LGBT Community Mourns Orlando Attack, Boosts Security At Pride Events; NPR, 6/13/16

Camila Domonoske, NPR; LGBT Community Mourns Orlando Attack, Boosts Security At Pride Events:

"With sorrow, anger and expressions of unity, the LGBT community across the world is mourning Sunday's deadly attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando. Meanwhile, security has been increased at LGBT landmarks and events in cities across America.

The attack — in which a gunman killed 50 people, making it the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, and injured 53 — struck during Pride Month, which commemorates the Stonewall Riots of 1969 and the gay rights movement more broadly...

And at the Tony Awards — the annual celebration of Broadway shows — the entire ceremony was dedicated to the victims of the attack.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, who received a Tony for his wildly successful show Hamilton, read a sonnet for the victims. The poem begins in personal territory, before turning to Sunday's "senseless act of tragedy":

My wife's the reason anything gets done She nudges me towards promise by degrees She is a perfect symphony of one Our son is her most beautiful reprise.

We chase the melodies that seem to find us Until they're finished songs, and start to play When senseless acts of tragedy remind us That nothing here is promised, not one day.

This show is proof that history remembers We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger We rise and fall, and light from dying embers Remembrances that hope and love last longer.

And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside I sing Vanessa's symphony. Eliza tells her story Now fill the world with music, love, and pride."

World Leaders Show Their Support After The Mass Shooting In Orlando; Huffington Post, 6/12/16

Nick Robins-Early, Huffington Post; World Leaders Show Their Support After The Mass Shooting In Orlando:

"World leaders and politicians around the globe expressed their support Sunday for families and victims of the deadliest U.S. mass shooting in modern history.

Earlier that day, suspected attacker Omar Mateen killed at least 50 people and wounded dozens more at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Authorities are investigating the killings as an act of terror, as information continues to emerge on the attack.

Many of the leaders offering solidarity following the shooting in Orlando are from countries, such as France and Belgium, that have suffered their own horrific attacks recently."

Nick Robins-Early, Huffington Post; World Leaders Show Their Support After The Mass Shooting In Orlando."

Republicans Are Erasing LGBTQ People From Their Own Tragedy; Slate, 6/12/16

Mark Joseph Stern, Slate; Republicans Are Erasing LGBTQ People From Their Own Tragedy:

"There are many more examples of aggressively anti-gay politicians tweeting about the Pulse shooting, but one common thread ties them together: None of them mention that the shooting targeted, or even involved, the LGBTQ community. Indeed, not a single congressional Republican who tweeted about the shooting mentioned LGBTQ people. That stands in stark contrast to President Barack Obama’s clear assertion that “shooter targeted a nightclub” where “lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people “came together to be with friends, to dance, sing, and live,” and “to raise awareness and speak their minds and advocate for their civil rights.”

Republicans’ silence is actually quite apt. As a party, after all, the GOP has spent decades attempting to degrade sexual minorities and even drive them out of public life. It is altogether fitting, then, that conservative politicians are erasing LGBTQ people from their own tragedy. The gesture of support, I suppose, is basically benevolent. But let’s be clear about this: The 50 victims of Orlando’s LGBTQ nightclub massacre died as full and equal citizens under the law in spite of the Republican party’s best efforts to relegate them to second-class citizenship."

Why Obama Had to Waive HIPAA in Orlando; Slate, 6/12/16

Jeremy Samuel Faust, Slate; Why Obama Had to Waive HIPAA in Orlando:

"Over the last two decades, the term HIPAA has effectively become synonymous with medical privacy. But guarding medical privacy was not, and is not, the only goal of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). On the contrary, HIPAA was initially enacted to facilitate the necessary flow of health information while simultaneously taking care not to compromise individuals’ rights to retain control over privileged information. Under normal circumstances, each patient retains the right to control exactly who is permitted to know his or her health information—this prevails over almost any other concern or interest. When a patient is unable to state his or her wishes, the list is limited to the patient’s spouse or next of kin. This default has long created a harsh reality in which even the long-term significant other of a patient in critical condition would receive no information—a point which became a pivotal and effective rallying cry in the struggle for and eventual triumph of marriage equality in the U.S.

So it is perhaps especially poignant that, in the aftermath of the deadliest shooting to date on American soil, at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the White House applied a unique waiver to HIPAA. In declaring the situation in Orlando a national emergency, President Barack Obama and Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell made it easier for family and friends to gain quicker access to information—the right move in such a circumstance.

That’s because the individual patient is not the only stakeholder when it comes to health information. In fact, HIPAA was specifically written to ensure public well-being—something that becomes very relevant in cases of emergency, when panicked people are waiting in a hospital for critical news."

The Scope of the Orlando Carnage; New York Times, 6/12/16

Frank Bruni, New York Times; The Scope of the Orlando Carnage:

"The Islamic State and its ilk are brutal to gay people, whom they treat in unthinkable ways. They throw gay people from rooftops. The footage is posted online. It’s bloodcurdling, but it’s not unique. In countries throughout the world, to be gay is to be in mortal danger. To embrace love is to court death.

That’s crucial context for what happened in Orlando, and Orlando is an understandable prompt for questions about our own degrees of inclusion and fairness and whether we do all that we should to keep L.G.B.T. people safe. We don’t...

Often our politicians can’t find their voices. But sometimes their words are precisely right."

President Obama, speaking about the victims on Sunday afternoon, said: “The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub. It is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds and to advocate for their civil rights. So this is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country.”"

The Orlando Massacre: A Reminder of the Dangers LGBT People Live With Every Day; Huffington Post, 6/12/16

Michelangelo Signorile, Huffington Post; The Orlando Massacre: A Reminder of the Dangers LGBT People Live With Every Day:

"Hatred against LGBT people is clearly something we’ve lived with for decades, and even in these days of big victories we see a ferocious backlash playing out which is also motived [sic] by bigotry. Many of us often take for granted the freedoms we’ve won, and certainly we don’t think twice about going out for a good time, dancing and enjoying ourselves — and we might not want to think about the dangers that still face LGBT people. And the American media, too, seems complacent; early on major news organizations reporting on this mass shooting, like The New York Times and CNN, weren’t reporting the fact that Pulse is a gay club, or were downplaying that fact — a relevant fact, especially if this turns out to be a terror attack or a hate crime.

Hate crimes against LGBT people haven’t dissipated since the arrival of marriage equality and have in fact been on the rise in recent years. While we still know very little about this morning’s brutal massacre at Pulse in Orlando, this terrible tragedy is a reminder of the threat of violence against LGBT every day, and that we must always remain vigilant."

