The Blue Check Experiment: Week 1

I asked your advice, and I took it. This is what happened next.

Quick recap for those who missed it: A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a short article about whether or not I was going to pay Elon the $8 for my Twitter Blue Check. …Uh, X? X-Twitter? TwiX? My TwiX Blue Check.

If you’re interested, click the link and you can read all the pros and cons I listed. I went into the ethics of it as well as the morality (there’s a difference), and then the cost-benefit analysis. And finally I confessed I was stumped, and asked for advice.

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Bad Orange Man Indicted

I’d thought avoiding Trump stories would help avoid giving him free press, but that ship has sailed. At this point, I think most of us have become resigned to the upcoming Biden-Trump II presidential contest. If I had any hope remaining for the Republican Party, I’d be strongly advising everyone I can think of to register R so they could vote against him twice. But I don’t. The only strong contenders are either insane, hopelessly mired in Trump’s muck, or have declared war on Mickey Mouse.

It’s been observed that this will be treading on blessedly new legal ground. Former presidents are never indicted, and it’s not because they’ve failed to engage in criminal activity. Most were a bit more discreet about it, mind you, but not all.

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Blue Checks: To Pay, Or Not To Pay

Well. That is the question, is it not?

Let’s start by clearing the underbrush. There are dozens of subordinate questions, such as the ethics of the thing and whether people should be expected to pay when the site’s making money from their presence anyway, all that. So let’s get that out of the way first and move on.

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War Crimes and Cluster Bombs

War crimes? All war is a crime.

The concept of “war crimes” was an effort to pretend that war isn’t intrinsically a crime, and thus make it palatable for civilians and politicians. There are no just wars; there are no proper wars; there are no good wars. War is evil. That it is sometimes a necessary evil doesn’t make it any less evil. In 1944, we needed to invade Europe in order to defeat Nazi Germany; this means we had to do a bad thing to stop a worse thing.

Let’s all take that as read, shall we? While I can imagine objections to it, I can’t imagine any logical or well-reasoned ones. (If you disagree, that’s why we have a Comments section. Take your time and get it right, because if you don’t I’m going to mercilessly rip you apart. -Editor)

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The Not Fake News Update, 9 July 2023

Hello, good evening, and welcome to another edition of the Not Fake News Update. Are you sitting comfortably? …Good.

It’s been a slow news week since the sub imploded, and media outlets around the world have begun poking random billionaires with long sticks to see if they can provoke them into doing something newsworthy. Alas for them, this has been ineffective thus far; however, there is still some hope of the Zuckerberg/Musk cage fight.

As always, however, things continue to happen around the world that major media has ignored and/or downplayed, though for what reason we at The Not Fake News can’t even hazard a guess. Lest our readers somehow miss something important, here are a few of the most newsworthy items:

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Donation-Based Media: How It Works

Or: I’m a Republican. Why the hell should I buy you a coffee, ya freeloader? Go get a job and buy your own damn coffee! I do my donating at church!

That’s what you’re thinking. I know because that’s the way I thought about it for a lot of years. Why should I pay for news when I get it for free? Why pay for a newspaper when I can just read it on their website? After all, I pay enormous sums for cable T.V., not to mention two different streaming services; CNN gives me news for free so everyone should!

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About The Student Loan Thing

EDITORIAL

This may startle some of our more conservative readers, but I’m actually in agreement with the dissenting opinion in Biden v. Nebraska, the recent 6-3 decision that struck down the Administration’s student loan forgiveness program.

I’ve got a bone to pick with Biden on this, mind you. It’s clearly Presidential overreach, a cash giveaway that, if the Court hadn’t stopped it, Congress would have. Since he obviously knew this going into it, that makes it a stunt to get votes — and a particularly cruel one, since an awful lot of people out there are very deeply in debt during what anyone but a Boomer would have to admit are some of the worst economic times since the Depression.

BUT. Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson are in the right, and the other six Justices in the wrong.

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BREAKING: Affirmative Action Is Racism

This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down another 6-3 ruling, including the conservative majority and the moderate Chief Justice, striking down Affirmative Action in higher education as opposed to the principles of the Fourteenth Amendment.

(Incidentally: Groff v. DeJoy was also decided today, 9-0 in favor of the plaintiff, who sued on the basis of religious discrimination for being disciplined for choosing not to work Sundays. This is not minor, and should not be neglected in your attention.)

But what does this mean, and what is implied? What institutions are shaken, which are weakened and which strengthened? For this, a deeper analysis of the ruling is essential.

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