Reading List: December 31

Time to close the door on 2016.

Glenn Greenwald takes on The Washington Post’s hysterical reaction to unsubstantiated reports about Russian hacking of the Vermont electrical grid. The only problem? It didn’t happen.

There was no “penetration of the U.S. electricity grid.” The truth was undramatic and banal. Burlington Electric, after receiving a Homeland Security notice sent to all U.S. utility companies about the malware code found in the DNC system, searched all their computers and found the code in a single laptop that was not connected to the electric grid.

Alexander Fine pens a Medium essay on what kind of consumption is acceptable in our culture — and what kind is not.

Where does this difference in tone come from and what does it mean? Surely, Couponing could easily depict a freakshow of individuals poisoned by the hunt of a bargain in the same way that Cheapskates does. We are given brief moments of how the show could dive into this, often through brief interviews with family members. However, extreme couponing is seen by those around its practitioners as less of a character fault than being a cheapskate. At worst the family members see it as an all consuming hobby that is worth putting up with for its tangible benefits.

The state of Wisconsin no longer holds that humans are responsible for climate change, Eve Peyser reports for Gizmodo.

The government site now reads, “As it has done throughout the centuries, the earth is going through a change. The reasons for this change at this particular time in the earth’s long history are being debated.”

(It’s not.)

At Paste, Roqayah Chamseddine looks at the harassment Muslims face traveling by air in the United States.

To say that Muslim travellers have been forced into becoming disturbingly acclimated with the phenomenon commonly known as ‘flying while Muslim’ — or situations involving bigotry, and expressions of bias directed towards Muslims as they travel by air — is an understatement. From customary “random” pat-downs and secondary screenings to invasive questions — and the likelihood of being thrown off your flight for doing anything remotely foreign — to flight attendants and passengers who are threatened by the sound of anything other than English, it’s a constant battle.

Also at Paste, Donald T. McCarthy looks at Russian interference — if any — in the election and the reaction from liberal media figures. McCarthy’s report, in particular his accurate assessment of Sarah Kendzior’s fantastical vision of Trump as a KGB agent, have gotten him some heat. But he’s been nothing but accurate here.

Sadly, the Clinton loss has blinded many and pundits are eagerly coming up with increasingly ridiculous theories involving Trump and Russia. On Twitter, writer Sarah Kendzior tried to claim that Trump was a KGB sleeper cell operative going back to the late 1980s. She then went onto Joy Reid’s MSNBC show to make the same claims with a panel of likeminded individuals. That any of this can be taken as serious is a true detriment to left wing discourse in America.

Finally, the last Chapo Trap House for the year features Kath Barbadoro and a reading of Ben Shapiro’s terrible, terrible novel.

Happy New Year!