Mass Shooting At Orlando Gay Nightclub: What We Know; NPR, 6/12/16

Merrit Kennedy, NPR; Mass Shooting At Orlando Gay Nightclub: What We Know:

"A gunman opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday, killing at least 50 people and wounding at least 53 others. It's the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

The death toll far exceeded initial estimates. Orlando Police Chief John Mina had initially told reporters that "around 20" people succumbed to gunshot wounds inside the Pulse Orlando nightclub. He later said police found far more victims once they gained full access to the scene. The suspect is also dead, he says.

The suspect has been tentatively identified as Omar Mateen, two law enforcement officials tell NPR's Carrie Johnson...

Authorities say it is not clear whether Pulse Orlando was targeted specifically because it is a gay nightclub. "We don't know that that had any specific impact on the actions taken this evening, at least not yet," Hopper says.

Terry DeCarlo, head of the GLBT Center Of Central Florida, told WMFE reporter Catherine Welch that they're opening crisis hotlines to help the LGBT community.

"We can't confirm — and I've talked extensively with the police department — that it was a direct hate crime against the LGBT community, it could have just been a person looking for a packed nightclub to go in and start shooting. We can't confirm that yet," he says. He adds that his main concern now is providing support for community members and their families.

The Human Rights Campaign says it has lowered its flag to half mast.

"This tragedy has occurred as our community celebrates pride, and now more than ever we must come together as a nation to affirm that love conquers hate," HRC President Chad Griffin says in a statement."

Trump’s ‘Pocahontas’ attack leaves fellow Republicans squirming (again); Washington Post, 6/10/16

Matea Gold, Karoun Demirjian and Mike DeBonis, Washington Post; Trump’s ‘Pocahontas’ attack leaves fellow Republicans squirming (again):

"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.”"

Why I Quit Twitter — and Left Behind 35,000 Followers; New York Times, 6/10/16

Jonathan Weisman, New York Times; Why I Quit Twitter — and Left Behind 35,000 Followers:

"I have been encouraged to return to Twitter, and told that I should continue to fight, that my exit was cowardly, that I let the haters win. And I might. I miss the quick rush of a scan through my time line.

But the fact is, giving up one social media space wasn’t exactly martyrdom. It wasn’t much of a loss at all. I have found myself reading whole articles through The New York Times and Washington Post apps on my phone — imagine that. I can actually look at the profiles of people requesting to be my friend on Facebook to see if they are, in fact, trolls. If one slips through, I not only can “unfriend” him but can delete his posts. It feels liberating.

And I am awaiting some sign from Twitter that it cares whether its platform is becoming a cesspit of hate. Until then, sayonara."

New York Times Says Fair Use Of 300 Words Will Run You About $1800; New York Times, 6/10/16

Tim Cushing, TechDirt; New York Times Says Fair Use Of 300 Words Will Run You About $1800:

"Fair use is apparently the last refuge of a scofflaw. Following on the heels of a Sony rep's assertion that people could avail themselves of fair use for the right price, here comes the New York Times implying fair use not only does not exist, but that it runs more than $6/word.

Obtaining formal permission to use three quotations from New York Times articles in a book ultimately cost two professors $1,884. They’re outraged, and have taken to Kickstarter — in part to recoup the charges, but primarily, they say, to “protest the Times’ and publishers’ lack of respect for Fair Use.”

These professors used quotes from other sources in their book about press coverage of health issues, but only the Gray Lady stood there with her hand out, expecting nearly $2,000 in exchange for three quotes totalling less than 300 words.

The professors paid, but the New York Times "policy" just ensures it will be avoided by others looking to source quotes for their publications. The high rate it charges (which it claims is a "20% discount") for fair use of its work will be viewed by others as proxy censorship. And when censorship of this sort rears its head, most people just route around it. Other sources will be sought and the New York Times won't be padding its bottom line with ridiculous fees for de minimis use of its articles.

The authors' Kickstarter isn't so much to pay off the Times, but more to raise awareness of the publication's unwillingness to respect fair use."

Bankrupting Gawker over a grudge isn't justice. It's censorship; Guardian, 6/10/16

Nicky Woolf, Guardian; Bankrupting Gawker over a grudge isn't justice. It's censorship:

"But Hogan’s is not the only lawsuit against Gawker that Thiel has been secretly backing.

He has a genuine grievance. But the fact that an unaccountable billionaire has been able to weaponize his wealth, in absolute secrecy, to game the American legal system using puppet claimants to turn thumbscrews on reporters and media companies – do so repeatedly, backing suit after suit: that is something which should terrify us all. Not just fans of Gawker. Not just journalists. All of us.

It is the media’s job to hold the powerful to account. Gawker and its other sites – Gizmodo, Jezebel and so on – are an important part of that landscape. Just last month, it was Gizmodo who spoke to newsfeed curators at Facebook – a company for which Thiel was the first outside investor – and revealed the human hands behind the supposedly algorithmic trending topics feed."

Michael Hubbard, Alabama House Speaker, Is Convicted on 12 Felony Ethics Charges; New York Times, 6/10/16

Alan Blinder, New York Times; Michael Hubbard, Alabama House Speaker, Is Convicted on 12 Felony Ethics Charges:

"His conviction and automatic ouster immediately increased the political turmoil that had shadowed Alabama for months, and made it something of a punch line. The chief justice of the State Supreme Court, Roy S. Moore, could be removed from office this year because of his efforts to resist same-sex marriage, and Mr. Bentley is a subject of impeachment proceedings over an improper relationship with an aide, as well as federal and state inquiries.

“It’s a sad day in the state because people have a distrust in government when you look around all three branches,” State Senator Cam Ward, a Republican, said in an interview after the verdict was announced. “This kind of affirms what people have been thinking.”

Mr. Bentley declined to comment through a spokeswoman, but the state’s attorney general, Luther Strange, also a Republican, welcomed the verdict.

“This is a good day for the rule of law in our state,” said Mr. Strange, who added that the decision “should send a clear message that in Alabama, we hold public officials accountable for their actions.”"

Mitt Romney: A Trump Presidency Would Spawn ‘Trickle-Down Racism’; Huffington Post, 6/10/16

Mollie Reilly, Huffington Post; Mitt Romney: A Trump Presidency Would Spawn ‘Trickle-Down Racism’ :

"Citing Trump’s recent racist remarks about U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is handling two lawsuits accusing the for-profit Trump University of fraud, the previous Republican presidential nominee said that even if Trump tones down his rhetoric, he’s already revealed his true colors.

“He indicated what he believes in his heart about Mexicans and about race by the comments he made about Judge Curiel, and he may try to distance himself from that, but we know what he believes,” Romney said.

He also noted that Trump refused to apologize for his remarks.

“I don’t want to see trickle-down racism. I don’t want to see a president of the United States saying things which change the character of the generations of Americans that are following. Presidents have an impact on the nature of our nation,” Romney said. “And trickle-down racism, trickle-down bigotry, trickle-down misogyny, all these things are extraordinarily dangerous to the heart and character of America.”

He added, “This is not a matter of just policy. It’s more a matter of character and integrity.”"

The OPEN Government Data Act Would, Uh, Open Government Data; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 6/10/16

Elliot Harmon and Aaron Mackey, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); The OPEN Government Data Act Would, Uh, Open Government Data:

"The U.S. government has made huge strides in its open data practices over the last few years. Since it launched in 2009, data.gov has become a crucial source for everything from climate and agricultural data to Department of Education records. For the most part, this new era of data disclosure didn’t happen because Congress passed new laws; it happened through presidential orders and procedural improvements in the Executive Branch.

Unfortunately, it might be just as easy for future administrations to roll back the current open data program. That’s why EFF supports a bill that would mandate public access to government data and urges Congress to pass it.

Recently introduced in both the House and Senate, the Open, Public, Electronic, and Necessary Government Data Act (OPEN Data Act, S. 2852, H.R. 5051) would require all federal government agencies to automatically make public any data sets they produce, subject to narrow exceptions for national security or other reasons (more on those reasons in a minute).

It would also require that that data be shared in a machine-readable format—that is, a format that can be processed by a computer without a person having to manually tinker with each entry. In 2013, President Obama issued an executive order that government data be shared in machine-readable formats. The OPEN Government Data Act would lock that requirement into law and provide a stronger legal definition for machine-readable data.

EFF applauds the OPEN Data Act and hopes to see it pass. By turning the good practices that the Executive Branch has gradually adopted into law, the OPEN Data Act can help usher in a new era for U.S. data transparency."

Why Trump lawyers won’t ask Trump University judge to step aside; Reuters, 6/6/16

Alison Frankel, Reuters; Why Trump lawyers won’t ask Trump University judge to step aside:

"As many, many legal experts have opined in the past few days, a federal judge’s ethnicity or national origin cannot serve as the basis for a claim of judicial bias. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, for instance, held in its 1998 opinion in MacDraw Inc v. CIT Group that U.S. District Judge Denny Chin (now on the appeals court) was within his rights to sanction two lawyers who asked whether his Asian ancestry prejudiced him against them. (They were involved in completely separate litigation against an Asian fundraiser for President Bill Clinton, who appointed Chin.) “Courts have repeatedly held that matters such as race or ethnicity are improper bases for challenging a judge’s impartiality,” the 2nd Circuit said. Added Alexandra Lahav, who specializes in legal ethics at the University of Connecticut: “There is no basis in the law or our legal history. It’s antithetical to the rule of law.”

Trump has a First Amendment right to express his opinion of the Trump University proceedings, which have certainly not gone the way he and his lawyers would have liked...

Outside of court, Trump can say just about whatever he wants about the case without much risk of being held accountable. It might be another story if the candidate were to express contempt for Judge Curiel or the proceeding inside the judge’s courtroom, but so far, Trump has not made accusations to Curiel’s face.

Nor are the candidate’s lawyers responsible in court for what their client says about the judge outside of the courtroom. The American Bar Association’s model rules of professional conduct explicitly say that representing a client does not mean a lawyer endorses the client’s “political, economic, social or moral views or activities.” Ethics adviser Thomas Mason of Harris Wiltshire & Grannis said lawyers generally do not face sanctions for what their clients say – and that goes double when the client is running for president. “How easy do you think it would be for any lawyer at any firm to control what Mr. Trump says?” Mason asked.

If, however, O’Melveny were to accuse Judge Curiel of bias in a filing that cited only his heritage as evidence, according to legal ethics experts, the firm could be accused of bringing a frivolous motion, according to Mark Foster of Zuckerman Spaeder and Barry Cohen of Crowell & Moring, who counsel law firms on professional responsibility."

Start over, city schools: The Pittsburgh Public Schools cannot function with Anthony Hamlet as superintendent; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/10/16

Editorial Board, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Start over, city schools: The Pittsburgh Public Schools cannot function with Anthony Hamlet as superintendent:

"Anthony Hamlet has some of the qualities that Pittsburgh requires in its next superintendent of schools, including a drive to turn around low-performing schools and the realization that alternatives to suspension are needed to address discipline issues. Mr. Hamlet, however, also has qualities that the Pittsburgh Public Schools does not need at this delicate stage. They include a slippery relationship with facts, a willingness to plagiarize and an overly defensive attitude. He must not become the next superintendent of the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

The process was flawed from the start...

The problems with Mr. Hamlet’s credentials are substantive — and the implications for keeping him here are profound. It is impossible to move forward under a leader who misrepresents himself and prefers recalcitrance to transparency. He has more than gotten off to a bad start. He has proved himself unworthy of holding one of the most important positions in the Pittsburgh region. He should withdraw as the next superintendent, a job he is set to begin on July 1.

Lynda Wrenn is the first board member to express doubts about Mr. Hamlet, declaring Thursday that if the plagiarism charges hold true, she will call for a new search. So far, other board members have hedged or stood by its chosen candidate, an understandable position with so much invested in him.

But these are elected officials, responsible to the citizens of Pittsburgh. When the board meets today in a special session about the controversy, it must take a deep breath and realize that the situation has become untenable. If Mr. Hamlet does not resign, his contract must be dissolved. Start another search immediately, this time with a professional search firm.

The board’s failure at this essential task calls its leadership into question, and will renew calls for legislation to dissolve the elected school board and move to an appointed system.

There is only one lesson Mr. Hamlet can teach the students of the Pittsburgh Public Schools now: Own your mistakes, accept the consequences and move on."

Elizabeth Warren Calls Donald Trump A ‘Racist Bully’; Huffington Post, 6/9/16

Peter Andrew Hart, Huffington Post; Elizabeth Warren Calls Donald Trump A ‘Racist Bully’ :

"“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."

Open access: All human knowledge is there—so why can’t everybody access it?; Ars Technica, 6/7/16

Glyn Moody, Ars Technica; Open access: All human knowledge is there—so why can’t everybody access it? :

"In 1836, Anthony Panizzi, who later became principal librarian of the British Museum, gave evidence before a parliamentary select committee. At that time, he was only first assistant librarian, but even then he had an ambitious vision for what would one day became the British Library. He told the committee:

I want a poor student to have the same means of indulging his learned curiosity, of following his rational pursuits, of consulting the same authorities, of fathoming the most intricate inquiry as the richest man in the kingdom, as far as books go, and I contend that the government is bound to give him the most liberal and unlimited assistance in this respect...

