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Special Olympics Drops COVID Vaccine Mandate After Florida Threatens $27.5 Million Fine
The Special Olympics dropped a planned COVID vaccine mandate for this month’s USA Games in Florida.
Florida has outlawed vaccine mandates and threatened to fine the nonprofit $27.5 million. According to Florida’s health department, the Special Olympics would have violated the law 5,500 times if it checked every participant’s vaccine status.
“Delegates who were registered for the Games but were unable to participate due to the prior vaccine requirement, now have the option to attend,” Special Olympics International said in a Friday press release.
Free-Speech Group Will Spend Millions to Promote First Amendment Cases
An advocacy group that has spent more than two decades fighting for free expression on college campuses is broadening its efforts to fight so-called cancel culture and other perceived threats to free speech across American society.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is renaming itself the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and keeping the “FIRE” acronym as it launches a drive to promote greater acceptance of a diversity of views in the workplace, pop culture and elsewhere. Part of the push may challenge the American Civil Liberties Union’s primacy as a defender of free speech.
The group’s president, Greg Lukianoff, said FIRE has raised $28.5 million for a planned three-year, $75 million litigation, opinion research and public education campaign aimed at boosting and solidifying support for free-speech values.
The new initiative includes $10 million in planned national cable and billboard advertising featuring activists on both ends of the political spectrum extolling the virtues of free speech, officials said.
NY Governor Urged to Support Bill Protecting Vaccine Privacy
Privacy advocates are urging New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to affix her signature on a bill that would protect sensitive information gathered from people being vaccinated against COVID-19.
Advocates say the unfettered sharing of information could be misused by a raft of entities, including law enforcement who the New York Civil Liberties Union suggests could use that data in criminal proceedings.
Vaccine clinics collect a host of personal information, including addresses, phone numbers, insurance information and medical history. Those seeking vaccines are also asked to produce legal identification and, in some cases, been asked to provide Social Security numbers.
The Kids Aren’t Alright Online
Most of the deadliest mass shootings that have occurred in the past few years were committed by men who were 21 or younger and who documented aspects of their violent behavior online.
These dynamics suggest that too many young people, whether they’re participants in or witnesses of repugnant behavior, feel utterly lost about what ethical behavior and respectful treatment looks like on platforms that are often stripped of humanizing context. And even when they can personally live by these values, they may not know how to demand the same from their peers and the platforms that host them.
They need and deserve thoughtful guidance about how to shape their online lives that goes far beyond protecting themselves from catfishing or bullying. They should learn how to know when digital tools and platforms are contributing to someone else’s dehumanization, how to understand the mechanics that manipulate their world view, how those experiences are connected to the broader culture, and how to talk about or draw attention to them.
The Top 10 Creepiest & Most Dystopian Things Pushed by the World Economic Forum
When one talks about the “global elite,” one usually refers to a small group of wealthy and powerful individuals who operate beyond national borders. Through various organizations, these non-elected individuals gather in semi-secrecy to decide policies they want to see applied on a global level.
A simple look at the list of attendees at these meetings reveals the organization’s incredible reach and influence. The biggest names in media, politics, business, science, technology, and finance are represented at the WEF.
Throughout the years, people at the WEF have said some highly disturbing things, none of which garnered proper media attention. In fact, when one pieces together the topics championed by the WEF, an overarching theme emerges: The total control of humanity using media, science, and technology while reshaping democracies to form a global government.
Beijing to Allow Indoor Dining, Further Easing COVID Curbs
Beijing will further relax COVID-19 curbs by allowing indoor dining, as China’s capital steadily returns to normal with inflections falling, state media said on Sunday.
Beijing and the commercial hub Shanghai have been returning to normal in recent days after two months of painful lockdowns to crush outbreaks of the Omicron variant.
Dine-in service in Beijing will resume on Monday, except for the Fengtai district and some parts of the Changping district, the Beijing Daily said. Restaurants and bars have been restricted to takeaway since early May.
Hohmann: How Technocrats Use Cities to Create Digital Slaves
The Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville, Virginia-based civil liberties organization, has sent a letter to the City of Houston, Texas, requesting it revoke a recently adopted ordinance that forces private businesses to spy on Americans and make the surveillance footage available to police.
Cities are engaging in these types of devious maneuvers all across America, Canada, Europe and the rest of the formerly free world. They are, unknowingly, taking baby steps toward building a globalized police state that will fit seamlessly into the beast system being developed by the World Economic Forum and its network of politicians, entertainers, false religious leaders, nonprofits and corporate cronies.
You never hear about these under-the-radar maneuvers that are happening at the local level by clueless local politicians who actually think they are doing a good thing, in the name of fighting crime. Everyone wants safer cities, right?
The U.S. Government May Finally Be Close to Making a Proper Online Privacy Bill
The U.S. government may actually have made a proper online privacy bill following reports that new data privacy legislation is close to being established, one with bipartisan support, as well as support from consumer rights advocates.
It’s still not signed into law, but if it does succeed, users will be allowed to opt out of targeted advertisement, and sue companies selling their data unlawfully.
The biggest stumbling block between the Democrats and the Republicans was whether federal law should preempt state laws. Republicans support this idea, saying anything else would make for a compliance nightmare for businesses. The Democrats, on the other hand, want consumers to be able to sue businesses playing with their customers’ data too much.
The proposed legislation finds a compromise between the two, The Washington Post says. There would be a limit on how and when people could sue internet companies, and some measures that would supersede state digital privacy laws.
Elon Musk Says He Can Cancel Twitter Deal Because the Company Is ‘Actively Resisting’ His Efforts to Study Fake Accounts
Elon Musk may be ready to walk away from his deal to buy Twitter after accusing the social network of stonewalling negotiations, according to a letter sent by his lawyers Monday. The saga’s latest kerfuffle revolves around Musk’s determination to understand how much of Twitter’s userbase is made up of bots, rather than actual human beings.
Unsatisfied with Twitter’s own figures (the company has said bots make up less than 5% of its users), the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has sought data from the social network to conduct his own analysis using random samples of users.
He says the company has refused, accusing it of violating their original agreement, in which he waived the usual due diligence that usually accompanies such buyouts.
Musk said the alleged stonewalling gives him the right to walk away from the deal entirely.
Twitter shares were down roughly 3.7% in early trading following the regulatory disclosure.
