Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• My Mom Believes In QAnon. I’ve Been Trying To Get Her Out. Because she sees me as a member of “the liberal media,” it’s impossible to persuade her. (Buzzfeed) see also They’re worried their mom is becoming a conspiracy theorist. She thinks they’re the ones living in a fantasy world. A family struggles with truth and trust in a country divided by disinformation. (Washington Post)
• I Spent 25 Years Monitoring Domestic Terrorism for the U.S. Government — No One Listened From the U.S. Army to DHS to ATF, I tracked the growing threat posed by white supremacists and anti-government extremists. I was asked why I even bothered (Newlines Magazine)
• The Data Visualizations Behind COVID-19 Skepticism: How do COVID-19 skeptics use public health data and social media to advocate for reopening the economy and against mask mandates? We studied half a million tweets, over 41,000 visualizations, and spent six months lurking in anti-mask Facebook groups. Here’s what we found. (Vis-MIT)
• How Unfair Property Taxes Keep Black Families From Gaining Wealth Flawed assessments for America’s $500 billion in annual property taxes hit Black neighborhoods hardest. (Businessweek)
• American Battlefield: 72 Hours in Kenosha Last summer, in a small Wisconsin city, the country’s fiercest differences collided in the streets—and a teenager named Kyle Rittenhouse opened fire, shooting three people. In the aftermath, a disquieting question loomed: Were these among the first shots in a new kind of civil war? (GQ)
• No, Trump Doesn’t Deserve Credit For Planning Vaccine Distribution A look at what actually happened in the Trump administration’s last months shows that the White House lacked a plan for the “last mile” of distribution, leaving that to the states while lobbying Congress not to pass much-needed funding that would spur state and local governments to get the vaccine into arms. On its own terms, the Trump administration did not have a plan to distribute the vaccine to Americans en masse beyond “let the states figure it out.” (Talking Points Memo)
• How Lauren Boebert rose from unknown to a candidate for Congress to someone in Donald Trump’s orbitNeither Lauren Boebert nor her campaign manager would respond to questions about holes and discrepancies in the Republican’s biography, including money troubles, family connections and her childhood (Colorado Sun)
• Justice Department: Oath Keepers founder directed Capitol rioters on January 6 The founder of the Oath Keepers was giving directions before and during the US Capitol riot to alleged extremist conspirators among the right-wing paramilitary group, the Justice Department said in court filings (CNN)
• Far-right news sources on Facebook more engaging Unlike other news across the political spectrum, no “misinformation penalty” for far-right pages Unlike other news across the political spectrum, no “misinformation penalty” for far-right pages (Cybersecurity for Democracy) see also Fox News’ Dr. Seuss obsession reveals the dishonest desperation of the right-wing war on “cancel culture” If “cancel culture” was the scourge it’s made out to be, Fox News wouldn’t have to lie about it so much (Media Matters)
• With or without me, Florida will always be wonderfully, unrelentingly weird South Florida was growing into an outrageously fertile news mecca — weird, violent, drug-soaked, exuberantly corrupt — and eventually I landed on the Herald’s epic investigations team. I’ve done this column since 1985. No idea how many. No particular favorites, no regrets. Slash-and-burn was the only way I knew to do it. (Miami Herald)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Jeff Immelt, former CEO of General Electric from 2001 to 2017. He joined GE in 1982, in its plastics, appliances, and healthcare division, and led GE’s Medical Systems division from 1997 to 2000. His new book is: Hot Seat: What I Learned Leading a Great American Company.
Cutting down forests: what are the drivers of deforestation?
Source: Our World in Data
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