The example of The Pirate Bay shows that the current game of domain whack-a-mole is not one that the lawyers are likely to win. But even if they did, it is too late.

Science magazine's analysis of Sci-Hub downloads reveals that the busiest city location is Tehran. It wrote: "Much of that is from Iranians using programs to automatically download huge swathes of Sci-Hub’s papers to make a local mirror of the site. Rahimi, an engineering student in Tehran, confirms this. 'There are several Persian sites similar to Sci-Hub'."

In this, people are following in the footsteps of Aaron Swartz, with the difference that we don't know what he intended to do with the millions of articles he had downloaded, whereas those mirroring Sci-Hub certainly intend to share the contents widely. It would be surprising if others around the world, especially in emerging economies, are not busily downloading all 45 million papers to do the same."

Ellen DeGeneres bombarded by Great Barrier Reef tweets from Australian minister; Guardian, 6/8/16

Michael Slezak and Elle Hunt, Guardian; Ellen DeGeneres bombarded by Great Barrier Reef tweets from Australian minister:

"The federal government has exerted considerable effort attempting to conceal or underplay the crisis.

Last month it was revealed that every reference to Australia, including a key chapter on the reef, was scrubbed from the final version of a major UN report on climate change after the Australian Department of Environment intervened, concerned that it would negatively impact tourism.

Australia was the only inhabited continent on the planet not mentioned in the published document.

Hunt’s point to DeGeneres that the reef had been removed from the Unesco watch list overlooks the fact that it is assessed as being in “poor” condition and “worsening”, according to the government authority GBRMPA and Unesco.

In March Hunt said that Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions “peaked” 10 years ago, which was received with deep scepticism by experts."

Graham calls on Republicans to un-endorse Trump; Politico, 6/7/16

Nick Gass, Politico; Graham calls on Republicans to un-endorse Trump:

"Graham wants fellow Republicans who have endorsed Donald Trump to take it all back in the wake of his repeated claims that Judge Gonzalo Curiel's heritage make him unfit to preside over lawsuits against him.

“This is the most un-American thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy,” Graham told The New York Times. “If anybody was looking for an off-ramp, this is probably it,” he added. “There’ll come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary.”"

Controversial film linking vaccines and autism to premiere in Pittsburgh; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/7/16

Anya Sostek, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Controversial film linking vaccines and autism to premiere in Pittsburgh:

"A controversial film that asserts a government cover-up on a purported link between autism and vaccines will premiere in Pittsburgh on Friday.

“VAXXED,” pulled from New York’s Tribeca Film Festival in March after groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics voiced concerns to actor and festival founder Robert De Niro, will be shown for seven days at the Parkway Theater in Stowe...

“It’s a dangerous and misleading attempt to perpetuate a conspiracy theory that is completely discredited,” said Arvind Venkat, a physician at Allegheny General Hospital who specializes in educating emergency departments on the acute needs of patients with autism.

“There aren’t two sides to this issue — there really aren’t — and we need to be careful about putting movies out there and portraying them as truthful when they aren’t.”...

The film has drawn protests in cities where it has been shown, such as Atlanta, and cities where it has been pulled from film festivals, such as New York and Houston. Mr. Wakefield’s landmark study was retracted by The Lancet medical journal that published it and the United Kingdom stripped him of his medical license...

As for the criticism, Mr. Stubna believes that there’s no downside to more information."

The Judicial System According to Donald Trump; New York Times, 6/6/16

Editorial Board, New York Times; The Judicial System According to Donald Trump:

"Federal judges have repeatedly and emphatically refused to recuse themselves from cases because of their race or ethnicity. These rulings were driven by two realizations: Ethnically based challenges would reduce every judge to a racial category, which would be racist in itself. And such challenges would make judges vulnerable to recusal motions — for reasons of race, ethnicity, gender or religion — in every case that came before them.

In other words, once these challenges were allowed, there would be no end to them.

The gravity of this matter has clearly eluded Donald Trump, who has cast aside the Constitution and decades of jurisprudence by suggesting both ethnic and religious litmus tests for federal judges. These pronouncements illustrate that Mr. Trump holds the rule of law in contempt."

The Madness of America; New York Times, 6/6/16

Charles M. Blow, New York Times; The Madness of America:

"...[T]here is a line one dares not cross, and that is the one of responding to violent rhetoric with violent actions.

As I have said before, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said it best in his 1967 book “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?,” and he is worthy of quoting here at length:

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that...”

In a democracy, the vote is the voice. The best way to reduce the threat Trump poses is to register and motivate people who share your view of the threat...

Trump and his millions of minions have replaced what they call “political correctness” with “ambient viciousness.”

This won’t “make America great again,” because the “again” they imagine harkens back to America’s darkness. We are the new America — more diverse, more inclusive, more than our ancestors could ever have imagined."

Donald Trump Finally Admits His Campaign Is Racist; Huffington Post, 6/6/16

Amanda Terkel, Huffington Post; Donald Trump Finally Admits His Campaign Is Racist:

"Paul Manafort, Trump’s chief strategist, recently told The Huffington Post that Trump is unlikely to pick a woman or minority as a running mate because that would be seen as “pandering.”

If he were to become president, Trump would have the power to nominate candidates to the Supreme Court and other spots on the federal bench. But between his comments about race, religion and gender, the people Trump thinks would be unbiased enough to serve may make up a very narrow slice of the population."

Megyn Kelly Slams Donald Trump’s ‘Mexican’ Judge Remarks: ‘That Is Not The Way Our System Works’; Huffington Post, 6/7/16

Dominique Mosbergen, Huffington Post; Megyn Kelly Slams Donald Trump’s ‘Mexican’ Judge Remarks: ‘That Is Not The Way Our System Works’ :

"Kelly strongly disagreed with O’Reilly’s position.

“That is not the way our system works,” she said on her show an hour later.

“If a litigant making stink about a judge necessarily resulted in a conflict that would force the judge to step down, it would lead to chaos in our court system,” she added...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also skewered Trump’s position.

“We don’t judge you as part of a group. That would be to suggest that blacks can’t get a fair white judge, whites can’t get a fair black judge,” Gingrich said on “The John Gibson Show.” “Once you go down that road, you destroy America. You can’t take a group definition and apply it.”

On Sunday, Gingrich called Trump’s comments about Curiel “one of the worst mistakes Trump has made.”

“I think it’s inexcusable,” Gingrich told Fox News."

