Politics

Another assault on internet freedom and constitutional rights is underway this week as the Senate Judiciary Committee considers the EARN IT Act of 2022. The bill is presented as a potential solution to internet luring by creating a new National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention. The nineteen-member commission is tasked with coming up with best practices that internet companies can adapt to allegedly keep children safe from online predators. Yet tucked in the bill are more changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the law that keeps online platforms from being civilly liable for hosting and moderating third-party content. The first change involves reaffirming that victims of child sexual abuse can civilly sue interactive computer services.

Last stand in the mask wars Across blue America, the masks are coming off. New Jersey governor Phil Murphy announced Monday that the state’s mask mandate in schools will end on March 7. Connecticut governor Ned Lamont changed state level guidance to recommend that mask mandates in schools are lifted by the end of February. Delaware’s statewide mask mandate will end later this week. Oregon has announced that school mask mandates will be gone by the end of March. Even California governor Gavin Newsom, who has enforced some of the strictest pandemic regulations (on others if not himself), has announced he will lift mask the state’s indoor mask rule next week. (Here in DC, there is no end in sight to the indoor mask mandate.

The die against conservatives opposed to the Iraq war was cast by David Frum in a now-infamous essay for National Review back in 2003. Not only were the right's antiwar sorts unpatriotic, Frum charged, they were defeatist and conspiratorialist appeasers. “They have made common cause with the left-wing and Islamist antiwar movements in this country and in Europe,” he wrote. As one can imagine, this made it quite difficult for this small but active faction of the conservative movement (which included the American Conservative magazine and libertarians like Texas Congressman Ron Paul) to penetrate the mainstream, or build trust with their compatriots across the aisle.

Today’s school-aged students are in grave danger. A murderous virus is ripping through the population, leaving a tragic body count in its wake. We need aggressive preventative measures. Classes need to go online, indefinitely if necessary. The experts must be heeded. The science must be followed. This epidemic is simply too dangerous; we cannot afford to play games with our children's lives. I’m talking, of course, about the preeminent public health crisis of our time: lawnmower deaths. The threat that lawnmowers pose to our nation is no joke. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance system, 90 Americans die every year from lawnmower accidents. Over the past decade, 3.

A new Johns Hopkins systematic review cuts in two the narrative that government-imposed mandates meaningfully prevent coronavirus deaths. The review looked at 34 different studies analyzing business and school closings, shelter-in-place orders, and international travel bans. It included data from US and European Covid mitigation efforts, along with endeavors in India, South Africa and China. Almost two dozen of these studies were peer-reviewed, while the other 12 were working papers. The results of this meta-analysis are striking. Lockdowns reduced Covid mortality by an average of only .02 percent. Shelter-in-place orders were slightly better at a 2.9 percent average, but nothing worth crowing about.

Jeff Zucker and the boys in the bubble “If you aren’t making news, you aren’t governing,” Matt Gaetz, the scandal-plagued Florida congressman, writes in his memoir Firebrand. As Jay Caruso reports in our February cover story, the ultra-loyal Trumpist and inveterate controversy-seeker grew up in the house used to film The Truman Show. Given that Gaetz embodies the blurring of the lines between reality and fiction, entertainment and politics, performance and action, that biographical detail is almost too good to be true. But how much of an outlier is Gaetz, really?

I’ve noticed a pattern over the past few years. We saw it when Joker made over a billion dollars at the box office, despite numerous reviews and think pieces assuring us that everyone who enjoyed it was a dangerous alt-right incel. We saw it most clearly in 2016 and again in 2020 when the tens of millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump were uniformly smeared as white supremacists. To suggest any other motive was unacceptable. Racists! All of them! We saw it twice in the past week. The first of those instances is related to the ongoing Freedom Convoy protest in Canada. More on that later.

On Tuesday, I reported that Congresswoman Terri Sewell, a Democrat representing Alabama's 7th District, will not hold in-person meetings at her DC office with unvaccinated individuals. "PLEASE NOTE: Proof of COVID-19 vaccinations are required for every in-person or in-office meeting with the Congresswoman or with Staff,” read the signature on an email I got ahold of from one of her staffers. You can read that story here. Of course, I gave her office the chance to comment on the piece before it went to publication. I emailed her press secretary my questions with a two-hour deadline, and the piece was not posted until three hours later. The story was picked up by Fox News shortly thereafter. I did not hear from the congresswoman's office until around 9 p.m.

Congresswoman Terri Sewell hasn't been deterred by court injunctions against President Biden's vaccine mandates; instead, the Democratic representative for Alabama's 7th district has instituted her own. Only vaccinated persons may meet in-person with Representative Sewell or her staff, according to an email obtained by The Spectator. Representative Sewell's scheduler recently sent out an offer for congressional staffers to nab some free peanuts from Alabama. For those not in the know, congressional offices regularly receive free promotional products from their state and share or trade with other offices. A note at the bottom of the "FREE SNACKS" email, however, suggests the unvaccinated might not be able to get their hands on those tasty peanuts.