12/23 -- SCOTUS to hold special session on Biden vaccine mandates; Don't Trust the Science
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Thomas L. Knapp
Dec 23, 2021, 7:04:42 AM12/23/21
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 12/23/21
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Today's Freedom News:
0) Happy Anniversary to Us …
1) SCOTUS to hold special session on Biden vaccine mandates
2) Hong Kong: University removes memorial to victims of 1989 Beijing regime massacre, tries to fob off blame on pre-Beijing-occupation law
3) Biden extends student loan freeze to May 1
4) France: Brigitte Macron to sue over false claims she was born male
5) CO: Truck driver Rogel Aguilera-Mederos’s sentence sparks uproar
6) Myanmar: Coup regime seeks closer ties with Beijing
7) Billionaire Jeff Green resigns from Mormon church, says he’s donating $600K to LGBTQ group
8) AL: Wreck of last US slave ship mostly intact on coast
9) US regime traffic safety bureaucrats, apparently out of actual traffic safety work, investigate Tesla
10) Progressives [sic] demand Biden implement agenda like a proper dictator would
11) CA: Judge rules against San Diego schools in COVID vaccine mandate suit
12) Amazon among key tech firms to drop CES plans on Covid-19 concern
13) Winter Olympics: NHL will not send players to Beijing
14) Flynn loses legal challenge to possible Capitol riot exploitation committee subpoena
15) McConnell: Manchin would feel “a lot more comfortable on our side”
16) European Gas Drops After Surging on Constrained Russian Flows
17) Turkey: US consulate worker arrested, accused of selling fake passport
18) US regime to try former Bolivian pol over chemical weapons deal with south Florida firm
19) Study: Omicron may be significantly less severe
20) KY: Task Force Created After Breonna Taylor Murder Finishes Review of Search Warrant Process
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Don’t Trust the Science
22) We Do Need a Great Reset — and a Different Burden of Proof
23) Biden Yells Into The Covid Abyss
24) Trump, Covid, and Despotism
25) The Land Where Angela Davis Is Queen
26) How the Build Back Better Act Died
27) Is SALT Really a Priority for Schools Right Now?
28) Fix California’s cannabis framework; eliminate the cultivation tax
29) The Sanity of the South
30) Fact Checking Media Tries to Debunk Great Reset Theories, Articles Ignite Heated Discussions Over Reboot Agenda
31) Covid Lockdowns Will Be Remembered as One of the Greatest Policy Failures Ever
32) Classical liberalism and the geopolitical stand-off with Russia
33) Why the 1970s are a blueprint (but not a destiny) for the 2020s
34) Honor, self-respect, and … love?
35) Max Boot’s Rant Against Oliver Stone
36) It’s Still the Trump Era and Worse is Coming
37) More Than Just High-Priced Digital Oddities, NFTs Could Curb Online Piracy
38) US’s Constitution was a mistake
39) Biden Won Big With a Bad Hand
40) Military threats won’t revive foundering Iran nuclear deal
41) Holiday Season Top Reading Recommendations
42) Faucists on the March
43) Biden Doubles Down on a Lethal Anti-Drug Strategy
44) What Do Iranians Think? Not Much of America, Thanks to Donald Trump
45) Antifa finally facing consequences, but ready for a new fight
46) Record Shows Supreme Court Overwhelmingly Protects Federal Power
47) Vax Passports: The Medium Is the Message
48) Joe Manchin for President
49) Those Electrifying Speculators
50) Biden’s Stagnant Venezuela Policy Has to Change
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Free Talk Live, 12/22/21
52) Cato Daily Podcast, 12/22/21
53) Reason Interview: Karol Markowicz
54) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 12/22/21
55) Conflicts of Interest, episode 204
56) Commentary Podcast, 12/22/21
57) The Bryan Hyde Show, 12/22/21
58) The Argument, 12/22/21
59) Bloggingheads.tv, 12/21/21
60) Part Of The Problem, 12/21/21
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
0) Happy Anniversary to Us …
Nineteen years ago today, Rational Review News Digest commenced publication (following the temporary demise of Freedom News Daily, where we worked and which we’ve since taken back over publishing as a “rebrand”). Our history actually goes back to 1991 and Libernet (which FND took over in the mid-1990s), making us the oldest daily news and commentary roundup for libertarians on the Internet.
THANK YOU to the readers who’ve given us 19 — or 30 — years of your attention and support. We’re glad to be the freedom movement’s daily newspaper, and look forward to the next year of bringing your daily dose of essential news, opinion, and multimedia!
Today is also, traditionally (well, since Seinfeld, anyway), Festivus. The day after tomorrow is, of course, Christmas (unless you’re Orthodox). Whatever winter holidays you celebrate (if any), we wish you happiness, health and prosperity as we head into a new year.
The week between Christmas and January 1 is generally a “slow news cycle,” and many of our commentary sources shut down or slow down during that week as well. For that reason, our daily editions may be shorter than usual, but we’ll bring them to you anyway.
