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Trump watch: Like Donald Trump’s infamous meeting with senior editors and reporters at The New York Times last November, only the full transcript of his recent interview with the editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal (obtained and posted by Politico) can give the complete texture of the president’s mania.
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Perhaps the most manic remark from Trump: “I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them.” The Boy Scouts say they are unaware of any call from their leadership to the White House, BuzzFeed’s Nidhi Prakash reports.
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Many observers, like Kara Swisher of Recode, noted the Journal’s decision to not publish the full transcript of the interview or report on the President’s fact-challenged statements, as well as its telling its own reporters to keep the transcript confidential.
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Top EPA official Elizabeth Southerland announced that she is quitting after 30 years of service, decrying the “temporary trump of myth over truth” and the “Sophie’s choice” embedded in the administration’s executive order requiring the repeal of two regulations for every new one promulgated. “”Should EPA repeal two existing rules protecting infants from neurotoxins in order to promulgate a new rule protecting adults from a newly discovered liver toxin?”, she writes in a biting exit memo.
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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wants his department to redefine its mission, minus any mention of promoting democracy worldwide, Josh Rogin reports for The Washington Post.
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Rogin also reports that the State Department will soon eliminate the www.HumanRights.gov website and stick its content in a more obscure place, www.state.gov/j/drl. Given America’s checkered history (we’ve probably undermined more democracies than we’ve promoted), one could argue that truth in advertising is better—but giving an even bigger green light to rights abusers worldwide is never a good thing.
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Tech and politics: Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer and his wife Connie are pouring lots of money in general operating support—the rarest kind of philanthropic capital—into the nonprofits they are supporting, David Callahan reports for InsidePhilanthropy.com.
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Amazon is joining Apple in bowing to Chinese government demands that it stop letting local customers circumvent the state’s internet controls, Paul Mozur reports for The New York Times.
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Moving in the opposite direction: Mozilla has released “Net Positive” a series of film shorts focused on “privacy, security, love, surveillance and the ever-familiar role of family tech support.”
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The Electronic Privacy Information Center is complaining to the FCC that Google is using credit card data to track whether its online ads are leading to in-store purchases, April Glaser reports for Slate.
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YouTube is sharing more information on the effort it is taking to “fight terror content online.” Most interesting: using Jigsaw’s Redirect Method, “When people search for sensitive keywords on YouTube, they will be redirected towards a playlist of curated YouTube videos that directly confront and debunk violent extremist messages.”
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Creative Commons is mourning the loss of Bassel Khartabil, their Syrian project lead, who was an open source software programmer and teacher who has been missing for more than a year and whose execution by the Syrian regime has now been confirmed.
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Opposition watch: Some big outdoor brands, most notably Patagonia and REI (which has 16 million coop members) are starting to take explicitly political stands in defense of public lands, Abe Streep reports for Outside magazine. What’s driving the change is the Trump administration’s plans to roll back national monuments like Bears Ears in Utah. But as Yves Chouinard, the head of Patagonia, recounts, it’s barely been much of a shift: “The whole outdoor industry is just run by a bunch of weenies,” he told Streep, “And they’re not stepping up. They just suck the life out of outdoor resources and give nothing away.”
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Fifty-six retired generals and admirals have issued a statement opposing President Trump’s ban on transgender troops, saying that it would degrade military readiness, The Hill’s Rebecca Kheel reports. They state, “Patriotic transgender Americans who are serving — and who want to serve — must not be dismissed, deprived of medically necessary health care, or forced to compromise their integrity or hide their identity.”
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Issie Lapowsky reports for Wired on Higher Ground Labs first round of investments. The progressive tech effort, led by Betsy Hoover of 270 Strategies and former Obama White House CTO Andrew McLaughlin is pouring $1.5 million into 10 startups and enrolling them in a five-month accelerator program.
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