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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Hacked Newsroom Brings a Spyware Maker to U.S. Court</strong> - When Roman Gressier, an American reporter working in El Salvador, found out that he and his colleagues were being surveilled, he feared persecution and worried for his sources’ safety. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-hacked-newsroom-brings-a-spyware-maker-to-us-court-pegasus">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How COVID Policies and Party Politics Set the Stage for the Protests in China</strong> - Frustrations with Xi Jinping’s harsh approach to the virus have led to the most widespread public demonstrations in decades. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-covid-policies-and-party-politics-set-the-stage-for-the-protests-in-china">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What’s at Stake in the University of California Graduate-Worker Strike</strong> - The seventy per cent of Americans who support unions should understand that the future of organized labor won’t be in coal mines or steel mills but in places that might cut against the stereotypes. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/whats-at-stake-in-the-university-of-california-graduate-worker-strike">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Right-Wing Zionist Digests Trump’s Anti-Semite Dinner Party</strong> - Can the former President be the “best friend Israel ever had in the White House” while also legitimatizing “Jew-haters”? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/a-right-wing-zionist-digests-trumps-anti-semite-dinner-party">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Chinese Protesters Warily Tell Xi Jinping, “Don’t Push Me”</strong> - The nation’s most defiant public demonstrations in years oppose “zero COVID” policies, but their roots run deeper. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/chinese-protesters-warily-tell-xi-jinping-dont-push-me">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>The deep roots of antisemitism’s resurgence in America</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="A photo collage of a plant with its roots exposed and a red MAGA hat where a flower would be." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YHVc0QP8HWqXAumoaKs_jTQWOj4=/310x0:1751x1081/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71695277/antisemtism_roots_board_1.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Christina Animashaun/Vox
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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“I think we are at the moment living in the high tide of American antisemitism,” one historian says.
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</p>
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<p class="p--has-dropcap" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KrV1rV">
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President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23484314/trump-fuentes-ye-dinner-white-nationalism-supremacy">weekend dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes</a> — two figures who have become the face of modern-day antisemitism in America — has shocked the political world. For Jews, the dinner was more than simply shocking: It was a reminder of an old and very ugly history of influential Americans mainstreaming antisemitism.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zsDaxb">
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In 1918, industrialist Henry Ford purchased his hometown newspaper, the Dearborn Independent. Ford was a brilliant businessman, the inventor of the Model T and founder of the iconic car company bearing his name. He was also a hardcore antisemite, blaming Jews for everything from World War I to an alleged <a href="https://history.hanover.edu/hhr/99/hhr99_2.html">decline in the quality of candy bars</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7u4FkK">
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Ford turned the Dearborn Independent into a vehicle for promoting his antisemitic obsessions. In 1920, the paper published a series of articles, titled “The International Jew,” on the alleged nefarious activities of Jews in the United States and elsewhere. The series included excerpts from <em>The Protocols of the Elders of Zion</em>, an infamous Russian forgery that purported to be records of the Jewish conspiracy’s worldwide activities.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nYv0Wx">
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Because Ford <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/henry-ford-and-jews-story-dearborn-didnt-want-told">required Ford Motors dealers to distribute the paper</a>, turning it into the <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/2013218776/">second-largest</a> in the United States at the time, his pet conspiracy theories were sent to a massive audience. The impact was enormous; according to <a href="https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/all_chapters/8/">historian Norman Cohn</a>, “The International Jew probably did more than any other work to make The Protocols world famous.” Ford’s propaganda set the stage for a wave of American antisemitism in the runup to World War II, including the rise of infamous antisemitic demagogue Father Charles Coughlin.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YIqVoJ">
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In 1931, with the Nazis on the brink of taking control of Germany’s government, a Detroit News reporter asked Hitler about Ford. “I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration,” the <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/henry-ford-and-jews-story-dearborn-didnt-want-told">soon-to-be Führer replied</a>, a framed portrait of the American industrialist over his desk.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h6E5z0">
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Nearly 100 years later, Donald Trump — also <a href="https://thejewishnews.com/2020/05/22/trump-says-anti-semitic-industrialist-henry-ford-had-good-bloodlines/">an avowed fan of Henry Ford</a> — would sit down with Fuentes, a man who <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/CalebJHull/status/1189594371030695937">denies that the Holocaust happened</a>. Fuentes’s smirking, “just kidding” demeanor on his <em>America First</em> webcast barely hides his eliminationist antisemitism — and sometimes the mask falls off entirely.
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</p>
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<div class="c-wide-block">
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/p1dSBRxXXFZLbPUJeYhy9OHz1MI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24245576/GettyImages_1242186334t.jpg"/> <cite>Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</cite>
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<figcaption>
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Former President Donald Trump finishes his speech at the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda summit on July 26, 2022.
