Yesterday we wrote about a California politician saying the state needs to regulate every aspect of our lives. Today it’s Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy applauding the removal of Alex Jones from the internet. I’m not an Alex Jones fan, I think half the stuff he puts out is fake news and the other half is sensationalized news. He’s on par with CNN. But Murphy went on to say something scary. Murphy tweeted that the censorship of internet sites by the major corporations like Facebook and Youtube is what our democracy depends on.
I’m going to disagree with Murphy and suggest that freedom of speech, political expression, and freedom of association are what our democracy depends on. Our founders seemed to agree when they wrote the bill of rights. Companies can do whatever they want with their own internet platforms. But it’s scary to see a US Senator cheer on big corporate censorship of political views.
Democrat Senator suggests internet censorship will save our democracy
It’s always fun to go back and read the climate change predictions from the past and see how they have failed to materialize. On the first Earth Day, everyone figured climate change would wipe out the planet by 2000. Obviously that didn’t happen, but the predictions went on. Climate change predictions have become a great way for one side to use fear mongering to pass their agenda. Republicans have been wrongly accused of wanting dirty air and dirty water. Here’s a link to an article highlighting some of the failed predictions since 2000.
2018 and the planet is still here
We are back to not accepting a nuclear Iran. After canceling the Iranian nuke deal made by Obama, without congressional approval, Trump gave Iran months to come to the table and renegotiate. After Iran’s refusal, Trump is now reinstating the Obama era sanctions in two stages. the first stage went into effect yesterday, the second is coming in November. Trump has also issued an ultimatum to our trading partners that the US will not deal with countries who deal with Iran. The pressure is back on for Iran to abandon their nuclear ambitions, although they now have billions more to work with thanks to Obama’s attempt at a legacy.
Trump reinstates Iranian sanctions over Iran’s refusal to negotiate new nuke deal
Several states go to the polls today for the midterm primaries. Media outlets like CNN have chosen a special election in Ohio to focus on as their indication of how the blue wave is doing. The special election is for a state senate seat and will be re-decided in November, so frankly we don’t care. I’m looking more closely at the Missouri primary. This will be an indication of any strides made by the Libertarian party in influencing the future of conservative politics. Libertarian-turned-Republican Austin Petersen chose to run within the Republican primary rather than as a third party candidate. A long shot win by the champion of liberty could set the tone for future incursions into the GOP by Libertarian hopefuls. The Freedom Caucus has shown it can be done, and many Libertarians have grown wary of their own party that nominated perpetually high Gary Johnson and old school RINO Bill Weld in the 2016 Presidential race.
Political Brief 