As the Trump administration enters its second month, Republican lawmakers have begun a legislative attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created in response to the economic crisis a decade ago. The bureau was created under the Dodd-Frank legislation, which is also coming under attack by Republican lawmakers and the White House. Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to repeal a Dodd-Frank anti-corruption measure requiring oil and mining companies to disclose payments to governments. He has also vowed to chip away at other parts of the legislation. We speak to Sheelah Kolhatkar, a former hedge fund analyst who is now a staff writer at The New Yorker. She is the author of the new book “Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street.”
Democracy Now
4: Elor Azaria verdict: ‘No justice for Palestinians’
Nazareth – Human rights groups and Palestinian leaders have condemned what they called the “extremely lenient” punishment of Elor Azaria, the Israeli army medic who was filmed executing a severely wounded Palestinian in Hebron last year.
On Tuesday, a military tribunal sentenced the soldier to 18 months in jail and a demotion, nearly a year after he shot a bullet from close range into the head of 21-year-old Abdel al-Fattah al-Sharif.
There has rarely been a trial in Israel where the judges have been under such relentless – and mostly hostile – scrutiny. That appeared to be reflected in their sentencing, more than a month after they found Azaria guilty of manslaughter.
The sentence was much lower than the three to five years demanded by the prosecution, and far below the maximum tariff of 20 years. One of the three judges dissented, recommending two and a half to five years.
Aljazeera
3: The rise and fall of Milo Yiannopoulos – how a shallow actor played the bad guy for money
So there is, after all, a line that you cannot cross and still be hailed by conservatives as a champion of free speech. That line isn’t Islamophobia, misogyny, transphobia or harassment. Milo Yiannopoulos, the journalist that Out magazine dubbed an “internet supervillain”, built his brand on those activities. Until Monday, he was flying high: a hefty book deal with Simon & Schuster, an invitation to speak at the American Conservative Union’s CPac conference and a recent appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher. But then a recording emerged of Yiannopoulos cheerfully defending relationships between older men and younger boys, and finally it turned out that free speech had limits. The book deal and CPac offer swiftly evaporated. At the time of writing, he is still an editor at Breitbart, the far-right website where he was recruited by Donald Trump’s consigliere Steve Bannon, but several staffers are reportedly threatening to quit unless he is fired.
In the incriminating clip, Yiannopoulos prefaces his remarks with a coy, “This is a controversial point of view, I accept”, this being his default shtick. Maher absurdly described him as “a young, gay, alive Christopher Hitchens” – a contrarian fly in the ointment, rattling smug liberal certainties – but Hitchens had wit, intellect and principle, while Yiannopoulos has only chutzpah and ruthless opportunism. Understanding Yiannopoulos requires a version of Occam’s Razor: the most obvious answer is the correct one. What does he actually believe in? Nothing except his own brand and the monetisable notoriety that fuels it. That’s Milo’s Razor. Understanding how he got this far is more unnerving.
The Guardian
2: LAST STAND AT STANDING ROCK AS POLICE PREPARE TO EVICT PIPELINE OPPONENTS
IT COULD BE the last stand for those who have braved the freezing winter to remain at the Oceti Sakowin camp, near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. Earlier this month, the Army Corp of engineers issued an evacuation order with a deadline of February 22. The camp sits on a flood plain and authorities say the possibility of camp flooding could be dangerous for Oceti residents and cited the ecological impact on the nearby Cannonball and Missouri rivers. On Wednesday, Feb. 15, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum escalated tensions at the camp when he issued an emergency evacuation order.
The Intercept
1: Uber Opens ‘Urgent Investigation’ Into Sexual Harassment Claims
Sexism in Silicon Valley.
A recent blog post by a former Uber employee is making big waves in Silicon Valley, describing an experience of prolonged and systemic sexual harassment.
Susan Fowler’s LinkedIn page says she worked as a site reliability engineer at Uber from November 2015 to December 2016, and that she left the ride-hailing giant last month for a job at the digital commerce startup Stripe.
The reason she ditched Uber, she wrote in a blog post entitled “Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber,” was because of her “strange, fascinating, and slightly horrifying experience.”
Within the first few weeks of her time at Uber, Fowler claimed she was propositioned for sex by her manager, who she then reported to HR. In turn, upper management and HR told her “that they wouldn’t feel comfortable giving him anything other than a warning and a stern talking-to” because it was the employee’s first offense.
According to Fowler, HR and management were generally insensitive to, if not completely dismissive of, her claims and those of other women at Uber. At different points they apparently revised her performance reviews surreptitiously, allegedly suggested to Fowler that she was the cause of her sexual harassment issues, and threatened to fire her for reporting a manager to HR (a move which Fowler says her CTO later acknowledged was illegal).
Vice News