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bNE4iD">
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“The Jews had better start being nice to people like us,” Fuentes said in <a href="https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1592598676886949888">a mid-November broadcast</a>. “Because what comes out of this is going to be a lot uglier and a lot worse for them than anything that’s being said on this show.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KMDNgL">
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For the past few years, Fuentes has been attempting to insert himself and followers (called “<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/11/20948317/alt-right-donald-trump-jr-conservative-tpusa-yaf-racism-antisemitism">groypers</a>”) into the Republican Party, getting figures like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/28/mcconnell-greene-gosar-white-nationalist-event-00012401">attend his America First Political Action conference in February</a>. This weekend was Fuentes’s biggest victory yet, a sit-down with the party’s most important leader — who reportedly came away impressed. “I really like this guy. He gets me,” Trump said of Fuentes, per <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/11/25/trump-nick-fuentes-ye-kanye">Axios’s Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu.</a>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hHY0v0">
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Meanwhile, West has recently emerged as the <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/23400851/kanye-west-fake-kids-antisemitism">highest-profile proponent of antisemitic conspiracy theories</a> in the country, a turn that has generated tremendous backlash — at least from most corners of society.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZrCfQ6">
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That Trump sat down with West and Fuentes should not be surprising, his own Jewish family notwithstanding. He has <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/12/3/9843670/donald-trump-anti-semitic">regularly deployed antisemitic rhetoric</a> during his time in public life, and become even more willing to directly engage with his more extreme followers since leaving office (by, for example, regularly promoting <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/10/9/21504910/qanon-conspiracy-theory-facebook-ban-trump">QAnon</a> content on his <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-promotes-qanon-related-posts-social-media-platform-rcna49129">Truth Social website</a>). Hosting West and Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago is the logical extension of what he’s been doing since the beginning of his political career.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="44i7ek">
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Leading Republicans are <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/11/29/gop-response-trump-fuentes-dinner">now acting shocked</a>, with some of Trump’s allies <a href="https://forward.com/fast-forward/526192/donald-trump-nick-fuentes-antisemitism-jewish/">in the Jewish conservative world</a> turning on him over the dinner. Whether this round of Republican condemnation will end differently than <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/one-year-ago-republicans-condemned-jan-6-insurrection-yesterday-their-response-was-far-more-muted">previous ones</a> remains to be seen. But even if this does mark a turning point in Trump’s political standing, other Republicans can’t unring the antisemitic bell the former president has been banging for years.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rLTngl">
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What has felt like a very recent spike in antisemitism, with high-profile incidents involving West and basketball player <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/30/sports/basketball/kyrie-irving-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory.html">Kyrie Irving</a>, is primarily a continuation of events dating back to 2015 kicked off by Trump’s rise. His political ascendance has had effects similar to Henry Ford’s purchase of the Dearborn Independent, a propaganda victory for antisemites that has helped pull bigotry into the mainstream.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AASnKR">
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There is, of course, a difference between Ford’s active trafficking of antisemitic propaganda and Trump’s more passive enabling of the same. But the effects of the latter are nonetheless devastating: The last few years have seen <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-10-20/anti-semitic-speech-is-getting-louder-hate-crimes-are-rising?sref=qYiz2hd0">an unprecedented spike in antisemitic hate crimes</a>, including <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/10/18/20899208/tree-of-life-anniversary-pittsburgh-shooting-american-jews">the deadliest antisemitic massacre in American history</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KAQ7PY">
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“Historians have called the period between World War I and World War II the ‘high tide’ of American antisemitism. I think we may have to rename that: I think we are at the moment living in the high tide of American antisemitism,” says Pamela Nadell, the director of the Jewish studies program at American University.
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/iNx9dQUgAlx5IKiI5EU9XnFOG3U=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24245578/GettyImages_1229647854b.jpg"/> <cite>Zach D. Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images</cite>
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<figcaption>
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Nick Fuentes (center) rallies with his followers, known as “groypers,” in Washington, DC, on November 14, 2020.
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gaTxlj">
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To be sure, antisemitism is far less socially acceptable now than it was in the 1930s and even the 1960s. But it also seems much more acceptable today than it was prior to 2015 — and perhaps more lethal than it ever has been in this country.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rbzpV2">
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Trump’s willingness to openly consort with notorious antisemites suggests things may be on the verge of getting worse, not better.
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</p>
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<h3 id="UPBqZc">
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The ebb and flow of American antisemitism
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="01Y17y">
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To understand the deeper context behind the recent rise in antisemitism, we need to go back nearly 2,000 years.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jMJ8mY">
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Deborah Lipstadt, a historian currently serving as the State Department special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, traces the structure of antisemitic ideas back to the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Antisemitism/aWJKDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=conspiracy%20">very origins of Christianity</a> — specifically, the New Testament description of Jesus’s death.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FCGZQY">
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The early church taught that “the Jews” conspired to kill Jesus — even though Jesus and his apostles were all Jewish and the Romans who actually executed him in the story were not. This, according to Lipstadt, was in part a strategic choice: Christianity had become a competing religion to Judaism, and its leadership wanted to marginalize the older, more deeply rooted tradition. What better way to do that than to blame Jews for killing the literal savior, casting remaining Jews as Christ-denying heirs to a dark conspiracy?
