The Daily Moth 10-31-19
House votes to formalize impeachment inquiry | Twitter bans political ads on its platform | Top News Briefs: Nationals win World Series; Trump reveals name of Army dog; Pakistan train fire; ISIS names new leader | Underground crypt found on Arkansas School for the Deaf campus | Convo #OurDeafCommunity Event at Gallaudet
[Transcript] Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth! It is Thursday, October 31. Happy Halloween! Ready for news?
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House votes to formalize impeachment inquiry
This morning the House voted on and passed a resolution to formalize the Trump impeachment inquiry process by outlining “ground rules” and to make witnesses’ testimonies public. It also allows Republicans on the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees to subpoena witnesses with the approval of Democrats.
To be clear, this is not a vote to impeach Trump, but is a vote to make the process official. This whole thing started after a whistleblower reported that Trump acted inappropriately in a phone call with Ukraine’s new president, which raised accusations of a quid pro quo in which Trump held back on $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in exchange for a promise of an investigation on Joe Biden’s son’s business dealings in Ukraine.
The vote was divided along party lines, 232 to 196. No Republican voted in favor of it, but two Democrats voted against it, Jeff Van Drew from New Jersey and Collin Peterson from Minnesota.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif) said this was Democrats’ plan from Day 1, that they were a “cult,” and that they had a bizarre obsession with overturning the results of the last presidential election.
President Trump tweeted after the final vote was announced that it was the “Greatest Witch Hunt In American History!”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sad-day-country-dem-house-debates-impeachment-resolution/story?id=66661743
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-votes-resolution-impeachment
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Twitter bans political advertising on its platform
Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey announced yesterday that they would stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. He believes that political messages should earn their reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. He said it is an increasingly risky environment on the internet because of machine learning, micro-targeting, misleading information, and deep fakes.
He said he was confident that politicians or advocates could still reach many on Twitter organically.
So this means that Twitter is not going to allow political campaigns, neither the Democratic presidential candidates or President Trump, or people on any other level of politics, to purchase boosted ads. They will have to post it “normally” and see how many people engage with the post. This also applies to political issues such as ads on abortion, immigration, or climate change.
Dorsey’s decision puts him at odds with Facebook and their CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who allows political ads. Zuckerberg said recently that he was okay with politicians creating ads with misrepresentations or lies because he did not want to be a tech company that decides what things are “100 percent true.” He said he didn’t think people wanted to live in that world.
Last week New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) challenged Zuckerberg in a House committee hearing on their policy by asking if she could falsely advertise that certain Republican politicians voted for the Green New Deal. He said this would be allowed, but said that this would hurt the person paying for the ad because people would see that he or she was lying.
One interesting fact — Axios explained in an article that local broadcast television networks are required under federal law to run political ads, even if they have lies in it.
https://twitter.com/jack/status/1189634377057067008
https://www.axios.com/twitter-anti-facebook-political-ads-add18cac-9295-4129-af84-6a01421b9b60.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/17/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-says-interview-he-fears-erosion-truth-defends-allowing-politicians-lie-ads/
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Top News Briefs: Nationals win World Series; Trump reveals name of Army dog; Pakistan train fire; ISIS names new leader
Here are four top news briefs.
The first — The Washington Nationals won their first World Series title last night by defeating the Houston Astros in Game 7. Pitcher Stephen Strasburg received the World Series MVP trophy. The last time a D.C. team won the World Series was in 1924 when the Washington Senators defeated the New York Giants.
The second news — President Trump reveled the name of the dog that worked with U.S. commandos to kill the leader of ISIS. His name is Conan. He was wounded when the ISIS leader detonated a suicide vest that killed himself and his three children, but the dog will recover. Trump said he will come to the White House sometime next week.
The third news — in Pakistan, at least 71 people died when a passenger train they were on caught fire from a cooking gas stove that exploded. News reports said the flames quickly spread through three rail cars while the train was still moving. Many jumped out of the train, but died. It is illegal to use gas stoves on trains there, but it is said that train officials often don’t enforce the rules.
