Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 976

Washington, Meet Twitter#PAC

Twitter has its very own political action committee and appointed lobbyist in Washington as of Friday, bringing the company into the club of tech companies vying for the ear of Congress. 

According to a Washington Post report on the new PAC, which is actually called Twitter#PAC, the San Francisco-based company intends to use its new resources to lobby on "internet freedom, government access to user data, patent reform and freedom of expression," spokesperson Jim Prosser said in a statement. 

.#PAC takes flight, @WRDCarty registers as our first lobbyist, and @wexler comes aboard. http://t.co/YZTfYT3xz3

— Jim Prosser (@jimprosser) August 9, 2013

The current policy manager for the company, William Carty, is now Twitter's Washington lobbyist. Carty worked as an aide to Republican members of the House and Senate before joining Twitter. He'll be joined by new Washington policy spokesperson Nu Wexler, who previously worked for Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. While their operation is much smaller than either Microsoft or Google's Washington wing, the Post lays out the donation history and political makeup of their lobbying arms for comparison: 

Microsoft’s PAC donations to politicians in 2012 totaled $2.2 million, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Facebook, which had PAC donations of $277,000 in 2012, has drawn heavily from former Obama and Bush administration officials for its Washington office.

Between 2011 and 2012, Google’s PAC donated $313,500 to Republican majority members of the House and $262,000 to Democrats.

Twitter, unlike many of its major tech company cohorts, was not named as a participant in the NSA's PRISM data collection program. And the company has tried to make it pretty clear that they're against it, even leaving some hints on how many FISA court orders they've gotten. But the company has also come under fire for its own forays into the use of account data in its advertising model. 

       

Alleged Wife-Killer Is a Writer of Insane Self-Help Books

On Thursday, 31-year-old Derek Medina posted a status update on Facebook stating that he killed his 26-year-old wife, Jennifer Alfonso. Medina included a lifeless photo of a bloodied Alfonso and was eventually charged with first-degree murder. It turns out that Medina is also a self-published author of several self-helpish, pretty-insane-seeming books. Now, because the Internet is awful, netizens have turned reviews of his books and the photo of his dead wife into "jokes."

The whole story is pretty disturbing. Though Facebook has taken down Medina's page, the photo is still out there. It's the kind of picture that may give you nightmares. "I’m going to prison or death sentence for killing my wife love you guys miss you guys take care Facebook people you will see me in the news ... My wife was punching me and I am not going to stand anymore with the abuse so I did what I did I hope u understand me," Medina posted at 11:11 a.m., before posting the picture of Alfonso with the caption "RIP Jennifer Alonso." That raises obvious questions about Medina's criminality — but also about social media in our lives. 

Over at the Los Angeles Times's Jacket Copy blog, Carolyn Kellogg chronicles Medina's attempts at writing:

How I Saved Someone’s Life and Marriage and Family Problems Thru Communication, 42 pages, was published Feb. 2. In it he tells a story of a man who divorces and remarries the same woman -- Medina and Jennifer Alfonso had also divorced and remarried, before she was killed.

That doesn't quite seem like beach reading to us. Nor, for that matter, does this:

Attention World Save Yourself, 84 pages, was published April 23. "My goal is for the readers to realize what life they are living," he writes in the book's description. "Please understand why I write short novels. When it's an urgent message and a life threatening situation you expect the messages to be quick and fast. I hope these books touch your spirit."

Other titles include How I Saved Someone’s Life and Marriage and Family Problems Thru Communication and Humans Who Are Gifted and Can See the Supernatural Spirit Ghost World We Live in Called Ghost Haunted Adventures. 

Over on the sites of Barnes and Noble and Amazon, people have begun penning reviews to those books. The sarcastic reviews morbidly reference the alleged murder: 

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And this: 

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And two more from Amazon:

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In addition to the fascination with Medina's books, the Internet is now rife with doctored images of Alfonso's limp body doing the limbo and playing Twister (WARNING: Graphic), thanks to 4chan users.

These morbid parodies and fake reviews are not uncommon. North Korea's gulags, for one, have parody reviews.  And when Canadian tourist Elisa Lam's body was found decomposing in a hotel's water tank earlier this year, people quickly started inundating the hotel's Yelp reviews. Medina's case is obviously a bit more twisted, but it's part of the same creepy trend. 

       

Katherine Heigl Retreats to TV

Today in show business news: Katherine Heigl returns to television, Juliette Lewis joins her there, and two more old timers have joined the cast of Expendables 3.

