The Death of the Mind

We’ve talked about the unfortunate bipartisan attacks on free speech, which are best understood as attempts to control the narrative. Republicans have been attacking free speech in multiple ways — from trying to ban books and take away teacher autonomy to trying to compel websites to host content against their will. Democrats, on the flip side, have focused on ridiculous attempts to force websites to monitor and control speech. Both of these are bad in their own ways and both are attacks on free speech. In both cases, they seem to be about trying to force others to view the world the same way they do, and that’s the whole reason that we have the 1st…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/07/05/how-the-dobbs-decision-will-lead-to-attacks-on-free-speech-or-why-democrats-need-to-stop-undermining-free-speech/

The Wikileaks founder met the deadline set to appeal the decision issued by the British Home Secretary, Priti Patel.
Assange met the deadline to appeal the decision issued by the Minister of the Interior, Priti Patel, while. At the same time, the court in London communicated that it had formally received the notification of the accused.
Assange’s wife, Stella Assange, referred to the dire consequences of the case for journalism and human rights in general. “We will fight until justice is done,” she said.
The Australian journalist has been detained in Belmarsh high-security prison since April 2019, where he awaits the outcome of the legal process.
The post Julian Assange Appeals His Extradition To The United States appeared first on…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://popularresistance.org/julian-assange-appeals-his-extradition-to-the-us/

The terrible, awful, no good, horrible plans to regulate the internet keep coming faster and furiouser these days. So, it’s worth remembering a time back when Congress passed one of the worst laws about the internet: the Communications Decency Act. Yes, these days we talk about the CDA more reverently, but that’s only because we’re talking about the one part of it that wasn’t declared unconstitutional: Section 230. Section 230, of course, was never even supposed to be a part of the CDA in the first place. It was crafted by then Representatives Chris Cox and Ron Wyden as an alternative approach to the ridiculousness that was coming out of Senator James Exon in the Senate.
But,…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/06/29/please-take-a-moment-to-celebrate-how-a-very-different-supreme-court-saved-the-internet-25-years-ago/

WASHINGTON—In a controversial 6-3 decision regarding religious freedom, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that public school teachers were allowed to lead students on Crusades to win back the Holy Land for Christians. “Because the First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion, all school employees have the…

Read more…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.theonion.com/supreme-court-ruling-allows-public-school-teachers-to-l-1849119443

This excellent Stateline article explains many reasons why petitioning has become more difficult in the last few years. Thanks to Eric Wong for the link.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2022/06/28/news-story-explains-why-petitioning-is-substantially-more-difficult-recently/

Rate hikes will do nothing to bring down fuel and food prices, as Powell acknowledged in his testimony to Congress, but are aimed at suppressing the growing wages movement of the working class.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/24/yaxm-j24.html

The North Carolina Green Party has received information that an organized Democratic Party group has the list of persons who signed the 2022 Green Party ballot access petition, and Democrats are phoning the signers and asking them to retract their signatures. It is too late for the Green Party to be adding any new signers. The counties have already checked the signatures and the Green Party has enough valid signatures. There is no provision in the North Carolina election code for signers to retract their signatures from a party petition.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2022/06/23/north-carolina-greens-receive-evidence-that-an-organized-democratic-party-operation-is-phoning-signers-of-the-green-party-petition-and-asking-them-to-remove-their-names/

If Russia were persecuting a whistleblower like Julian Assange, the US would rightly condemn it as authoritarian abuse. But because that persecution is backed by the US, the mainstream media and American politicians are fine with it.
LONDON, ENGLAND — Supporters of Julian Assange protest outside the Old Bailey as the extradition hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange resumes on September 7, 2020. (Guy Smallman / Getty Images) In the authoritarian political system that exists in Russia, it can be very hard to learn the truth about what the government is up to, let alone force it to change its behavior or obtain any sort of justice for its crimes. This…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobin.com/2022/06/julian-assange-trial-updates/

The May 22 Sacramento Bee, the largest newspaper in California’s capital city, has an op-ed advocating that the California top-two system be abolished. It is by Steve Maviglio, a Democrat, and Ron Nehring, a Republican. Here is a link, but it is behind a paywall. It demonstrates that the top-two system has not helped moderates to get elected, and points out that the California legislature is still one of the most polarized in the nation. It lists instances when a major party incumbent sponsored advertisements referring to that incumbent’s most feared opponent in a way to boost another potential opponent who would be weaker.
It doesn’t mention the flaw that the system has blocked all minor party…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2022/05/22/sacramento-bee-carries-op-ed-advocating-an-end-to-top-two-system/

This article says that Alaska Democrats worry that in the June11 primary for U.S. House, no Democrat will place in the first four slots. The law, passed by the voters in November 2020 and being used for the first time next month, says the top four primary candidates are the only ones that can get on the general election ballot. Polls are suggesting that Republican Nick Begich and Sarah Palin, and independent Al Gross, will be in the top four. The fourth-place finisher is tough to predict, but independent candidate Santa Claus has a miniscule lead.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2022/05/17/alaska-democrats-fear-that-no-democrat-will-be-in-the-top-four-in-special-u-s-house-election/