Executive editor of The American Prospect, David Dayen, reacts to Congresswoman Katie Porter losing her seat on the House Financial Services Committee.
Mark Zuckerberg on Fact Checking
02:55attempting to interfere but I hope willalso give us some confidence that oursystems are now more sophisticated toproactively identify and address thesethings on your question about politicalads I look from a business perspectivethe very small percent of our businessthat is made up of political ads doesnot come anywhere close to justifyingthe controversy that this incurs for ourcompany so this really is not aboutmoneythis is unprincipled in giving people avoice I believe that ads can be animportant part of voice I thinkespecially in the political process forchallenger candidates and for localcandidates or advocacy groups whosemessage might not otherwise be coveredby the media having ads can be animportant way to inject your messageinto the Internet me interrupt you for aminute are you telling me I think as shesaid to me before you plan on doing nofact-checking on political adschairwoman our policy is that we do notfact check politicians speech and thereason for that is that we believe thatin a democracy it is important thatpeople can see for themselves whatpoliticians are saying political speechis some of the most scrutinized speechalready in the world to in fact check onany ads at all up yesdescribe what you fact check on oh sureactually thank you for the opportunityto clarify Facebook itself actually doesnot check it does not fact check what wedo is we have feedback that people inour community don’t want to see viralhoaxes or or kind of like that maybeclear you do no fact-checkingon any ads is that correct chairwomanwhat we do is we work with a set ofindependent fact checkers who somebodyfact checks on ads you have you contractwith someone to do that is that rightchairwoman yes and tell me who is itthat they bag checked on a chairwomanwhat we do is when content is getting alot of distribution and is flagged bymembers of our community or by ourTechnical Systems it can go into a queueto be reviewed by a set of independentfact checkersthey can’t fact check everything but thethings that they get to and if they partsomething is false then we all right mytime has expiredand someone else will continue on thisline of questioning
Trump’s Racism Is Feudal
The president wants African Americans to kiss his ring.
The Lesson of Omarosa’s New Trump Book
Omarosa Manigault’s forthcoming memoir and her allegations that Trump is a racist who habitually tosses around anti-black epithets. The Guardian reported that Manigault, in her book, says that she looked into rumors that there were tapes of “Apprentice” outtakes that allegedly include Trump using the word “nigger” and that, although she never tracked them down, she became convinced that they existed.
.. a contract proffered by Lara Trump for a fifteen-thousand-dollar monthly payment that Manigault believed amounted to hush money.
.. a period of gradual awakening to Trump’s bigoted outlook. Even after leaving the Administration, she offered the nonsensical hedge that Trump is “racial” but not racist—a position that is roughly equivalent to being human but not Homo sapiens.
.. Her realization about Trump’s outlook appears to have emerged at some point during her book deal. That’s not a gradual awakening, it’s a glacial, self-interested one.
.. His personal history yields an impressive greatest-hits collection that would include him
- beginning his Presidential campaign by conflating Mexicans with rapists and later stating that
- Judge Gonzalo Curiel should not preside over the Trump University fraud suit because of his Hispanic heritage. Trump
- asked a friend of Karen McDougal, the former Playmate with whom Trump had an extramarital affair, if she liked “big black dick.” There is also, of course, the matter of
- the Justice Department accusing the Trump family firm of discriminating against African-American renters in the seventies (Trump settled the suit without admitting guilt),
- his racist public assault on the Central Park Five, and
- his use of birtherism to propel himself into national politics. In a more recent spree,
- he questioned the intelligence of Representative Maxine Waters, LeBron James, and the CNN host Don Lemon—each of whom is black—and (again) assailed African-American football players.
In matters of
- race, as well as
- competence,
- decency,
- character, and
- fitness,
the public either already knows what it needs to know or intractably believes what it wishes to believe. Omarosa Manigault’s book is unlikely to change the balance of either.