Despite starring in critically beloved blockbusters like Killers, The Ugly Truth, and One for the Money, Katherine Heigl is eyeing a return to the medium that made her, television. The Grey's Anatomy apostate is shopping around a show about a CIA agent who is liaison to the White House. So Katherine Heigl wants her Homeland, only on network television. Hm. Is that the kind of role people want to see Katherine Heigl in? I feel like she should do more of a dramedy type thing, maybe even a half-hour. A half-hour on Showtime? That could work, depending. But she wants the bigger audiences and the serious stuff that's winning Claire Danes Emmys. Heigl's already got one of those, but she wants more. Always more. [Deadline]

The surprise hit Now You See Me, that's the mystery/thriller about a team of flashy young magicians, is getting a sequel. Vulture has some title suggestions like Now You See Me Too and Now You See Me 2: Hey, I'm Over Here Now, which are all well and good, but clearly the sequel will actually be called Now You Don't. Great movie title, sure to sell lots of movie tickets.  Now You Don't. Get into it. [Vulture]

Another movie actress is headed to TV. Juliette Lewis has been cast in M. Night Shyamalan's "event series" Wayward Pines. That's the one about the spooky mysterious town where spooky and mysterious things happen. (No, despite the title, it's not about a bunch of drunk gay dudes stumbling around Fire Island. Though I could see Juliette Lewis being on that show too.) Lewis will play "a warm and approachable small-town bartender who doesn’t mince words" and who, Matt Dillon's character finds out, is "just as wary of Wayward Pines as he is." Sounds intriguing! I mean, who doesn't like Juliette Lewis? She's great. A singular actress who's very good and lots of fun. This thing has got a good cast so far: Lewis, Dillon, Carla Gugino, Melissa Leo, Toby Jones, Shannyn Sossamon. That's quite a group. And a group that mostly does movies. Television really is a whole new ballgame these days. That's two Oscar nominees and one Oscar winner on that list. Pretty impressive. Too bad the show is from M. Night Shyamalan and the whole thing will be terrible though. Real shame about that. [Deadline]

Mel Gibson and Antonio Banderas are joining Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wesley Snipes, Dolph Lundgren, and Jackie Chan in The Expendables 3. This is great. Because now the first table read can double as a SAG meeting about its benefits package for seniors. Makes it really easy for the union rep. Smart thinking, guys. [Deadline]

       

Is There Anything Dolphins Can't Do?

[image error]In case you missed out on decades of pop culture that definitively proved dolphins are the best sea-mammals, if not the smiliest, this week the sleepy August news cycle reminded us that our bottle-nosed friends still rule. In addition to their military prowess and math abilities, dolphins can, according to recent studies and news stories: 

Imitate humans while blind-folded. Act as doula.  Remember things for longer than any other animal. 

And they're doing all of this while facing mysterious, probably climate change related mass deaths of their kind — more than 120 dolphins have been found washed up on the East Coast this summer, seven times the normal amount. It's really incredible.

Of course, that hasn't stopped certain haters from smearing the dolphins's shiny, squeaky reputation. A Business Insider blogger warned: "Dolphins Are Dangerous Animals That Could Rape You And Kill Your Baby." Indeed that paints the animals in a much scarier light than the psychological healers we know and love. Dolphin rape, however, is a myth, according to "Dolphin Scientist Guy" Justin Gregg, who studies dolphin social cognition. The military-trained dolphins sweep for mines not kill. Sorry, dolphins are still the best. 

       

M.I.A.'s Album Finally Got a Release Date After She Threatened to Leak It

M.I.A. is caught up in drama with her record label once again—but this time, things seem to have worked out in her favor. 

Frustrated with the repeatedly delayed release of her well-anticipated fourth album, Matangi, the British singer took to Twitter this morning and threatened to leak the record herself and "make a new one by the time [Interscope is] ready":

If interscope takes longer i can always leak this next week and make a new one by the time they are ready.

— M.I.A (@MIAuniverse) August 9, 2013

Apparently appalled at the thought that any corporate entity would confound her plans, she also tweeted "who would stop MATANGI from coming out?" Hours later, Matangi, which M.I.A. has described as "paul simon on acid," got a new release date: November 5. The timing probably isn't a coincidence. Who knows if it'll be pushed back again.

It's not the first time the artist has butted heads with Interscope over the record. In January, she claimed she'd handed in the album in 2012, but Interscope had rejected it for being "too positive," so "we're having a bit of an issue at the label." At the time, she thought it'd be released in April. 

