Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• The Man Who Made January 6 Possible: The story of Johnny McEntee—the “deputy president” who rose to power at precisely the moment when democracy was falling apart (The Atlantic) see also Notes on an Authoritarian Conspiracy: Inside the Claremont Institute’s “79 Days to Inauguration” Report Claremont’s post-election war game provides a window into the group’s ambitions. (The Bulwark)
• He predicted the dark side of the Internet 30 years ago. Why did no one listen? Philip Agre, a computer scientist turned humanities professor, was prescient about many of the ways technology would impact the world (Washington Post)
• Death threats, online abuse, police protection: School board members face dark new reality Its part of a wave of anger against elected and appointed school officials, including superintendents, that is cresting nationwide. Parents upset over things including mask mandates in schools, as well as officials’ efforts to introduce more diverse curriculums and bias trainings for teachers, have taken over school board meetings, shouting abuse, making threats and demanding resignations. (Washington Post) see also Menace Enters the Republican Mainstream Threats of violence have become commonplace among a significant part of the party, as historians and those who study democracy warn of a dark shift in American politics. (New York Times)
• The Great Organic-Food Fraud There’s no way to confirm that a crop was grown organically. Randy Constant exploited our trust in the labels—and made a fortune. (New Yorker)
• A Dog’s Life Why are so many people so cruel to their dogs? My search to understand a hidden scourge. It occurs all over the country, the pitiless 24-hour-a-day chaining of dogs to lifelong sentences of misery and madness. The practice is not the province of any race or any age or any nationality or any region of the country, though it is most prevalent, by far, in areas of rural America where resources are limited and opportunities are slender. (Washington Post)
• Bitcoin Mining Noise Drives Neighbors Nuts—a Giant Dentist Drill That Won’t Stop Cryptocurrency operations require banks of computers and fans to cool them, and the din is making people who live nearby frazzled (Wall Street Journal)
• On Podcasts and Radio, Misleading Covid-19 Talk Goes Unchecked: False statements about vaccines have spread on the “Wild West” of media, even as some hosts die of virus complications. (New York Times)
• What if Everything You Know About Murder Rates and Policing Is Wrong? Five common myths about the FBI’s homicide data, debunked. (Mother Jones)
• They executed people for the state of South Carolina. For some, it nearly destroyed them. Many of those who helped execute people in South Carolina have never spoken about their job’s toll. The State interviewed 10 involved in the work, explored SC execution history and exposed how the state is keeping current execution information secret. (The State)
• Aaron Rodgers Didn’t Just Lie: His lies, his illogical defense, and his hubris damage all professional athletes. The pandemic has revealed several athletes who abuse their position and responsibility, not just to the public, but to other professional athletes’ livelihood (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Robin Wigglesworth, the FT’s global finance correspondent based in Oslo, Norway. He focuses on the trends reshaping markets and investing, from technological disruption to quantitative investing. His new book is Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever.
Across the Globe, Rates of Vaccine Skepticism Have Stalled
Source: Morning Consult
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