• What if J. Edgar Hoover Had Been a Moron?

    Benjamin Wittes, founder and co-editor of Lawfare, writes that it was on the ninth day of the Trump presidency, when writing in response to the new president’s new travel ban executive order, that he coined the phrase “malevolence tempered by incompetence.” But he never imagined in doing so that the phrase might aptly describe the Trump administration’s behavior toward him personally. In his detailed article, Wittes looks at both the incompetence, “which is simple and easy to understand and genuinely amusing,” and then the malevolence beneath it—”which is more complicated and is not amusing at all.”

  • New Algorithms Could Reduce Polarization Engendered by Information Overload

    As the volume of available information expands, the fraction a person is able to absorb shrinks. They end up retreating into a narrow slice of thought, becoming more vulnerable to misinformation, and polarizing into isolated enclaves of competing opinions. To break this cycle, computer scientists say we need new algorithms that prioritize a broader view over fulfilling consumer biases.

  • TruNews Using Facebook to Disseminate, Amplify Anti-Semitism, Conspiracies

    TruNews, the fundamentalist Christian video streaming site which disseminates anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and Islamophobic propaganda, also posts and livestreams extremist content on social media platforms. Rick Wiles, the site’s founder, and his fellow hosts often combine their hate speech with extreme conspiracy theories. Among the conspiracy theories: the U.S. government spread the Ebola virus on U.S. soil; the U.S. and Israel created ISIS; and that Jews were responsibility for COVID-19 nd the impeachment of President Trump.

  • Time to Recognize Dr. Irfaan Ali as President of Guyana

    National elections were held on 2 March in the Republic of Guyana, in South America. The incumbent President David Granger lost by nearly 6 percent. The opposition presidential candidate, Dr. Irfaan Ali, won. Granger has refused to accept the voters’ verdict, and has done everything to try to illegally change, falsify, and delay the election results, and illegally keep power – and allow him and his coterie time to steal everything not bolted down. There comes a point when patience is no longer a virtue, and delay becomes complicity. Democracy cannot survive if the actions of a would-be dictator and his flunkies to cancel or defraud an election - the will of the voters - are allowed to stand. Dr. Irfaan Ali won the 2 March election. Without any further delay, America should recognize his election, and recognize him as the President of Guyana. It is time for the United States, and Guyana’s other international friends, to end this farce. Recognize Dr. Irfaan Ali as President now and assist him, with police and military assistance if necessary, to restore democracy in Guyana.

  • Election Cyber Surge Initiative Launches

    On Friday, the University of Chicago’s Cyber Policy Initiative (CPI) announced the launch of the Election Cyber Surge initiative to help address the urgent need to connect state and local election offices with volunteer technologists. The initiative will create a database which will allow officials to search for potential volunteers in their state or city by skillset, subject matter expertise, or cybersecurity experience.

  • Research on Voting by Mail Says It’s Safe – from Fraud and Disease

    By Edie Goldenberg

    As millions of Americans prepare to vote in November – and in many cases, primaries and state and local elections through the summer as well – lots of people are talking about voting by mail. Some critics – including President Donald Trump on several occasions – have cast doubt on the integrity of mail-in voting, even though some of them have voted by mail in the past. The evidence shows that voting by mail is rarely subject to fraud, does not give an advantage to one political party over another and can in fact inspire public confidence in the voting process, if done properly.

  • Militias’ Warning of Excessive Federal Power Comes True – but Where Are They?

    By Amy Cooter

    Militias and many other Second Amendment advocates have long argued that their primary desire to own firearms – often, many of them – is rooted in a need to protect themselves and their families from a tyrannical federal government, or to discourage the government from becoming tyrannical in the first place. It appears that the militias’ fears have materialized on the streets of Portland, where heavily armed and camouflaged federal officers, wearing no name tags or other insignia, have teargassed and arrested seemingly peaceful protesters with little or no provocation, throwing them into unmarked cars. President Donald Trump has said that he plans to send similar forces to cities run by Democratic mayors. In recent months a new divide has emerged in these militia groups over whether, and how, to respond to this assertion of federal power.

