Red Wing Daily: March 25, 2024
"the more you know..."
State
“The Supreme Court ruled Friday that public officials may block people on social media in certain circumstances, tossing aside challenges against local government officials in Michigan and California who blocked followers who were critical of them on Facebook.”
This ruling has an impact here in Arkansas, where many of us recall the 2018 lawsuit the American Atheists filed against former state Senator Jason Rapert when he dared to ban certain individuals from his social media pages.
National
The Texas State Board of Education pulled its investment of around $8.5 billion of state money from asset manager BlackRock to comply with a 2021 Texas law prohibiting state investments with companies engaging in environmental and social governance (ESG) by boycotting energy companies. "BlackRock’s dominant and persistent leadership in the ESG movement immeasurably damages our state’s oil & gas economy and the very companies that generate revenues” for us, Texas State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey said. Of course, BlackRock is screaming.
The Republican National Committee has filed an election integrity lawsuit against Nevada Secretary of State saying Nevada has “impossibly high” voter registration rolls. According to the lawsuit:
At least three Nevada counties have more registered voters than they have adult citizens who are over the age of 18 … That number of voters is impossibly high.
Two counties in Nevada have active voter registration rates surpassing 90% of adult citizens over the age of 18. (A number, the RNC says, that “far eclipses” voter registration rates nationwide and at the state-level in elections recently.)
NO SURPRISE! About a month after she announced her “resignation,” former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel (Mitt Romney’s niece) has joined …. wait for it … NBC / MSNBC as a commentator; she appeared for the first time Sunday on “Meet the Press.”
Victory in court over FDA’s bogus ivermectin warnings: The FDA, which denied any wrongdoing, has agreed to a settlement in that June 2022 lawsuit brought by 3 doctors, one of whom is the chief scientific officer with the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC). The FDA will remove content from its website and social posts that warned people not to use ivermectin to treat COVID. You remember those social media posts in 2021 and 2022 that proclaimed, “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
Look at what former Republican New York Representative George Santos said about his decision last week to leave the Republican Party:
“After today's embarrassing showing in the house I have reflected and decided that I can no longer be part of the Republican Party… The Republican Party continues to lie and swindle its voter base. I in good conscience cannot affiliate myself with a party that stands for nothing and falls for everything. I am officially suspending my petitioning in #NY01 to access the ballot as a Republican and will be [filing] to run as an independent… I will take my Ultra MAGA/Trump supporting values to the ballot in November as an Independent."
Tech
They did it for you: Instagram has changed your settings to limit political content by default. “On February 9, Meta announced that Instagram and Threads would soon begin limiting political content. The announcement did not say it would change all users’ settings to a limited politics default.” Here’s how to change your settings to not limit political content.