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
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1) SCOTUS to hold special session on Biden vaccine mandates
Source: Politico
“The Supreme Court says it will hold a special session in just over two weeks to hear arguments on the Biden administration’s vaccine or testing requirement for large employers and a separate vaccine requirement for health care workers, an announcement that comes amid rising coronavirus cases. The high court announced late Wednesday that it would hear arguments in the cases on Jan. 7. The court had not been scheduled to hear cases again until Jan. 10.” (12/22/21)
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/22/supreme-court-special-session-vaccine-requirements-526030
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2) Hong Kong: University removes memorial to victims of 1989 Beijing regime massacre, tries to fob off blame on pre-Beijing-occupation law
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“A sculpture at the University of Hong Kong commemorating the victims of the Tiananmen Square crackdown was dismantled and taken away in the early hours of Thursday morning, two months after campus chiefs ordered its removal. The HKU Council, a partially government-appointed body, confirmed the removal in a morning statement, saying the decision to take down the eight-metre Pillar of Shame was made based on ‘external legal advice and risk assessment’ after a Wednesday meeting. ‘Latest legal advice given to the university cautioned that the continued display of the statue would pose legal risks … based on the Crimes Ordinance enacted under the Hong Kong colonial government,’ the statement reads.” (12/23/21)
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/3160744/university-hong-kong-covers-pillar-shame-sculpture-marking-tiananmen
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3) Biden extends student loan freeze to May 1
Source: The Hill
“President Biden on Wednesday extended the pandemic moratorium on federal student loan payments and interest accrual through May 1 amid surging cases of COVID-19. The president announced the extension in a Wednesday statement that touted the strength of the economy during his first year in office but acknowledged the new threat posed by the omicron variant. … Those who owe student loans to the federal government have not been required to make payments on their debt since former President Trump initially issued the moratorium in March 2020. Trump’s order also froze the accrual of interest on federal student loans, effectively freezing $1.6 trillion in debt owed by more than 40 million Americans. The moratorium was set to lapse on Jan. 31 per an extension signed by Biden in August, and the White House earlier this month all but ruled out another extension.” (12/22/21)
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/586942-biden-extends-student-loan-freeze-to-may-1
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4) France: Brigitte Macron to sue over false claims she was born male
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Brigitte Macron is set to take legal action over an internet conspiracy theory that she is a transgender woman and was born male. The French first lady has been targeted on social media with the false claims, after they were published on a far-right website in September then circulated by conspiracy theorists. The rumours claim she was born male under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux. The name has trended on social media with tens of thousands of mentions. A lawyer for Mrs Macron (who is the mother of three now-adult children from her first marriage) confirmed she is taking action. … The lies about the 68-year-old have been spread by accounts opposed to her husband, President Emmanuel Macron, including those on the political far-right, anti-vaccine groups and from the QAnon conspiracy movement.” (12/22/21)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59753535
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5) Myanmar: Coup regime seeks closer ties with Beijing
Source: National Post [Canada]
“Myanmar’s military government said on Wednesday it would pilot accepting Renminbi as an official settlement currency for cross-border trade next year and that restarting development projects with neighboring China was a ‘major priority.’ Myanmar’s junta, which seized power in a Feb. 1 coup, said it enjoyed a special ‘kinship’ with China which has supported it financially and with COVID-19 vaccines. The statement issued by the ministries of information and investment identified several joint projects with China that the government is seeking to push ahead, including plans for railways and ports.” (12/22/21)
https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/myanmar-says-to-accept-renminbi-for-settlements-stresses-china-ties
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6) CO: Truck driver Rogel Aguilera-Mederos’s sentence sparks uproar
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“‘If I had the discretion, it would not be my sentence,’ the judge said after Rogel Aguilera-Mederos was convicted. His lorry had ploughed into traffic on a mountain road in Colorado in April 2019, killing four people. Convicted on 27 counts, the 26-year-old was handed a 110-year prison term the judge said he was forced to impose. The sentence sparked uproar. Some 4.5 million have signed a petition on Change.org asking for clemency …. One anonymous juror in the case told the local Fox station ‘I cried my eyes out,’ after the sentencing. Governor Jared Polis says his office is reviewing the case, and the district attorney has asked the court to reconsider the sentence. Truck drivers announced on social media they would boycott Colorado after the ruling.” (12/22/21)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59750154
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7) Billionaire Jeff Green resigns from Mormon church, says he’s donating $600K to LGBTQ group
Source: USA Today
“A billionaire — thought to be the richest man from Utah — announced he was donating $600,000 to a LGTBQ group and resigning from his Mormon church in a 900-word letter accusing the church of hindering the progress of civil rights and taking advantage of its members. Jeff Green, CEO of Trade Desk, a software marketing company, sent the letter to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or commonly referred to as LDS, President Russell Nelson on Monday requesting the removal of his records, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. … Green, who now resides in California, had been skeptical of Mormon practices for some time and drifted away from the church a decade ago, reports The Washington Post. …In the letter, Green wrote that he was making a $600,000 donation to Equality Utah, a LGBTQ civil rights and advocacy group, on behalf of his family’s foundation.” (12/22/21)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/12/22/utah-billionaire-leaves-lds-church/8993453002/
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8) AL: Wreck of last US slave ship mostly intact on coast
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
“Researchers studying the wreckage of the last U.S. slave ship, buried in mud on the Alabama coast since it was scuttled in 1860, have made the surprising discovery that most of the wooden schooner remains intact, including the pen that was used to imprison African captives during the brutal journey across the Atlantic Ocean. While the upper portion of the two-masted Clotilda is gone, the section below deck where the captured Africans and stockpiles were held is still largely in one piece after being buried for decades in a section of river that hasn’t been dredged, said maritime archaeologist James Delgado of the Florida-based SEARCH Inc.” (12/22/21)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Research-Wreck-of-last-US-slave-ship-mostly-16722553.php
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9) US regime traffic safety bureaucrats, apparently out of actual traffic safety work, investigate Tesla
Source: Reuters
“U.S auto safety regulators said Wednesday they have opened a formal safety investigation into 580,000 Tesla vehicles sold since 2017 over the automaker’s decision to allow games to be played on the front center touchscreen. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said its preliminary evaluation covers various 2017-2022 Tesla Model 3, S, X, and Y vehicles. This functionality, referred to as ‘Passenger Play,’ ‘may distract the driver and increase the risk of a crash,’ the agency said.” (12/22/21)
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-opens-investigation-into-580000-tesla-vehicles-over-game-feature-2021-12-22/
