Katie Strang, The New York Times ; ESPN’s Pat McAfee and others amplified a false rumor. A teenager’s life was ‘destroyed’
"Cornett engaged legal representation and said she intends to take action against McAfee and ESPN, which airs his show, and potentially others involved in spreading the rumor. “I would like people to be held accountable for what they’ve done,” she said."
Mike Wendling, BBC; How criticism of Zelensky's clothing made it to the Oval Office
"When the meeting was opened up to questions from reporters, one came from Brian Glenn, chief White House correspondent for conservative cable network Real America's Voice.
"Why don't you wear a suit?" Glenn asked. "You're at the highest level in this country's office, and you refuse to wear a suit.
"Do you own a suit?" he continued. "A lot of Americans have problems with you not respecting the dignity of this office."
The aggressive questioning marked the moment when the Ukrainian president – who until then seemed to be having a diplomatic, even friendly, conversation with Trump – first appeared tired and irritated.
"I will wear costume after this war will finish," Zelensky replied. (The word "suit" can be translated into Ukrainian as "kostyum".)"
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, The Ink; ESSAY: The weekend the "Free World" died
"Early in the afternoon on Friday, the president and the vice president of the United States delivered a contemptuous scolding to the wartime leader of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. The country of “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” and “We choose to go to the moon” and “rendezvous with destiny” had become the country of “You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards.” It was a shocking, abusive scene, unlike any foreign policy chroniclers could recall. By Sunday, the British prime minister had declared that “we are at a crossroads in history,” and European countries were talking about a coalition of the willing to defend Ukraine. It was the weekend the notion of the “free world” died...
Toward the end of the meeting, Trump commented that the awful scene he had participated in would make great television. Here was the triumph of the spirit of attention-seeking at any cost, the spirit in which there are no values worth defending if they do not carry the possibility of making people watch you. Everyone is an influencer now; everyone covets followers more than friends. Trump trash-talked an erstwhile American ally because he knew it would do numbers with his followers.
In recent weeks, I have wondered why the leaders of other countries have not been brave in calling out the situation in the United States, in naming this fascist threat from within. The obvious answer is American power and leverage. It can be expensive to speak truth to superpower, as Zelensky will surely be learning in coming days.
But after the meltdown in the Oval Office on Friday, I began to wonder if another reason is involved. Maybe those leaders, like much of the world, do not look at America right now and see a country being hijacked by this dangerous leader. Maybe much of the world looks at a country that, in its bones, has fundamentally changed. Has lost that other spirit. Lost the sunniness, the hopefulness, the decency, the will to sacrifice, the idealism, the confidence, the hope.
What will stop Trump? everyone is asking all day long. Maybe an actual and effective form of resistance will involve more than the thwarting of a leader. It will be a cultural project up and down American life. To resist the meanness and smallness and cruelty and cynicism and solipsism. To insist, by showing, that what he is is not who we are."
Tom Nichols, The Atlantic; It Was an Ambush
Today marked one of the grimmest days in the history of American diplomacy.
"Vance’s presence at the White House also suggests that the meeting was a setup. Vance is usually an invisible backbencher in this administration, with few duties other than some occasional trolling of Trump’s critics. (The actual business of furthering Trump’s policies is apparently now Elon Musk’s job.) This time, however, he was brought in to troll not other Americans, but a foreign leader. Marco Rubio—in theory, America’s top diplomat—was also there, but he sat glumly and silently while Vance pontificated like an obnoxious graduate student.
Zelensky objected, as he should have, when the vice president castigated the Ukrainian president for not showing enough personal gratitude to Trump. And then in a moment of immense hypocrisy, Vance told Zelensky that it was “disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media.” But baiting Zelensky into fighting in front of the media was likely the plan all along, and Trump and Vance were soon both yelling at Zelensky. (“This is going to be great television,” Trump said during the meeting.) The president at times sounded like a Mafia boss—“You don’t have the cards”; “you’re buried there”—but in the end, he sounded like no one so much as Putin himself as he hollered about “gambling with World War III,” as if starting the biggest war in Europe in nearly a century was Zelensky’s idea...
Trump might as well have dictated this post on Truth Social before the meeting, because Zelensky didn’t stand a chance of having an actual discussion at the White House. When he showed Trump pictures of brutalized Ukrainian soldiers, Trump shrugged. “That’s tough stuff,” he muttered. Perhaps someone told Zelensky that Trump doesn’t read much, and reacts to images, but Trump, uncharacteristically, seems to have been determined to stay on message and pick a fight...
