Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation & the Supreme Court
https://youtu.be/gcwb9r6-Y5Q"On June 27, 2018, Justice Anthony Kennedy slipped out of the Supreme Court building and traveled to the White House to inform President Donald Trump that he was retiring. The news touched off a media maelstrom, triggering a confirmation process that his successor, Brett Kavanaugh, would denounce three months later as a “national disgrace” and a “circus.”"At this special event and based on her new, #1 bestselling book (with co-author Carrie Lynn Severino), "Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court," Mollie Hemingway discusses the true story of what really happened, based on exclusive interviews of more than 100 people—including the President of the U.S., several Supreme Court justices, high-ranking White House and Department of Justice officials, and dozens of senators."Nasty politics and unverified accusations of sexual assault became weapons in a ruthless campaign of personal destruction. The Supreme Court has become the arbiter of America’s most vexing and divisive disputes. With the stakes of each vacancy incalculably high, has the incentive to destroy a nominee become irresistible? Will the next time a nominee promises to change the balance of the Court be even uglier and how will this affect the future of America?"Creepy Andrew Yang’s Fascist Department of Censorship
From Yang2020 - Andrew Yang for President:Sounds pretty innocuous (and unnecessary as the market is far better at doing these things than a tax-payer subsidized committee of political appointees), until we get to the last point:
- Create a Department of the Attention Economy that focuses specifically on smartphones, social media, gaming and chat apps and how to responsibly design and use them, including age restrictions and guidelines.
- Create a “best practices” design philosophy for the industry to minimize the antisocial impacts of these technologies on children who are using them....
So the New York Times, WaPo and WSJ are like the phone company? So much for the first amendment. And don't get too successful at what you do -- or if you are a "certain" company on Yang's crap list, you will become a "public utility" and lose your rights under Yang style "public interest" censorship. Yang's "Human-Centered Capitalism" sounds a lot of like old fashioned fascism mixed with socialist-style welfare schemes.Who is the public interest? "C'est Moi!" says Fuhrer Yang.For those "Yang Gang'ers" who welcome federal censorship under a Yang Presidency, ask yourself if you would like the President to have such powers under a Trump government?(Yang has removed from his site his previous call for a Federal Censor or "News Ombudsman" who will provide "penalties for persistent and destructive misstatements that undermine public discourse.")
- Direct the Department to investigate the regulation of certain companies and apps. Many of these companies essentially function as public utilities and news sources – we used to regulate broadcast networks, newspapers and phone companies. We need to do the same thing to Facebook, Twitter, Snap and other companies now that they are the primary ways people both receive information and communicate with each other.
Video: Daniel Hannan on The EU and Brexit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGIgM4_bG3kThe United Kingdom became a member of the European Union in 1973. In June 2016, in a close 52 to 48 vote, UK citizens voted to leave the EU. Two years later and the UK is less than a year away from their deadline to leave by March 2019. Daniel Hannan explains that while Brexit will ultimately be a good thing for the UK, arguments in Parliament have dragged out the question of if Brexit will happen, even though it’s already been settled by a referendum. Hannan argues that polarization amongst parliamentary parties is preventing real negotiations from taking place that will allow the UK to find the best compromise and regain their voting powers that citizens feel were diminished by membership in the EU. Hannan explains where the Brexit process is at in Parliament and what he feels is the best course of action for the EU moving forward.Video: Why Britain Needs Americanism
https://youtu.be/LCRTNRyPclg"Jonathan Hoenig and I toured the UK a few weeks ago, lecturing in support of the new book on Ayn Rand's political philosophy, "A New Textbook of Americanism." Here is my lecture on individualism at Cambridge. Special thanks to Razi Ginzberg, head of the Ayn Rand Centre UK, for setting up this lecture tour; to Jonathan Hoenig for compiling this outstanding collection of essays; and, above all, to Ayn Rand for initiating a literary and philosophic renaissance. Enjoy" -- Andrew BernsteinAmy Peikoff’s Theory of Privacy
Amy Peikoff has a short blog post over at Legalize Privacy or her theory of privacy. You can check it out here.