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10) Progressives [sic] demand Biden implement agenda like a proper dictator would
Source: Fox News
“House progressives are calling on President Biden to use his executive power to implement parts of Democrats’ massive legislative agenda, which stalled out in the Senate this month when Sen. Joe Manchin said he cannot vote for it. ‘Today, the elected leadership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus is calling on the President and all Democrats who believe in the need to Build Back Better for climate, care, immigrants, and those seeking economic dignity and opportunity to come together and deliver for the American people,’ the Congressional Progressive Caucus said in a statement. … ‘In Congress, we will continue to prioritize a legislative path for Build Back Better … In the meantime, the White House must continue to act on a parallel track by using the President’s incredibly powerful tool of executive action.'” [editor’s note: But wasn’t it Trump who was supposed to be the wanna-be tyrant? I vewwy confuse – SAT] (12/22/21)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-congressional-progressives-biden-executive-action-reconciliation-build-back-better
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11) CA: Judge rules against San Diego schools in COVID vaccine mandate suit
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
“A judge has ruled against the San Diego public school system’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students, saying the requirement set to begin Jan. 24 conflicts with state law. San Diego Superior Court Judge John Meyer ruled Monday that the San Diego Unified School District does not have the authority to establish its own vaccine mandate, KNSD-TV reported. The Board of Education unanimously voted Tuesday to appeal the ruling. ‘Vaccines remain the best way to protect the health and safety of our students, and we are 100-percent determined to maintain the vaccination mandate,’ the school district said in a message to staff and families. The judge’s tentative ruling sided with the parent group ‘Let Them Choose,’ which filed the lawsuit in October.” (12/22/21)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Judge-rules-against-San-Diego-schools-in-COVID-16720488.php
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12) Amazon among key tech firms to drop CES plans on Covid-19 concern
Source: CNBC
“Amazon, Facebook parent Meta, Twitter and Pinterest will not send teams to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas as concerns grow about Omicron, the firms said on Tuesday. CES, which serves as an annual showcase of new trends and gadgets in the technology industry has attracted more than 180,000 people from around the world to a sprawling array of casinos and convention spaces in the past. Amazon and its smart-home unit Ring said they would not be onsite at next month’s event due to the ‘quickly shifting situation and uncertainty around the Omicron variant’ of coronavirus, the firm’s spokesperson told Reuters in an email.” (12/22/21)
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/22/amazon-among-key-tech-firms-to-drop-ces-plans-on-covid-19-concern.html
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13) Winter Olympics: NHL will not send players to Beijing
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“The National Hockey League (NHL) has confirmed it will not send its players to the men’s ice hockey tournament at the Beijing Winter Olympics. It follows disruption to the regular NHL season because of a surge in Covid-19 cases. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said ‘Olympic participation is no longer feasible’ with 50 league games postponed up to 23 December. The Games are scheduled to begin in China on 4 February, 2022. Without the NHL’s stars, national teams at the Olympics will resemble those that featured at the Pyeongchang Winter Games four years ago. With the time difference between South Korea and North America, many of the matches at the 2018 Games were played in the middle of the night for US audiences, and the NHL felt it was not right to put its league on hold for three weeks and allow its players to go to Pyeongchang.” (12/22/21)
https://www.bbc.com/sport/ice-hockey/59760792
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14) Flynn loses legal challenge to possible Capitol riot exploitation committee subpoena
Source: Politico
“Michael Flynn has swiftly lost his bid in court to block a possible House select committee subpoena for his phone records and to hold off demands he speak to the panel investigating January 6. The ruling comes one day after he asked a federal judge in Florida for a temporary restraining order, and it’s the first quick response to a lawsuit from a House witness, after several went to court to try to invalidate the committee and block the House from pursuing their phone records. … District Judge Mary Scriven in Tampa said in the decision that Flynn did not meet the procedural requirements to make the case for emergency intervention, and that he could refile his request in the future or allow his requests to play out on a longer schedule in court.” (12/22/21)
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/22/politics/michael-flynn-january-6-lawsuit/index.html
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15) McConnell: Manchin would feel “a lot more comfortable on our side”
Source: Fox News
“Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Fox News Wednesday that Republicans would welcome Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., with open arms if he chose to switch parties, adding that he thinks the West Virginia Democrat would be ‘a lot more comfortable on our side’. ‘A good solution to his problem would be to come across the aisle and join us,’ McConnell said in an appearance on ‘America Reports.’ ‘He would be treated with respect and find himself in agreement with the party he was caucusing with most of the time.’ … If Manchin were to switch parties and become a Republican, it would give the GOP control of the Senate with a slim 51-senator majority.” [editor’s note: All he actually has to do is declare as Independent and then stop caucusing with the Dems; GOP would then control Senate – SAT] (12/22/21)
https://www.foxnews.com/media/mcconnell-manchin-more-comfortable-republican
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16) European Gas Drops After Surging on Constrained Russian Flows
Source: Bloomberg
“European gas and power prices eased after surging to a fresh record on Tuesday as Russia keeps shipments to Europe capped. Russian gas flows into Germany’s Mallnow compressor station remained halted and the key Yamal-Europe pipeline was instead flowing gas eastward to Poland for a second day, according to network operator Gascade. The so-called reverse flows are likely the result of lower requests from buyers in Europe. Still, constrained supplies from Russia mean Europe has to rely on its already depleted storage sites, as nuclear outages in France mean more gas is needed to generate electricity. Inventories in Europe are expected to end the heating season at record-low levels, extending this year’s crunch.” [editor’s note: They might want to think hard about whether they want to give in to the US regime on the Nord Stream II pipeline … – TLK] (12/22/21)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-22/european-gas-drops-after-surging-on-constrained-russian-flows
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17) Turkey: US consulate worker arrested, accused of selling fake passport
Source: Daily Mail [UK]
“Turkish authorities have arrested an American described as a diplomat working for the US Consulate in Lebanon for allegedly selling a fake passport to a Syrian national seeking to travel to Germany, and swapping clothes with him. The Anadolu Agency, Turkey’s state-run news outlet, reported on Wednesday that the American suspect, identified only by his initials D.J.K., was detained at Istanbul Airport on November 11, and was later formally arrested on suspicion of selling the forged passport for $10,000. A US State Department spokesperson confirmed in an email to DailyMail.com on Wednesday that D.J.K. is a US citizen, but denied that he is a diplomat.” (12/22/21)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10336465/Turkey-US-diplomat-arrested-allegedly-sold-fake-passport.html
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18) US regime to try former Bolivian pol over chemical weapons deal with south Florida firm
Source: Miami Herald