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CSIYF5">
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“Jews, [early Christians] argued, repudiated this new faith because of their inherent maliciousness,” <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Antisemitism/aWJKDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%E2%80%9CThis+formulation+rendered+Judaism+more+than+just+a+competing+religion.+It+became+a+source+of+evil.%E2%80%9D&pg=PA18&printsec=frontcover">Lipstadt writes</a>. “This formulation rendered Judaism more than just a competing religion. It became a source of evil.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D3JqG9">
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This is the crucial thing to understand about antisemitism: It is both bigotry and an explanatory framework. Jews aren’t just detestable people, in the antisemitic mind; they are the force responsible for all that is bad in the world. After Christianity’s conquest of the Roman Empire and Europe, blaming the Jews for the world’s ills — from war to famine to pandemic — became a persistent feature of the European social environment, morphing with the times to explain whatever plagued the continent at the moment.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xv96vJ">
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When Europeans moved to North America, they brought this way of thinking along with them. While the American state was far more friendly to Jews than its European peers, thanks to a founding emphasis on religious toleration, the prejudice itself still resided in its population — just waiting to be brought to the social fore by contingent events.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tBt10C">
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This is why historians like Nadell talk about antisemitism as reaching a “high tide.” Antisemitism is always there, but its influence in society ebbs and flows depending on what’s happening in the world. When it hits historical highs, it’s due to a confluence of factors — a perfect storm of Jew hatred.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VqAwBf">
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In the early 1920s, decades of mass immigration, including a surge in Jewish migration, had prompted a nativist backlash. This rising xenophobia, together with a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/second-klan/509468/">national sense of insecurity</a> created by the post-World War I economic downturn, contributed to a rise in membership for the Ku Klux Klan; by 1925, its cadres claimed <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/second-klan/509468/">between 2 million and 5 million members</a> nationwide. In publishing “The International Jew,” first as articles and then as a widely distributed book, Henry Ford was pushing on an open door.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aQrfF5">
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After World War II and growing public awareness of the Holocaust, antisemitism declined significantly — but it did not go away. In the 1950s, an influx of Jewish admissions to Stanford University led administrators <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/report/2022/10/12/task-force-report-jewish-admissions-and-jewish-life/">to secretly impose limits on future Jewish acceptance to the school</a>. Between 1957 and 1958, a wave of bombings hit or targeted eight American synagogues — white supremacist terror attacks seemingly designed <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/10/18/20899208/tree-of-life-anniversary-pittsburgh-shooting-american-jews">as retaliation for Jewish participation in the civil rights movement</a>.
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</p>
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<div class="c-wide-block">
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/C7FNY31cl8mThGFWeB6_DGp-WsM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24245617/t.jpg"/> <cite>Bettmann via Getty Images</cite>
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<figcaption>
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Hundreds of Jewish New Yorkers protest Hitler’s Nazi government and oppression in Germany circa 1933.
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lkdsfI">
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These examples illustrate the reactive nature of antisemitism: how events in the world, be they Jewish success or the Black struggle for civil rights, could inflame antisemitic sentiment even at a time when Nazism’s horrors were fresh in American minds.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VKApXO">
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By the 2010s, the situation was very different.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZXrOaW">
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While explicit discrimination like the Stanford policy was gone, antisemitic groups flourished on the fringes — both the militia-style white power groups and the more genteel intellectual antisemites of the “alt-right.” The rise of the internet, and social media in particular, had given the far right a new ability to network and rapidly disseminate their messages to millions. The kindling for a new antisemitic blaze was there; it just needed a spark.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ctl9tN">
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Enter Donald Trump.
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</p>
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<h3 id="zd7R5M">
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Why antisemitism is rising today
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LV5WVl">
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Trump’s explicit employment of fringe-right tropes, calling Mexican immigrants rapists, or giving an <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/12/3/9843670/donald-trump-anti-semitic">antisemitic speech to an audience of Republican Jews</a>, gave these movements a massive boost in influence.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ewFRMN">
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“I think he’s an anti-Semitic enabler,” Lipstadt told me <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/1/18524103/poway-synagogue-shooting-anti-semitism">in a 2019 interview</a>. “He’s very careful not to criticize his followers. … He’ll enable anything that’s going to get him elected or get him support.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NGjFIb">
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Antisemitic hate speech <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/anti-semitic-tweets-targeting-journalists-spiked-election">spiked on social media</a>, as did hate crimes in real life. Data from the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish anti-hate group, regularly showed the highest numbers of recorded antisemitic incidents in nearly 40 years of data. While the ADL’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/6/2/22455622/anti-semitism-israel-gaza-hamas-new-york-los-angeles-2021">data is not perfect</a>, primarily due to overly loose definitions, the precipitous and sustained increase since Trump’s entry suggests something really is going on.
