Surgeon General Seeks Warning Labels for Social Media
June 17: Social-media warnings … Biden audiotapes … Heat wave … Trump conviction poll …
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America has a long, proud tradition of letting rich people do shit without any idea of what that shit will do to poor people. Burn fossil fuels? Go for it, libertarian job-creator! “Convenient” packaging? Hey, it’s not like we know what micro-plastics are yet! Cancer sticks? That’s why God created freedom in convenient gaseous form!
And, of course, the same pattern has repeated itself with the internet and social media. Ready, fire, question, research, peer-review, publish, aim.
So, today, U.S. Attorney General Dr. Vivek Murthy announced he’s asking for warning labels on social media, which can only be required via an act of Congress. Here’s what he has to say:
“It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents… Evidence from tobacco studies show that warning labels can increase awareness and change behavior.”
Murthy says that kids who spend more than three hours a day on social media twice as likely to suffer symptoms of anxiety and depression. The average teen spends 4.8 hours/day on YouTube, Instagram, and other social media.
Almost half of kids say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies. (Can we do Big Sugar and Processed Foods next?)
Murthy writes that we don’t have the luxury of waiting for “perfect information” about the threat social media pose to young people. Which is too bad, because unlike terrorism or street crime, where even the hint of a guess of a possible potential future hypothetical threat is enough to justify drastic, sweeping, draconian action1, the government has an entirely different standard to justify protecting us against corporate threats That standard is perfect information.
Murthy also calls on Congress to pass laws protecting kids from the online threats of: Harassment, abuse, exploitation, violent and/or sexual content. All of which we’re fine letting Big Tech expose our kids to because Big Tech isn’t an Islamic terrorist.
It’s fair to point out that we haven’t established whether social media caused a rise in teen stress and anxiety, or whether it’s just correlation. But in a sane world, the burden shouldn’t be on government to prove that any “innovation” is dangerous. In a sane world, we wouldn’t unleash cars or cigarettes or social media on people without requiring Corporate America to first prove it was safe.
House GOP Takes Biden Consigliere to Court
Pres. Joe Biden’s consigliere, Attorney General Merrick “Fat Sal” Garland, is refusing to turn over tapes of Biden answering questions in October about his, uh, crimes. (I literally had to look up what the hell this interview was even about, that’s how forgot it was by me. It was the government documents that Biden stole hid sold to Iran had.)
So, on Friday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced that House Republicans are taking the Justice Department to court, seeking to get the tapes via judicial order, preferably issued by Judge Aileen Cannon.2
The Justice Department Friday said it declined to prosecute Garland’s refusal to release the tapes as a case of contempt of Congress because Biden last month asserted a claim of executive privilege to block the release, and the Justice Department practice is not to to press contempt charges in cases of executive privilege. Which, excuse the fuck me, how is that normal practice? I distinctly remember something about how only one candidate in this race believes themselves above the law!
Is the GOP’s “case” bullshit? Of course! Are Republicans seeking the tapes because they hope to hear Biden asking, “Who’s Iran and why is purple?” You bet! Is this all tawdry politics? Yes!
But none of that means Garland can defy a subpoena. Citing Republicans who did it, too, just cements the idea that both sides can do it without consequence. The Justice Department rationale that people might cooperate less with investigators if they think the tapes might be released is bullshit — no one thinks a chat with the FBI is “just between us.”3
Congress has subpoena power. The government keeps too much secret as it is. The tapes belong to the public. If Biden says something politically damaging on those tapes, our system says he and his party can defend it in the public square, not keep it from that square in the first place.
Even Heat Follows the Money
Extreme heat is expected to flow from Texas to Washington this week, following the same trail as the Big Oil money that caused it.
More than 63 million people were estimated to have spent Father’s Day under extreme heat advisories (caused, ironically, by how fathers vote on Election day). Temperatures reached 110° in Phoenix, AZ, America’s Hottest City™ (“Phoenix: Where Only 645 People Died from Heat Last Year!”) And that was after falling from 112° the day before.
El Paso, TX, hit 104° and Pueblo, CO, 100° yesterday. And in Roswell, NM, it’s gonna be 107° today, so keep an eye out for Unidentified Frying Objects!
As the man-made boilingness shifts east and north, it’s reaching the plains and Great Lakes states today and the Northeast on Tuesday. By the middle of the week, temperatures are expected to get close to 100°…in Chicago. And then, on Thursday, summer starts.
Before last summer, the last time we saw so many heat waves was when they gave us the Dust Bowl and the John Steinbeck classic “The Grapes of Wrath.”4
But wait, there’s more records to talk about! Those storms flooding southern Florida — which technically remains above sea level as of 8am eastern time — are just an early taste of what’s forecast to be one of the worst hurricane seasons we’ve had.
Typically Once upon a time, the average hurricane season brought 14 named storms, including three major hurricanes. But this is 2024, kids! So last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that this year we should expect anywhere between 17 and 25 named storms, with as many as seven possible major hurricanes.
Just think, someday you’ll be able to tell your grandkids all about Florida.