Hacker Lexicon: What Is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act?; Wired, 6/6/16

Kim Zetter, Wired; Hacker Lexicon: What Is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? :

"THE CALL FOR copyright reform in America has grown so loud that Congress has finally heard it. Lawmakers have ordered a slate of studies to look into how to fix what has become a broken system, and activists are cautiously optimistic that this could be the first step toward reform. The source of the fracture? The Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The DMCA was passed in 1998 as an anti-piracy statute effectively making it illegal to circumvent copy protections designed to prevent pirates from duplicating digital copyrighted works and selling or freely distributing them. It also makes it illegal to manufacture or distribute tools or techniques for circumventing copy controls.

But in reality the controversial law’s effects have been much broader by allowing game developers, music and film companies and others to keep a tight control on how consumers use their copyrighted works, preventing them in some cases from making copies of their purchased products for their own use or from jailbreaking smartphones and other devices to use them in ways the manufacturers dislike.

The DMCA has two problematic sections: section 1201, which deals with the circumvention of copy-protections, and section 512, which allows a copyright holder to send a so-called takedown notice to web sites and others believed to be infringing a copyright."

Guns N' Roses' Axl Rose is trying to get a 'fat photo' off the Internet; CNet, 6/5/16

Aloysius Low, CNet; Guns N' Roses' Axl Rose is trying to get a 'fat photo' off the Internet:

"What would you do if you were the lead singer of Guns N' Roses and some young punks on the Internet used a photo of you to make fat jokes? Well, Axl Rose thinks the best way to deal is to wipe all traces of the picture off the web, and he's starting with Google...

Interestingly, the copyright for the original image is tricky. While TorrentFreak did hunt down the original photographer to check if Axl Rose has the right to take down the image, Web Sheriff, the company performing the takedown, says that photographers at the singer's show sign an agreement transferring copyright ownership to his company."

Donald Trump may be in deep trouble: The press is finally figuring out how to cover the “billionaire” bigot; BillMoyers.com via Salon, 6/5/16

Todd Gitlin, BillMoyers.com via Salon; Donald Trump may be in deep trouble: The press is finally figuring out how to cover the “billionaire” bigot:

"CBS president Leslie Moonves has deservedly come in for scorn with his grotesque, though accurate, proclamation that the Trump phenomenon “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” Let that Moonves statement be engraved in stone in the lobby of every journalism school in America, adding a single word in a grosser font: BEWARE.

But Moonves in mid-gaffe was only spilling the obvious (as in Michael Kinsley’s definition of a gaffe: when a politician tells the truth). Though journalists may chortle or blush at such eruptions of truth, they never stop to note the unseemliness of broadcast networks piling up profits while their stations are government-licensed at no cost. It would, I suppose, be indecorous to point out that the airwaves belong to the nation and that broadcast networks have obligations to public life...

Whatever the scale of the current cable TV rethink, Trump goes on trumpeting. He continues to rant his way through falsehoods — most recently spending 12 minutes at a rally denouncing the Indiana-born judge hearing the fraud lawsuit brought against his “Trump University” — a judge who, Trump said, “happens to be, we believe, Mexican.” In the spirit of informing the public of the character and prejudices of the candidates who come before them, it’s a good sign that many journalists took note of the ethnic insinuation. It’s a sign that they’ve stopped bending over backwards to avoid the obvious. It’s a sign that, at least for now, they’re walking away from the role of — in the late Village Voice journalist Jack Newfield’s memorable words — “stenographers with amnesia.”"

City schools superintendent schedules news conference; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/6/16

Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; City schools superintendent schedules news conference:

"Anthony Hamlet, the recently hired Pittsburgh Public Schools superintendent, will hold a news conference Tuesday afternoon to address apparent discrepancies in his resume related to graduation rates and school performance improvement in the south Florida district where he worked before coming to Pittsburgh.

In an unusual Sunday press release, the Pittsburgh Public Schools’ board of directors said Mr. Hamlet would “provide context to information shared on his resume that has recently come under question in the media.”

A May 29 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette found that while his resume stated that two schools in the Palm Beach County school system had “moved from ‘F’ to ‘C’” during his tenure as principal, both schools were already “C” schools before he took over.

The article also noted that federal graduation rates in the district improved by 4 percent during his tenure instead of the 13 percent claimed in his resume. He has said the higher percentage includes those who graduated after an extended summer session...

The Tuesday press conference is scheduled for 2:30 p.m., in the school Administration Building, 341 S. Bellefield Ave., in Oakland."

New resume questions raised about incoming Pittsburgh Schools superintendent; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/3/16

Molly Born and Chris Potter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; New resume questions raised about incoming Pittsburgh Schools superintendent:

"In the wake of new reports questioning figures that the future Pittsburgh Public Schools’ superintendent cited in his resume, the school board president acknowledged that more could have been done to check his claims.

Regina Holley emphasized Friday afternoon that Anthony Hamlet “will do a wonderful job in the district, and the board will work with him to ensure that happens,” saying she valued his experience turning around struggling schools in Palm Beach County, Fla. But she said that in hindsight, “I would have questioned him more thoroughly on some of the numbers.”

A revised version of Mr. Hamlet’s resume, which included additional information in sections reporters had questioned, was sent to the Post-Gazette Friday.

The questions involve graduation figures, school performance ratings and other claims that Mr. Hamlet made in a resume released by the Pittsburgh school district on May 18. Some of the assertions were examined in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article Sunday, and others were questioned in a Palm Beach Post story Friday.

Ms. Holley said that she would have liked to see Brian Perkins, the consultant hired by the school board to guide the superintendent search, “go deeper on vetting that data.” But she added that when the district was drafting its list of priorities for finding a new superintendent — a process that involved public input — “we didn’t make that as an emphasis. ... What we were looking for is, was there a positive experience with challenging children in the district? That’s the goal.”

Mr. Hamlet, 46, began a consulting contract with Pittsburgh Public Schools on Wednesday for “transition and planning activities” through this month. He will start a five-year pact as its top school administrator on July 1 — a day after current superintendent Linda Lane’s contract expires — with a starting salary of $210,000."

Public info, now: As county and city improve, the state stays lousy; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/6/16

Editorial Board, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Public info, now: As county and city improve, the state stays lousy:

"County officials in recent days have rolled out new online tools to make certain types of public information more accessible.

Controller Chelsa Wagner on Thursday debuted alleghenycounty.opengov.com, which features graphs, charts and sortable data about spending, vendors, employees, salaries and benefits. She also introduced allegheny.openbookportal.com, providing instant access to contracts with vendors...

Local governments are getting better at providing basic financial and vendor information to the public, and some officials, such as city Controller Michael Lamb, take pride in providing easy access to public information...

Across the state, however, access to public documents is uneven, and obtaining anything beyond routine documents, such as annual budgets, often involves a cumbersome right-to-know process in which the government agency drags its feet and attempts to keep secret anything potentially embarrassing or controversial. Incremental progress on openness should be applauded, but it is important to remember that the larger battle is far from won."