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/b1oC07GXKJ6EN0jrXj_cw_PYQQ4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24238898/Screen_Shot_2022_11_29_at_11.56.41_AM.png"/> <cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://www.adl.org/audit2021" target="_blank">ADL</a></cite>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qdsgLT">
|
||
Nearly every year saw some kind of high-profile incident. We saw antisemitic marchers chanting “Jews will not replace us” in the streets of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/8/12/16138246/charlottesville-nazi-rally-right-uva">Charlottesville in 2017</a>, and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/10/18/20899208/tree-of-life-anniversary-pittsburgh-shooting-american-jews">Tree of Life synagogue shooting</a> in Pittsburgh the following year. In 2019, there was another shooting at a synagogue in <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/1/18524103/poway-synagogue-shooting-anti-semitism">Poway</a>, California, and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/nyregion/rabbi-monsey-attack.html">murder of a New York rabbi at a Hanukkah gathering</a>. In 2021, the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/6/2/22455622/anti-semitism-israel-gaza-hamas-new-york-los-angeles-2021">led to assaults on Jews in the streets of Manhattan and Los Angeles</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iDB3Jy">
|
||
Not all of these attacks came from the sort of white nationalists most attracted to Trump. The rabbi’s killer owned literature from the Black Hebrew Israelites, a group that believes Black Jews are the true Jews and that white Jews are nefarious impostors — a conspiracy theory recently promoted by both <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/unpacking-kanye-wests-antisemitic-remarks">Ye</a> and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/kyrie-irving-boosts-antisemitic-movie-peddling-jewish-slave-ships-theory-1234620125/">Irving</a>. The attacks during the Israel war in 2021 <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/6/2/22455622/anti-semitism-israel-gaza-hamas-new-york-los-angeles-2021">seemed to originate</a> with supporters of the Palestinian cause.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eINn5e">
|
||
This tracks with the historical pliability of antisemitism. Because it is an explanatory framework in addition to a form of bigotry — a way that people can <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/texas-synagogue-anti-semitism-conspiracy-theory/621286/">blame someone for whatever they’re unhappy about</a> — it can be adapted by nearly any group for any purpose. Henry Ford blamed the Jews for ruining candy bars; Marjorie Taylor Greene blamed <a href="https://www.vox.com/22256258/marjorie-taylor-greene-jewish-space-laser-anti-semitism-conspiracy-theories">California wildfires on a space laser controlled by prominent Jews</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dUBpWK">
|
||
Once the social barriers against antisemitism are broken down, and one type of antisemitism bursts into the open, people from all ideological persuasions can feel more comfortable expressing antisemitic ideas. Antisemitism becomes part of the ambient environment, popping up at seemingly random intervals from different sources. The surge in public antisemitism in the fall of 2022 is really an expression of a broader pattern that we’ve been seeing since 2015.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Gp0Oov">
|
||
Which brings us back to the Mar-a-Lago dinner.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vKNxdv">
|
||
There’s something truly bizarre about Ye, a Black man, bringing a white nationalist like Fuentes to the Mar-a-Lago dinner. But once you grasp the nature of antisemitism, it becomes more comprehensible.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SJIf8Q">
|
||
For people like Fuentes, it makes sense to publicly support Ye amid his career suicide — despite his Blackness — because he’s helping spread antisemitic ideas to a wider audience. The Goyim Defense League, a white nationalist antisemitic group, hung banners over LA’s 405 highway saying “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/banner-kanye-right-los-angeles-freeway-antisemtic-group-rcna53653">Kanye is right about the Jews</a>.” Ye, roundly condemned by <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2022-10-25/ye-kanye-west-companies-dropped-antisemitic-comments">mainstream America</a>, took the help where he could get it, allying with Fuentes and handing his movement the major coup of a sit-down with their hero Donald Trump.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L0Xwq6">
|
||
“A former president sitting for dinner with a white power activist is the kind of thing that activists can use to claim that they have become a real [political] force,” Kathleen Belew, a historian of white nationalism at Northwestern University, told <a href="https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1597307915127357440">the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iNzHZ2">
|
||
Worse, they may actually have a point. <a href="https://twitter.com/costareports/status/1596352595521835008">Robert Costa</a>, a CBS news reporter and one of Washington’s most plugged-in journalists, wrote that Fuentes represents a kind of subterranean hate ecosystem that has become quietly influential even among mainstream Republicans:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div id="YzlMII">
|
||
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
|
||
Here’s how it works: Most elected Rs and their advisers closely follow the movements of base voters and track how they gather information. While they prefer to cast that ecosystem as something like a country club message board + Trump rallies, they know it’s anything but that…
|
||
</p>
|
||
— Robert Costa (<span class="citation" data-cites="costareports">@costareports</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/costareports/status/1596350876641378304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 26, 2022</a>
|
||
</blockquote></div></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
|
||
<div id="XlsTqD">
|
||
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
|
||
For over a decade, since I began tracking it, there has been a rising, online extreme media landscape that now churns daily, but it is often on closed social media groups outside of media glare. It is in these spaces where unvarnished hate about Jewish people, racism is rampant.
|
||
</p>
|
||
— Robert Costa (<span class="citation" data-cites="costareports">@costareports</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/costareports/status/1596352595521835008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 26, 2022</a>
|
||
</blockquote>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<div id="uQhGC1">
|
||
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
|
||
Nick Fuentes, while young, has gained major traction in these spaces. He links himself and his followers to core tenets of Trumpism by chanting “America First” and uses monologues in the style of Alex Jones to gain notoriety with a cackling, racist, and grim take on modern U.S.
|
||
</p>
|
||
— Robert Costa (<span class="citation" data-cites="costareports">@costareports</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/costareports/status/1596353531862294533?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 26, 2022</a>
|
||
</blockquote>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<div id="w7depq">
|
||
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
|
||
People in the GOP have noticed. Fuentes is not someone who has slipped under the radar. If you follow the base, you can’t somehow not see it, just like you can’t pretend groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers aren’t gaining ground in these same online spaces, too.
