Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 12

A Spirited, Substantive Debate on the Trump-Putin Summit, Russia, and U.S. Politics

On Saturday, I described the “multiple reasons political discourse is degraded by the fact that it now plays out primarily on Twitter.” On Sunday night, the New York Times’s White House reporter Maggie Haberman announced that she was ” taking a break from this platform” because “it’s not really helping the discourse.” There seems to be a growing recognition, one I certainly share, that Twitter is a uniquely poor, even destructive, medium for conducting complex political debates and should be...

How Twitter Degrades Discourse and Encourages Distortions: Illustrated by Ex-Pentagon Official Ryan Goodman

There are multiple reasons why political discourse is degraded by the fact that it now plays out primarily on Twitter, reasons that are inherent in that site’s format and functionality: the elimination of nuance due to space constraints; mob behavior coercing adherence to group-think orthodoxies; the addict-like, insatiable craving for retweets and likes, which the brain processes as approval and for which it thus produces chemical rewards of ecstasy and a sense of worth; and highly tribalist...

How Twitter Degrades Discourse and Encourages Distortions: Illustrated by ex-Pentagon Official Ryan Goodman

There are multiple reasons political discourse is degraded by the fact that it now plays out primarily on Twitter, reasons that are inherent in that site’s format and functionality: the elimination of nuance due to space constraints; mob behavior coercing adherence to group-think orthodoxies; the addict-like, insatiable craving for re-tweets and likes which the brain processes as approval and for which it thus produces chemical rewards of ecstasy and a sense of worth; and highly tribalized fi...

Son of Jair Bolsonaro, Fascist Leading Brazil’s Presidential Polls, Tweets Fake Poster Linking LGBT People to Pedophiles

The son of Jair Bolsonaro — the proto-fascist congressman leading Brazil’s 2018 presidential polls if Lula (as expected) is barred from running — used Twitter on Friday night to post a fabricated poster in order to claim that LGBT groups are now explicitly advocating pedophilia. Carlos Bolsonaro (pictured above), a Rio de Janeiro city council member with the Social Christian Party, or PSC, is one of three Bolsonaro sons to hold elected office (the other two are in the Federal Congress and the...

Son of Jair Bolsonaro, Fascist Leading Brazil’s Presidential Polls, Tweets Fake Poster Linking LGBTs to Pedophiles

The son of Jair Bolsonaro – the proto-fascist Congressman leading Brazil’s 2018 presidential polls if Lula (as expected) is barred from running – used Twitter on Friday night to post a fabricated poster in order to claim that LGBT groups are now explicitly advocating pedophilia. Carlos Bolsonaro (pictured, above), a Rio de Janeiro City Councilman with the Social Christian Party (PSC), is one of three Bolsonaro sons to hold elected office (the other two are in the Federal Congress and the Rio...

The Team That Helped Elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Has Its Next Mission: Lifting Kerri Harris Over Sen. Tom Carper

Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, will face hostile opposition from many Democratic senators during his confirmation process. This will not be a first-time experience for him: When George W. Bush nominated Kavanaugh in 2003 to be a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, he was regarded as such a controversial and extremist choice that his nomination lingered for three full years, until he was finally confirmed in 2006.

In the final Senate vote o...

The Team That Helped Elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Has Its Next Mission: Lifting Kerri Harris Over Senator Tom Carper

Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, will face hostile opposition from many Democratic senators during his confirmation process. This will not be a first-time experience for him: When George W. Bush nominated Kavanaugh in 2003 to be a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, he was regarded as such a controversial and extremist choice that his nomination lingered for three full years, until he was finally confirmed in 2006.

In the final Senate vote o...

MSNBC Does Not Merely Permit Fabrications Against Democratic Party Critics. It Encourages and Rewards Them.

During the 2016 primary and general election campaigns, various MSNBC hosts were openly campaigning for Hillary Clinton. One of the network’s programs featured Malcolm Nance (pictured, above), whose background is quite sketchy but who is presented by the cable network (and now by NBC News) as an “intelligence expert” and former intelligence officer for the U.S. Navy.

On August 20, 2016, weekend host Joy Reid asked Nance about the supposed “affinity” for Russia harbored by Jill Stein supporter...

Bay Area Muslim Leader Has Her Award Rescinded by Interfaith Group After Pro-Israel Activists Objected

The executive director of the San Francisco chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, has had an award rescinded by an interfaith group after pro-Israel activists vehemently objected to the award due to her criticisms of the Israeli government and various pro-Israel groups.

Zahra Billoo is a lawyer and longtime Muslim civil rights activist. She has led CAIR’s Bay Area affiliate — the group’s oldest and third-largest chapter — for almost nine years.

In March, she was notif...

The Democratic Party’s 2018 View of Identity Politics Is Confusing, and Thus Appears Cynical and Opportunistic

The 2016 presidential election was the peak, at least thus far, for the tactics of identity politics in U.S. elections. In the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton’s potential status as the first female candidate was frequently used not only to inspire her supporters but also to shame and malign those who supported other candidates, particularly Bernie Sanders.

In February 2016 — at the height of the Clinton-Sanders battle — former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright introduced Hilla...