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Porn Is Inevitable River Page

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American lawmakers are about to determine the future of pornography, or they’re trying, at least. In recent years, nineteen states—most of them Republican-led—have passed legislation that requires any site with a significant amount of adult content to prove all its users are over 18. Most recently, on New Year’s Day, a new law called HB 3 took effect in my home state of Florida, where porn sites now face fines of up to $50,000 for every violation. But this week, such laws could be found unconstitutional.

This is all thanks to the Free Speech Coalition, a sort of NRA for pornographers, which has sued Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, a religious hard-liner, over that state’s age verification law. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear FSC’s case, which argues that these porn laws undermine free speech, infringe on privacy, and hurt American companies, while doing nothing to block foreign and fringe sites that don’t comply with U.S. laws.

The rationale behind the laws is understandable: Studies have shown that pornography consumption by teenagers can lead to misogynistic attitudes and increased sexual aggression. It’s also linked to mental health problems and increased rates of unsafe sex. More to the point, most parents are uncomfortable with the idea of their children having access to terabytes worth of hardcore pornography at the touch of a button.

But these laws are fundamentally pointless. First etched into mammoth tusks 40,000 years ago, porn predates the written word. It is inevitable—and in the internet age, infinitely accessible—even in places where so-called “porn bans” have been enacted.


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Nellie Bowles: The Triumph of the Plastic Straw Nellie Bowles

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The biggest environmentalist craze of my generation started in 2011 with Vermont 9-year-old Milo Cress cooking up an arbitrary number for how many plastic straws Americans used daily. This 9-year-old figured it was so many. He says he called up straw manufacturers and calculated 500 million a day. Boom, big number, good number. The mainstream media was off to the races. That 500 million a day number was cited in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Suddenly the most important thing we could do for the environment—for our children!—was ban plastic straws.

States and cities passed laws against them. California banned them from restaurants outright in 2018. New York, in 2021, changed the law so the only straws on display were paper (you were allowed to ask for plastic). Official fact sheets from Ron DeSantis’s state of Florida instruct Floridians to “Skip the Straw,” citing the 500 million figure. Did anyone question the basis of this?


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February 12, 2025 Heather Cox Richardson

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It Pays to Be a Friend of Donald Trump Joe Nocera

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Two dodgy Democrats had a great day on Monday—thanks to our new Republican president, Donald J. Trump.

The first, former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, was granted a full pardon. Back in 2009, after he’d been charged with corruption, Blagojevich got himself booked on Trump’s show, Celebrity Apprentice. (You can see his appearance in these YouTube clips. He was fired, of course.) I don’t know if Blagojevich had a premonition that Trump might someday be in a position to help him, but it sure has turned out that way. Transforming himself from a high-profile Democratic governor to a big-time Trump supporter was the single best move he could have made.


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