|
||
</p>
|
||
— Robert Costa (<span class="citation" data-cites="costareports">@costareports</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/costareports/status/1596354474108502017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 26, 2022</a>
|
||
</blockquote>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f0IWOW">
|
||
Now that he is out of office, Trump seems even more open about courting this segment of his base. He has recently been <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-qanon-2024-republican-party-1234636195/">promoting QAnon content</a> — a pro-Trump conspiracy theory with <a href="https://www.vox.com/22256258/marjorie-taylor-greene-jewish-space-laser-anti-semitism-conspiracy-theories">some notably antisemitic components</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="l15N5G">
|
||
While Trump has <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109406813442573326">claimed not to know who Fuentes was</a> and that any expression of antisemitism ”<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-fires-back-loser-mcconnell-says-fuentes-views-werent-expressed-wouldnt-have-been-accepted">wouldn’t have been accepted</a>” at their dinner, he has not issued a full-fledged disavowal of Fuentes and the forces he represents — and Trump’s track record suggests that one isn’t forthcoming. There’s every chance that <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trumps-reckless-dinner-with-kanye-is-a-window-into-a-second-term/">his 2024 presidential run will be even more extreme</a> than what we saw from him in 2016 and 2020.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pauRS4">
|
||
How much worse could things get? Nadell, the American University historian, puts it this way: Trump is an even more influential and popular figure than Henry Ford was in his heyday.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qNnwh4">
|
||
Ford “was greatly admired, but he was not the past president,” says Nadell. “The American people didn’t put Ford at the head of the Ford Motor Company. But the American people put Trump at the head of the United States.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><strong>The mesmerizing spectacle of a Sam Bankman-Fried interview</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IkQiVoUGeitxMeBHlebCbVSvvSk=/454x0:7739x5464/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71694545/GettyImages_1445842991.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried speaks virtually during his first public interview at the elite New York Times DealBook Summit in New York on Wednesday. | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“I’ve had a bad month,” said the former CEO of the fallen crypto exchange FTX, speaking at the DealBook Summit.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Rp4MLa">
|
||
Sam Bankman-Fried — the 30-year-old dethroned billionaire who fell from grace last month with the bankruptcy of his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, and revelations of missing customer funds — was notably fidgety, hemmed and hawed over his answers, and seemed at times to martyr himself in much anticipated first public interview since his company, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/11/23/1138881426/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-bankruptcy-crypto-cryptocurrency-collapse">valued to be worth at least $32 billion</a>, simply imploded.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gVVtcU">
|
||
“I’ve had a bad month,” Bankman-Fried said at one point, an understatement that drew a burst of laughter from the audience at the New York Times’s DealBook Summit, an annual elite conclave of global corporate leaders, investors, politicians, and celebrities. The former wunderkind CEO, who had graced magazine covers, mingled with Washington power players, and funded philanthropic causes before the stunning collapse of his exchange, told the New York Times’s Andrew Ross Sorkin that he was down to one last credit card and about $100,000 in a bank account.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HEVPCg">
|
||
He also said that his lawyers didn’t think it was a good idea for him to be speaking. Bankman-Fried said he was being given the “classic advice — don’t say anything. Recede into a hole.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dH2RnG">
|
||
“I think I have a duty to talk to people,” he said. “I have a duty to explain what happened.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eQ5CX5">
|
||
What happened was the astonishing collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange Bankman-Fried founded, sending shock waves through not only financial and crypto circles but <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-team-among-top-political-donors-before-bankruptcy-11668949205">political</a> <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/sam-bankman-frieds-plans-to-save-the-world-went-down-in-flames-11669257574">and philanthropic</a> ones as well. The company, currently in bankruptcy proceedings, is being investigated by <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/sec-investigates-crypto-platform-ftx-11668020379">the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission</a>, according to the Wall Street Journal. At least <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/12/1-billion-to-2-billion-of-ftx-customer-funds-missing-report.html">$1 billion in FTX customer funds</a> appears to be missing.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4rheVk">
|
||
Bankman-Fried, who had been seen as a rare billionaire serious about using his wealth to improve the world following a philosophy known as effective altruism, has now left philanthropic organizations to which he committed money <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/sam-bankman-frieds-plans-to-save-the-world-went-down-in-flames-11669257574">grappling with funding gaps</a>. FTX’s ruin has led to “<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/ftx-collapse-genesis-crypto/">crypto contagion</a>” in the rest of the industry, ushering in widespread instability: BlockFi, a crypto lending company that FTX bailed out in July, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-28/ftx-s-blockfi-rescue-didn-t-work">also filed for bankruptcy</a> this week, and the crypto exchange Kraken announced that it will lay off 30 percent of its workforce. (Disclosure: This August, Bankman-Fried’s philanthropic family foundation, Building a Stronger Future, awarded Vox’s Future Perfect a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/1/7/21020439/support-future-perfect">grant</a> for a 2023 reporting project. That project is now on pause.)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WUzIzU">
|
||
Bankman-Fried did not <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-23/ftx-founder-sam-bankman-fried-says-he-ll-speak-at-new-york-times-dealbook-summit">attend Wednesday’s event in person</a> but was interviewed virtually from the Bahamas, where he’s been based since late 2021. When he came into view around 5 pm, his demeanor was subdued, compared with the fast-talking, frenetic energy he is known for during public appearances.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fevkkz">
|
||
In introducing Bankman-Fried, Sorkin pulled no punches: “The generous view is that you are a young man who made a series of terrible, terrible, very, very bad decisions. The less generous view is that you have committed a massive fraud.” Bankman-Fried’s answers seemed to push for the more generous read, but their vagueness failed to dispel the less kind perceptions the public holds.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZMkQHF">
|
||
