But the Justice Department during the Obama administration began a push to get the case thrown out and succeeded at an appellate court in 2020. In May, the same appellate court also directed a lower court to dismiss an amended complaint.

Kali grew disillusioned with President Barack Obama when he signed a 2014 law cutting $8.7 billion in food stamps — a benefit that she, her mother and two siblings relied on throughout her childhood, she said.

the Columbus myth is alive and well in the United States

Whatever work there is should have as much meaning aspossible. Wherever possible, workmen should be artists; theirwork should be the application of knowledge or science andknown and enjoyed by them as such. They should, if possi-ble, know what they are doing, why what they are doing hasthe results it has, why they are doing it, and what constitutesthe goodness of the things produced. They should understandwhat happens to what they produce, why it happens in thatway, and how to improve what happens. They should under-stand their relations to others co-operating in a given process,the relation of that process to other processes, the pattern of-them all as constituting the economy of the nation, and thebearing of the economy on the social, moral, and politicallife of the nation and the world. Work would be humanizedif understanding of all these kinds were in it and around it.

One of those factors is globalization which has helped lift hundreds and millions out of poverty, most notably in China and India, but which, along with automation has also ended entire economies, accelerated global inequality, and left millions of others feeling betrayed and angry at existing political institutions.

increased mobility and urbanization of modern life, which further shakes up societies, including existing family structures and gender roles

chronic political dysfunction, here in the U.S. and in Europe

What social media platforms have done, though, thanks to their increasing market dominance and their emphasis on speed, is accelerate the decline of newspapers and other traditional news sources.

the veil of anonymity that platforms provide their users

very specific choices made by the companies that have come to dominate the internet generally and social media platforms in particular

You don’t even have to look up. And it’s made all of us more prone to what psychologists call confirmation bias

it did fortify a sense of shared culture and it came to the news, at least, citizens across the political spectrum tended to operate using a shared set of facts

the sheer proliferation of content and the splintering of information and audiences

We’ll have to come up with new models for a more inclusive, equitable capitalism. We’ll have to reform our political institutions in ways that allow people to be heard and give them real agency. We’ll have to tell better stories about ourselves and how we can live together, despite our differences.

as once marginalized groups demand a seat at the table, politicians have found a new audience for old-fashioned appeals to racial and ethnic, religious or national solidarity

the near collapse of the global financial system in 2008

the rise of China

At the end of the day, tools don’t control us.

K-Monitor

News Literacy Project

MIT Center for Constructive Communication

National School of Journalism and Public Discourse

the U.S. Constitution as software

ways to give young people and the rest of us the chance to build up civic muscles

reinvigorate quality journalism, including local journalism

online media literacy

An interesting study came out recently

these companies need to have some other North Star other than just making money and increasing market share

Platform Accountability and Transparency Act

European Union’s Digital Services Act

tech companies need to be more transparent about how they operate

regulation has to be part of the answer

we need to consider reforms to Section 230 to account for those changes, including whether platforms should be required to have a higher standard of care, when it comes to advertising on their site

Section 230 of the United States code

More importantly, these companies are still way too guarded about how exactly their standards operate, or how their engagement ranking systems influence what goes viral and what doesn’t.

the need for some democratic oversight

The problem is, we often don’t know what principles govern those decisions. And on an issue of enormous public interest, there has been little public debate and practically no democratic oversight.

the First Amendment is a check on the power of the state. It doesn’t apply to private companies like Facebook or Twitter

I believe that in most instances the answer to bad speech is good speech.

There are some bugs in the software.

the transformative power and promise of the open internet

New technologies are already challenging the way we regulate currency

Russians could study and manipulate patterns in the engagement ranking system on a Facebook or YouTube.

the very design of these platforms seems to be tilting us in the wrong direction

sophisticated actors from political consultants to commercial interests, to intelligence arms of foreign powers can game platform algorithms

Obama's Stanford University speech this Thursday

in part out of disillusionment with the early promise of his presidency—out of expectations raised and frustrated

When Russian forces delivered Asam al Alasam, the ISIS Supreme Leader in Iraq, to the American airbase as promised, he had an item with him they did not expect. Al Alasam had a nearly new, unlocked iPhone X. The phone was unscrambled and not secure at all, so it was believed to be a personal and family use phone. Still, the army chief engineer wanted it looked at. After nearly six weeks of unblocking text and manipulating code, they found a hidden phone list with direct numbers to some of the most powerful men on the planet. Al Alasam had Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau, Malcolm Reynolds, Sandy Batt AND President Dale Goff all on speed dial. Just knowing Sandy Batt is a crime in Russia.

President Barack Obama, in his 2013 State of the Union address

Separately, American intelligence agencies had intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Trump associates.

Funnyman Jimmy Fallon paid wonderful homage to the legacy of departing First Lady Michelle Obama with a sweet tribute; he filmed average Americans recording goodbye messages to her

Organizing for Action, a group founded by Obama and featured prominently on his new post-presidency website, is distributing a training manual to anti-Trump activists that advises them to bully GOP lawmakers into backing off support for repealing ObamaCare, curbing immigration from high-risk Islamic nations, and building a border wall.

Frankly, he didn’t move a lot from where he was. He did a lot of the things that he did through executive action and not through bipartisan legislation.

anyone

No, no, no, no, no.

For every two steps forward, it often feels we take one step back.

It’s why GIs gave their lives at Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima; Iraq and Afghanistan — and why men and women from Selma to Stonewall were prepared to give theirs as well.

“Because you don’t come up with the right answer if everyone at the table looks the same and thinks the same and has the same experience – you never come up with the best answer. So when you get these seats at these tables of power, your obligation is to make sure the conversation is diverse.”

At the school, Mr. Obama taught three courses, ascending to senior lecturer, a title otherwise carried only by a few federal judges. His most traditional course was in the due process and equal protection areas of constitutional law.

As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.”

And then there’s Donald Trump.

or jihadists or homegrown demagogues

“But what we won’t do and should not do is take approaches that are going to be counterproductive. When I hear someone say we should carpet-bomb Iraq or Syria, not only is that inhumane, not only is that contrary to our values, that would likely be an extraordinary mechanism for ISIL to recruit more people willing to die and explode bombs in an airport or in a metro station. That’s not a smart strategy.”

“The notion that we should have surveillance of neighborhoods where Muslims are present — I just left a country that engages in that kind of neighborhood surveillance,” Obama said of his stop in Cuba before arriving in Argentina.

The reality —as Obama learned in the aftermath of the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. — is that impressive battlefield statistics and reasoned calls for restraint mean little in the climate of fear generated by terror strikes.

So, my fellow Americans, whatever you may believe, whether you prefer one party or no party, our collective future depends on your willingness to uphold your obligations as a citizen.  To vote.  To speak out.

That’s how we forged a Trans-Pacific Partnership to open markets, protect workers and the environment, and advance American leadership in Asia.  It cuts 18,000 taxes on products Made in America, and supports more good jobs.  With TPP, China doesn’t set the rules in that region, we do.  You want to show our strength in this century?  Approve this agreement.  Give us the tools to enforce it. 

how do we make technology work for us, and not against us

we can become more perfect.

The children who thought that having a black president, despite the fact that he was, on domestic policy, worse than EVERY other democratic nominee, are why the US is so fucked right now.

THE PRESIDENT: True. (Laughter.) And too often,