Daily Digest |  |
- Democrats Move to Silence Non-Liberal Speech
- Discrimination In Vaccine Distribution
- Conditional ethics
- Shapes of things (20)
- Loose Ends (128—Updated)
| Democrats Move to Silence Non-Liberal Speech Posted: 23 Feb 2021 04:17 PM PST (John Hinderaker) On paper, the Democrats have a tenuous hold on power in Washington. Their president is a cipher with severely diminished mental capacities, the Senate is a 50-50 tie, and they hold the narrowest House majority in decades. Nevertheless, the Democrats see what could be a once in a lifetime opportunity, and are pressing forward with their most radical agenda since they seceded in 1861. Among other things, the Democrats are trying to repeal, in effect, the First Amendment, by barring conservative speech–or, rather, speech that is not consistently left-wing–from the public square. We have seen this in the moves against conservatives and other independent voices by Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Go Fund Me and other tech titans. While these companies are no doubt motivated in part by ideology in putting their thumbs on the scale of public discourse, the truth is more sinister than that. The major tech platforms are monopolies with obvious antitrust vulnerabilities, as we saw when the Trump administration brought an enforcement action against Facebook that seeks the divestiture of Instagram. The Democrats have not only urged tech platforms to silence conservatives, they are at least implicitly (God knows what is said in private) holding out the prospect of immunity from antitrust enforcement, which means many billions more in profits. This is the ultimate in 21st-century corruption. But it gets worse: the Democrats are also trying to drive independent voices off the more traditional broadcast and cable platforms. Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center sent out an email today that included this:
Yes, please do! I have been following politics closely for more than five decades, and the Democratic Party’s war on freedom of speech is the most sinister thing I have witnessed in that time. What is truly chilling is how few Democrats are willing to stand up for freedom. I know of three: Tulsi Gabbard, Matt Taibai and Glenn Greenwald. Kudos to them, but it is shocking that not a single current Democrat office-holder is, as best we can tell, in favor of free speech. We are facing an existential threat to our traditional liberties.     |
| Discrimination In Vaccine Distribution Posted: 23 Feb 2021 03:46 PM PST (John Hinderaker) Scott has chronicled the COVID fiasco here in Minnesota in his “Coronavirus In One State” series. Now that the focus has shifted to getting at-risk people vaccinated, our state government is finding new ways to drop the ball, or worse. I got an email today from a guy who said that he had started to fill out the Minnesota Department of Health’s online vaccine sign-up form, but discontinued the effort when he had to answer seemingly-irrelevant questions about his race and sexual orientation. I was surprised and checked it out. This is what I found:
These are, indeed, required fields, as I found when I tried to proceed with the registration without filling them out:
Why does the State of Minnesota need to know your race, “gender” and sexual preference before scheduling you for a covid shot? There are only two possibilities: either the state intends to use this information to discriminate in distributing the vaccine, or else it is collecting irrelevant information for some collateral and likely nefarious purpose. That question was answered earlier today when the Tim Walz administration “announced plans to expand vaccination efforts to low-income groups and minority communities,” i.e., its intention to discriminate. And while it apparently wasn’t covered in today’s announcement, it is reasonable to conclude that the Walz administration intends to discriminate in favor of gay and transgender residents as well. Otherwise, why ask the question? It isn’t easy to lower my opinion of the Walz administration, but its invidious discrimination in the distribution of the covid vaccine did just that.   |
| Posted: 23 Feb 2021 10:33 AM PST (Paul Mirengoff) We have written about several problematic Biden nominees for high level positions: Neera Tanden (who is probably not going to make it), Xavier Becerra (who might not), and two DOJ nominees, Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke (neither of whom should make it). Vivek Murthy, Biden’s selection for Surgeon General is another nominee to watch. Murthy, whose hearing is on Thursday, served as Surgeon General under President Obama. It’s impossible to claim that he’s not qualified to hold that position now. However, Republicans will likely be united, or close to it, in opposing Murthy’s confirmation because of what he did as surgeon general. Most notably, Murthy advocated treating gun violence as a public health problem. That may well be reason enough to oppose him if, like me, you believe this amounts to straying well outside of the Surgeon General’s lane. But Democrats control the Senate, so the real question is how Senate Dems view Murthy. Some may have concerns about him. Here’s why:
My view is that Murthy’s ability to rake in fees for consulting and speaking is not grounds for nixing his nomination. There’s nothing unethical about what Murthy did. It’s true, apparently, that much of the high-paying work Murthy picked up came after Joe Biden, with whom Murthy has a close relationship, all but clinched the nomination. But it’s still possible that Murthy provided real medical value to Carnival and Airbnb. Stranger things have happened. Regardless, Murthy has pledged that, if confirmed, he will not participate in matters involving his former clients for one year unless authorized to do so, and in the case of certain matters, for two years. This kind of pledge has, until recently at least, been good enough to satisfy Senators from both parties. The problem for some Senate Democrats is their stance on such questions when Trump nominees were before them. The Washington Post observes:
In the end, the Post expects Murthy to be confirmed on a strict party line vote, with Kamala Harris breaking the tie. That sounds about right. At one level, this is reassuring. It’s good to be reminded that Democrats don’t really have anything against an entrepreneurial guy making big bucks. It’s just unfortunate that their tolerance for this extends only to fellow Democrats.   |
| Posted: 23 Feb 2021 08:34 AM PST (Scott Johnson) Yesterday we noted in part 18 that Amazon had silently removed Ryan Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally. Steve has related observations in the adjacent post. Anderson’s book fails to conform to the woke party line now enforced by Big Tech. What does Amazon have to say about what it has done? I thought readers might be interested to know that Amazon isn’t talking — isn’t talking so far, anyway (tweet below).
  |
| Posted: 23 Feb 2021 08:24 AM PST (Steven Hayward) • As Ronald Reagan liked to say, when politicians feel the heat, they see the light.
Chaser: From a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association back in November: “The decision to close US public primary schools in the early months of 2020 may be associated with a decrease in life expectancy for US children.” Exit question: Why do Democrats and teachers unions hate children so much? • What’s behind the exposé of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo? Normally you’d expect a tough pol like Cuomo to keep his troops in line, and not get blindsided by state Attorney General Letitia James and his health secretary Melissa DeRosa subsequently blurting out to legislators that Cuomo had falsified the number of COVID deaths in nursing homes, let alone face a firestorm now from his own party. My simple theory is that there are plenty of Democrats in New York who can’t stand Cuomo (quite aside from Major Warren “De Blasio” Wilhelm) and who would like to bring him down—either as a future presidential candidate or even his prospects for re-election to another term as governor next year. In other words, this is an inside job. Maybe Attorney General James wants him out of the way so she can run for governor next year? Couldn’t happen to a nastier thug. • In a blatant capitulation to leftist demands for censorship, Amazon has stopped selling Ryan Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. You can still buy it directly from Encounter Books, and Ryan reports that the publicity from Amazon’s deplorable decision has actually given the book a sales bump—it has sold out on Barnes & Noble. (And needless to say, everyone should do their online book shopping from Barnes & Noble and boycott Amazon.) I suspect there was a strong lobbying campaign directed at Amazon, possibly emanating from the Center for American Progress, to de-platform Ryan’s book. (In case you missed it, you can take in my podcast with Ryan from 2018 about the book here.) For the time being, Amazon is still selling Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, but you should start your countdown clock to see how long before Amazon removes it, too. UPDATE—Ryan Anderson has written about the matter over at First Things:
  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Power LinePower Line. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment