Libertarian roasts Trump White House’s plan to get ‘conservative snowflakes’ unbanned from social media
The Trump White House this week unveiled a new initiative that will allow right-wingers to report when they feel they’ve been banned from social media on specious grounds.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown, a writer for the libertarian magazine Reason, has written an essay that brutally ridicules conservatives for whining about being “censored” by social media companies — and she compares them to the overly sensitive college students that right-wingers regularly deride as “snowflakes.”
“It’s tempting to merely laugh at this sort of absurdity, to gawk at the blubbering fools who spent years ranting about easily-triggered liberal ‘snowflakes’ only to literally make it a federal matter when their Facebook account gets suspended,” she writes. “And sure, the self-owning MAGAservative chorus of ‘No one liked my tweet, I must be shadowbanned!’ is a special delicacy.”
Brown goes on to point out, however, that there are some very serious ramifications for free speech in the United States if these efforts are successful.
“Right now, too many Republicans want us to think it’s a First Amendment violation for a private company to dictate the terms of service on a private platform it owns, but not for the federal government to dictate what individuals can and cannot say on those platforms or to punish private companies that don’t conform to some Congress-created speech code,” she writes. “I know it’s clichéd and melodramatic to make 1984 references, but this is some really serious doublethink.”
2020 Election
Here’s how Trump hopes to recreate his 2016 presidential win — and how Democrats can send him packing
Writing for CNN on Saturday, election forecaster Harry Enten explained how President Donald Trump's recent, racist behavior lies in his desire to recreate the same electoral conditions that gave him a victory in 2016 in the presidential election next year.
"The Trump strategy is pretty simple: 1. Drive up the unfavorable ratings of his Democratic rival as he did in 2016 in order to compensate for his own low ratings. 2. Bank on an electoral college/popular vote split as he did in 2016. 3. Use a campaign of racial resentment to drive up turnout even more among groups favorable toward the President," wrote Enten. As he noted, Democrats have excellent odds to flip back Michigan and Pennsylvania, but they will have to work harder to win back any of the other states Trump flipped from the 2012 Obama camp — in particular Wisconsin, which was the closest state after those two.
US, Italian and Russian astronauts blasted into space Saturday, headed for the International Space Station, in a launch coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, NASA's Andrew Morgan and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency set off on a six-hour journey to the orbiting science lab from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1628 GMT.
A NASA TV commentator hailed a "textbook launch" minutes after blastoff in "sweltering" weather in Baikonur, where daytime temperatures reached 43 degrees Celsius on Saturday.
Breaking Banner
Conservative suggests Trump’s racist rhetoric will incite worse than ‘send her back’ chants: ‘One shudders to wonder’
In a column for the Washington Post, conservative Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Kathleen Parker said the refusal by Republican lawmakers and the evangelical community to condemn Donald Trump's racist rhetoric is paving the way for something far worse than mere "send her back" chants.
Under a headline that bluntly states, "Those who don’t condemn Trump’s racism are complicit in his bigotry," Parker gets right to her opinion of the president, writing, "Going out on a limb here: President Trump is a racist. And a sexist. And a xenophobic nationalist. Among other things. Not to name call or anything."
Trump’s base is a ‘cult’ that may never be deprogrammed: report
Maddow revolted by child sex trafficking charges against Trump pal George Nader: ‘None of this is normal’
Here’s why Trump’s racist rally sent prominent Republicans into a ‘panic’
Rush Limbaugh admits his attacks on Obama were ‘bogus’ as he attempts to defend Trump
George Conway busts Trump for retweeting woman who called migrants ‘cockroaches’ and ‘feral humans’
Tongue-tied GOP strategist crashes and burns on-air while trying to deny Trump’s racism
Trump supporter blames Democrats for being targeted by the president: ‘Why is that racist?’
Here’s how Trump hopes to recreate his 2016 presidential win — and how Democrats can send him packing
American, Italian and Russian blast off for ISS
Megan Rapinoe trashes ‘disgusting’ Trump for his ugly racist tweets in CNN interview
Tongue-tied GOP strategist crashes and burns on-air while trying to deny Trump’s racism
Trump supporter blames Democrats for being targeted by the president: ‘Why is that racist?’
Black GOP strategist called on the carpet by Joy Reid for trying to sidestep Trump’s racist rally as ’empowering’ voters
Dershowitz and Trump should both be worried what Jeffrey Epstein will reveal when he looks to cut a deal: ex-prosecutor