Charles Darwin letter returned to Smithsonian over 30 years after theft; Guardian, 6/2/16

Alan Yuhas, Guardian; Charles Darwin letter returned to Smithsonian over 30 years after theft:

"More than three decades after a letter by Charles Darwin was stolen, the FBI’s art crime team has recovered and returned it to the Smithsonian.

The letter, part of the Darwin’s correspondence with an American geologist, Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, was written in May 1875 to thank his fellow naturalist for field studies of what became Yellowstone national park.

It was stolen in the mid-1970s from the Smithsonian archives, not long after it arrived there as part of the papers of George Perkins Miller, another 19th-century geologist.

An FBI spokesperson told the Guardian the letter was stolen by an employee before it could be inventoried in the large collection, so the theft at first went unnoticed. Earlier this year, the FBI received a tip from someone who said they knew where the letter was kept – in the Washington DC area, not far from the Smithsonian...

The FBI’s art crime team was created in 2004, as the black market sale of artifacts expanded after the invasion of Iraq. It says it has recovered more than 2,650 items valued at more than $150m."

Trump Could Threaten U.S. Rule of Law, Scholars Say; New York Times, 6/3/16

[Video and Article] Adam Liptak, New York Times; Trump Could Threaten U.S. Rule of Law, Scholars Say:

"Donald J. Trump’s blustery attacks on the press, complaints about the judicial system and bold claims of presidential power collectively sketch out a constitutional worldview that shows contempt for the First Amendment, the separation of powers and the rule of law, legal experts across the political spectrum say."

Megyn Kelly’s peace with Trump is officially over: Fox News host lashes out over attacks on Trump U judge for allegedly being “Mexican”; Salon, 6/3/16

Scott Eric Kaufman, Salon; Megyn Kelly’s peace with Trump is officially over: Fox News host lashes out over attacks on Trump U judge for allegedly being “Mexican” :

"On The Kelly File Thursday evening, host Megyn Kelly tore into Donald Trump for suggesting that the judge presiding over the Trump U case has a “an absolute conflict” of interest because “he’s a Mexican,” a group the GOP front-runner has repeatedly gone out of his way to offend.

The problems with Trump’s argument are many, but the biggest is the simple fact that — as Kelly pointed out earlier this week — Judge Gonzalo Curiel isn’t “Mexican,” given that he was born an American citizen in Indiana.

But Trump insists that because his parents were Mexican immigrants, Judge Curiel is incapable of rendering an objective verdict in the case — which is a canny legal move, when one thinks about it. First, you insult every ethnic group on the planet; second, when you’re sued for bilking thousands of people out of millions of dollars, claim that no one who isn’t 100 percent “American” can preside over your case.

Kelly didn’t go quite that far, saying only that “Trump continues to attack a sitting federal judge — who by the way, did a lot to fight the drug cartels when he was a prosecutor — based on his ethnicity.”

She added that “suggesting he has an inherent conflict of interest because of his heritage [is the equivalent of saying] ‘a Hispanic cannot judge a case against me.’ That is what Trump is saying.”"

A Chill Wind Blows; New York Times, 6/2/16

Charles M. Blow, New York Times; A Chill Wind Blows:

"Our constitutionally protected freedom of speech and freedom of the press are pillars that make this country great, and different.

Not only did Trump say Tuesday that if he became president he was going to “continue to attack the press,” but in February, he said:

One of the things I’m going to do if I win, and I hope we do and we’re certainly leading. I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We’re going to open up those libel laws. So that when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected...

Trump’s dictatorial instinct to suppress what he deems “negative” speech, particularly from the press, is the very thing the founders worried about.

In 1737, more than 50 years before the Constitution was adopted, signed and ratified — before the First Amendment was adopted — Benjamin Franklin wrote in The Pennsylvania Gazette:

“Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.”

Our unfettered freedom to interrogate and criticize our government and our leaders are part of our patriotism and an expression of our national fealty."

The Seven Broken Guardrails of Democracy; The Atlantic, 5/31/16

David Frum, The Atlantic; The Seven Broken Guardrails of Democracy:

"A long time ago, more than 20 years in fact, the Wall Street Journal published a powerful, eloquent editorial, simply headlined: “No Guardrails.”

In our time, the United States suffers every day of the week because there are now so many marginalized people among us who don't understand the rules, who don't think that rules of personal or civil conduct apply to them, who have no notion of self-control.

Twenty years later, that same newspaper is edging toward open advocacy in favor of Donald Trump, the least self-controlled major-party candidate for high office in the history of the republic. And as he forged his path to the nomination, he snapped through seven different guardrails, revealing how brittle the norms that safeguard the American republic had grown...

The television networks that promoted Trump; the primary voters who elevated him; the politicians who eventually surrendered to him; the intellectuals who argued for him, and the donors who, however grudgingly, wrote checks to him—all of them knew, by the time they made their decisions, that Trump lied all the time, about everything. They knew that Trump was ignorant, and coarse, and boastful, and cruel. They knew he habitually sympathized with dictators and kleptocrats—and that his instinct when confronted with criticism of himself was to attack, vilify, and suppress. They knew his disrespect for women, the disabled, and ethnic and religious minorities. They knew that he wished to unravel NATO and other U.S.-led alliances, and that he speculated aloud about partial default on American financial obligations. None of that dissuaded or deterred them.

And the “them” is growing."

Reprint of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ Tests German Law; New York Times, 6/1/16

Melissa Eddy, New York Times; Reprint of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ Tests German Law:

"A German publisher of right-wing books has begun selling a reprint of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” originally issued in 1943 by the Nazi party’s central publishing house, a move that risks violating Germany’s law against the distribution of Nazi propaganda.

A copyright on “Mein Kampf” that was held by the Bavarian government expired on Dec. 31, and an annotated scholarly edition was published this year with government permission.

Now, state prosecutors in the German city of Leipzig, where the publisher, Der Schelm, is based, are investigating whether they can press charges . Last week, prosecutors in Bamberg opened a separate investigation after a bookseller, who was not identified, advertised Der Schelm’s edition.

Although Hitler’s two-volume treatise, written from 1924 to 1927 and laying out his ideas on race and violence, is widely available on the internet, the annotated version is the only one that is legal in Germany. The 3,500 comments accompanying the text provide context for the work, and they are aimed, in part, at trying to prevent a new generation from taking up Nazi ideologies.

“Promoting an edition without annotations is considered a criminal offense,” Christopher Rosenbusch, a spokesman for prosecutors in Bamberg, said on Wednesday."

Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants; New York Times, 6/1/16

Farhad Manjoo, New York Times; Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants:

"Over the last decade, we have witnessed the rise of what I like to call the Frightful Five. These companies — Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Alphabet, Google’s parent — have created a set of inescapable tech platforms that govern much of the business world. The five have grown expansive in their business aims and invincible to just about any competition. Their collective powers are a source of pride and fear for Americans. These companies thoroughly dominate the news and entertainment industries, they rule advertising and retail sales, and they’re pushing into health care, energy and automobiles.

For all the disruptions, good and bad, Americans may experience as a result of the rise of the Frightful Five, there is one saving grace: The companies are American. Not only were they founded by Americans and have their headquarters here (complicated global tax structures notwithstanding), but they all tend to espouse American values like free trade, free expression and a skepticism of regulation. Until the surveillance revealed by the National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden, many American tech companies were also more deferential to the American government, especially its requests for law enforcement help.

In the rest of the world, the Americanness of the Frightful Five is often seen as a reason for fear, not comfort. In part that’s because of a worry about American hegemony: The bigger these companies get, the less room they leave for local competition — and the more room for possible spying by the United States government."

Former Trump University Workers Call the School a ‘Lie’ and a ‘Scheme’ in Testimony; New York Times, 5/31/16

Michael Barbaro and Steve Eder, New York Times; Former Trump University Workers Call the School a ‘Lie’ and a ‘Scheme’ in Testimony:

"One sales manager for Trump University, Ronald Schnackenberg, recounted how he was reprimanded for not pushing a financially struggling couple hard enough to sign up for a $35,000 real estate class, despite his conclusion that it would endanger their economic future. He watched with disgust, he said, as a fellow Trump University salesman persuaded the couple to purchase the class anyway...

“I believe that Trump University was a fraudulent scheme,” Mr. Schnackenberg wrote in his testimony, “and that it preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money.”...

The most striking documents were written testimony from former employees of Trump University who said they had become disenchanted with the university’s tactics and culture. Corrine Sommer, an event manager, recounted how colleagues encouraged students to open up as many credit cards as possible to pay for classes that many of them could not afford.

“It’s O.K., just max out your credit card,” Ms. Sommer recalled their saying.

Jason Nicholas, a sales executive at Trump University, recalled a deceptive pitch used to lure students — that Mr. Trump would be “actively involved” in their education. “This was not true,” Mr. Nicholas testified, saying Mr. Trump was hardly involved at all. Trump University, Mr. Nicholas concluded, was “a facade, a total lie.”"

Silence = Death; Huffington Post, 5/31/16

Bob Garfield, Huffington Post; Silence = Death:

"The usual false balance. The usual staged cable bickering. The usual dry contextual analysis. The usual intermittent truth-squading to garnish our careless daily servings of uncontested hate speech, incitement and manifest lies. The usual reluctance to “be part of the story” — which, in fact, we are inextricably part of because we in large measure created it by giving oxygen to his every incendiary outrage and being our soundbitten, compulsively enabling selves.

Again.

It is precisely this craven faux objectivity, after all, that fueled the historically ruinous Iraq war. It is just this fetishized impartiality that gave us a decade of stenography as the country’s political center moved to the far fringes of the right. (Alas, this is not my first call to vigilance.) When one side of a story is madness, medieval anti-intellectualism, scapegoating. demagoguery and lies, the neutral broker in the middle has in fact made a choice. The wrong choice.

The only right choice is for truth. And righteous condemnation, not ghettoized on opinion pages but front and center. Every day.

Are we not supposed to be the watchdogs, the speakers of truth to power, the guardians of democracy? It’s time for a gut check. Colleagues, stop gawking. Stop debating. Stop obsessing on the process. Stop being distracted by the daily Trumpruption. Stop analyzing his “policy” positions, his vp choice, his potential Supreme Court nominees, his unreleased tax returns."

Donald Trump and the Judge; New York Times, 5/31/16

Editorial Board, New York Times; Donald Trump and the Judge:

"In a rambling, 11-minute stream of vitriol, Mr. Trump, who has attacked Judge Curiel before, called him “very hostile” and a “hater of Donald Trump,” and said he “should be ashamed of himself. I think it’s a disgrace that he’s doing this.”

One would think Mr. Trump, whose sister is a federal appellate judge, would know how self-destructive it is for any litigant anywhere to attack the judge hearing his or her case. But Mr. Trump is not any litigant; he is running to be president of the United States — a job that requires at least a glancing understanding of the American system of government, in particular a respect for the separation of powers. When Mr. Trump complains that he is “getting railroaded” by a “rigged” legal system, he is saying in effect that an entire branch of government is corrupt.

The special danger of comments like these — however off the cuff they may sound — is that they embolden Mr. Trump’s many followers to feel, and act, the same way.

For good measure, Mr. Trump added that Judge Curiel “happens to be, we believe, Mexican.” False; the judge is from Indiana. But facts are, as always, beside the point for Mr. Trump, who reassured his audience that “the Mexicans are going to end up loving Donald Trump when I give all these jobs.” (Presumably he was not referring to those he has promised to deport if he is elected.)

In a masterpiece of understatement, Judge Curiel, who is prevented by ethical rules from responding directly to comments like these, noted in his order that Mr. Trump “has placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue.”"

Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation; New York Times, 5/30/16

Andrew Higgins, New York Time; Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation:

"This “information war,” said Rastislav Kacer, a veteran diplomat who served as Slovakia’s ambassador to Washington and at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, “is just part of a bigger struggle.” While not involving bloodshed, he added, it “is equally as dangerous as more conventional hostile action.”

For Ms. Aro, the abuse increased sharply last year when, following up on reports in the opposition Russian news media, she visited St. Petersburg to investigate the workings of a Russian “troll factory.” The big office churns out fake news and comment, particularly on Ukraine, and floods websites and social media with denunciations of Russia’s critics.

In response to her reporting, pro-Russian activists in Helsinki organized a protest outside the headquarters of Yle, accusing it of being a troll factory itself. Only a handful of people showed up.

At the same time, Ms. Aro has been peppered with abusive emails, vilified as a drug dealer on social media sites and mocked as a delusional bimbo in a music video posted on YouTube."

Judge exceeded authority by ordering ethics classes for possibly 3,000 DOJ lawyers, brief says; ABA Journal, 5/31/16

Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal; Judge exceeded authority by ordering ethics classes for possibly 3,000 DOJ lawyers, brief says:

"The U.S. Justice Department is asking a federal judge to stay his unusual order requiring department lawyers who appear in any court in 26 states to take ethics classes for alleged misrepresentations in a major immigration case.

The Justice Department brief filed on Tuesday argues that the sweeping sanctions imposed earlier this month by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of Brownsville, Texas, “far exceed the bounds of appropriate remedies.”