Bankman-Fried, who is well known for his unusual aesthetic — he loved to wear baggy shirts and shorts that communicated a kind of asceticism — wore a loose-fitting plain black T-shirt and sat in an unremarkable room with little more than a houseplant visible in a corner. At various points in the roughly hour-long Q&A, his body language was hunched, his head and gaze lowered as he answered a barrage of difficult questions from Sorkin, including where FTX customers’ money had gone, whether employees had used drugs, what he had told his Stanford law professor parents, and what he saw for his future.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BfRimo">
|
||
At one point, Sorkin referenced a letter he received from someone who accused the former billionaire of stealing about $2 million from him, asking why Bankman-Fried had “decided to steal my life savings.” Did Bankman-Fried think what he did was fraud?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tRYhKI">
|
||
Bankman-Fried’s head hung as Sorkin read the letter. “I’m deeply sorry about what happened,” he said before quickly adding that, “to his knowledge,” FTX’s US platform was “fully solvent.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GVCRFo">
|
||
Moments earlier, he said, “I didn’t ever try to commit fraud on anyone.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2SiGWr">
|
||
Bankman-Fried appeared remarkably calm for a man some are comparing to Elizabeth Holmes and Bernie Madoff. He was repeatedly apologetic but maintained that he didn’t know the details of exactly what had happened and why — only that he had failed in his duty as the CEO of FTX, while emphasizing a lack of oversight and poor risk management. When Sorkin mentioned allegations that employees at FTX had used drugs, Bankman-Fried characterized himself as an innocent: “I had my first sip of alcohol after my 21st birthday,” he said, and said that FTX did not have wild parties, and that if there were parties, employees played board games.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4uAlIN">
|
||
The DealBook Summit is a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/events/dealbook-summit#sessions">self-described space</a> for “unguarded conversations about business, culture, and politics.” It’s set up as an elite gathering of people with the influence to shape the worlds of finance, business, and politics; a regular ticket has a $2,499 price tag. Among the panoply of famous names in attendance this year were Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EduX0Y">
|
||
It has typically been a friendly stage for business leaders, and past interviewees include <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rixp9hbQgbM">Elon Musk</a> as well as venture capitalist and Republican megadonor <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54NIcx3HJSE">Peter Thiel</a>, Apple CEO <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM9r6Q_jFCE">Tim Cook</a>, Twitter co-founder <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNHoyGW7YOU">Jack Dorsey</a>, and Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_15DReQKbt8">Bill Gates</a>. Last year’s virtual summit, however, invited disgraced WeWork founder <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgp-CM-gQik">Adam Neumann for his first interview</a> about two years after the <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/9/23/20879656/wework-mess-explained-ipo-softbank">corporate scandal that tarnished his reputation</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LbhfIX">
|
||
Unlike Neumann, Bankman-Fried did not wait two years after his public immolation to do an interview, and it seems he isn’t loath to attract more attention. Since FTX’s collapse, and since <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-sit-in-the-crosshairs-of-u-s-prosecutors-11668398012">allegations of fraud surfaced</a> a few weeks ago, Bankman-Fried has been uncommonly talkative on Twitter and with journalists. He was bewilderingly candid in a Twitter <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23462333/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-cryptocurrency-effective-altruism-crypto-bahamas-philanthropy">DM interview with Vox journalist Kelsey Piper</a>, pulling back the curtain on the kind of reputation-polishing that, as Bankman-Fried implies, all powerful people — including himself — engage in. In his DMs, the mask of his image as a thoughtful philanthropist and diplomatic crypto spokesperson slipped; he said bluntly, on the issue of crypto regulation, “fuck regulators” and espoused the view that the world cared more about who they perceived as “winners” than people who were actually ethical.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ue1NOS">
|
||
Bankman-Fried attempted to clarify and soften some of the comments in that interview at the DealBook Summit, saying that he genuinely cared about important issues such as animal welfare and pandemic prevention. But he stood firm on the idea that “doing good” was often a PR game that companies played. “There’s a bunch of bullshit that regulated companies do,” he said. “It’s just a PR campaign masquerading as do-gooderism.” He acknowledged that he, too, had participated in such PR campaigns. “Yeah. We all did.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L6OEYu">
|
||
After Bankman-Fried’s Vox interview, the current CEO of FTX, John Ray III (who helped restructure Enron when it went bankrupt), released a <a href="https://twitter.com/FTX_Official/status/1592985702626885632">terse reminder on Twitter</a> that Bankman-Fried no longer spoke on behalf of the company. On Wednesday, however, Bankman-Fried had plenty to say about FTX. Sorkin pressed him on the specifics of what had happened and what he had known, asking him early about whether there had been a commingling of funds between FTX and the trading firm Bankman-Fried had founded, Alameda Research. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/13/sam-bankman-frieds-alameda-quietly-used-ftx-customer-funds-without-raising-alarm-bells-say-sources.html">Alameda has been accused</a> of borrowing FTX customers’ funds. “I didn’t knowingly commingle funds,” Bankman-Fried replied. He said he realized belatedly that FTX client money and Alameda money had been tied together “substantially more” than he would have wanted it to be.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rV4VRV">
|
||
As Bankman-Fried continued to repeat that he hadn’t been aware of the true financials of both companies, Sorkin was blunt: “But, Sam, I think the question is whether you were supposed to have access to these [customer] accounts to begin with.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h18HFX">
|
||
Bankman-Fried avoided that question, insisting again that he had little involvement in Alameda.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MbeRV7">
|
||
Bankman-Fried’s presence at the summit raised numerous questions: Does hearing from a disgraced business leader on such a large stage help the public get closer to the truth about what happened? Or does it hand back some control to a powerful person, allowing them to prune their public image and inject an exculpatory spin on the unfolding narrative of FTX and of Bankman-Fried himself?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="puYDVA">
|
||
When asked whether he had been honest during the interview, Bankman-Fried’s answer was a perfect encapsulation of the vagueness and word-twisting he’d displayed during the interview. “I was as truthful as, you know, I am knowledgeable to be,” he said. And then, as if he was thinking better of the hedging, he added: “Yes, I was.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZE0A9f">
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XOfgVO">
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>The House votes to avert a potentially devastating railroad strike</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_uvperRzrpMZG5bWANnOnDO9hK0=/713x0:5860x3860/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71688406/1443734779.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Freight rail cars loaded with lumber sit on tracks at the Port of Los Angeles on November 22, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. | Mario Tama/Getty Images
