Telegram CEO’s arrest smacks of empty posturing

The arrest in France of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has brought into sharp focus one of the major conflicts of our age. On one hand, we want privacy in our digital lives, which is why we like the kind of end-to-end encryption Telegram promises. On the other, we want the government to be able to stamp out repugnant online activities — like child pornography or terrorist plotting. The reality is that we can’t have our cake and eat it, too.

MAGA’s Trumpbilly Elegy

For the second time this summer, Americans have witnessed a presidential campaign debate unlike anything we’ve seen since the dawning of the Television Age.

Not a value ad: Google’s ad services monopoly needs to end

This week began the federal antitrust trial against Google for alleged monopolistic practices when it comes to the online advertising space, with the Justice Department contending that the company has outsize dominion over what is a lifeline for industries including online publishing. Google, of course, doesn’t see it that way.

As I See It: Supreme Court conduct

There has been a lot of talk about an out-of-control Supreme Court. The court has embarrassed itself, historically (as in Dred Scott) and recently.Two justices have embarrassed the court by accepting outrageous gifts, i.e., millions of dollars. Clarence Thomas, from Harlan Crow, and Samuel Alito from Paul Singer. There is no convincing evidence that these gifts were simple hospitality like an invitation to dinner or a wedding, for which there would normally be some sort of informal reciprocity. These two consistently opined in ways that favored the donor, in some way politically and possibly financially. Persons of great wealth have affairs so intertangled that their interests can be hard to track.

Workers are not better off than they were 4 years ago

The perennial question in presidential elections is, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” For American workers, the answer is, lately, not so much. Too many workers are not better off. Inflation has wiped out average wage gains, unemployment is higher than before, and people face looming Biden policies hostile to freelance work.

The loneliness epidemic has a cure

What is the most important single thing that you can do to heal our national divides and to improve the social and economic mobility of your struggling neighbors?