Aaron Blake/WaPo:
Why you should think twice before sharing that viral video of an apparent Russian POW
One version, posted Sunday morning, has racked up more than 90,000 retweets and 220,000 likes on Twitter. (We’re not linking to the video, for reasons we’ll soon get to.)
It’s merely the latest in a string of such Russian POW videos that have been disseminated far and wide in recent days, as most of the world unites behind Ukraine. And it’s kibble for the social media crowd, in that it confirms their prior beliefs — and indeed, confirms much of what we know objectively about Russian misinformation — in a compelling and seemingly heartfelt appeal.
It’s also something you should be extremely cautious about, because human rights groups say it violates international law.
Charlie Sykes/Bulwark:
A Never *Again* Trump Coalition?
Gag reflex warning.
“Where would Russian tanks be today if NATO had not expanded the borders of freedom?” former Vice President Mike Pence told GOP donors this weekend. “There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin. There is only room for champions of freedom.”
Well, maybe.
The next night, at the same event, the GOP’s biggest apologist for Vladimir Putin made it clear that he is fully in control of the GOP and that he has every intention of returning to the White House.
So this raises once again the awkward and difficult political question: Is it time for a Never Again Trump Coalition, which would look quite different from the usual alignment of Never Trump and other veterans of the resistance?
Adam Serwer/Atlantic:
The Who-Cares-If-You’re-Innocent Project
Republicans want to blame the rise in crime on liberal permissiveness, copying a political playbook that worked extraordinarily well from the 1960s to the turn of the century. As HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery writes, the attack on Morrison is related to the Republicans’ war against liberal prosecutors, who have been elected on promises to be lenient on crimes like marijuana possession and to prosecute police misconduct. They also don’t like that President Joe Biden has nominated more defense attorneys as judges than his predecessor, bringing a needed balance to a federal bench stacked with former prosecutors.
Sea change in attitude.
CNN:
Rep. Paul Gosar's lengthy ties to White nationalists, pro-Nazi blogger and far-right fringe received little pushback for years
Gosar is now facing scrutiny over his ties to extremists after speaking via video at a conference organized by White nationalist Nick Fuentes. Gosar spoke in person at the event last year. And both Gosar, and his colleague Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who spoke in person at the conference this year, have been condemned by Republican leaders over their appearances.
Leon Aron/WaPo:
Putin needs to watch his back
As the war drags on, the danger to Putin’s reign will come chiefly from three quarters: the oligarchs, the military and those whom we call “ordinary Russians.” The oligarchs, who stand to lose the most from the West’s sanctions, have been publicly cautious, whatever their true sentiments may be. Cowed since the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003, some left Russia, while others appear reconciled to (in effect) managing their companies on behalf of the state rather than being their masters. Of the four who have registered concerns so far, three did so from London — Mikhail Fridman, Roman Abramovich and Oleg Tinkov. Only one, Oleg Deripaska, made a comment from Moscow. All point to the tragedy of the war and call for peace without blaming Putin. Only Tinkov explicitly said that he opposes the war.
Zachary Petrizzo/Daily beast:
‘People’s Convoy’ Truckers ‘Escalate’ D.C. Tactics but Fail Miserably Again
After taking a single lap around the Beltway on Monday afternoon, the so-called “People’s Convoy” once again failed at its goal of being a “huge pain” for the D.C. metro area. After their short-lived Sunday effort failed, on Monday morning, the anti-vaccine mandate trucker convoy’s organizer Brian Brase pledged to “escalate” the group’s tactics, calling on the truckers to take up two entire Beltway lanes. But that heightened plan did not come to fruition. Instead, the truckers and a bevy of upside-down American flag-bearing support vehicles quickly became separated for the second day in a row. Adding insult to injury, near the Temple Hills and Landover exits, both a semi-truck and pickup truck in the convoy had broken down. A white pickup truck with its hood flipped open caused traffic to reduce to stop-and-go on the outer loop up to the Greenbelt area around 3 p.m. on Monday. Nevertheless, organizers remained optimistic, pledging on Telegram, “We will hold the line!” as the group remained split over whether they should enter into Washington, D.C. proper.
Richard L Hasen/NY Times:
How to Keep the Rising Tide of Fake News From Drowning Our Democracy
Today we live in an era of “cheap speech.” Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment scholar at U.C.L.A., coined the term in 1995 to refer to a new period marked by changes in communications technology that would allow readers, viewers and listeners to receive speech from a practically infinite variety of sources unmediated by traditional media institutions, like newspapers, that had served as curators and gatekeepers. Professor Volokh was correct back in 1995 that the amount of speech flowing to us in formats like video would move from a trickle to a flood.
What Professor Volokh did not foresee in his largely optimistic prognostication was that our information environment would become increasingly “cheap” in a second sense of the word, favoring speech of little value over speech that is more valuable to voters.
It is expensive to produce quality journalism but cheap to produce polarizing political “takes” and easily shareable disinformation. The economic model for local newspapers and news gathering has collapsed over the past two decades; from 2000 to 2018, journalists lost jobs faster than coal miners.