Stupid Selfies, and Other Scourges of our Time

Morning, my doves. A group of civil rights and public interest groups released a 2016 internet policy platform, asking the presidential candidates to focus attention on openness and free speech. The coalition, which includes the ACLU, Demand Progress and the United Church of Christ, OC Inc, calls on policymakers to defend the “right to record” law enforcement, strengthen net neutrality, open up spectrum, make broadband universal, and streamline FOIA requests. No tech company signed on to the platform.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain is proving to be "the civil rights community’s greatest bulwark against undoing LGBT protections” in stewarding this year’s Senate defense bill. McCain’s bill "seeks no special nondiscrimination exemptions for religious groups,” unlike the bill being drafted in the House.

And you all know that I love a trainwreck press staff fuck up to haunt my dreams at night, so here’s the award for the most hard-headed, cringe-worthy, head-scratching decision of the year. The Australian PM’s new press manager and another staffer posed with beer in a pub last summer for a selfie taken by a cameraman. That selfie was then sent to the entire traveling press pool on the trip for the then-PM Tony Abbott. Problem was, the trip was to an alcohol-restricted Indigenous community. And the selfie caption read, “Sorry I’m out having a bender with the locals!”

Here’s to empathy, my friends. And dignity. Always dignity.