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Labor successfully pressured Congress to vote on paid sick leave for rail workers.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ov10pl">
|
||
For the first time in roughly 30 years, Congress has intervened ahead of a potential rail strike following calls from President Joe Biden to do so.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qocZqx">
|
||
At Biden’s request, the House of Representatives took action on Wednesday, passing two resolutions. The first resolution, which passed 290-137, would require workers to accept the tentative agreement the Biden administration negotiated in September.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4VVuEd">
|
||
That deal included an increase in pay and an additional personal day, but failed to address demands workers had over paid sick leave. Currently, <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/11/rail-strike-why-the-railroads-wont-give-in-on-paid-leave-psr-precision-scheduled-railroading.html">rail workers don’t have guaranteed<strong> </strong>paid sick days</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/28/rail-strike-biden-congress/">have to use vacation time instead</a>. They do have access to paid leave for longer-term illnesses, according to the Association of American Railroads, but <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/business/railroad-workers-strike-threat.html">for shorter-term issues</a> like an unplanned illness or a medical emergency, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDQp7tZcXVk">workers</a> have said <a href="https://slate.com/business/2022/09/railroad-strike-joe-biden-sick-leave.html">they have few options</a>. This means that workers often need to get time off approved in advance, which is tough to do if they unexpectedly get sick.<strong> </strong>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FQ255u">
|
||
The addition of a single personal day in the September agreement was intended to reflect this concern, though it fell short of doing so — and has prompted multiple unions to reject the deal.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SKCHZ3">
|
||
The second House measure, which passed 221-207, would provide seven paid sick days, in an attempt to address workers’ concerns. Three Republicans joined Democrats to approve the measure that included sick days.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wqI8hd">
|
||
Democrats’ decision to add a vote on paid sick days comes after major blowback from lawmakers like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and rail unions, who were disappointed by Biden’s push to approve a deal that did not adequately tackle this issue.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GOnlwS">
|
||
Both resolutions now head to the Senate, where the second faces some uncertainty. While Republicans have been open to imposing the White House’s deal, it’s not yet clear how many would support the addition of paid sick time. The measures were passed separately with this in mind; regardless of whether there’s enough GOP support to give workers sick days, there does appear to be enough votes to ensure a strike doesn’t happen ahead of a negotiations deadline on December 9.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="urTEuv">
|
||
Congress’s role in curtailing rail strikes, briefly explained
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G4gACH">
|
||
Congress’s approach to this rail dispute is indicative of how much power they have in resolving such conflicts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Eo5luY">
|
||
The Railway Labor Act, which was passed in 1926, gives lawmakers significant leeway over how they could approach the current situation. In addition to approving the tentative agreement, Congress is able to add provisions to it, like paid sick time. Lawmakers can also extend the amount of time that railroads and workers have to negotiate or set up an independent body to help determine a resolution.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DMLUZ4">
|
||
Previously, Congress ended a strike that took place in 1992 by establishing an arbitration system for both parties to reach an agreement. “Given that they have the power to force a settlement, I don’t think there are any limits on that,” says Cliff Winston, an economic policy expert at Brookings.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nPFL43">
|
||
As is the case with many bills, the main limitation that lawmakers are running up against is the amount of political support any measure is able to receive. Both resolutions under consideration will need the support of 60 members in the Senate, including 10 Republicans, <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/railroads/3756038-afl-cio-urges-congress-to-add-paid-sick-leave-to-rail-contract/">some of whom</a> have expressed openness to incorporating worker demands.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8Fe3aj">
|
||
“The way to avoid a strike is a new deal that rank and file members will support,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) <a href="https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1597961343185092609">recently wrote in a tweet</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="QTjmsV">
|
||
House vote on paid sick days follows blowback from labor
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZJDk8k">
|
||
In his statement urging congressional action, Biden referred to himself as a “proud pro-labor president,” a title his recent actions seemed to contradict. Although he’s certainly been supportive of unions in the past, his call for congressional action to approve the agreement without sick days raised the ire of multiple unions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sK53v1">
|
||
“Passing legislation that excludes paid sick leave won’t address rail service issues. Rather, it will worsen supply chain issues and further sicken, infuriate, and disenfranchise Railroad Workers as they continue shouldering the burdens of the railroads’ mismanagement,” wrote the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bp9I94">
|
||
The AFL-CIO, one of the largest labor federations in the country, echoed this statement, calling for Congress to approve paid sick time as part of its efforts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4wfBSl">
|
||
“While the tentative agreement unions negotiated this year included many critical gains — significant wage increases, caps on health care premiums, and prevention of crew reduction — it also fell short by not including provisions on paid sick leave or fair scheduling,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a statement.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zPoHKS">
|
||
Previously, Biden had emphasized that he was worried any modifications to the existing agreement could cause delays and raise the risk of a strike. In his statement, Biden focused heavily on how significant the economic fallout would be if there is no resolution to this standoff. More than 750,000 people could be out of work during the strike, and transportation of food, fuel, and other commodities could come to a standstill, he noted.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oFycyr">
|
||
Democrats’ votes on Wednesday marked an attempt to balance the demands of labor with concerns about the economic effects that could result if they don’t move quickly enough to address the issue. The joint consideration of both the September agreement and paid sick days aimed to address a situation that’s been difficult for the party politically, as it’s sought to juggle competing interests.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DpntlH">
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bYSNYd">
|
||
<em><strong>Update, November 30, 6 pm ET:</strong></em><em> This story was originally published on November 29 and has been updated to include workers’ access to longer-term sick leave. </em>
