What Newt’s Reading | June 19, 2020

What Newt’s Reading Yet another digital company walks the fine line between platform and publisher and punishes conservative voices with arbitrary decisions. – Newt A Fresh Sign of Google’s Excessive Power By The Editorial Board New York Post Google has warned two sites, ZeroHedge and The Federalist, that it will “cut them off from Google Ads revenue because of reader posts in their comments sections.” Google controls a large portion of all web advertising, so such a threat would mean almost no revenue for the sites. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which “says web sites don’t count as publishers of information provided by others,” Google is protected from lawsuits over content it links to. So, how can Google insist on holding others to a higher standard? Google says its policies “prohibit derogatory content that promotes hatred, intolerance, violence, or discrimination based on race from monetizing.” Of course, Google can no doubt simply ensure ads don’t appear in any comments sections. “ If Google doesn’t rethink this policy, it’s begging for the feds to crack down.” Using the Southern Poverty Law Center as a standard to determine where users can donate proceeds from their purchases, Amazon discriminates against many conservative charities. – Newt Amazon Doubles Down on Excluding Some Conservative Nonprofits From Customer Donations By Kay C. James Washington Times Amazon.com recently doubled down on its policy that prohibits customers from donating proceeds from their purchases to well-established conservative nonprofits. “While Amazon customers can use the AmazonSmile program to donate a portion of each purchase to left-leaning organizations like Planned Parenthood,” the company “has decided to single out a few well-known conservative organization” like the Family Research Council from receiving some of the tens of millions of dollars the program raises each year from customers. The reason why is Amazon uses “the radical, left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as the standard-bearer to decide which nonprofits’ customers are allowed to direct their contributions to.” The SPLC has labeled some mainstream conservative organizations it disagrees with as hate groups. The media would have you believe the Trump administration did not have a COVID testing strategy, but the reality is the public-private partnership was a brilliant, successful plan. – Newt The Media Said Trump Didn’t Have a COVID Testing Strategy. The Media Was Wrong. By Rich Lowry National Review The Trump administration wanted to open hundreds of mobile testing sites at the outset of the coronavirus crisis, but officials recognized that doing so would use up too much of the nation’s limited supply of testing swabs. “The story of how the country went from nothing to more than half-a-million COVID tests on some days is a tale of inspired private–public cooperation.” After the CDC and the FDA stumbled initially, the private sector “used cooperative data, governmental authorities, relationships with the private sector, and improvisation-on-the-fly to work through supply shortages and other problems.” Now, the problem with testing is not a lack of tests but a lack of samples — in other words, not enough people are showing up to get tested. The media and Democrats consistently insisted that the administration had no testing plan, highlighting only the failures. But in reality, President Trump’s team had a strategy and has now implemented it successfully. During the anthem, kneeling is a statement against the symbol of America's freedom and is the wrong way to protest. Especially in front of our proud military personnel. No athlete would dare take a knee during the Chinese national anthem. – Newt Kneeling During the Anthem Isn’t Protesting Against Racism. It’s Protesting Against America. By Marc A. Thiessen Washington Post Following the killing of George Floyd, more athletes, coaches, and league officials seem poised to kneel during the national anthem than ever before. Athletes should certainly be allowed to use their platforms to protest racism. “But let’s be clear: The anthem and the flag symbolize the ideal of equality that America stands for, not those who failed to live up to those ideals. If you take a knee during the national anthem, you are not protesting racism in your country, you are protesting your country. There is a difference.” Those who kneel are saying America is evil, not objecting to an evil that exists in America. Indeed, to kneel is to accuse the country of being fundamentally racist, and to say that the American flag and the American military are “symbols of oppression.” The American flag represents the ideal toward which the country strives, not those who fall short.

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