Don’t fight free speech: Tech companies sourcing their own power and other thoughts

From the left: Speech Is Free, Don’t Fight It

“An alphabet soup of enforcement agencies” is doing its best to censor Americans, thunders Racket’s Matt Taibbi — even as political elites argue “they need to be free of” the First Amendment because it empowers “obstacles to consensus.” But “m- - - - - - - - ker, I’m an American,” and Americans must pay no mind to “the Michael Haydens, John Brennans, James Clappers, Mike McFauls and Rick Stengels who make up America’s self-appointed behavior police.” “Speech is free. Trying to stop it is like catching butterflies with a hammer,” a “fool’s errand.” Our censors “have one idea, not even an idea but a sensation: fear.” And their “end game is not controlling speech. They’re already doing that. The endgame is getting us to forget we ever had anything to say.”

Eye on energy: Tech Cos. Sourcing Own Power

Microsoft’s deal with “Constellation Energy for a direct electricity supply from the Three Mile Island nuclear plant” underscores Big Tech “anxiety about securing a sufficient flow of power,” warns the Washington Examiner’s Callie Patteson. Data centers’ need for electricity may double by 2030 to “more than 9% of all electricity generated nationwide” — even as “the market is being squeezed” by “the Biden-Harris administration’s extreme climate goals,” including “its push” for “electric vehicles and stoves” as well as “the closing of coal plants” and “rollback of natural gas production.” Add in “concerns of grid reliability,” and tech firms may have no choice but to acquire their own power plants, as with Amazon’s deal “to buy the decades-old Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.”

Media watch: Ignoring Hez’s Existential Threat

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s death Friday “exposes the glaring omission in most of the media coverage of the conflict,” fumes Daniel Ben-Ami at Spiked. “Few outlets seem willing to recognise the fact that Israel faces an annihilationist threat from the Iran-backed terrorist group,” instead painting “a picture of Israel as a malign, irrational actor wilfully slaughtering innocent civilians.” In its foundational document, Hezbollah states “that its goal is the obliteration of Israel.” It “is probably best seen as a terrorist organisation with the capabilities of a regular army.” And: “While much of the media downplay or refuse to acknowledge [its] annihilationist intent, Israel cannot afford to be so complacent.”

From the right: James’ Ill-Fated Lawfare Games

“The political success of [New York Attorney General Letitia] James in weaponizing her office has been in stark contrast with her legal setbacks in courts,” notes Jonathan Turley at The Hill. “James is best known for her fraud case against Trump,” but “in appellate arguments [last] week, James’s office faced openly skeptical justices who raised the very arguments that some of us have made for years about the ludicrous fine imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron.” And “in the same week, James faced a stinging defeat in” her case targeting “pro-life organizations for spreading supposed ‘disinformation,’ ” when “Judge John Sinatra Jr. blocked James’s crackdown as a denial of free speech.” The attorney general “has converted the New York legal system into a series of thrill-kills,” but for some judges, “the thrill may be gone.”

Legal beat: Big Holes in Adams Indictment?

“Indicting the mayor of New York is a big deal” — yet “the bribery charges against Eric Adams fail to match the hype,” argue James Burnham & Yaakov Roth at The Wall Street Journal. The feds must “prove an agreement to furnish concrete exercises of actual governmental power — such as awarding contracts, casting votes or vetoing legislation — to sustain a bribery charge.” In Adams’ case, “the indictment spends many paragraphs discussing benefits received” but is “light on official actions promised in return.” There’s no quid pro quo, only “a story of campaign donors and benefactors who received enhanced access and attention from an elected official. That fact pattern could hardly be more routine.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board