Israel Announces Military Pauses to Aid Delivery of Relief from Military
Israel, which is already doing everything it can to facilitate delivery of humanitarian supplies in Gaza, will now do more to facilitate delivery of humanitarian supplies in Gaza.
Specifically, the Israeli military announced yesterday that it will pause fighting along a vital path for humanitarian aid in southern Gaza. Which is kinda weird, because how can you unilaterally suspend fighting unless the other side isn’t really fighting ba—ohhh!
The pause in figh—uh, I guess bombing—reportedly came as news to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And a barrage of mixed messages about the pause, analysts told the New York Times, “appeared to reflect the competing pressures facing Mr. Netanyahu, as he juggles demands from the Biden administration and elsewhere around the globe with those of his own hawkish government.”
Analysts told the Times that the muddled messages also appeared to reflect Netanyahu’s bullshit.
“It’s classic Bibi,” said Amos Harel, a Haaretz military affairs analyst. “He has a mask for every occasion … For the Americans, he needs to show he is doing more to get aid in. For the Israeli audience he can say ‘I didn’t know’ and go for plausible deniability.”
All this comes just after Netanyahu dissolved his war cabinet — shortly after its members quit. Netanyahu said, however, that military operations will continue in the not-at-all-safe zone of Rafah. The Israeli military there is pursuing a dangerous, two-fold mission: Trying desperately to find both the remaining hostages and the red line that Pres. Joe Biden said exists somewhere in Rafah but so far has eluded discovery.
Polling Shows Bullshit Punditry was Bullshit
Remember all those savvy, sophisticated pundits telling us knowingly that former Pres. Donald Trump getting convicted would help him politically? They were wrong. Meaning that you in your amateur, unpaid rightness, were more right than people paid to be wrong on TV.
Politico has new polling out this morning showing what people actually think about Trump getting convicted by a jury of felony conduct to steal the 2020 presidential election by deceiving voters about his use of campaign cash. Turns out, people don’t like it!
Almost twice as many people — 33% — say Trump’s criminal conviction for being a criminal convicted of crimes makes them less likely to vote for Trump. Only 17% (about half of his base) say they’re more likely to back Trump, as if their fealty weren’t already absolute.
Furthermore, the poll finds, it matters to people that Trump was convicted of doing crimes. More than one in five voters — 22% — say the conviction (for doing crimes) is important to their vote, and that they’re less likely to vote for him. And it’s not just gleeful Democrats schadenfreuding.
Twenty-one percent of “independents” say Trump’s criminal crime conviction due to the guilty verdicts from the jury that convicted him of doing crimes is important to them and makes them less likely to support him. Hell, even Republicans are split on this.
Of Republicans who say the conviction of Trump (for doing criminal crimes) is important:
13% say they’re more likely to support him
7% say they’re less likely to support him.
There’s good news/bad news here, because that’s how TFN rolls. Almost half, 44%, of independents, think the case was brought to help Pres. Joe Biden. There’s no evidence Biden ordered District Attorney Alvin Bragg to prosecute Trump, but if that 44% thinks Bragg had political motives, well, we can’t rule that one out without knowing what’s in Bragg’s heart, and we here at Team TFN don’t do heart-knowing.
The other good news/other bad news is that one third of Americans don’t feel like they understand the case details well. Which means Democrats still have some explaining to do…which could, in theory, tip those poll numbers even further against Trump. Unless you’re a TV pundit, of course.
(Right on schedule, the Biden campaign is out with a new ad today, hitting Trump as a “convicted criminal who’s only out for himself,” which I’m pretty sure Trump nearly chose as his own campaign slogan. Politico calls it the “most biting attack yet” from the Biden campaign, so of course the same pundits who wrongified the verdict’s impact will sadly warn today that this ad is sure to backfire.)
Campaign Watch
VICE PRESIDENT Former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) blew her shot at being Donald Trump’s choice for vice president yesterday. She did it with a single Tweet, announcing the death of her father on Father’s Day.
First off, there’s no way in hell Trump picks the daughter of a man named Ajit Singh Randhawa. For Trump to make that choice he’d need an entirely differently-shaped brain. Secondly, Haley called her father, “the smartest, sweetest, kindest, most decent man I have ever known,” without adding “…other than Donald J. Trump, who’s been like a better father to me.”
TCB
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LINKS I like using two-dollar words on occasion. And I’ve toyed with the idea of linking unusual words, or words I enjoy, to their definitions. What do you think? Or cogitate?
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Kidding!
Okay, some people do.
Which I finally read last year and am still wrestling with that ending.
I like the idea of linking the "big" words! I am also a grammar nerd, so, yeah, vocabulary:)
I mean really, do people actually compulsively read every word that arrives bidden or otherwise into their inboxes? You have a choice! Read or don't read!
Perhaps, Jon, if you brand each missive with a BIG sticker indicating Newsletter or Original Reporting, people wouldn't feel duped into reading stuff that bores them. Or how about do some extra work and provide a tidy TLDR at the top of each post so we don't have to read anything else! But then we'd miss the links to the expensive words! Oh no! What to do??
(Because of the atonal medium here, I feel compelled to ask you to please ignore the sarcastic suggestions above...except I do actually like the links idea.)