“When Bolivia’s longtime leader Evo Morales was forced to step down amid political upheaval over his disputed re-election two years ago, a rival government deployed police with tear gas to attack throngs of protesters who supported the former socialist president. The chemical agent was bought from a South Florida tactical weapons company at grossly inflated prices by the conservative Bolivian officials who assumed power, according to court records and criminal charges filed in South Florida. Bribes sealed the deal, federal authorities in Miami say. At the center of the alleged foreign corruption scheme was Arturo Carlos Murillo Prijic, the former Bolivian minister of government. He was arrested earlier this year at a home in Doral and indicted in December on conspiracy and money laundering charges accusing him of accepting more than $500,000 in kickbacks from the South Florida tear-gas supplier between November 2019 and April 2020.” (12/22/21)
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article256737237.html
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19) Study: Omicron may be significantly less severe
Source: The Hill
“A new South African study finds that omicron could be significantly less severe than previous strains of the novel coronavirus. The study found that people with omicron infections had an 80 percent lower chance of being hospitalized, compared to other COVID-19 cases. The researchers cautioned, though, that it is unclear to what extent omicron is intrinsically less severe than earlier strains, and to what extent the drop is due to more immunity in the population, from both prior infection and vaccination, than there was in earlier waves.” [editor’s note: In New York City, reported cases have gone from a seven-day rolling average of 1,464 to 11,391 since October 1. The seven-day rolling average of deaths has increased too — from 12 to 13. I can’t find statistics on the increase in vaccination rates, but it seems unlikely to be large enough to account for those other changes – TLK] (12/22/21)
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/586895-south-african-study-finds-omicron-may-be-significantly-less-severe
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20) KY: Task Force Created After Breonna Taylor Murder Finishes Review of Search Warrant Process
Source: Newsweek
“Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said a search warrant task force, created after Breonna Taylor’s [murder by police officers], finished its review of the search warrant process Tuesday and had several recommendations. The specialized task force was created last year after police used a no-knock warrant to enter 26-year-old Taylor’s apartment, where she was [murdered] by officers. The 18-member panel recommended three main changes for the way search warrants are handled in the future, including police officers receiving additional training in search warrant procedures, the implementation of an electric database and tracking ZIP codes where search warrants are carried out.” (12/21/21)
https://www.newsweek.com/task-force-created-after-breonna-taylor-shooting-finishes-review-search-warrant-process-1661906
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Don’t Trust the Science
Source: WendyMcElroy.com
by Brad
“Over and over again, during the pandemic — and before that, about global warming — we have been exhorted to ‘trust the science.’ The problem is, that statement can mean five different things to different people — and four of them are bunkum: 1. Trust the scientific method. 2. Trust the Science. 3. Trust the scientific consensus. 4. Trust the scientists. 5. Trust the science bureaucrats. … I don’t believe in ‘The Science,’ I think the ‘scientific consensus’ is a sham, I don’t unreservedly trust any particular scientist, and I positively distrust any bureaucrat claiming authority over science. But I do trust the scientific method.” (12/22/21)
http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.11875
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22) We Do Need a Great Reset — and a Different Burden of Proof
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“The Great Reset is about finding ways to make it easier for the same people who’ve been running things for the last 400 years — since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, when the modern ‘nation-state’ model we live under came into existence — to remain in charge …. As a panarchist, one of the most amusing demands I run into is that I prove how, without monopoly government in the form it exists now, we wouldn’t run into the problem of … well, insert any major problem we already have. They’ve had 400 years to solve Problem X, and haven’t. Where Problem X is concerned, the burden of proof should be on them to prove how their solution is going to suddenly, magically start working when it never has before, not on me to prove that an untried alternative will solve what they haven’t.” (12/22/21)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/16495
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23) Biden Yells Into The Covid Abyss
Source: The American Conservative
by Bradley Devlin
“Yesterday, President Joe Biden delivered a speech from the White House to answer questions about the various risks associated with the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and what further actions the government would take to fight this new strain of disease. The question is: When will Biden and the public health officials who have effectively run the county for the last two years realize no one is listening to them anymore? … The science that both the right and left claimed to be following for the first year or so of the pandemic no longer matters much to anyone at all. It has been reduced to a club to be wielded against a professed adversary — an unvaxxed uncle, a wine aunt who wears three masks to go with her three jabs, a maskless (or masked) stranger, or a cable TV news host.” (12/22/21)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/biden-yells-into-the-covid-abyss/
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24) Trump, Covid, and Despotism
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Donald J Boudreaux
“Some of the people who support Covid restrictions, or who see in them nothing ominous, are blinded by a fear greater than their fear of Covid-19. This greater fear is that of being thought by others, and by themselves, to be insufficiently hostile to Donald Trump and Trumpism. … The thinking seems to have been this: To be pro-Trump is to be anti-science, therefore, to be anti-Trump is to be pro-science. And to be pro-science specifically is to be pro-Fauci, Birx, CNN, and the New York Times, because these persons and media are anti-Trump. People reached this conclusion without much investigation of the realities of Covid restrictions, or of Trump’s actual role in affecting a response. Careful investigation of the governments’ responses reveals that these were, and remain, dangerously disproportionate to the dangers posed by Covid. As for Trump, he played a key role in implementing lockdowns.” (12/22/21)
https://www.aier.org/article/trump-covid-and-despotism/
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25) The Land Where Angela Davis Is Queen
Source: Quillette
by Meghann McCracken
“Last summer, I experienced another flashback to my time at UC Santa Cruz as I watched the coverage of what came to be known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), established in Seattle by Black Lives Matter protesters. The iconography that appeared throughout the encampment also reminded me of the fundamentalist religion in which I was raised. Black victims of police brutality like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were being portrayed as martyrs, while intersectional feminist activists like the late bell hooks (a UCSC alumna) were elevated to sainthood. Front and center was the patron saint of them all, Angela Davis. … Davis had been fired from her position at UCLA in 1969 due to her membership in the Communist Party, and was made a professor at UCSC in 1991. Over the next few years, she had become the star professor on campus with a cult-like following in the grandly named ‘History of Consciousness’ department.” (12/22/21)
https://quillette.com/2021/12/22/the-land-where-angela-davis-is-queen/
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26) How the Build Back Better Act Died
Source: Independent Institute
by Craig Eyermann
“The Biden-Harris administration’s Build Back Better (BBB) Act is a bad spending bill. But it wasn’t until Friday, December 10, 2021 that anyone fully appreciated how bad it really is. That was the day the Congressional Budget Office released its estimate of the full cost of H.R. 5376, the legislation containing the BBB Act’s spending. In its updated analysis, the CBO dropped the pretense that politicians would allow the bill’s new spending and welfare measures to expire.” (12/22/21)
https://blog.independent.org/2021/12/22/how-the-build-back-better-act-died/
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27) Is SALT Really a Priority for Schools Right Now?