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sreenidhi Deccan surprises Mohammedan Sporting</strong> - V.V. Subrahmanyam</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kadur and Gill set to resume the battle</strong> - Sports Bureau</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>FIFA World Cup 2022 | Ghana, Uruguay meet again at World Cup after 2010 drama</strong> - In 2010, Luis Suarez's deliberate handball on the goal-line at the end of extra time denied Ghana a certain goal and a place in history as the first African team to reach the semis</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>BCCI names Ashok Malhotra, Jatin Paranjape in new Cricket Advisory Committee to select new selection panel</strong> - In November, the BCCI had sacked the entire selection panel headed by Chetan Sharma</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Smith joins Bradman in esteemed Australian company with 29 Test tons</strong> - Steve Smith equaled Australia batting legend Don Bradman‘s 29 Test centuries in the first test match against the West Indies, behind only Ricky Ponting (41), Steve Waugh (32), and Matthew Hayden (30)</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>ED uncovers assets worth ₹82.77 crore linked to senior IAS official</strong> - The investigation is based on multiple First Information Reports registered by the State police and vigilance bureau</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>VIT-AP School of Law inks pact with University of Birmingham for academic, research collaboration</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Provide land to landless beneficiaries under PMAY-G or funds will be withdrawn: Centre to States</strong> - Tamil Nadu has 56,709 such landless beneficiaries, the highest of any State, and has provided land to only 971 beneficiaries since the scheme was launched in April 2016</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>APPSC releases list of selectees under sports quota</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>YSRCP leaders inspect arrangements for BC Mahasabha at Vijayawada on Dec. 7</strong> - 84,000 representatives of BCs from panchayat ward members to those in various high positions have been invited for the event, says Vijaya Sai Reddy</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is attacking Ukraine’s power grid a war crime?</strong> - Western leaders say Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure are illegal, but what does the law say?</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Canada: Ambassador tells EU that deforestation rules ‘burdensome’</strong> - The EU regulation aims to limit the trade of products linked to deforestation worldwide.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Germany to ease entry rules for skilled workers</strong> - The country is currently experiencing labour shortages in several industries, including childcare and IT.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>French baguette gets Unesco heritage status</strong> - President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the news saying the loaf was “250 grams of magic and perfection”.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>EU warning of possible Twitter ban under new rules</strong> - The Twitter boss says he met Apple’s chief Tim Cook after he criticised the company.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>My secret life as an 11-year-old BBS sysop</strong> - Revisiting the wonder and betrayal of online life circa 1992. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1898410">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Chrome, Defender, and Firefox 0-days linked to commercial IT firm in Spain</strong> - Variston IT fingerprints found in source code for advanced Chrome exploit. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1901167">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>First M2 Max benchmark scores appear to leak on Geekbench</strong> - If the scores are legit, they show fairly modest gains compared to the M1 Max. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1901150">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Disney’s new neural network can change an actor’s age with ease</strong> - “Production ready” neural net makes actors younger or older for film or TV. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1901037">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Astronomers capture black hole gobbling up a star in a “hyper-feeding frenzy”</strong> - “It’s probably swallowing the star at the rate of half the mass of the Sun per year.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1900424">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><strong>I started a band called 999 Megabytes</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
We still haven’t gotten a gig.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/prankerjoker"> /u/prankerjoker </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z92s8b/i_started_a_band_called_999_megabytes/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z92s8b/i_started_a_band_called_999_megabytes/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>UK joke - What town uses VPNs the most?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Ipswich
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/LordOfTheTranceYeh"> /u/LordOfTheTranceYeh </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z8outp/uk_joke_what_town_uses_vpns_the_most/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z8outp/uk_joke_what_town_uses_vpns_the_most/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>My Roman doctor said I needed an IV.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
I asked: “For what?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/KleebGraham"> /u/KleebGraham </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z9gd44/my_roman_doctor_said_i_needed_an_iv/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z9gd44/my_roman_doctor_said_i_needed_an_iv/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>What do you call a hen that counts her own eggs?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
A Mathmachicken.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
My kid told me that and it made me chuckle.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/wheelfu"> /u/wheelfu </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z9b3hz/what_do_you_call_a_hen_that_counts_her_own_eggs/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z9b3hz/what_do_you_call_a_hen_that_counts_her_own_eggs/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>Any more oxymorons?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Only choice
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Civil war
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Definite possibility
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Grow smaller
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Random order
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Old news
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
True fiction
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Virtual reality
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Working vacation
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Exact estimate
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Original copies
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Pretty ugly
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Fully empty
|
||
</li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/2globalnomads"> /u/2globalnomads </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z8q2or/any_more_oxymorons/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/z8q2or/any_more_oxymorons/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
|
||
|
||
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