Tag Archives: free speech

“every company should be free to support what they want”

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That’s part of the typical response of Floridians regarding Governor Ron DeSantis’ (R) veto of the Tampa Bay Rays’ training facility being built with taxpayer money, at least as reported by Fox News.

After vetoing the funding, DeSantis said Friday that he doesn’t “support giving taxpayer dollars to professional sports stadiums” and that “it’s inappropriate to subsidize political activism of a private corporation.”

Most Floridians agree with the first part of DeSantis’ statement that taxpayer money shouldn’t be spent on a private sports facility.  Many—most?—disagree with the last part.

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Disinformation

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…about his new Truth Division Disinformation Governance Board.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said “there’s no question” he could have more effectively communicated the purpose of his newly-created “disinformation” board….

Mayorkas also said that his

Disinformation Governance Board [is] to combat online disinformation….

Of course, it is. And it’s the Biden-Harris administration personnel and Mayorkas who will decide what is truth and what is fiction and who will dictate via that Truther Board what we American citizens will be permitted to hear, and it’s the Biden-Harris administration personnel and Mayorkas who will tell us how to evaluate what their Board allows to be passed.

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Two Examples of Progressive-Democrats’ Assault on Free Speech

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California doesn’t want anyone to contradict the State’s preferred narrative regarding the Wuhan Virus—not even medical experts.

Disagreement with the “contemporary scientific consensus” on COVID-19 issues could be deemed “unprofessional conduct” for California doctors.
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The bill, which was cowritten by five other California Assembly and Senate members, goes beyond regulating how California doctors can treat their own patients. It opens their statements about COVID—public or private—to review by the Medical Board of California and the Osteopathic Medical Board of California, with possible sanctions to follow.

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The Lady [sic] Demonstrates Her Critics’ Point

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University of California, Berkeley’s, Associate Director for its Center for Equity, Gender & Leadership Genevieve Macfarlane Smith succeeded in this with her letter in The Wall Street Journal‘s Letters section last Thursday. Smith began by complaining

Lawrence Krauss writes, “I have a hard time understanding how people can be so hurt by the use of some words and names.”

Then she proceeded to make Krauss’ point for him.

Take “illegal alien”: This term brands a person “illegal” and implies they’re not human but “alien.” Beyond dehumanizing, the term is imprecise: It implies criminality, but lacking immigration documents is a civil, not criminal, offense.

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Censorship in New York State

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Now the wonders of the New York State Senate want to ban, formally by statute, speech of which they disapprove.

A New York Senate bill if passed would criminalize the promotion of content that “includes a false statement of fact or fraudulent medical theory that is likely to endanger the safety or health of the public.”

This is rank censorship. Whose definition of “likely?” Whose definition of “fraudulent theory?”

Here are just a few items that are threatened by this censorship:

  • Advertising
  • Political ads/speech
  • Satire
  • Comedy
  • Ridicule
  • Exaggeration for effect
  • Irony
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Government Subsidies for Local Newspapers

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Dean Ridings, CEO of an organization self-absorbedly called America’s Newspapers, thinks it’s a terrific idea that the Federal government (presumably, government at any level) should…subsidize…local newspapers.

The Local Journalism Sustainability Act will provide the local news industry time to continue its transition to a more digital future and to work out a better arrangement, either through legislation or other means, to be paid when Google and Facebook use its content. It is not a permanent handout.

It is not a permanent handout. That’s just risible; Ridings knows better. It would be both a handout and permanent.

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Cowardice

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Nadia Murad, sold into sex slavery by Daesh when she was 14, escaped that existence and wrote a book about it: The Last Girl: My Story Of Captivity (due out next February).

She was scheduled to speak with students from some of the 600 schools that are part of the Toronto District School Board about her book and the life it describes, but her presentation and discussion were canceled by Helen Fisher, one of the board’s Superintendents of Education.

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Government Press

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That’s another item buried in President Joe Biden’s (D) and his Progressive-Democratic Party syndicate’s reconciliation bill.

The Local Journalism Sustainability Act (LJSA), first introduced in July, would provide a local media advertising credit of up to $5,000 in the first year and up to $2,500 in the next four years, covering 80% of advertising costs in the first year and 50% in the following four years.
Other elements of the bill would provide a federal tax credit to local media outlets that hire local news reporters, covering half of compensation up to $50,000 in the first year, and 30% of compensation up to $50,000 in the following four years. To be eligible, reporters would need to meet a minimum of 100 hours of work per quarter.

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Political Censorship

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Mark Zuckerberg is at it again. This time he deleted a Republican gubernatorial candidate’s—a sitting governor’s, yet—Facebook campaign page. The campaign page was Alabama Governor Kay Ivey’s, and it’s no secret that her Conservative positions are anathema to the woke Zuckerberg and his censoring minions. Ivey thinks Zuckerberg’s Facebook censorship stemmed from her opposition to vaccine mandates.

The messages Zuckerberg’s censors sent to Ivey, though, consisted of these carefully uninformative items:

And those details:

Because being anti-vaccine mandate is somehow…graphic? Hateful? Harassing? Bullying? Really? Or maybe it’s related to sexual activity/exploitation? Nudity?

Wow.

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Censorship and Timidity

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YouTube censored took Alexei Navalny’s material down from the video sharing social media platform ahead of the Russian “election” of Vladimir Putin to yet another term as President. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, in an interview with Bloomberg refused to say whether she ordered the material removed at the behest of Putin.

Bloomberg: Navalny said that YouTube deleted a video—one of his videos. Was that at the request of the Russian government?
Wojcicki: I mean, we certainly, we certainly get requests from government. Umm, and, and we look and consider what, you know, why are we getting the request, what’s actually happening on the ground, umm, and based on a whole bunch of different factors, we make a decision. We don’t always, those are not always requests that make sense for us to honor, but in certain cases, we will honor them, um, in that country.

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