Source: Show-Me Institute
by Susan Pendergrass
“With families enduring yet another chaotic school year of mask mandates, vaccination mandates, school closures, and shortages of substitute teachers and bus drivers, you would think that the teachers unions would be up to their eyeballs trying to figure out how to get things back on track. Nevertheless, the president of the American Federation of Teachers found the time to join a protest on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. And what was the protest for? Why, to bring back the deductibility of state and local taxes on federal tax forms, of course.” (12/22/21)
https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/accountability/is-salt-really-a-priority-for-schools-right-now/
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28) Fix California’s cannabis framework; eliminate the cultivation tax
Source: Orange County Register
by Tiffany Devitt & Jim Araby
“It stinks to be in the cannabis industry in California right now. We aren’t just speaking metaphorically either. Four years after cannabis advocates and workers celebrated the opening of the largest legal recreational marijuana market in the world, misguided licensing and taxation policies have created an emporium of dysfunction. Today, hundreds of California cannabis farmers are choosing to let crops rot in the fields rather than risk a money-losing harvest or returning to the illicit market. Astonishingly, amid this crisis, California’s Department of Tax and Fee Administration recently announced yet another tax increase. … Let’s compare how much higher the cultivation tax is for cannabis than, say, wine grapes, almonds or raisins. Actually, no such comparison is possible because no other agricultural product has a cultivation tax.” (12/22/21)
https://www.ocregister.com/2021/12/22/fix-californias-cannabis-framework-eliminate-the-cultivation-tax/
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29) The Sanity of the South
Source: The Pamphleteer
by Virgil Davis
“Depending on who you are, Southerners in the United States are either the craziest people in the world or the sanest. If you’ve read this newsletter, you know I am not about to make the case for why they are the craziest except to say that they are an outlier, and typically, outliers receive the designation crazy for acting in ways others do not expect or want them to. In the midst of the pandemic, media outlets, especially our favorite enemy outpost, The Tennessean, have not shied away from demonizing and mocking the South. As if some latent nerve impulse excited by ancestral memories of the Civil War awakened at the New York Times, the South often gets castigated for the country’s ills deserving or not.” (12/22/21)
https://pamphleteer.co/post/the-sanity-of-the-south/
-----
30) Fact Checking Media Tries to Debunk Great Reset Theories, Articles Ignite Heated Discussions Over Reboot Agenda
Source: Bitcoin.com
by Jamie Redman
“Ever since the outbreak of Covid-19, an agenda called the Great Reset has been discussed far and wide across the globe. The subject has been tied to a number of theories that claim the global elite are planning to reset society and the economy to ‘build back better.’ A Reuters fact check article says that the initiative was named the Great Reset in June 2020. In recent times, Reuters journalists claim that an image circulating on the internet inviting Dutch politicians to a Great Reset-themed forum in Davos ‘has been taken out of context.’ Essentially, the Great Reset is an idea that claims society and the economy can be recrafted into an equitable world, one that aims to fix climate change, reform social justice, and create a different kind of capitalism called ‘stakeholder capitalism.'” (12/22/21)
https://news.bitcoin.com/fact-checking-media-tries-to-debunk-great-reset-theories-articles-ignite-heated-discussions-over-reboot-agenda/
-----
31) Covid Lockdowns Will Be Remembered as One of the Greatest Policy Failures Ever
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Robert Fellner
“Lockdowns were one of the ‘greatest peacetime policy disasters of all time,’ concludes Professor Douglas Allen in a paper just published by the International Journal of the Economics of Business. Elsewhere, a team of researchers with the National Bureau of Economic Research ‘failed to find’ any evidence that lockdowns led to a reduction in the covid death rate. In fact, the researchers — who examined data from forty-three countries and all US states — found that lockdowns were positively correlated with a higher total death rate. That preventing people from engaging in work, school, and socialization would cause widespread suffering is hardly surprising. Sadly, Nevadans are all too familiar with this fact.” (12/22/21)
https://mises.org/wire/covid-lockdowns-will-be-remembered-one-greatest-policy-failures-ever
-----
32) Classical liberalism and the geopolitical stand-off with Russia
Source: Institute of Economic Affairs
by Edwin van de Haar
“Generations of students of international relations (IR) at British universities have learned that liberals detest war and actively seek possibilities to eradicate conflict out of world politics. For example by shifting power from the nation state to international organisations, or by the expansion of international law, setting clear norms and punishing those states that do not stay within the legal framework of, for example, the United Nations. Other liberal ‘solutions’ have focused on domestic politics, notably the attempt to keep the alleged war-mongering classes (generals, diplomats, aristocrats) at bay by increasing the power of the allegedly peace-loving general public over foreign affairs. … this kind of thinking is indeed ‘liberal’ — but in the American sense. How do other types of liberals look at IR, particular in the context of the current geopolitical stand-off with Russia?” (12/22/21)
https://iea.org.uk/classical-liberalism-and-the-geopolitical-stand-off-with-russia/
-----
33) Why the 1970s are a blueprint (but not a destiny) for the 2020s
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by Peter Grier & Noah Robertson
“Protests. An ugly withdrawal from a botched foreign war. Inflation. Politics riven by anger and partisanship. Puff-sleeve peasant dresses. Shortages of consumer items. New music from ABBA. This was the 1970s — and perhaps also the early 2020s. History often runs in cycles, and four decades after Watergate and the debut of ‘M*A*S*H,’ the United States at times seems to have gone forward into the past, with the retreat from Afghanistan evoking the flight from Saigon, Black Lives Matter protests echoing ’70s civil rights and anti-war marches, and a spike in the cost of living reviving painful memories of a decadelong economic malady known as ‘stagflation.’ … The 1970s and early 2020s are far from twins, of course. They differ in ways both small and profound.” (12/22/21)
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2021/1222/Why-the-70s-are-a-blueprint-but-not-a-destiny-for-the-2020s
-----
34) Honor, self-respect, and … love?