  • Most Gun Owners Favor Gun Violence Prevention Measures

    New survey shows that the majority of gun owners support many gun violence prevention policies, including background checks, permit requirements, and prohibitions for individuals with domestic violence restraining orders. But most of these gun owners report that they do not make their support public because they are alienated by the rhetoric of gun violence prevention advocates.

  • There Is Nothing Conservative About What Trump Is Doing in Portland

    Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump threaten to send more federal troops to cities with Democratic mayors, ignoring the adamant objections of mayors, governors, and local sheriffs. “How greatly have traditional conservative values of federalism and limited government been transformed,” Paul Rosenzweig and Arthur Rizerwent, two conservative commentators, write. Video evidence shows that these CBP “agents are not merely protecting federal property; they have detained citizens who aren’t violating any law and used the power of their presence to chill civil protests and disobedience.” The writers add: “This is a complete corruption of conservative ideals…. The consequences of this radical expansion of federal law-enforcement authority are enormous—and none of them are likely to be good.”

  • Has the Coronavirus Proved a Crisis Too Far for Europe’s Far-Right Outsiders?

    In recent years, far-right political parties in Europe have capitalized on crises to build their support bases. Many have made it to positions of power as a result of these efforts. The financial crisis of 2008 and the refugee crisis that began in 2014 have provided opportunities to harness growing uncertainty and resentment for political purposes. Georgios Samaras writes in The Conversation that early signs suggest, however, that these groups have not had the same success during the coronavirus crisis. “The predicament facing Europe’s far right and nationalist parties represents a very interesting break with the past, as the far right has been the significant loser of the pandemic.”

  • Study of U.S. Mass Shootings Suggests Two-Pronged Policy Approach

    Over the past thirty years, mass shootings have fueled calls for changes in gun ownership and concealed carry legislation, but few studies have evaluated whether permissive gun policies deter mass shootings, and none have determined if their effects are the same on firearms homicides.

  • Anti-Asian Hate Crime during the COVID-19 Pandemic

    Under the Hate Crime Statistic Act, hate crimes are defined as “crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, gender and gender identity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.” Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, the United States has seen a surge of Asian Americans reporting racially motivated hate crimes.

  • What the Heck Are Federal Law Enforcement Officers Doing in Portland?

    With racial justice protests going on in Portland, Oregon, since 25 May, more than 100 federal law enforcement officers showed up in the city over the past few days — without being asked to do so, and with the mayor, sheriff, and governor asking them to leave because, these local officials say, the presence of these federal agents only aggravates the situation. Steve Vladeck writes that to make matters worse, “those officers (a) are not wearing identifiable uniforms or other insignia, (b) are not driving marked law enforcement vehicles, and (c) are not identifying themselves either publicly or even to those whom they have detained and arrested.” He adds: “even if the federal officers are technically complying with the relevant statutes, there’s something more than just unseemly about camouflaged officers who refuse to identify themselves or their employer purporting to conduct arrests on the streets of American cities. Whether these officers are in fact abusing their authorities or not remains to be seen, but either answer would be deeply troubling.”  

  • Democracy under Threat from “Pandemic of Misinformation” Online: Lords Committee

    The U.K. government should act immediately to deal with a “pandemic of misinformation” that poses an existential threat to our democracy and way of life. The stark warning comes in a report published Monday by the House of Lords’ Committee on Democracy and Digital Technologies.

  • China’s Campaign Forcibly to Reduce Uighur Births May Amount to Genocide: Reports

    Four years ago, China has launched a broad campaign to reduce birth rates among Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic Muslim populations in Xinjiang province in western China. The Chinese authorities have implemented various population control measures in Xinjiang, including mandatory pregnancy checks and forced insertion of intrauterine devices. Officials and armed police conducted night raids to look for hidden children and pregnant women, fining and detaining parents of three or more children and forcing abortions and sterilizations on women.