Nor is it the first time she's used Twitter to express frustration and threaten to bypass the usual channels. Last month, she hinted at a Kickstarter to get her long-awaited documentary finished after funding apparently held it up. Her director released a teaser on his Tumblr—against the label's stated wishes—then announced he was quitting the whole thing.

SPIN speculates that this could be a publicity stunt. (Similar allegations have swirled around Stephen Colbert's Daft Punk/MTV debacle this week.) But given M.I.A.'s past frustrations with Interscope and well-known propensity not to censor herself on Twitter (or at the Superbowl for that matter), that seems improbable.

More likely, it's evidence that the artist's impatience (and love of social media) sometimes can get her what she wants.

Her fanbase probably won't complain.

       

Same-Sex Social Security Payments Begin for Some Married Couples

The Social Security Administration has started payments on some retirement spouse claims for same-sex couples, according to an announcement by Carolyn W. Colvin, the acting commissioner of Social Security. 

Here's her statement, via Buzzfeed: 

I am pleased to announce that Social Security is now processing some retirement spouse claims for same-sex couples and paying benefits where they are due. We continue to work closely with the Department of Justice. In the coming weeks and months, we will develop and implement additional policy and processing instructions. We appreciate the public’s patience as we work through the legal issues to ensure that our policy is legally sound and clear...I encourage individuals who believe they may be eligible for Social Security benefits to apply now, to protect against the loss of any potential benefits. We will process claims as soon as additional instructions become finalized.”

Social Security now joins some other federal agencies in beginning to implement changes on spousal benefits in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act. Days after that ruling, the White House sent a memo to executive agencies clarifying that the federal government would now offer equal benefits to married, same-sex partners of federal employees. As Buzzfeed cautions, however, it's not clear how widely the Social Security benefits will apply, as a host of legal issues are still presumably being resolved: 

It was not immediately clear what retirement claims are being covered and what eligibility criteria were being used to determine who would be eligible for such benefits. Specifically, it is not yet clear whether same-sex couples married where such couples can legally marry but who live in a state that does not recognize such marriages would be eligible.

Meanwhile, there's been progress on a couple of other benefits fronts, too, for instance:

Veterans' benefits: The Republican-controlled House of Representatives announced in July that they would no longer defend a provision in U.S. code that limits spousal benefits for military veteran couples to those comprised of one man and one woman. The decision pertains to two lawsuits challenging that provision, which the DOJ had previously declined to defend. 

Green cards: two days after the law was struck down,  Bulgarian Traian Popov became the first person to receive a green card through a same-sex marriage. The Department of Homeland Security quickly confirmed that married, same-sex couples were now eligible for green cards, just like any married couple with one partner going through the immigration process. 

       

Texas: Our Election Laws Discriminate by Party, Not by Race

Texas has a response this week to the Justice Department's new plan to regain oversight over some state election laws using provisions of the Voting Rights Act left intact by a recent Supreme Court ruling: the state's voting laws discriminate against Democrats, not minorities, implying that the state sees nothing wrong with a little bit of good, old-fashioned gerrymandering. 

Back in July, Attorney General Eric Holder laid out a plan to resume federal oversight of Texas's voting laws, which until recently were subject to pre-clearance by the federal government, by using a provision that allows for federal oversight when there's evidence of current or recent racial discrimination. Texas has two big election law provisions that the state is going ahead with after the Supreme Court invalidated the current formula used to determine which states and districts require federal oversight based on discrimination: their 2011 district maps, drawn by the Republican majority in the state government, and their voter ID laws. Holder is focusing on the former of the two by throwing his weight behind an existing lawsuit from Democrats in the state challenging the map as discriminatory. As flagged by the Election Law Blog, here's the key passage fromTexas's 46-page reply: 

DOJ's accusations of racial discrimination are baseless. In 2011, both houses of the Texas Legislature were controlled by large Republican majorities, and their redistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party's electoral prospects at the expense of the Democrats. . . . The redistricting decisions of which DOJ complains were motivated by partisan rather than racial considerations, and the plaintiffs and DOJ have zero evidence to prove the contrary.

Of course, it's not that easy to separate the question of race and political party, especially in Texas. The state's minority population vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, and the new district map in question reduces the number of districts in which minority voters make up the majority, despite the fact that most of the population growth in the state (giving them four new congressional seats based on the 2010 census) is attributable to Hispanics and Blacks. But the State of Texas is banking on the difficulties of proving racial, rather than political, motivations in court.