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“Urban areas — regardless of their size — feature some of the best and the worst of ‘civilized living.’ The best can be wonderful. But the worst is often beyond rational understanding, sickening beyond belief. We here at The Price of Liberty are agrarian in nature. No, we do not believe in ‘agrarian democracy’ as Jefferson is sometimes viewed: we believe that democracy is flawed severely at best, and evil more often than not. Nor are we great promoters of an ‘agrarian republic’ for republic still denotes a mandatory government, antithetical to self-governing and human liberty. Perhaps we are ‘agrarian’ anarchists because free-market anarchy seems to have a better chance of existence in a frontier and rural society. Why? Let’s explore.” (12/22/21)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2021/12/22/honor-self-respect-and-love/
-----
35) Max Boot’s Rant Against Oliver Stone
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Max Boot, a conservative who has long favored regime-change operations on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment, is going after Hollywood producer and director Oliver Stone. His beef with Stone? He’s upset because Stone has long maintained that the U.S. national-security establishment employed one of its patented regime-change operations here at home, against President John F. Kennedy. … Interestingly, Boot makes a reference to Stone’s accusation ‘that Kennedy’s autopsy reports were falsified.’ Actually, the more accurate way to put it is that the U.S. national-security establishment conducted a fraudulent autopsy. That fraud was reflected in both the autopsy photographs as well as the final autopsy report.” (12/22/21)
https://www.fff.org/2021/12/22/max-boots-rant-against-oliver-stone/
-----
36) It’s Still the Trump Era and Worse is Coming
Source: CounterPunch
by Paul Street
“Fellow US-Americans, do you have the strange sensation of still being in the fascistic Donald Trump era during the neoliberal Joe Biden administration? You are not crazy. Yes, the president is still Sleepy Time Joe, a Democrat who announced his 2020 campaign with a video (softly) linking Trump to the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany, and the Congress is still run by slim Democrat majorities in both of its houses. But for how long? Under the powerful influence of Trump’s Big Stolen Election Lie (BSEL), a wildly potent evidence-defying deception that Hitler and Goebbels would admire, the Republican Party is rigging the electoral game at the state level.” (12/22/21)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/22/its-still-the-trump-era-and-worse-is-coming/
-----
37) More Than Just High-Priced Digital Oddities, NFTs Could Curb Online Piracy
Source: American Consequences
by Trish Regan
“A decade ago, I traveled to the lawless tri-border area of Paraguay, one of the most active hubs in the massive global counterfeit-goods industry. I was shooting a documentary about American companies desperate to combat counterfeiting. There, on the streets of Ciudad del Este, a landlocked jungle town bordering Argentina and Brazil, vendors were willing to sell me anything and everything, from fake phones to pirated movies to counterfeit Microsoft software. And these fakes were quite good… indetectable in their differences to the real products. Counterfeiting has a real cost to our economy… The International Chamber of Commerce estimates that counterfeit goods cost businesses nearly $1 trillion a year in lost revenue. But what if there was a way to truly stop the business of counterfeiting in its tracks — at least online?” (12/22/21)
https://americanconsequences.com/more-than-just-high-priced-digital-oddities-nfts-could-curb-online-piracy/
-----
38) US’s Constitution was a mistake
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“For many years I was desperate to believe in and support the Constitution, and saw it as the greatest achievement in human government. Only after I stopped believing in political government of any sort could I see the Constitution clearly. The Constitution was presented as a gift, but once unwrapped turned out to be worse than a lump of coal. It may have been the sneakiest Trojan horse in history. I won’t criticize you if you still believe in Santa or the Constitution, though.” (12/22/21)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2021/12/22/news/opinion-uss-constitution-was-a-mistake/170725.html
-----
39) Biden Won Big With a Bad Hand
Source: The Atlantic
by David Frum
“Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia is taking heat for sinking, at least for the moment, the Biden administration’s Build Back Better Act. But before pointing fingers, Democrats should use those fingers to count votes. … Instead of fulminating against Manchin for calling quits when he did, Democrats might want to reflect on how much of their agenda got enacted only thanks to the team spirit of a senator from a state that Trump won in 2020 by 39 points. Anybody can win a poker game with a good hand. It takes a real maestro to play a bad one. Biden won a bigger pool with worse cards than any Democratic president ever. He won that pool because Manchin gave Biden more loyalty under more adverse conditions than the moderate Democrats of 2009 gave to President Obama.” (12/22/21)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/joe-manchin-biden-majority-agenda/621085/
-----
40) Military threats won’t revive foundering Iran nuclear deal
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Gregory Brew
“As negotiations to renew the nuclear deal between Iran and the United States in Vienna grind on, commentators have begun to seriously float the idea of a military strike on Iran to prevent it from going nuclear. Leon Panetta, Michele Flournoy, Dennis Ross and others wrote that the threat of a strike would be necessary to convince Iran ‘it will suffer severe consequences if it stays on its current path.’ Regional experts Eric Brewer and Henry Rome reached the same conclusion: the threat of a strike should be kept in reserve to convince Iran to rein in its activity. … Threats of a military strike aren’t going to coerce Iran, as they might have done in the past. The only practical course to deter Iran is through diplomatic engagement, both at the regional level and through the Vienna discussions including the P5+1.” (12/22/21)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/12/22/sanctions-relief-could-revive-the-iran-nuclear-deal/
-----
41) Holiday Season Top Reading Recommendations
Source: Common Dreams
by Ralph Nader
