trump’s remarks to the scouts’ Jamboree. But his padded and swaddled apology misses the mark. Even if a problem is not your fault, you are responsible for apologizing as briefly and clearly as…
The repeal of the Affordable Care Act has gone down to defeat. Democrats are cheering. Trump and Republicans have now failed at everything significant they’ve attempted, except for confirming a single Supreme Court Justice. Trump will now find success with a middle-class tax cut, an effort that will remake the political framework of Washington. Let’s…
At the Boy Scout Jamboree in West Virginia yesterday, Trump gave a speech including remarks more appropriate for a political rally. To see why this matters, consider all the groups of scouts he rejected or excluded with his remarks. The Boy Scout organization has rules about politics. As an official Boy Scout blog on scouting…