As for the State's Voter ID law, Texas also took action against the Justice Department's plan to gain oversight over that law, too: on Thursday, the state filed a motion to dismiss a case challenging that law, based on the fact that it's already in effect, as SCOTUSblog explains. 

       

Five Best Friday Columns

Anand Giridharadas in The New York Times on the changing nature of New York City: "A fair indication of where things stand may be the New York television show of the moment, HBO’s Girls," argues Giridharadas. "A show about flailing, post-collegiate millennials, it has a cast that in real life reflects the coming of a New York whose function is to help successful people transmit their advantages down the genetic line rather than discover new successes from obscurity or even Queens." Giridharadis wonders if the New York that Patti Smith wrote about in Just Kids is giving way to a city that's inaccessible to those looking for a fresh start. Economist and business consultant Umair Haque tweets, "Bingo," while Nicole Hong at The Wall Street Journal calls the piece a "must-read."

Julius Genachowski and Steven Waldman in The New Republic on what Jeff Bezos can teach The Washington Post: While running Amazon, Jeff Bezos has always been focused on the business' long term profitability, while newspapers have been incredibly shortsighted, especially where digital is concerned. "As bleak as the industry sometimes seems, the news media can be profitable—but only if companies better serve their customers, transform their business models, and alter their financial time-horizons," they write. "That includes having the kind of patience that Bezos demonstrates at Amazon." Craig Silverman at Poynter tweets that this was "maybe the best read about Bezos/Amazon/WaPo and what's next." NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen adds that "Much of the 'Bezos bought The Washington Post, now what?' commentary has been disposable. This is not."

    

The NSA Will Replace Most of Their Potential Snowdens With Machines

The NSA will eliminate 90 percent of the system administrators who maintain the agency's networks, according to the agency's director Keith Alexander. Speaking on Thursday to a cybersecurity conference, the NSA chief said that most of the current work done by staff and contractor system administrators — Snowden's old job — could be replicated by automated technology. 

"We’ve put people in the loop of transferring data, securing networks and doing things that machines are probably better at doing,” Alexander said according to Reuters, adding, "What we're in the process of doing - not fast enough - is reducing our system administrators by about 90 percent." The change, he argues, will make their networks more secure, more defensible, and faster. According to Alexander, the agency started down that path before Snowden's leaks, but have made it a higher priority in recent months. The director never mentioned Snowden's name, but the whistleblower was clearly part of the subject at hand. According to the Huffington Post, who attended the conference of about 300 (including the heads of the FBI and CIA), Alexander added: 

“We trust people with data. At the end of the day it’s all about trust. And people who have access to data as part of their missions, if they misuse that trust they can cause huge damage.”

System administrations are already under tighter scrutiny at the agency, with new restrictions in place on the use of thumb drives (which is presumably how Snowden snagged the documents he leaked), and a mandatory "buddy system" when one administrator needs to access sensitive data. 

So, what's the new, automated Snowden replacement? Alexander was short on details, but mentioned that the new technology designed to replace system administrators would resemble a "thin virtual cloud structure."

       

MSNBC Might Give Alec Baldwin a Primetime Show

Alec Baldwin's about to get a show on MSNBC, according to a Mediaite report that says the actor will get the cable channel's Fridays at 10 p.m. slot. The arrangement, they report, is more or less finalized. 

If in character as Jack Donaghy all is forgiven MSNBC RT @mylesnmiller Alec Baldwin's getting prime time show. http://t.co/34zGyIAx9v

— Tim Miller (@Timodc) August 9, 2013

MSNBC signs world's greatest actor in bid for planetary domination. http://t.co/pLYmfMRqjm

— davidfrum (@davidfrum) August 9, 2013

Currently, "The Last Word" with Lawrence O'Donnell runs at 10 p.m. Monday - Thursday on the network, meaning Baldwin wouldn't cut into any other personality on the channel's time. Instead, the actor's rumored show would replace a series of documentaries on prisons. Those of you wondering what Baldwin would look like behind an MSNBC desk are in luck, because O'Donnell and Baldwin are buds (O'Donnell defended the actor's plane etiquette after Baldwin was kicked off of an American Airlines flight), and the actual talk show host let the rumored talk show host steal his desk for a bit last May: 

Baldwin's post-30 Rock interest in a talk show format has been simmering for awhile now — the above O'Donnell stunt resulted in a corresponding flareup of speculation on a possible Baldwin match with MSNBC. And earlier this year, the actor was reportedly in talks to take over Carson Daly's late night slot, also on NBC. Baldwin was also reportedly on the short list to replace Keith Olbermann on MSNBC in 2011.