Category Archives: regulation

A Free Speech Oral Argument

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(Pun not necessarily intended.)

The Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case of a 14-year-old girl who tried out for, and didn’t make, a varsity cheerleading team and subsequently vented her frustrations in a Snapchat rife with “colorful metaphors.”

The girl’s school punished her with a year-long suspension from cheerleading, she demurred from the punishment, lower courts agreed with her, and the school continued its protest to the Supremes.

Attorney Lisa Blatt, representing the girl’s school, had this, among others, at oral argument, as paraphrased by Just the News:

Schools aren’t trying to police political, religious, or critical expression, or impose the heckler’s veto…. They want to address digital bullying, harassment, and cheating….
A student who is upset at her teacher can safely text her views to friends but not picket the teacher’s house, Blatt told Chief Justice John Roberts: the “manner” of speech is the issue, not the offensiveness of it.

And

[Blatt] rejected the suggestion that students can get in trouble for simply sharing unpopular views: wearing a Confederate flag symbol “alone” is protected, but not using it to “terrorize” a black student.

Blatt seemed unable to address those arguments in detail, however.

What about students or teachers who think a student’s positions on police, politics, or religion are themselves offensive?

What about students or teachers who think a student’s disagreement with another student’s (or teacher’s) positions on police, politics, or religion is harassment or bullying?

What about students who think another student’s wearing of a Confederate flag symbol “alone” terrorizes them?

We’re on a short, slippery, downhill road off the edge of a very high, steep cliff when we begin expanding limits on speech.

What Problem is being Addressed?

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What problem are President Joe Biden (D) and his Progressive-Democrat brethren trying to fix?

It’s not the rescue of an already strongly growing economy. The expansion numbers are:

  • GDP growth for Q3-2020 33.4%, Q4-2020 4.3%, Q1-2021 6.4%
  • unemployment at 6.0% and falling as of March 2021
  • labor force participation rate rising from January 2021 61.4% to March 2021 61.5%
  • rising PMI from Jan 2021 59.2 (itself already quite high) to March 2021 64.7

Not the problems of an already waning threat from the Wuhan Virus situation

  • rapidly declining case rates
  • rapidly declining mortality rates
  • accelerating vaccination rates from Operation Warp Speed, begun in high numbers in late 2020

No, the problem Biden, et al., are trying to fix is the impermanence of Progressive-Democrat power.

That’s what’s behind their attempts to

  • eliminate our nation’s borders
  • seize Federal control over States’ election procedures
  • create, through their administrative state, a permanent welfare state
  • restructure and pack the Supreme Court

Us Neanderthals are Winning

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At least against the Wuhan Virus, especially as compared with States that are our Betters.

Recall that that most renowned and eminent epidemiologist, Doctor President Joseph Robinette Biden (D), pronounced Texas and Florida to be Neanderthals when those States opened up economically, or refused from the jump to “properly” close down, despite the pronounced demands of the Doctor’s and his predecessor’s minions.

According to my second grade arithmetic and Monday last Johns Hopkins University data, Florida and Texas had a combined 63,103 new cases, or roughly 0.0012 new cases per capita.

Pennsylvania, New York, and Michigan, all Progressive-Democrat-run and all Lockdown States, had 97,350 new cases, or roughly 0.0023 new cases per capita—twice the rate of those Neanderthalers.

Maybe it’s a case of Denisovans calling names.

Stuff and Nonsense

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That’s what my grandmother—a much more gracious woman than I ever have been a man—would call things and behaviors that were utter…foolishness.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has signed a law that toughens the penalties for engaging in a variety of acts during riots. Engaging in the riots themselves has long been illegal.

The law, which goes into effect immediately, grants civil legal immunity to people who drive through protesters blocking a road and allows authorities to hold arrested demonstrators from posting bail until after their first court date. The legislation increases the charge for battery on a police officer during a riot and adds language that could force local governments to justify a reduction in law enforcement budgets.
The bill allows people to sue local governments over personal or property damages if they were determined to have interfered with law enforcement response during civil unrest. It also increases penalties for protesters who block roadways or deface public monuments and creates a new crime, “mob intimidation.”

Naturally, the Left is up in arms about the law. Kara Gross, ACLU of Florida Legislative Director and Senior Policy Counsel:

The problem with this bill is that the language is so overbroad and vague…that it captures anybody who is peacefully protesting at a protest that turns violent through no fault of their own. Those individuals who do not engage in any violent conduct under this bill can be arrested and charged with a third-degree felony and face up to five years in prison and loss of voting rights. The whole point of this is to instill fear in Floridians.

Not at all. Those peacefully protesting when their protest turns violent through no fault of their own can leave, and they can show that they were trying to leave if they’re arrested on the way out of the area. It’s their conscious choice to remain or to not try to leave when the violence starts. If they make that choice, they’re no longer peaceful protesters; they’ve created themselves rioters.

Progressive stuff and nonsense.

No Clue

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And doesn’t care. That’s Dr. Anthony Fauci, as he made clear in his…testimony…before the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis last Thursday. Congressman Jim Jordan (R, OH) questioned Fauci regarding when Wuhan Virus (my term, not Jordan’s or Fauci’s) situation would be ending and CDC guideline restrictions lifted.

Fauci insisted that the restrictions would begin to be relaxed

When we get the level of infection in this country low enough that it is not a really high threat[.]

Despite repeated questions from Jordan to define “low enough,” Fauci remained evasive, repeatedly refusing to be specific, to identify the number…what metrics, what measures, he would use to define “low enough.”

The clear meaning is that Fauci has no idea at all of when or under what conditions the CDC would recommend the Biden administration stop usurping Americans’

ability to go to houses of worship, a curfew in Ohio last fall, and restrictions on having guests at their homes.

Nor does Fauci care that he has no idea.

Jordan’s time for questioning in the hearing was five minutes (per House rules for hearings), and that’s how long the video at the link lasts. It’s well worth the hearing; it’ll give a clear understanding of Fauci’s uselessness in government.