The Justice Department brief argues that Hanen “has no inherent authority to superimpose additional ethics-training requirements” on more than 3,000 Justice Department attorneys who are unconnected to the immigration case before Hanen. In addition, the brief argues, Hanen’s order interferes with the Attorney General’s executive authority and violates the separation of powers.

Hanen had found Justice Department lawyers made misrepresentations concerning the implementation date of President Obama’s deferred deportation program. According to Hanen, Justice Department lawyers asserted the deferred deportation program would not be implemented until February 2015, even though the government had already expanded deportation deferrals from two to three years for more than 100,000 immigrants...

Hanen’s May 19 sanctions order required any Justice Department lawyers who want to appear in the 26 states challenging the deferred deportations to attend an annual ethics course for the next five years. Hanen also ordered Attorney General Loretta Lynch to develop a “comprehensive plan” to prevent future unethical conduct."

Hulk Hogan, media ethics and the battling Internet moguls; PBS NewsHour, 5/30/16

PBS NewsHour; Hulk Hogan, media ethics and the battling Internet moguls:

"When Hulk Hogan won $140 million in court from millionaire Nick Denton’s Gawker Media after it published video of him having sex, the verdict raised serious questions about journalistic ethics. Hogan’s suit was funded by Peter Thiel, the billionaire founder of PayPal who Gawker outed as gay a decade earlier. Hari Sreenivasan talks to Wired’s Jason Tanz for more on the case and its implications."

Universities seek united front in open access debate; University World News, 5/13/16

Munyaradzi Makoni, University World News; Universities seek united front in open access debate:

"The risk of re-colonisation

The motives behind the recent overtures of major publisher Elsevier to science councils and research organisations in Africa around the creation of a major open access science journal for the continent were questioned by Eve Gray, research associate with the Intellectual Property Unit at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Elsevier’s partners in this move include the African Academy of Sciences, African Centre for Technology Studies, South African Medical Research Council and IBM Research – Africa.

Gray, who also works for the Centre for Educational Technology at the University of Cape Town, said there was a danger that universities and research institutions would “give away” their knowledge to Elsevier and not be able to claim it back.

While an Elsevier Africa site was an attractive prospect, enabling researchers in the region to discuss ideas, download material and share information, it was also dangerous because there was no guarantee it would remain open access.

Gray said the Elsevier initiative had exploited a funding gap unfilled by governments and universities in the region. In addition, universities had been slow to strategise at leadership levels.

“What ought to be done by African governments, especially in Southern Africa, is now being done by Elsevier, but we are at risk of being colonised.”"

Must stop bill to copyright public records; San Jose Mercury News, 6/28/16

Thomas Peele, San Jose Mercury News; Must stop bill to copyright public records:

"In a blog post EFF legislative counsel Ernesto Falcon made it clear the potential chilling effect on free speech and public participation Stone has proposed.

"Such a broad grant of copyright authority to state and local governments will chill speech, stifle open government, and harm the public domain," Falcon wrote. "If a citizen infringed on a state owned copyright by making a copy of a government publication, or reading that publication out loud in a public setting, or uploading it to the Internet, they could be liable. ..."

Does Stone want to keep news organizations and others from freely posting public records that show wrongdoing, abuse, corruption, misuse of public funds?

Rather than working to make access to records more difficult, state lawmakers should working to make them more accessible."

Moral Blindness at Baylor; New York Times, 5/27/16

Editorial Board, New York Times; Moral Blindness at Baylor:

"Among the most intriguing — and to some people, satisfying — aspects of the sex-abuse scandal at Baylor University was the ouster of Kenneth Starr as university president. Mr. Starr was the special prosecutor who pursued President Bill Clinton’s indiscretions and moral shortcomings with almost preternatural zeal back in 1998. Now here he is, bounced from his job as president for what appears to have been his failure to pay close enough attention to serious moral problems in Baylor’s football program...

The larger point here, however, involves the special status, approaching immunity, that football was accorded at Baylor. The same scathing report by outside investigators that led to Mr. Starr’s demotion asserted that football was treated by administrators as “above the rules” of federal law when it came to the cover-up of sexual abuses and assaults by players.

The investigators described a secretive football culture built around a lucrative, nationally ranked program in which officials concealed charges of sexual abuse against players while female accusers were discouraged “in conduct that could be perceived as victim blaming.”"

The Observer view on Donald Trump; The Observer, 5/28/16

The Observer Editorial; The Observer view on Donald Trump:

"A line must be drawn. Illusions must be discarded. The truth must be told. Trump, with his innate, rich man’s hostility to social justice and equal rights, with his greedy love of big business and corporate tax cuts, with his scornful disdain for green policies and climate change science, with his alarming ignorance of strategic realities in the Middle East and east Asia, with his cruel and ruthless contempt for the weak, the less privileged and the vulnerable of this world, with his foolhardy isolationism and protectionism, with his loathsome self-adoration, and with his hateful fear-peddling is a menacing problem, not a passing phenomenon.

Something not dissimilar to the rise of Trump is happening across Europe, where xenophobic and racist parties of the right are advancing, most recently in Austria last week. Trump-ism, for want of a better word, is not something with which tidy, reasonable compromises can be made. It must not be appeased, bought off or left to fester. The only thing to do with Trump-ism, wherever it appears, is to oppose it, fight it, and defeat it. As Elizabeth Warren says, that critical fight must start now."

Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person; New York Times, 5/28/16

Alain de Botton, New York Times; Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person:

"The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn’t exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently — the person who is good at disagreement. Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the “not overly wrong” person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition.

Romanticism has been unhelpful to us; it is a harsh philosophy. It has made a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not “normal.” We should learn to accommodate ourselves to “wrongness,” striving always to adopt a more forgiving, humorous and kindly perspective on its multiple examples in ourselves and in our partners."

The Slippery Business of Plagiarism; Inside Higher Ed, 5/24/16

Elena Denisova-Schmidt, Inside Higher Ed; The Slippery Business of Plagiarism:

"Plagiarism is a widespread problem around the world. It can take various forms — copying and pasting text without acknowledging its source, “recycling” or self-plagiarism (presenting the same paper several times as original), purchasing papers from an agency or a ghostwriter and submitting them as one’s own. With the benefit of new technologies, cheating is booming, such that some countries are describing a ‘plagiarism epidemic’.[1] In the United Kingdom, for example, almost 50,000 university students were caught cheating from 2012 to 2015. This is only the reported cases — how many more cases remain undetected?

Students, especially those who come from corrupt environments where plagiarism is prevalent but ignored or seen as a trivial offense, need better guidance about the consequences of violating the rules of academic integrity...

Some famous politicians have been implicated in plagiarism scandals."