URLs du Jour

2019-06-12

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  • At National Review, Alexandra DeSanctis notes a strange, but convenient, disconnect in the rhetoric of our progressive friends. Abortion Politics: Progressives Use Corporate Influence.

    In the wake of outrage over abortion restrictions, corporations can be people once again. Afraid of losing access to “reproductive rights,” progressives have rediscovered their fondness for using corporate influence to cow their moral inferiors into submission.

    The latest culprit in need of chastisement is the pro-life movement, which after decades of persistent work has sustained several consecutive months of policy success, passing legislation in state after state to limit the killing of unborn human beings.

    There's a strange silence of the use of corporate money to influence political questions, when the questions are being influenced by the correct corporations in the correct way.


  • At the Free Beacon, Jeffrey Cimmino describes the vacuum chamber between the ears of a presidential candidate: Gillibrand Compares Pro-Life Viewpoint to Racism, Suggests Pro-Life Beliefs Are 'Not Acceptable'.

    Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) compared pro-life beliefs to racism and suggested the pro-life viewpoint is "not acceptable" during an interview with the Des Moines Register.

    Gillibrand's comments came in response to a question about if having a litmus test for judicial nominees would threaten judicial independence. The senator has promised to only appoint justices who would uphold Roe v. Wade.

    "I think there's some issues that have such moral clarity that we have as a society decided that the other side is not acceptable. Imagine saying that it's okay to appoint a judge who's racist or anti-Semitic or homophobic. Asking someone to appoint someone who takes away basic human rights of any group of people in America—I don't think that those are political issues anymore," Gillibrand said.

    Conversations and discussions with people who view baby-killing as one of the "basic human rights" cannot be had.


  • Reason's Nick Gillespie describes the latest outrage committed in Bill DeBlasio's domain: New York City Landmarks Historic Bookstore The Strand Over Owner’s Objections.

    New York City's Landmarks Preservation Committee (LPC) just wouldn't take no for an answer. The group has conferred landmark status on the 119-year-old building at 826 Broadway, which has housed The Strand Bookstore since 1956. The owners of The Strand bought the building in the late 1990s and the third-generation owner of the store, Nancy Bass Wyden, opposed the action, telling Reason earlier this year:

    The Strand is not going anywhere. There's no need to protect it. Our family's been a great steward of the building. Landmarking would add another component of government. You add bureaucracy, you add committees, you add people having opinions about what we should do inside the store as well as outside the store. And that does not allow me the flexibility to change with the retail book environment and to serve our customers.

    Were I running Reason's website I would have been sorely tempted to put the word "owner" in sneer quotes in the headline. When the government can take over important decisions about your property, you don't really "own" it as much as you used to.

    (If you can't get to 826 Broadway, you can nevertheless fake it by ordering our Amazon Product du Jour.)


  • Scott Rasmussen reports on poll results at the Daily Wire: Will YouTube Censor Opposing Political Views?. You may not care about the poll results, but there's a valuable summary of the latest:

    Last week, YouTube announced sweeping changes to how it handles user content that it deems "supremacist," "hateful," or "harmful" to the community — and very few voters are confident that the platform will end up applying its new rules fairly.

    "YouTube has always had rules of the road, including a longstanding policy against hate speech," the company announced in a statement last week. "Today, we're taking another step in our hate speech policy by specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status."

    The announcement came the same day that YouTube revealed that it had officially demonetized all of the videos produced by conservative comedian and commentator Steven Crowder because of what appears to be a new interpretation of its Community Guidelines that takes into account "harms" to the "broader community."

    "Even if a creator's content doesn't violate our community guidelines, we will take a look at the broader context and impact, and if their behavior is egregious and harms the broader community, we may take action," YouTube explained in a statement Wednesday. "In the case of Crowder's channel, a thorough review over the weekend found that individually, the flagged videos did not violate our Community Guidelines. However, in the subsequent days, we saw the widespread harm to the YouTube community resulting from the ongoing pattern of egregious behavior, took a deeper look, and made the decision to suspend monetization. In order to be considered for reinstatement, all relevant issues with the channel need to be addressed, including any videos that violate our policies, as well as things like offensive merchandise."

    You would be hard pressed to find a more weaselly-worded statement. I would have gone with a more honest: "Never mind our 'guidelines'. We'll do whatever we feel like doing."


  • My local paper, Foster's Daily Democrat, reports on the important area news: Free the Nipple volunteer earns President's Award.

    Maggie Fisher works daily toward her goal of bringing equality to women who desire to go topless in public places like the beach, the same as men.

    In essence, she is working to Free the Nipple, the name of the organization she volunteers for in New Hampshire.

    With FTN NH, Fisher logged 536 volunteer hours in the past year, and she has been awarded the President’s Volunteer Service Gold Medal Award. Many of her volunteer hours were spent engaging with the public on social media platforms by communicating with those who agree and disagree with FTN’s views on female toplessness in public as well as those who aren’t sure at what to think.

    That's President Trump issuing the award, folks.

    And yes, you can count as "volunteer hours" doing your "social media".


  • And finally, Mr. Ramirez cartoons on the Silicon Valley Monopoly.

    Silicon Valley Monopoly

    I'm OK with Google, but Ramirez is brilliant.


Last Modified 2024-02-02 4:52 AM EDT