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Top prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, known as special counsel Robert Mueller’s “legal pit bull,” is reportedly leaving the Russia probe, signaling the two-plus year investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin is drawing to a close.
Mental health problems rise significantly among young Americans… (Third column, 9th story, link) Advertise here
Russia may benefit from using the foster family care system to help vulnerable adult people in the same way children with no family to care for them avail of it, the head of the presidential human rights council suggested.
Read Full Article at RT.com
The far right is the dominant political community on YouTube. It’s a flourishing world of men’s rights activists, libertarians, anti-feminist atheists, and white nationalists. There are whole channels dedicated to showing “social justice warriors” getting “owned” by various conservative provocateurs. And this has gone largely unanswered by the left.
Enter Natalie Wynn, who’s trying to de-radicalize this part of YouTube with an unexpected mix of philosophy and elaborate costumes. And she’s making some headway.
“One thing the right wing has done pretty effectively in the last few years is, they’ve managed to frame the discussion as a kind of puritan, moralistic, sermonizing left versus a kind of edgy, rebellious, punk-rock right,” says 30-year-old Wynn. “And I refuse to allow them to get away with that.”
On her YouTube channel, Contrapoints, Wynn tries to reframe the debate around issues like free speech, the alt-right, incels, and transgender pronouns in a way that “makes [the far right] reveal their puritanism and their phobias, and has me as the, like, libertine.”
Wynn said this as she was holding a giant headpiece trimmed with red and black feathers and a sheep skull. She makes 20-to-45-minute videos that unpack the ideas behind the culture wars, using the philosophy education she got in grad school and the makeup education she got on YouTube. And they’re popular — more than 1 million views on her top videos. She makes enough money for YouTube to be her only job. She’s in the top 20 creators on Patreon, a site where fans can give monthly donations to artists.
The skull headpiece is for a character that delivers a trigger warning at the start of a recent video. It’s one of four costume changes and three wigs she uses to dissect a popular meme on the far right, “Are Traps Gay?” It means, Is it gay to have sex with a trans woman? While this meme might seem like an offensive but unimportant piece of internet ephemera, Wynn explores what it means for trans women and straight masculinity.
It’s fascinating because she takes the internet seriously. After all, that’s where political ideas spread these days.
The YouTube algorithm tends to recommend content that gets progressively more extreme, so in just a few clicks, you can go from a mainstream source to a trove of some very extremist videos. University of North Carolina professor Zeynep Tufkeci says that makes YouTube a kind of radicalization machine.
That might not be so bad when it takes you from videos about vegetarianism to veganism, but it’s dangerous when you go from explanations of the history of the West to racist pseudoscience posted by white nationalists.
Wynn is intentionally targeting young white men who’ve been pulled down a YouTube rabbit hole. And it’s working — she has a “success” folder on her computer of people whose minds she has changed.
“I see myself as sort of like left’s immune system,” Wynn said. “I am fighting against the kind of reactionary forces that will cause people to double down on their reactionary ideas. I’m changing people’s minds. I’m softening them to these issues.”
This segment originally aired March 6, 2019 on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
Former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke announced Thursday he’s running for the 2020 Democratic nomination.
The Texan, who came close to toppling Sen. Ted Cruz for his Texas Senate seat in 2018, revealed his decision in a video published to social media.
“The challenges that we face right now, the interconnected crises in our economy, our democracy, and our climate have never been greater,” O’Rourke said. “And they will either consume us or they will afford us the greatest opportunity to unleash the genius of the United States of America.”
“This moment of peril produces perhaps the greatest moment of promise for this country,” he added.
O’Rourke will be hoping to capitalize on the social media stardom he cultivated during his failed Senate run last year.
The 46-year-old joins a growing list of Democratic candidates vying for the Democratic nomination that already boasts Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
READ: A foreign disinformation campaign is targeting Democrats ahead of 2020, report says
Also in contention are Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Former Vice President Joe Biden is also expected to announce his intention to run in the coming weeks.
Cover image: Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke speaks to a crowd of marchers during the anti-Trump ‘March for Truth’ in El Paso, Texas, on February 11, 2019. (PAUL RATJE/AFP/Getty Images)
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) announced Wednesday he will become the fifth Republican senator to back a resolution to nullify President Donald Trump’s national emergency.