The fourth news — ISIS has confirmed that their previous leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is dead after a U.S. raid. They announced their new leader as Abdullah Qardash. He is a former officer in Saddam Hussein’s military and his nickname is “The Professor.” He has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/nationals-win-first-world-series-title-storming-back-on-astros-in-game-7-6-2/ar-AAJBkwG
https://www.fox5dc.com/sports/95-years-ago-washington-senators-storm-back-from-3-2-deficit-to-win-games-6-and-7-to-claim-1924-world-series
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/31/trump-confirms-conan-name-dog-raid-killed-al-baghdadi/4107342002/
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/fire-moving-train-kills-16-passengers-central-pakistan-66655827
https://www.foxnews.com/world/pakistan-train-fire-gas-stove
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10252802/isis-new-leader-professor-abdullah-qardash/
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Underground crypt found on Arkansas School for the Deaf campus
There is an underground crypt that was recently found under the campus of the Arkansas School for the Deaf.
The Arkansas Times reported that the crypt could be a part of an old cemetery from the 1800’s to the 1900’s where staff and students were buried on campus.
The crypt was discovered after there was a cave-in at a driveway on campus last summer. School officials thought it was a collapsed culvert, but the hole widened, and they found out that it was not a culvert and called state archaeologists.
The cave-in was near a stone that said, “THIS AREA SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF EMPLOYEES AND PUPILS BURIED HERE.”
The crypt appears to be made of metal and is crushed.
The Superintendent Janet Dickinson told KARK News that they have heard of stories of students who became sick on campus and died, and because their families were very poor, the school decided to bury them on campus.
The school has history that goes back to 1849. The Director of the Arkansas Deaf Heritage Center, J.R. Courtright, told KARK News that he is a third-generation student on campus. His grandmother was a student in the 1930’s and then his father attended the school. He said he has heard of scary stories on campus where something would grab a night watchman.
The hole is now covered and is secure. It has attracted a number of visitors that the school is asking the public to please not come on campus to look at it out of concern for the safety of a nearby elementary school.
KARK News said the hole will be covered up until January, which is when a team of archeologists will come to do more testing. Students will do research on the history of the school to find out how many people were buried on campus.
Ark Times: https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2019/10/23/road-cave-in-at-school-for-the-deaf-may-reveal-burial
KARK: https://www.kark.com/news/newsfeed-now/crypt-found-six-inches-under-the-arkansas-school-for-the-deaf-campus-more-discoveries-expected/
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[Sponsored Post] Convo’s #OurDeafCommunity Event at Gallaudet
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On Saturday night, Convo hosted a #OurDeafCommunity event in a large tent on Gallaudet University in which they premiered a 20-minute film about the history and future of the Gallaudet community and made several announcements products they are working on and plan to release in the future. I was there along with Melmira to provide live-streaming, but here is more footage from Convo.
[Video clips of event].
Alex: After the film was finished, Wayne Betts Jr., Convo’s co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, took the stage. He said Convo feels it is important for the company to contribute to the community, which includes VRS services, developing technology for school safety, and developing resources for the community. He announced a new project they have been working on and will release in 2020, which is a new “Community Website.”
WAYNE BETTS, JR.:
Gallaudet University’s position has sparked many businesses. That’s how powerful community is. It starts with schools as they are large workplaces. It then spreads out with spouses, family members, and friends who also live in the area and start businesses because there are customers around. So we at Convo are asking, “What can we do?” Should it be stuck in the app? We decided to move it out. Look at this logo. This is not an app. It doesn’t require anything. It will be available on a website. For everybody. It means everybody, if you’re curious, can go to the website and you’ll see all the businesses and services by deaf and for deaf.
Alex: Convo said that this would provide the Deaf community with more relevant search results than Google, that it’d be a one-stop resource center, and that the front-page content would be curated so there will “always be something new for you to learn.”
BETTS, JR.:
Look at this here. It means you can explore and learn if there is an article published, if there is a film, or different things. I want you to be constantly discovering things. Businesses will see an increase in customers. I’m hoping for economic power. When we have more economic power, we have more responsibility. We have more money, so we have to invest in our future generations. It’s not just us at Convo. It’s not just Gallaudet. It includes every one of us.
Alex: You can provide your email to get updates when the Community website is available. The sign-up is on ConvoRelay.com/community. I’ve included the link in the transcript.
This was the fifth #OurDeafCommunity event that Convo has done. The four previous events and films were in Austin, Rochester, New England, and Southern California. All included a social event and a film premiere.
Video: www.convorelay.com
Community Website Sign Up: https://www.convorelay.com/community
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That is all for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light!
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Supported by:
Convo [https://convo.click/2mVhM8h]
Gallaudet University: [gallaudet.edu]