Attorney General says the Justice Department is considering changing policies on subpoenaing news organizations in its crackdown on government leakers, raising the potential for more prying into journalists’ phone records or emails. Vice President Pence responds to New York Times report on his 2020 plans with attack on media for “fake news” and attempting to “divide this Administration.” Politico spells out the helpful role of the Trump Administration’s pick to head the Federal Communications Commission in making possible a deal for Sinclair Broadcast Group to vastly expand its conservative TV network. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post look at the level of lying from the White House and conclude it is unprecedented.  Male Google software engineer posts call to end company campaigns for gender and racial diversity (women prefer jobs in “social and artistic” areas, he asserts) and focus instead on “ideological diversity.” -Dru Menaker, Chief Operating Officer

U.S.

What Justice Department leak review could mean for the media
Existing guidelines provide broad protections from subpoenas and government monitoring for journalists engaged in “newsgathering activities.” Media organizations and the Justice Department reached those agreements after years of negotiations following a string of controversial moves by the FBI that targeted journalists.
CNN

Mike Pence Rejects Report That He Is Positioning for 2020
“Whatever fake news may come our way, my entire team will continue to focus all our efforts to advance the president’s agenda and see him re-elected in 2020,” Pence said in a statement. Danielle Rhoades Ha, a Times spokeswoman, responded: “We are confident in the accuracy of our reporting and will let the story speak for itself.”
NEW YORK TIMES

How Trump’s FCC aided Sinclair’s expansion
Sinclair Broadcast Group is expanding its conservative-leaning television empire into nearly three-quarters of American households—but its aggressive takeover of the airwaves wouldn’t have been possible without help from President Donald Trump’s chief at the Federal Communications Commission.
POLITICO

Many Politicians Lie. But Trump Has Elevated the Art of Fabrication.
Fabrications have long been a part of American politics. Politicians lie to puff themselves up, burnish their résumés, and cover up misdeeds. Trump, historians and consultants in both parties agree, appears to have taken what the writer Hannah Arendt once called “the conflict between truth and politics” to an entirely new level.
NEW YORK TIMES

Here’s a sword, General Kelly. Use it on the White House lies.
Gen. Kelly was just joking, of course, when he handed Trump a saber at a U.S. Coast Guard Academy ceremony and suggested: “Use that on the press, sir.” But can the general take on the hardest job of all—hacking through the thicket of lies that the Trump White House produces?
WASHINGTON POST

Attitudes towards the mainstream media take an unconstitutional turn
Despite the Republican tradition of deriding the national media and its liberal tendencies, Lamar Smith’s (R-TX) words from the House floor stood out. “Better to get your news directly from the president—in fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.” Across the country Republicans are taking the edict to heart.
THE ECONOMIST

These Americans beat Donald Trump and saved Obamacare. They say they can do it again
Against all odds, mothers, people with disabilities, and progressive activists convinced Republican senators to abandon their signature promise. Thousands of activists and average Americans believe they’ve found a rough formula to beat Trump the next time, too.
TORONTO STAR

Google employee’s leaked anti-diversity memo sparks evaluation of tech culture
An internal memo criticizing Google’s attempts to promote women in engineering was made public on Saturday, sparking a debate within the tech community about the values it defends. In the memo, an unnamed employee argued that Google’s diversity efforts are doomed to fail due to biological differences between genders that render women less suited to engineering.
PBS NEWSHOUR

Behind Berkeley’s Semester of Hate
When anti-fascist activists meet alt-right organizers and provocateurs on college campuses, sparks fly. Students from both sides at Berkeley, seen by many as the epicenter of the divide, discuss their political journeys.
NEW YORK TIMES

 
Global

Strasbourg Court Freezes Deportation Of Novaya Gazeta Journalist
The European Court of Human Rights has issued an extraordinary order barring the transfer of Ali Feruz, a Russian-born journalist for the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, to Uzbekistan, pending the resolution of his appeal to the court.
RADIO FREE EUROPE/ RADIO LIBERTY

2 members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot detained
Two members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot were detained Monday after a protest outside the prison colony in Siberia’s Yakutia where Oleg Sentsov is serving his sentence, and put a banner on a nearby bridge reading “Free Sentsov!”
ASSOCIATED PRESS

As Kenya’s Vote Nears, Fear That ‘Fake News’ May Fuel Real Bloodshed
Misleading reports combined with a shaky trust in the electoral process—a third of Kenyans have “no trust at all” in the fairness of the electoral commission, according to a nationwide opinion poll—could set off a rerun of the violence seen after the 2007 election.
NEW YORK TIMES

Historians and writers from around the world come to the defense of Yuri Dmitriev
Historian Yury Dmitriev, arrested on charges his lawyers say have no legal grounds, is the chairman of the Karelian branch of the Memorial Society, editor of the Book of Remembrance, secretary of the Petrozavodsk commission for the rights of victims of political repression, and the founder of several memorial sites in former gulags.
COLTA

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