Bidens’ China ties grow more evident, as does China’s threat to U.S.
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With gratitude,
Mike
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
Free Speech Victory
In a welcome victory for free speech rights, Federal Judge Andrew Carter Jr. issued a preliminary injunction against New York’s new “Hateful Conduct Law,” finding it to be just the latest of a series of unconstitutional state laws passed in Albany.
The law bars “hateful conduct” on social media, defined as efforts “to vilify, humiliate, or incite violence against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.” It also requires social media platforms to have a mechanism for dealing with such conduct.
The judge pointed out that even the state admitted it might have trouble withstanding a challenge. He noted that words like “vilify” and “humiliate” are vague and open to interpretation, creating the opportunity for widespread censorship, and that free speech protects even the right to express thoughts that other people might find hateful. In short, the best guardian against hate speech isn’t censorship, it’s raising your kids right so they don’t go around hating other people.
Law Prof. Jonathan Turley has a lot more on this law and the case at the link above, along with the depressing news that, as with rulings that New York gun laws are unconstitutional, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s immediate response was to vow to find some way to get around the First Amendment and try again. Also depressing: Turley’s observation that Democrats in places like New York do this over and over because they know that no matter how many times they trample on the Constitution, they will pay no political price for it. It will likely even make them more popular with people who cheer politicians for trying to take away their own constitutional rights.
Rare bipartisan agreement highlights long term health dangers
The toxic chemical spill and fire caused by the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, is so bad that it’s even brought Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Ilhan Omar into agreement that residents are correct to be very concerned about their longterm health and well-being. That must be something that’s glaringly obvious to have those two singing from the same hymn book.
Unfortunately, as the citizens are left in an environmental disaster that they describe as like their town being nuked, watching their animals die, worrying about what might be happening to themselves and their kids, and thinking of moving out (but who would buy their houses?), Omar and other Democrats immediately shattered the rare consensus by trying to blame the derailment on former President Trump for changing rail safety rules. They conveniently overlook the fact that they could have changed the rules at any time during the past two years when they controlled the House, Senate and White House. Also, the rules changed under Trump had nothing to do with what caused the Ohio train to derail or with the cargo it was carrying.
A Fox News reporter ran the “blame Trump” excuse past some East Palestine residents, and the consensus was that it’s ridiculous blame-shifting. But that’s not stopping “Transportation Secretary” Pete Buttigieg from trying it, as his presidential ambitions are derailing faster than the train did. He’s being blasted from all sides as a “complete embarrassment” and “a horrid hire” for letting 10 days go by without visiting the town, and then taking to Twitter to blame Trump and tout the ways he’s improved rail safety.
Buttigieg may be the greatest example of our lifetimes of the concept of “failing upward”: continuing to get promoted, no matter how bad a job you did in your last position. He went from small town mayor to his present Cabinet level office with zero qualifications for it and has yet to attain any. Yet many in the Democratic Party and the media (but I repeat myself) were seriously discussing him as a leading presidential contender. That shows two things: (1.) the incredible weakness of the field, and (2.) the Democrats’ obsession with checking off identity boxes and valuing personality and charisma over ability and experience.
Let’s hope and pray that we see only one more train derailment and that it’s the derailment of the “Buttigieg For President” train.
In Case You Missed It (The Serious Version)
Sen. J.D. Vance showed during Biden FCC Commission nominee Gigi Sohn’s Senate confirmation exactly why she has no business making rules governing media and Americans’ freedom of speech. He hauled up her old racist, leftist, politically-divisive tweets. He then reversed them to show that if someone had tweeted the same horrible things about people on the left that she tweeted about people on the right, the Democrats wouldn’t allow them anywhere near the FCC.
Of course, this is an academic point, since Democrats don't mind demonizing Republicans, and Biden is trying to politicize and weaponize the FCC, just as he’s done with the FBI, DOJ and IRS. He and Sohn need to be stopped, and you’d think that even the Democrats would realize what a bad precedent politicizing the FCC is. Not just on the general principle that it’s wrong, but for the fact that when they fall out of power, it could be used against them, just as their lack of foresight in changing Congressional rules keeps coming back to bite them.
Unfortunately for Americans, and as proven by our $32 trillion national debt and problems funding Social Security and Medicare, we have a government that’s largely controlled by people who are really, really bad at thinking ahead.
Another example of stunning incompetence
Speaking of the stunning incompetence of Biden appointees, that apparently applies even down to the level of the Chargé d’Affaires of the U.S. Mission to Afghanistan, who seems to have no concept of what life is like for women under the brutal Taliban regime. Instead, she’s tweeting about it the way a 15-year-old girl would tweet about Lizzo and Beyonce. Trust me, this is not a parody account, although I fervently wish it were. This woman makes Pete Buttigieg look qualified.
While she’s deleting her Twitter account and pulling an all-nighter to learn about Afghanistan, she might want to read this article.
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-730913
It’s about how Taliban members are complaining of being bored with actually having to run Afghanistan. They used to enjoy carefree lives of waging jihad, planning attacks, attacking people, and other fun stuff. They had no responsibilities. Now, if people are hungry, they expect them to do something about it, aside from killing them. They whine that they’re stuck behind desks at computers all day to earn a paycheck, and one said they’re getting addicted to the Internet, especially Twitter.
If they continue on this trajectory, the Taliban will evolve from young violent radicals to bored, useless, Twitter-addicted bureaucrats. Then Afghanistan will finally have a government just like ours.