December 12, 2016
Xi Jinping’s signature crackdown on political corruption, the centerpiece of his domestic policy, relies on an extrajudicial internal Communist Party disciplinary measure called shuanggui. / The New Yorker, hrw.org
In the face of Trump, the LAPD promises it won’t hand over otherwise innocent undocumented immigrants to ICE. But natch, it already does, relying on shoddily-built and maintained law enforcement “gang lists.” / BuzzFeed, The Intercept
Related: the LA County Sheriff’s Office, the law enforcement agency for large unincorporated swaths of the county where many undocumented workers live, has made no such promises. Its past (and current) cooperation with ICE “removal” operations has been called “excessive” by the National Lawyers Guild. In the meantime, the LA County Board of Supervisors merely promises to create a task force that will “work with” the sheriff. Reassuring. / laweekly.com, Los Angeles Times, abc7.com
“I would always make fun of how pale he was—I thought he was super pale. I’m like, ‘Prince, you need to tan.’ Like, you need some vitamin D in your life. Then he sent a meme of himself wearing glasses, saying, ‘She thinks I need a tan.’ He made it. He makes a lot of stuff. He likes to mess around on his computer.” Yes, that longform remembrance of Prince by his friends and colleagues is as good as you’d hope. / GQ
“I think what was happening is women weren’t writing the whole truth. Now these young women are writing their whole truth and some of it isn’t pretty, but it’s so real. And people are embracing it. I expect them to have as much or more success than the guys did.” Fifteen out of 20 Grammy nominations in country music went to women this year—a remarkable breakthrough in an industry dominated by men. But the real glass ceiling is country radio, where only three of the top 30 most played artists are female. / The Tennessean
Electing our first female president will be great, but some experts think we can’t call it progress until we elect our second. / Bloomberg
“We must stand to save the Earth. It is the only reason why we live. And we must live for everyone,” says LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, former Standing Rock Sioux tribal historian, who is hosting the Sacred Stone water protectors’ camp on her land and whose son is buried on a hill adjacent to the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline site. “And that probably makes us the meanest people on earth.” / YouTube
A whole lot of (mostly male) journalists are working through their feelings after reading Teen Vogue’s “Donald Trump is Gaslighting America” and realizing that maybe young women really do care about more than lip gloss and fall fashion—and that publications that cater to them are stepping up. / teenvogue.com
“The experience of the black Southerner is universal. It inspires a feeling of kinship in an audience. It garners sympathy. It renders the invisible visible. And because it is capable of all of this, it sells.” Jesmyn Ward: Black Southerners were everywhere in 2016. / Buzzfeed
The emerging field of existential risk studies mainly focuses on how threats to civilization might unfold—the “how” of apocalypse. “As powerful weapons become increasingly accessible to small groups and individuals, negative utilitarians could emerge as a threat to human survival.” / thebulletin.org
“Capital no longer flows more to the industries with the best growth opportunities because, since the middle of the 1990s, firms in high q industries increasingly repurchase shares rather than raise more funding from the capital markets.” Your Monday lunchtime economics white paper: Buybacks are historically distorting capital markets. / National Bureau of Economic Research
“It wasn’t one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history, so presumably that’s another red-herring lie to distract from Trump treating the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States like it is some rogue blogger to be cast to the trolls.” The teenaged perspective on the CIA’s assessment, and Trump’s response to it. / Teen Vogue
The CIA has concluded that Russia hacked the election in order to help Trump. / The New York Times
With Mitch McConnell—who previously “dismissed” this information from the CIA during classified briefings—now on board, it looks like there will be a Senate probe into the reports of Russia’s hacks, along with President Obama’s “full review.” / The Washington Post, NPR
Anonymous U.S. intelligence officials said their “warnings” to Europe about Russia’s cyber-habits (something that is well-documented there, by the way) were too late. / BuzzFeed, Wired
In 2008, when Russia was invading Georgia, they replaced the website of Georgia’s president with pictures comparing him to Hitler. / BuzzFeed News
There are a lot of reasons autonomous vehicles should cut emissions. Computer-aided vehicles could drive closely together in packs that would reduce drag, wouldn’t idle or drive with gas-guzzling aggression, and could promote carpooling. But another factor could overwhelm these: it’ll be cheaper than ever to move around by car, which could spike car use. / The Wall Street Journal
Why should we trust anything going on with this story? / Twitter
“Imagine how many people get missed. Our feeling is that we’re only looking at the tip of the iceberg.” A comprehensive look at the state of violence against trans people—largely trans women of color—reveals more questions than answers. Like the fact that it’s impossible to obtain truly accurate data on the subject. / Mic