The sheer rudeness shown to a foreign guest and friend of the United States was (to use a word) deplorable as a matter of manners and grace, but worse, Trump and Vance acted like a couple of online Kremlin sock puppets instead of American leaders. They pushed talking points that they either knew or should have known were wrong. Even if Zelensky were as fluent and capable in English as Winston Churchill, he would never have been able to rebut the flood of falsehoods."
Guardian staff , The Guardian; A spectacle to horrify the world’: what the papers say about Trump and Vance’s meeting with Zelenskyy
"The unprecedented scenes in the Oval Office dominated the front pages on Saturday, with the papers united in their horror. Adjectives including disastrous and vile were used to describe the meeting in which Donald Trump and his vice-president JD Vance openly berated the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy...
The Daily Mail called the meeting “A spectacle to horrify the world” and said that during the “shouting match in the Oval Office” a “raging Trump humiliates Zelensky on live TV”...
The Daily Mirror went for “Shock & War” as its front page headline, with subheads reading “Trump stuns the world with vile rant at Zelensky” and “Ukraine hero forced home without a deal.”...
The Sun declared “Ukraine hero ambushed” above the splash headline “The Fight House”, alongside a picture of Trump wagging his finger at Zelenskyy...
The Independent said “Zelensky ambushed by Trump, calling the meeting a “disastrously bad-tempered summit”."
David French, The New York Times; MAGA’s Violent Threats Are Warping Life in America
"So we called the local sheriff, shared the threat, and asked if the department could send someone to check our house.
Minutes later, a young deputy called to tell me all was quiet at our home. When I asked if he would mind checking back frequently, he said he’d stay in front of our house all night. Then he asked, “Why did you get this threat?”
I hesitated before I told him. Our community is so MAGA that I had a pang of concern about his response. “I’m a columnist,” I said, “and we’ve had lots of threats ever since I wrote against Donald Trump.”
The deputy paused for a moment. “I’m a vet,” he said, “and I volunteered to serve because I believe in our Constitution. I believe in free speech.” And then he said words I’ll never forget: “You keep speaking, and I’ll stand guard.”
I didn’t know that deputy’s politics and I didn’t need to. When I heard his words, I thought, that’s it. That’s the way through. Sometimes we are called to speak. Sometimes we are called to stand guard. All the time we can at least comfort those under threat, telling them with words and deeds that they are not alone. If we do that, we can persevere. Otherwise, the fear will be too much for good people to bear."
Kay Nolan, The Washington Post; Atmospheric scientist loses honor, membership over ethics violation
American Meteorological Society expels physicist Timothy Dunkerton after offensive tweet as professional science groups grapple with how to confront harassment, discrimination
"The Post obtained a copy of an email sent privately by AMS Associate Executive Director Stephanie Armstrong to society members who had filed a formal complaint about the physicist’s behavior.
That email names Dunkerton and says he “violated two components of the AMS Code of Conduct: 1) Members shall carry out their activities with integrity and the highest ethical standards. 2) Members must treat all individuals with respect. Members must refrain from all forms of discrimination, harassment, and bullying in their professional encounters.”...
Erika Marín-Spiotta, a University of Wisconsin geography professor who holds “bystander training” workshops — which teach people ways to intervene when they see harassment or bullying — stressed the importance of disclosing incidents of misconduct to the broader community.
It “is important so that the community is aware that these behaviors are happening, they are unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” she said.
Oltman-Shay, Dunkerton’s former boss, said this week: “I applaud the AMS for continuing to review their code of ethics. … It’s my hope that this will become an example to serve as caution to those who bully.”"
Meryl Kornfield, The Washington Post ; Colorado bans doxing of public health workers amid rise in online harassment
"Seeking to address the mounting online harassment endured by health workers across the state during the pandemic, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed a bill Tuesday making it illegal to post personal information about health workers, officials and their families that threatens their safety...
The law, which took effect immediately, makes doxing — or sharing a person’s private information such as an address or phone number — a misdemeanor. Violators could face up to 18 months in jail and a $5,000 fine.
Across the country, workers on the front lines of the pandemic have reported receiving threatening calls and vandalism at their workplaces and homes for being the messengers about masking and other public health precautions. Despite a marked rise in bullying of health-care workers globally, officials acknowledge rampant reports are only the “tip of the iceberg.”"
"By now, we have heard enough dark and offensive rhetoric from Trump to know that it reflects something fundamentally troubled, and troubling, about his candidacy. Trump’s remarks frequently, if not inevitably, spark outrage, which is followed by a clarification that, in lieu of an apology, seeks to attribute the dark undertones of his words to the listener’s twisted psyche. This fools no one. Whether you like what he is saying or, like a growing segment of the electorate, you reject it, it is easy to grasp Trump’s meaning from his words. But what to make of a candidate who directly appeals to violence, smears his opponents and publicly bullies a Gold Star family, a decorated prisoner of war and a reporter with a disability, among others? To borrow the words of Army Counsel Joseph Welch, directed at another dangerous demagogue: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” The truth remains that words do matter, especially when it comes to presidential candidates. On that basis alone, Donald Trump is not qualified to be president of the United States."
"The “Pocahontas” line spurred chatter at former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s ideas summit Friday in Park City, Utah, where some attendees said they were aghast at Trump’s many race-based lines of attack. Stuart Stevens — the chief strategist on Romney’s 2012 presidential bid, who, like Romney, has vowed not to vote for Trump — said the candidate’s use of “Pocahontas” to attack Warren was both racist and inappropriate. “If you said this in a sixth-grade class, the teacher would tell you, ‘Don’t say this,’ ” Stevens said. “This is a sick guy, and Americans are not longing for a president who’s going to go out and use ethnic slurs against people,” he said. “It’s amusing in the same way telling dirty jokes around a frat house can get laughs, but most people grow out of that. It’s childish.”"
"“You should be ashamed of yourself, ashamed,” Warren said. “Ashamed for using the megaphone of a presidential campaign to attack a judge’s character and integrity simply because you think you have some God-given right to steal people’s money and get away with it. You shame yourself and you shame this great country.” She continued: “Like all federal judges, Judge Curiel is bound by the federal code of judicial ethics not to respond to these attacks. Trump is picking on someone who is ethically bound not to defend himself — exactly what you would expect from a thin-skinned, racist bully.” “You, Donald Trump, are a total disgrace,” she added."
"The reason why she finally agreed to meet me, despite her anxieties, is that the Guardian is highlighting the issue of online harassment through its series The web we want – an endeavour she approves of. “Destigmatising the shame around online harassment is the first step,” she says. “Well, the first step is recognising there’s a problem.” Lewinsky was once among the 20th century’s most humiliated people, ridiculed across the world. Now she’s a respected and perceptive anti-bullying advocate. She gives talks at Facebook, and at business conferences, on how to make the internet more compassionate. She helps out at anti-bullying organisations like Bystander Revolution, a site that offers video advice on what to do if you’re afraid to go to school, or if you’re a victim of cyberbullying... Later, she emails to explain why she didn’t walk away in the school playground – and why we read the negative comments. “I guess I was in shock,” she writes. “Psychologists speak about freezing as a response to a traumatic event. I was probably more afraid of the imagined pain of being completely outcast than the pain I was experiencing in that moment. Maybe there’s a twisted need to read the comments as a form of self-preservation, to be prepared for what may come down the pike.”"
"It was only a matter of time before kids started picking up the aggressive, divisive language that’s become a hallmark of the 2016 presidential campaign. According to a new report by the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center titled “The Trump Effect: The Impact of the Presidential Campaign on our Nation’s Schools,” the race is stoking fears and racial tensions in America’s classrooms... The report identified two troubling trends: more openly racist and vicious bullying of minorities, and more fear and anxiety among immigrants and minorities about what would happen to them if certain candidates for president are elected. The survey did not name specific candidates, but teachers named Trump, the Republican front-runner, in more than 1,000 comments — five times more often than they mentioned any of the other candidates."
"A group of students in a Pittsburgh-area high school are under scrutiny for reportedly organizing an "anti-gay day" at the school last week in response to the nationally observed "Day of Silence," which supports the LGBT community. According to WPXI, a group of students at McGuffey High School in Claysville, Pennsylvania, were encouraging people to wear flannel shirts and write "Anti-Gay" on their hands late last week. The students apparently organized themselves just after the school's Gay-Straight Alliance arranged for students to take part in the "Day of Silence," a national event organized by the national Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network to call attention to the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools."