“The most important books exposing real injustices are often the least read. Nearly all of the hundreds of thousands of neighborhood book clubs insist on only reading and discussing works of fiction. They don’t want hard feelings over disagreements. Major book awards and prizes rarely select books addressing corporate crimes and what to do about them. Not surprisingly, you rarely read about these books or see or hear about them on television and radio shows, including PBS and NPR. Corporate funders prefer convenient alternatives such as art, culture, history, and entertainment. The following recent books connect us to the grim reality, pulling us back from myths and virtual reality escapes to the societal mirror we all must face for the common good of today and tomorrow …” (12/22/21)
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/12/22/ralph-naders-holiday-season-top-reading-recommendations
-----
42) Faucists on the March
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“While many experts, including Southwest Airline’s CEO, think that the air filtration systems on jetliners are so good that wearing protective face coverings (‘masks’) is pointless, our Doctor Anthony Fauci will have none of it. When the National Institutes of Health head honcho and Big Pharma Pusher No. 1 was asked about whether we can ditch masks on airplanes, he responded predictably: no. … Contra Fauci, these once-discouraged and now-forever-exalted masks are not nearly as effective as made out. And they have severe ‘unintended’ effects.” (12/22/21)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2021/12/22/faucists-on-the-march/
-----
43) Biden Doubles Down on a Lethal Anti-Drug Strategy
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum
“For more than a century, the U.S. government has failed to prevent Americans from consuming politically disfavored intoxicants. Worse, it has systematically made drug use more dangerous by forcing consumers to rely on black-market products of unknown composition and by pushing traffickers toward increasingly potent substances that are easier to smuggle. The ongoing ‘opioid crisis,’ which has driven drug-related deaths to record levels, illustrates both of those phenomena. But instead of recognizing the lethal effects of prohibition, President Joe Biden is doubling down on a strategy that has never worked as intended.” (12/22/21)
https://reason.com/2021/12/22/biden-doubles-down-on-a-lethal-anti-drug-strategy/
-----
44) What Do Iranians Think? Not Much of America, Thanks to Donald Trump
Source: Antiwar.com
by Doug Bandow
“When President Donald Trump took office the Islamist Iranian regime was contained by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Then Trump, knowing nothing of Iran, ignorant of the JCPOA’s terms, certain of his negotiating genius, and in thrall [to] both Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, tore up the agreement and announced his ‘maximum pressure’ campaign. Trump expected Iran’s rulers to scurry to Washington, D.C., acclaim his greatness, and sign surrender documents. Instead, Tehran proceeded to demonstrate that Trump’s America was a ‘paper tiger,’ as Mao Zedong once insisted. … A recent survey from the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland and IranPoll has little good news for the US. Trump’s maladroit sanctions did worsen Iran’s economy, as expected …. However, as a result of US policy, public opinion also modestly shifted blame from domestic mismanagement to foreign pressure.” (12/22/21)
https://original.antiwar.com/doug-bandow/2021/12/21/what-do-iranians-think-not-much-of-america-thanks-to-donald-trump/
-----
45) Antifa finally facing consequences, but ready for a new fight
Source: Fox News
by Jason Rantz
“Antifa thugs and radical activists who participated in last year’s ‘mostly peaceful protests’ are finally facing steep jail sentences for their destructive criminal behavior. Too bad so few in the media are noticing. The lack of attention allows Antifa to regroup for the next big fight. And it’s coming sooner than you realize. The FBI arrested Justin Christopher Moore earlier this month for allegedly bringing 12 Molotov cocktails to an Antifa and Black Lives Matter protest-turned-riot outside the Seattle Police Officers Guild offices on Labor Day 2020. He’s been charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Activists threw explosives and rocks at cops and sprayed them with bear spray. Nevertheless, Seattle media whitewashed the riot as merely a ‘protest.’ Anyone who covered it at the time, as I did for my Seattle-based talk radio show, knew it was a planned assault.” (12/22/21)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/antifa-riots-crime-portland-seattle-jason-rantz
-----
46) Record Shows Supreme Court Overwhelmingly Protects Federal Power
Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by TJ Martinell
“One of the most prevalent political strategies is to sue and hope federal courts rein in unconstitutional federal overreach. But evidence shows it almost never turns out that way. While some justices and Supreme Court opinions have restricted federal power over the years, in most cases, SCOTUS protects and institutionalizes federal power.” (12/22/21)
https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2021/12/22/record-shows-supreme-court-overwhelmingly-protects-federal-power/
-----
47) Vax Passports: The Medium Is the Message
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Michael Riches
“As the concept of vaccine certificates began tickling the fancy of certain segments of the public last spring and summer, opponents reliably invoked Orwell in response to what came to be called ‘freedom passports,’ ‘green passes,’ or other such cute names. The public intellectual that came to my mind, though, was Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan coined his renowned maxim, ‘The medium is the message,’ in 1964’s Understanding Media …. Look at the cards in your wallet. What do they say? A driver’s licence has content, but in certain environments it says, ‘I am of drinking age.’ … A vaccine certificate likewise has a simple amount of content, but with greater and more potent messages. Users will say that these objects simply say, ‘I am safe.'” (12/21/21)
https://brownstone.org/articles/vax-passports-the-medium-is-the-message/
-----
48) Joe Manchin for President
Source: The Intercept
by Ryan Grim
