Pun Salad

I try to live by Elvis Costello's sage advice: "I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused." Hence our Amazon Product du Jour.

Unfortunately, I only find one of my three items today to be amusing.

• We mentioned Jodi Shaw back in January. At the time, Ms. Shaw was on "paid leave" from Smith College. Her offense was to speak out against Smith's "anti-racism" theology, publicly and cogently.

  Well, that can't be tolerated. Bari Weiss has the next chapter in Ms. Shaw's story: Whistleblower at Smith College Resigns Over Racism. Here are a couple paragraphs from her resignation letter to Smith's president, shared with Bari Weiss (and, hence, the world).

  I can no longer continue to work in an environment where I am constantly subjected to additional scrutiny because of my skin color. I can no longer work in an environment where I am told, publicly, that my personal feelings of discomfort under such scrutiny are not legitimate but instead are a manifestation of white supremacy. Perhaps most importantly, I can no longer work in an environment where I am expected to apply similar race-based stereotypes and assumptions to others, and where I am told — when I complain about having to engage in what I believe to be discriminatory practices — that there are “legitimate reasons for asking employees to consider race” in order to achieve the college’s “social justice objectives.”

  What passes for “progressive” today at Smith and at so many other institutions is regressive. It taps into humanity’s worst instincts to break down into warring factions, and I fear this is rapidly leading us to a very twisted place. It terrifies me that others don’t seem to see that racial segregation and demonization are wrong and dangerous no matter what its victims look like. Being told that any disagreement or feelings of discomfort somehow upholds “white supremacy” is not just morally wrong. It is psychologically abusive.

  But, really, Read The Whole Thing. And wonder if it's Coming Soon to A Campus Near You.

  Or maybe it already has.

  Ms. Shaw says she was offered a "settlement" in exchange for her silence, which she declined. She's a divorced mother of two.

  Bari Weiss includes a link to Ms. Shaw's GoFundMe page.

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• Glenn Greenwald has more head-shaking news: Congress Escalates Pressure on Tech Giants to Censor More, Threatening the First Amendment.

  For the third time in less than five months, the U.S. Congress has summoned the CEOs of social media companies to appear before them, with the explicit intent to pressure and coerce them to censor more content from their platforms. On March 25, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will interrogate Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, Facebooks’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai at a hearing which the Committee announced will focus “on misinformation and disinformation plaguing online platforms.”

  The Committee’s Chair, Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), and the two Chairs of the Subcommittees holding the hearings, Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), said in a joint statement that the impetus was “falsehoods about the COVID-19 vaccine” and “debunked claims of election fraud.” They argued that “these online platforms have allowed misinformation to spread, intensifying national crises with real-life, grim consequences for public health and safety,” adding: “This hearing will continue the Committee’s work of holding online platforms accountable for the growing rise of misinformation and disinformation.”

  House Democrats have made no secret of their ultimate goal with this hearing: to exert control over the content on these online platforms. “Industry self-regulation has failed,” they said, and therefore “we must begin the work of changing incentives driving social media companies to allow and even promote misinformation and disinformation.” In other words, they intend to use state power to influence and coerce these companies to change which content they do and do not allow to be published.

  Glenn notes that it would be obviously unconstitutional for Congress to directly censor Internet speech. How is it any more Constitutional for Congress to coerce a company (via "regulation") to do the censoring on its behalf?

  My Congresscritter is not on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but the other NH representative, Annie Kuster, is. If you're so inclined to write…

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• Boy, if there ever was a news kerfuffle that deserved a "Democrats Pounce" headline, it would be Ted Cruz's Cancun Connection. Kyle Smith finds the Media Coverage Excessive.

  As usual though, our guardians of the truth are embarrassing themselves and making themselves look at least as punchable as Cruz in the childish glee with which they are “covering” — meaning amplifying, commenting on, and generally exploding in spasms of ecstasy about this story. I count seven pieces on this in the New York Times, 17 pieces on CNN, and a mind-boggling 27 pieces in the Washington Post (so far), many of them clickbait meta-stories commenting on the fact that others are commenting on it:  “How Cartoonists are roasting Ted Cruz’s Texas-to-Cancun getaway,” etc. The WaPo has also been kind enough to proffer such advice such as “Why Ted Cruz should’ve known this was a bad idea.” I kinda think people already had that one figured out.

  The media is doing its level best to torpedo any and all GOP national figures, well in advance of 2024.