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Aug 22, 2017

08/22/2017: "I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet."

The CEO of an important but semiobscure technology company sent an all-staff email last week. Before Charlottesville, that wouldn’t be news, but this note was a little different: “I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. … It was a decision I could make because I’m the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company.” The “them” in this case is The Daily Stormer, a white supremacist site. “Having made that decision,” Matthew Prince continued, “we now need to talk about why it is so dangerous.” Today, we called up Prince to do just that. Then: If chart performance and YouTube streams are any indication, and most would say they are, “Despacito” by Puerto Rican stars Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee is the song of the summer. But will its success spill over into tourism dollars for the beleaguered territory? Finally: Oregon becomes the first state add an extra tax on bikes.

White nationalist Richard Spencer (center) and his supporters clash with Virginia State Police in Emancipation Park after the "Unite the Right" rally was declared an unlawful gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia.
White nationalist Richard Spencer (center) and his supporters clash with Virginia State Police in Emancipation Park after the "Unite the Right" rally was declared an unlawful gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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The CEO of an important but semiobscure technology company sent an all-staff email last week. Before Charlottesville, that wouldn’t be news, but this note was a little different: “I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. … It was a decision I could make because I’m the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company.” The “them” in this case is The Daily Stormer, a white supremacist site. “Having made that decision,” Matthew Prince continued, “we now need to talk about why it is so dangerous.” Today, we called up Prince to do just that. Then: If chart performance and YouTube streams are any indication, and most would say they are, “Despacito” by Puerto Rican stars Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee is the song of the summer. But will its success spill over into tourism dollars for the beleaguered territory? Finally: Oregon becomes the first state add an extra tax on bikes.

08/22/2017: "I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet."