'How did so many of us come to resemble automatons?'

'The more we exist online, the more privacy and autonomy we lose'

Jean Guerrero in the Los Angeles Times

Social media platforms have robbed Americans of their "ability to think and behave freely," says Jean Guerrero in the Los Angeles Times. This "pack mentality" has been on full display during the Israel-Hamas conflict, with the internet flooded in "one-sided" takes vilifying anyone with different views. Big Tech is fueling division by collecting mountains of personal data that helps businesses and "other entities" steer us wherever they want with "content that preys on our fantasies and fears." 

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'Obamacare and Bidencare are unsustainable'

Washington Examiner editorial board

"The costs of Obamacare and its Biden-era add-ons are becoming intolerable," says the Washington Examiner editorial board. Democrats promised their health care reform would give more people access to medical insurance and "control costs." But premiums keep rising and ballooning medical bills are becoming a bigger burden on the economy. "The massive costs to taxpayers also keep growing." Lawmakers have to replace unsustainable Obamacare and Bidencare "government control and subsidies" with "market incentives."  

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'The far-right's anti-reading pressure campaign'

Amanda Marcotte in Salon

Targeting the Scholastic Book Fair has exposed the lie in the right's "ludicrous claims that book banning is about 'parents' rights,'" says Amanda Marcotte in Salon. Facing "the book banning frenzy unleashed" by right-wing groups like Moms for Liberty, Scholastic has "shunted books featuring characters who aren't straight or white" into a separate category — Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice — so red-state schools can exclude them. This prevents parents from buying their kids books the far-right doesn't like. 

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'Amazon's rivals aren't dwindling'

Jeff Jacoby in The Boston Globe

"Amazon isn't a monopoly," says Jeff Jacoby in The Boston Globe. The Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general are suing the online retail giant, accusing it of using its dominance to stifle competition. Amazon's 38% e-commerce market share is "nothing to sneeze at, but a monopoly?" Walmart's online business is growing. Shopify is growing. When competition is intensifying like that, a market "is not being crushed by a predatory monopolist."

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