Summary: *This is the last episode to be released on The Moral Trigger feed. All new episodes will be uploaded to Beyond The Lede's own stream.* In “the Lede”, Mike (@mikeskinnner) and Patrick (@PatrickFO) cover three important news stories that encapsulate a lot of what’s going on in our country, in general. We cover the increased bellicosity between President Trump and the North Korean regime under Kim Jong Un. Second, we give our opinion about the Google memo, produced by James Damore, which caused a lot of varying outrage, both from the left and right. Is Google silencing diverse opinions that happen to be a bit conservative? Is his science correct? Should he have been fired? Finally, we cover the chaotic mess that was the Charlottesville protests, on Saturday August 12. We have neo-Nazis on the scene. We had antifascists protestors, BlackLivesMatter proponents. All of this happening just seven months into the new presidency. In “beyond the lede,” Mike discusses the traditional debate format and how its internally problematic to facilitate ideas and discussion. Patrick brings up a jaw-dropping Atlantic article called “Innocence is Irrelevant.” Stuff we referenced: “North Korea’s ‘not quite’ ICBM can’t hit the lower 48 states,” Theodore A. Postol, Markus Schiller, Robert Schmucker, TheBulletin.org (August 11, 2017). “Read the Google Diversity Memo that everyone is freaking out about,” Sean Davis, TheFederalist.com (August 8). “White Nationalist Protest Leads To Deadly Violence,” Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and Brian M. Rosenthal, The New York Times (August 13, 2017). “Nork Agonistes,” Jonah Goldberg, National Review (August 11, 2017). “Over half of Google employees polled say the web giant shouldn't have fired the engineer behind the controversial memo,” Julie Bort, Business Insider (August 9th, 2017). Recommendations: Pat’s rec: “Innocence is Irrelevant,” Emily Yoffe, The Atlantic (September 2017). Mike’s rec: Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast. Specifically, episode 59 “The Destroyer of Worlds” about the Cold War. Image Credit: Reuters
