Don’t make too much of the Biden Administration cancelling seven Alaska National Wildlife Refuge-area gas and oil leases handed out by the Trump Administration in its late 2020 death throes. The Willow project is still going forward, after all, and the Administration has also proposed protecting a mere 40 percent of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, and only from new leases. But seriously, Sen. Sullivan, “(t)his war on Alaska”? Dramatic much?
When I hear that an anti-vaxxer lost a lawsuit against YouTube after it took down his channel, I am reminded that our First Amendment protects us from our government, not media corporations, and that our First Amendment only guarantees free speech, not a platform for that speech, let alone a way to reliably monetize that speech. Also, the plaintiff appears not to have read YouTube’s Terms of Service.
In a peripherally-related note, the notorious One America News network (or OAN) and its “star correspondent” Chanel Rion have settled a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion executive Eric Coomer, whom they alleged told an “Antifa conference call” that “Trump (was) not going to win.” This is not the only lawsuit they have to worry about, and that’s quite immensely heartening! What a stupid lie to run with, though – imagine instilling fear in your viewers about this mysterious organization called Antifa, and then alleging that they conduct conference calls. Over Zoom, I’ll bet!
Resist the urge to be giddy at the news that fascist Florida’s expansion of school voucher programs has resulted in parents using taxpayer money to buy such educational items as big-screen TVs and Disney passes. This is taxpayer money, as I’ve said, and enabling corruption in the name of “education choice” (Gov. DeSantis’s words, of course) is nothing to celebrate. Didn’t know “21st century approaches to learning” meant nothing so much as a new air hockey table, did you? Maybe we should fund public schools properly, instead of passing off crooked gimmicks as bright ideas. And maybe we should dare to call "school choice" a massive welfare handout.
Finally, looks like Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has the right idea about how to handle Republican threats of impeaching President Biden: “Go ahead. Do it, I dare you. If you can find the votes, go ahead, because you’re going to lose. It’s a loser.” Really, we should all respond to Republican attempts to create drama this way. We should also call such things “a big circle jerk on the fringe right,” as Mr. Fetterman does. Note well that the case national Republicans have presented for impeaching Joe Biden is even lamer than the case Pennsylvania Republicans presented for impeaching Larry Krasner.
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