As part of the western response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, several regimes acted on February 26 to exclude certain Russian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) network. As of March 1, Reuters reports, SWIFT says it’s awaiting a list of the sanctioned banks so that it can cut them off.… Read more ...
At this point in my life, I’ve been consistently opposed to war for about twice as long as I spent as a Marine infantryman (with precisely the attitude toward war you would expect). The change was incremental and took a few years, but I consider my decision to march in the streets against the 2003 US invasion of Iraq to have been moral, and my decision to march in formation toward participation in the 1991 Gulf War to have been immoral.… Read more ...
When debating immigration policy with people who have deluded themselves into believing that it’s any of their business where other people choose to live or work, I run into a lot of bad arguments. Of all those arguments, probably the silliest is “but they don’t speak English.”
The simplest, and most appropriate response to that argument comes from comedian Doug Stanhope: “Then don’t talk to ’em.”… Read more ...
On February 10, the US Senate’s Judiciary Committee advanced the EARN IT (Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies) Act, setting it up for possible adoption as a free-standing bill or, more likely, as a last-minute sneak amendment to one of Congress’s periodic so-called “must pass” legislative packages.
An earlier version of EARN IT fortunately failed to pass in 2020 after civil liberties groups brought heavy public pressure to bear against it. … Read more ...
Every ten years, based on the results of the decennial US census, state legislatures redraw their US House districts. Some states gain seats, some lose seats, still others go through internal population shifts that require reorganization.
On February 7, the US Supreme Court “froze” a lower court ruling invalidating Alabama’s new district map, allowing its use while it hears a suit over the map’s details.… Read more ...
On February 1, ABC News suspended Whoopi Goldberg, of popular talk show “The View,” for two weeks over “wrong and hurtful” comments concerning the Holocaust.
The Holocaust, Goldberg said, is “not about race. It’s not. It’s about man’s inhumanity to other man.” She characterized the Nazis and the six million Jews they murdered as “two white groups of people.”… Read more ...
“They can have Neil Young or [Joe] Rogan. Not Both.” Thus the ultimatum from legendary musician Young, over his concerns with what he deems “misinformation” on the subject of COVID-19 vaccines, to streaming service Spotify.
Spotify, unsurprisingly, chose Rogan. It invested an estimated $100 million in bringing the Joe Rogan Experience podcast exclusively to its platform, and that investment is likely paying off in a big way.… Read more ...
Now in its second decade, National School Choice Week (observed January 23-29 this year) concentrates that movement’s steady, decades-long drumbeat into a few days of all-out advocacy. After two years of pandemic-related school closures, “remote learning,” and homeschooling from necessity rather than preference, this year’s National School Choice Week had its amplifiers turned to 11.… Read more ...
“Young investors have a new strategy,” National Public Radio’s Tim Mak reported on September 21: “Watching financial disclosures of sitting members of Congress for stock tips.”
Under the Stock Act, members of Congress must disclose their own stock trades, and those of their spouses, within 45 days. One member of a TikTok investor community refers to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as the “queen of investing” due to lucrative trades made by her husband.… Read more ...
As the founder and leader of Oath Keepers, an organization allegedly organized to defend the US Constitution, Stewart Rhodes seems like the last guy one might expect to “conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof” (18 U.S.… Read more ...
The UK’s Home Office, Rolling Stone reports, is ramping up for a new offensive against end-to-end encryption, starting with a $750,000 payment to advertising agency M&C Saatchi for a publicity campaign aimed at scaring the bejabbers out of parents.
“Patriotism,” Samuel Johnson said in 1775, “is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”… Read more ...
One perennial proposal in the ongoing “fight” (actually more a set of dueling theatrical productions a la professional wrestling) over “election integrity” is a requirement that voters produce official, government-issued identification documents, complete with photo, at polling places.
Anyone who’s ever worked door security at a nightclub (yes, I have) knows that possession of a card with a photo vaguely resembling the person possessing it is no guarantee of identity. … Read more ...