One of the most notable but mostly uncovered political developments in recent years has been how enthusiastically many Religious Right leaders have embraced Russia’s anti-democratic president, former KGB official Vladimir Putin. It seems even more remarkable that the Republican Party’s presidential nominee has been lavishing praise on Putin even as Russia maneuvers to diminish America’s influence in the world. As president, Putin has consolidated his power through attacks on the independent media, the persecution of political opponents, and restrictions on civil society. He has annexed…
UN Agency Gives No Indication It Understands Cybersecurity
This week the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE), as part of the United Nations, is meeting once again in what has become a regular reflection of current thought in the field of cyber security internationally. ‘Reflection’ is the perfect word to describe what the GGE does because it’s not clear to what purpose the group is moving. It might be a useful exercise to review what we know about cyber security at this point and why the GGE will fail to engage with the most…
According to Political Science Data Models, Hillary Clinton Shouldn’t Be Leading
Donald Trump’s poll numbers have slumped over the past three weeks. His campaign is perpetually being re-configured. Meanwhile, a new survey of political experts by the site PollyVote forecasts that Hillary Clinton will win 347 electoral votes to Trump’s 191. She is, at least tentatively, planning her work as president. To be sure, with just under three months to go, it’s too soon to be hanging the proverbial Oval Office drapes. Trump still has somewhere between a 15 to 30 percent chance of winning, according to various…
Emails Show Newsmax Publisher Getting State Department Help After Big Clinton Foundation Donation
Newly released emails show that a Clinton Foundation adviser asked one of Hillary Clinton’s top State Department aides to provide “‘air’ support” for a Clinton Foundation donor who sought to set up a meeting with the U.S. ambassador to Panama to help with a legal dispute. Emails released on Thursday by Judicial Watch show that Clinton Foundation adviser Doug Band forwarded an email to Hillary Clinton deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin from Christopher Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax, a conservative online publication. Despite his ideological bent,…
Roger Ailes Had Fox News Employees Compile 400-page Dossier on Journalist
Two full years before New York magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman published a book about Roger Ailes, a book-length memo about him made the rounds inside Fox News. It has all the markings of “opposition research” about a political enemy — which is precisely how Ailes viewed Sherman. The memo, obtained by CNNMoney from two anonymous sources, is a stunning display of Ailes’ campaign-like strategies. It includes, among other things, property records, voter registration information, and a note that the researchers could find no criminal record…
Cities Allowing Uber, Lyft to Review Public Records Requests About Them
The town of Altamonte, a small suburb of Orlando, is going to pay Uber at least $1 million in taxpayer money over the next year to subsidize residents’ ridesharing trips. But should a journalist or concerned citizen want to learn more about the public transportation-replacing program, their public records request will ultimately end up in the hands of an Uber employee, who will decide whether or not the information is fit for public release. It’s unsettling that a city government will allow a private corporation…
Rush Limbaugh, Not Hillary Clinton, Legitimized the Alt Right
When Hillary Clinton took to the microphone to pin Trump to the racialists and racists in the Alt Right (the so-called “alternative right” that bases its philosophy in racial separatism), some on the right accused her of promoting them. But Clinton’s speech last Thursday was not the coming-out party of the Alt Right. The true debut to the national stage was in a little-covered Rush Limbaugh monologue in January where he took the words of the micro-movement’s intellectual godfather to explain Trump’s appeal. On January…
How Fox News Harms Conservatives
It’s hard to overstate the power of Fox News for those seeking a career in the conservative movement. I’ve seen the most accomplished of lawyers suddenly become “somebody” only after they regularly appear on Fox. I’ve seen young activists leave senators or representatives languishing alone in rooms as they flood over to Fox personalities, seeking selfies. Fox has become the prime gatekeeper of conservative fame, the source of conservative book deals, and the ticket into the true pantheon of conservative influence. It’s killing the conservative…
Private Technological Innovation Will Soon Be Out of This World
This week ushered in some significant news stories in technology and innovation. Facebook’s Aquila drone successfully completed its inaugural test flight, remaining in the air almost three times longer than expected. The massive high-altitude, solar-powered drone is an experiment in new methods of covering the world in wireless Internet access (which I wrote about in more detail here). In short, Aquila uses laser-based communication systems to communicate to ground relay stations, which then convert the signals into Wifi. Technical challenges remain, and this initial test…
This Election May Be the Last Dominated by Baby Boomers
For the past few decades, presidential elections have been dominated by voters of the Baby Boom and previous generations, who are estimated to have cast a majority of the votes. But their election reign may end this November, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of census data. Baby Boomers and prior generations have cast the vast majority of votes in every presidential election since 1980, data from the Census Bureau’s November Current Population Survey voting supplement show. In 2012, Boomers and previous generations accounted for…
Sanders Fundraising Tactics Raise Ethical, Legal Questions
When Bernie Sanders asked for money to fuel his underdog presidential campaign, Geraldine Bryant didn’t even need to think about it. “I loved Bernie, and every time he asked for money, I just gave it to him,” Bryant told me in a recent phone interview. A filmmaker in Manhattan, Bryant gave the Sanders campaign 44 separate contributions over a nine-month period between October and June, in amounts ranging from $1 to $2,000. The donations totaled $14,440—more than five times the legal limit that an individual…