Dean Baker describes how he'd reform the law that protects social media corporations like Facebook from being sued over the noxious crap they allow on their platforms. You may recall that "(n)ewspapers and broadcast outlets do not enjoy this protection for third party content," but Mr. Baker splits all the knots here -- he'd repeal protections against lawsuits only for corporations that accept ads or sell personal info; sites that survive on subscriptions or donations would continue to enjoy those protections. These would include colleges, non-profits, and small businesses, of course, but also sites like WordPress and Blogger and Typepad, and that's where the real free speech happens anyway.
When I read about the state of Arizona going way out of its way to convince our Supreme Court to send a man back to death row despite the lack of evidence (and ineffective defense counsel) behind his conviction, I'm reminded of a hundred annoying ticky-tack arguments I've had with right-wingers about how procedure is so, so much more important than justice -- which, sadly, suggests to me that our Supreme Court, as full of ticky-tack judges as any other, will look favorably upon Arizona's request to send Barry Jones back to death row, even though you will find plenty of reason to doubt that he should ever have been convicted in the first place.
Already the right-wingers are whining about Twitter banning Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (E-GA) for spreading lies about COVID vaccines, even though she entirely deserves her banning. If you're tempted to do the same -- perhaps out of a misguided both-sidesism -- recall that a) there are still plenty of social media platforms for right-wing assholes and b) if some liberal wrote an op-ed full of stupid crap, you would be perfectly right to demand that the newspaper should have exerted some editorial control, just as right-wingers will when some liberal writes an op-ed that's not full of stupid crap but just hurts their fee-fees.
Ho hum, the Trump-appointed Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chair is resigning, mainly because the other FDIC members forced a vote on bank mergers. By the time you read exactly why she calls the bank merger vote a "hostile takeover" -- basically, she refused to vote on the matter, and claims the vote is thus illegal, now you try that! -- your reaction will most likely be waaaaaaaaaah. And Ms. McWilliams was explicitly trying to protect banksters' "rights" to merge at will, good Americans be damned! So to her I'd just say don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.
California school superintendent investigates students wearing swastikas, then gets death threats. I believe I have already anticipated the right-wing objection: that these eight white kids who painted swastikas on their torsos were just joking. But if it's "just a joke," then why the death threats? You don't threaten to kill someone for taking offense to your gags, do you? Or do we say that's OK behavior now, just because so many rage-addled right-wingers seem to think it's OK?
Finally, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (E-CA) says Democrats are using the January 6 attempted coup as "partisan political weapon.". Well, the attempted coup was itself a partisan political weapon, so what does he expect? Frankly, I suspect Democrats aren't using January 6 as a partisan political weapon enough. And no, Mr. McCarthy you have not all "said from the start, the actions of that day were lawless and as wrong as wrong can be." I hate gaslighters.
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