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☆ Opinion | A Failure of Leadership at American Universities
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-11 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Protesting the world’s wrongs has been a rite of passage for generations of American youth, buoyed by our strong laws protecting free speech and free assembly. The highest calling of a university is to craft a culture of open inquiry, one where both free speech and academic freedom are held as ideals. The Constitutional right to free speech is the protection against government interference restricting speech. In the real world, though, this can get messy, and nuance is required when free speech comes into tension with protecting academic freedom. The earliest universities to adopt the principle of academic freedom did so to thwart interference and influence from totalitarian states and religious zealotry.

Organizations: don’t, American Association of University Locations: Israel

☆ Opinion | How Protesters Can Actually Help Palestinians
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-01 | by ( Nicholas Kristof | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

So the question I would ask you to ask yourselves is: Are your encampments and sacrifices — more than 1,000 protesters have been arrested so far, and unknown numbers have been suspended or expelled — actually helping Gazans? I’ve been strongly criticizing Israel’s conduct in Gaza since last fall, and President Biden’s unconditional support for the war. A thought: Humility is an essential tool in persuasion (not that I always get this right!). The challenge is to take an unflinching moral stance while acknowledging that one may eventually be proved wrong. Holding onto that contradiction curbs the tendency toward self-righteousness and the impulse to shout down others — both of which have persuaded exactly zero people ever.

Persons: —, I’ve, Israel’s, Biden’s, don’t Organizations: Columbia Locations: Gaza, It’s, Rafah

JAKE SULLIVAN - THE LAST GUY IN THE ROOMBiden often turns to Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, when he is considering final options and looking for advice and counsel. "He develops and puts forward the policy options before the president for him to decide," said one U.S. official. Sullivan, 47, was national security adviser for Biden when he was vice president and deputy chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He gathers policy options from across government agencies and prepares them for Biden to consider, the traditional role of the national security adviser. JON FINER - ASKING QUESTIONSSullivan relies heavily on his deputy national security adviser, Jon Finer.

Persons: Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, Evelyn Hockstein, ANTONY BLINKEN, Biden, Blinken, Benjamin Netanyahu, JAKE SULLIVAN, Sullivan, Jake, Hillary Clinton, BRETT MCGURK, Brett McGurk, McGurk, George W, Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, BILL BURNS, spymaster, Bill Burns, It's, Burns, LLOYD AUSTIN, STARK, Lloyd Austin, Yoav Gallant, Israel, KAMALA HARRIS, Kamala Harris, Harris, ”, JON, Jon, John Kerry's, Kerry, Arshad Mohammed, Nandita Bose, Don Durfee, Heather Timmons, Deepa Babington Organizations: U.S, Hamas, REUTERS, Rights, Israeli, Biden, White House, National Security, U.S ., CIA, . Defense, Pentagon, Islamic State, U.S . Army, ISIS, Palestinian, West Bank, Palestinian Authority, Washington Post, Thomson Locations: Israel, Tel Aviv, Gaza, East, North Africa, Saudi Arabia, United States, Qatar, Doha, Iran, Moscow, Russia, Ukraine, Ankara, U.S, Austin, Dubai, West

☆ Opinion: Hamas doesn’t speak for Gaza Palestinians
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-16 | by ( Yasmine Mohammed | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

At the hands of Hamas, the Jewish people have endured horrors not seen since the Holocaust. My father hated that Hamas had dominated the conversation and positioned itself as the face of Gaza worldwide. Like many people from Gaza, my father knew that if you spoke up against these tyrannical oppressors, you were swiftly dealt with. Among the hard right, many people are conflating Palestinians with Hamas to justify the flattening of Gaza. The truth is, Hamas is not Gaza, and Gaza is not Hamas.

Persons: Yasmine Mohammed, “, ”, Gazans, Israel, Qaeda, Bassem Organizations: Free, CNN, Hamas, Brotherhood, ISIS, Twitter Locations: Gaza, Israel, Egypt, San Francisco, Montreal, al Qaeda, Iran

☆ Don’t Be Fooled by the Fake Uproar Over Woke Capitalism - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Lydia Polgreen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Netflix, the once unstoppable juggernaut that seemed likely to eat Hollywood for breakfast, is an interesting case in point. As its growth has slowed and the political climate has changed, it reportedly shelved a plan to produce an anti-racist video series. Our systems of government increasingly favor electoral minorities — like gerrymandered state legislatures in a polarized environment — rather than common-sense compromise. rights, we are tilting ever more toward a system that allows a fanatical minority to impose its views as law. But woke capitalism is a paper tiger.

Persons: George Floyd, Thomas Frank, “, Reagan, ” Organizations: Netflix, Elites Locations: America

☆ Suspecting Clandestine Plots Behind Every Door
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Elizabeth Williamson | More About Elizabeth Williamson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

UNDER THE EYE OF POWER: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy, by Colin DickeyThe Memorial Day pancake breakfast in Blue Hill, Maine, is hosted by the Oddfellows, an 18th-century craftsmen’s guild turned community service organization, related to the Freemasons. While there this spring, I pondered the elderly members pouring coffee and selling raffle tickets to fund college scholarships. How bizarre, even funny, that this group was once perceived as a threat to America. History bristles with examples of citizens and their elected leaders hijacking public discourse by tarring — sometimes literally — perceived enemies of the American project. Unfortunately, we have willfully forgotten most of this warped history, rendering us constantly surprised by the next imagined peril.

Persons: Colin Dickey The, ” Colin Dickey, Ben Franklin, —, ” Dickey, tarring —, McCarthy, zealotry Organizations: American, Freemasons Locations: Blue Hill , Maine, America

☆ She Attacked Israel and the N.Y.P.D. It Made Her Law School a Target.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Ginia Bellafante | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Each year, the law school graduates elect a member of their class to deliver a speech, and this year they chose Ms. Mohammed, an activist devoted to the Palestinian cause. Although her remarks would later be presented as a lightning bolt of antisemitism, she began uncontroversially, talking about the pain and loss of Covid and how it shaped her cohort’s first semesters in law school. “Let us remember that Gaza, just this week, has been bombed with the world watching,” she said at one point. But it was the fierceness she brought to her denunciation of “Israeli settler colonialism” and CUNY’s collaboration with “the fascist N.Y.P.D.” that especially inflamed the political class, even if her own audience, including the law school dean, seemed receptive. (“Imagine being so crazed by hatred for Israel as a Jewish State that you make it the subject of your commencement speech,” Mr. Torres wrote on Twitter last week.

Persons: Mohammed, ”, “, —, Mohammed’s, “ Stark, Ritchie Torres, Ted Cruz, Mr, Torres, Israel derangement Organizations: CUNY, New York Post, Fox, Democratic, Bronx, Republican, Jewish, Twitter Locations: Gaza, Rikers, Israel, Jewish State

☆ Crypto's go-to bank collapsed. What now?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

New York CNN —Yesterday, the financial world witnessed a classic run on the bank when Silvergate Capital, the go-to US lender for crypto companies, said it would wind down its operations and voluntarily liquidate. ICYMI: Silvergate was, for most of its existence, a traditional Southern California regional bank. In the same period, the global crypto industry has lost two-thirds of its value, falling from a $3 trillion market cap to $1 trillion. I’ve heard the “don’t blame crypto” argument a thousand times. And it was the same story nearly a year ago, when the Terra/Luna crash last spring wiped out billions overnight — don’t blame crypto; those were toxic algorithmic stablecoins, you can’t trust those.

☆ A fake tweet spurred an anti-vaccine harassment campaign against a doctor
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Brandy-Zadrozny-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Brandy Zadrozny | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

When Dr. Natalia Solenkova woke up Monday morning, she was greeted with a flood of Twitter notifications on her phone. It was what misinformation researchers call a “cheap fake,” a term for a piece of fake media such as an image or video that takes little effort to produce. Someone had clumsily altered one of Solenkova’s posts to portray a blind, even deadly, zealotry for Covid vaccines and a vilification of anti-vaccine activists. “And then disinformation became rampant.”Despite the overwhelming success of the covid vaccines — which have prevented millions of severe infections and deaths — an aggressive and politicized anti-vaccine community has persevered. There were obvious tells that the tweet attributed to Solenkova was a fake, likely fabricated with what’s known as a tweet generator.

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