Source: Cato Institute
by Vanessa Brown Calder
“Critics on both the left and the right decry surrogacy as exploitative, especially when carriers are compensated.” (02/19/25)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/surrogacy-new-battleground-reproductive-freedom
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Two teenage girls in the US state of Texas have been arrested for plotting a ‘mass casualty attack’ with pipe bombs and guns, police say. The girls, ages 15 and 16, were planning an attack at Memorial High School in a suburb of Houston, police told KHOU, an affiliate of the BBC’s US partner CBS News. The plot — which was shared on social media — was detailed enough that officials deemed it to be credible, CBS reported. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said its Threat Mitigation Team was involved in the response to help local police arrest the teenagers immediately.” (02/20/25)
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“Interpreting AI’s Acceleration | Robert Wright & Nora Belrose.” (02/19/25)
Source: JimBovard.com
by James Bovard
“Last Sunday, 60 Minutes featured tyrannical German prosecutors boasting about persecuting private citizens who made comments that officialdom disapproved. Three prosecutors explained how the government was entitled to launch pre-dawn raids and lock up individuals who criticized politicians, complained about immigrant crime waves, or otherwise crossed the latest revised boundary lines of acceptable thoughts. In a craven slant that would have cheered any mid-twentieth century European dictator, 60 Minutes glorified the crackdown: ‘Germany is trying to bring some civility to the world wide web by policing it in a way most Americans could never imagine in an effort to protect discourse.’ Nothing ‘protects discourse’ like a jackboot kick aside the head of someone who insulted a German politician on Facebook, right?” (02/19/25)
https://jimbovard.com/blog/2025/02/19/sacrificing-truth-on-leviathans-altar/
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“The past month has generated something close to despair in anyone who cares about effective governance as a force in people’s lives. Haphazard firings, rapid dismantling of vital government agencies, devaluing of basic science, and commandeering of government IT systems are all part of a power grab that threatens to turn our democracy into a cult of personality. It’s hard to imagine anything positive coming out of this. And yet. On Tuesday, the new leaders of the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division both released statements saying that they would continue to follow the 2023 merger guidelines, and not seek to make any changes to them, at least in the near future. Those guidelines reflect the understanding of antitrust statutes and jurisprudence as envisioned by Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter, the predecessors at those agencies.” (02/20/25)
https://prospect.org/economy/2025-02-20-new-antitrust-consensus/
Source: NBC News
“A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday declined the Justice Department’s request to immediately reinstate President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship, setting up a potential emergency application to the Supreme Court. Legal experts [and people who can read] have said Trump’s order conflicted with the Fourteenth Amendment, which extends American citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil, by denying citizenship to future children born in the United States if their mothers were unlawfully [sic] present in the country and their fathers were not citizens or permanent residents. … In denying the request, the panel found the Justice Department had not made a ‘strong showing that they are likely to succeed on the merits of this appeal.’” (02/19/25)
Source: Pioneer Institute
“Cornell’s Margaret Washington on Sojourner Truth, Abolitionism, & Women’s Rights.” (02/19/25)
Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander
“St. Felix publicly declared that he believed with 79% probability that COVID had a natural origin. He was brought before the Emperor, who threatened him with execution unless he updated to 100%. When St. Felix refused, the Emperor was impressed with his integrity, and said he would release him if he merely updated to 90%. St. Felix refused again, and the Emperor, fearing revolt, promised to release him if he merely rounded up one percentage point to 80%. St. Felix cited Tetlock’s research showing that the last digit contained useful information, refused a third time, and was crucified.” (02/19/25)
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/lives-of-the-rationalist-saints
Source: New York Times
“Hamas said on Thursday it had handed over the bodies of four Israelis abducted during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel — including a woman and her two young children — in exchange for Palestinian [hostages]. Large crowds had gathered near the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis to watch the choreographed handoff staged by Hamas. Rifle-toting gunmen were deployed around a stage on which four black coffins — each bearing the image of a deceased hostage — had been placed. Officials with the International Committee for the Red Cross placed the coffins in waiting white vehicles. The Israeli government later confirmed that the Red Cross had brought them to waiting Israeli forces inside Gaza.” (02/20/25)
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“The thing about Donald Trump is, he’s Donald Trump. Briefly set aside any old-fashioned moral considerations about Donald Trump’s low personal character — as a purely analytical matter, that low character is the most direct and comprehensive way to understand what it is the administration is actually doing. That ‘character is destiny’ is a political truism, but it is even more true in the case of Trump than in the case of most politicians, because Trump, being overburdened with an excess of self, has no political interests or values independent of his self-interest, which should be understood in terms that are only partly financial and in the main psychological. Whether as a politician or a peddler of knockoff watches, Donald Trump’s business is being Donald Trump. The notion that Trump is some kind of master negotiator is one of the silliest aspects of the Trump cult.” (02/18/25)