“When Lyndon B. Johnson took over leadership of the Senate Democratic caucus in the early 1950s, anybody who suggested that he would one day become the most consequential elected champion of civil rights in nearly 100 years would have been laughed out of the smoke-filled room. Yet just a few years later, the protege of the arch-segregationist and white supremacist Sen. Richard Russell had broken with his mentor and muscled through the 1957 Civil Rights Act, followed later, as president, by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act. None of that meant Johnson stopped being racist; rather, he saw where the future was heading. … Ironically, a path remarkably similar to the one that opened up for Johnson is now laid out before Manchin, but Manchin’s narrow view of himself and his potential means that he’s unlikely to see it.” (12/21/21)
https://theintercept.com/2021/12/21/joe-manchin-president-lbj/
-----
49) Those Electrifying Speculators
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“Upon the news of the Build Back Better Act’s untimely death (well, it’s mostly dead), electric-vehicle stocks tanked. The bill had incentive payments of up to $12,500 for consumers purchasing an EV, and their loss could crush demand, especially for young companies banking on a robust market. But the Biden administration’s revised fuel efficiency standard, setting a benchmark of 55 miles per gallon by the 2026 model year, does boost EV fortunes. The only way to get a fleet that green is to expand electrification, and that rising tide should give every company in the space new opportunities. Nationwide charging infrastructure, which was part of the bipartisan infrastructure law, also creates favorable conditions for EVs. The green vehicle transition, in other words, is under way and inevitable, and large automakers are adapting to this reality.” (12/22/21)
https://prospect.org/environment/those-electrifying-speculators/
-----
50) Biden’s Stagnant Venezuela Policy Has to Change
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison
“Sanctions hawks continue to rely on a crude theory of political change in which imposing severe hardship causes the immiserated population to rise up in protest. Of course, what predictably happens is that making people poorer and making them more preoccupied with basic material needs serve the status quo and the forces of authoritarianism. Authoritarian rulers may not want to be under sanctions, but they know how to turn a sanctions regime to their advantage. When the population faces greater scarcity because of sanctions, they are forced to rely on the existing authorities more. Political dissent and resistance become more difficult, and people struggling to feed their families have much less time and energy to devote to political activism and protest. Economic coercion can destroy lives and livelihoods, but it does not bring freedom, accountability, or justice.” (12/21/21)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/bidens-stagnant-venezuela-policy
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Free Talk Live, 12/22/21
Source: Free Talk Live
"Trolling cops :: The Great Reset’s mysterious agenda :: Stakeholder capitalism :: Sarah advocates slavery :: Changes in North Korea :: The failures of capitalism :: What is capitalism? :: Word salad :: David bitches about Free Talk Live :: You’ll own nothing and be happy about it :: Show: 2021-12-22 Aria, Ian, Bonnie." [Flash audio or MP3] (12/22/21)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/free-talk-live-2021-12-22
-----
52) Cato Daily Podcast, 12/22/21
Source: Cato Institute
“Ranked‐Choice Voting and Political Polarization.” [various formats] (12/22/21)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-daily-podcast/ranked-choice-voting-political-polarization
-----
53) Reason Interview: Karol Markowicz
Source: Reason
“This Brooklyn-bred New York Post columnist and her family are fleeing to Florida due to bad education policy and COVID mismanagement.” [various formats] (12/22/21)
https://reason.com/podcast/2021/12/22/karol-markowiczs-escape-from-new-york-should-worry-blue-state-america/
-----
54) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 12/22/21
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Austria Going Full Gestapo?” [Flash video] (12/22/21)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/austria-going-full-gestapo
-----
55) Conflicts of Interest, episode 204
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Are America and Israel Waking Up to the Iran Reality?” [various formats] (12/22/21)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-204-are-america-and-israel-waking-up-to-the-iran-reality/
-----
56) Commentary Podcast, 12/22/21
Source: Commentary
“Biden Has Nothing to Say About Omicron.” [various formats] (12/22/21)
https://www.commentary.org/john-podhoretz/biden-has-nothing-to-say-about-omicron/
-----
57) The Bryan Hyde Show, 12/22/21
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“Whether you recognize it or not, freedom is at stake in a way that it hasn’t been for some time. It’s not just a matter of voting the right people into office. It’s about people who understand what their rights are and what constitutes proper government.” (12/22/21)
https://thebryanhydeshow.podbean.com/e/2021-december-22-the-bryan-hyde-show-hour-one/
-----
58) The Argument, 12/22/21
Source: New York Times
“Sherrilyn Ifill: ‘There Is No Guarantee We Make It Out of This Period as a Democracy.’” [various formats] (12/22/21)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/22/opinion/sherrilyn-ifill-naacp-kyle-rittenhouse.html
-----
59) Bloggingheads.tv, 12/21/21
Source: Bloggingheads.tv
“Some Meanings of Christmas | Robert Wright & Father William Dailey.” [Flash video] (12/22/21)
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/63365
-----
60) Part Of The Problem, 12/21/21
Source: GaS Digital Network
Dave Smith and Angela McArdle discuss McArdle’s debate on vaccine mandates with Ilya Somin (but, curiously, not her attempt to pre-rig the audience vote outcome by asking supporters to falsely pretend they were coming in “undecided”), as well as their efforts to wreck the Libertarian Party. [various formats] (12/21/21)
https://art19.com/shows/d0ab5d6f-1972-4441-b3f8-6b61d09f7f15/embed?playlist_type=playlist&playlist_size=10#
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Today's Freedom News:
0) Happy Anniversary to Us …
1) SCOTUS to hold special session on Biden vaccine mandates
2) Hong Kong: University removes memorial to victims of 1989 Beijing regime massacre, tries to fob off blame on pre-Beijing-occupation law
3) Biden extends student loan freeze to May 1
4) France: Brigitte Macron to sue over false claims she was born male
5) CO: Truck driver Rogel Aguilera-Mederos’s sentence sparks uproar
6) Myanmar: Coup regime seeks closer ties with Beijing
7) Billionaire Jeff Green resigns from Mormon church, says he’s donating $600K to LGBTQ group
8) AL: Wreck of last US slave ship mostly intact on coast
9) US regime traffic safety bureaucrats, apparently out of actual traffic safety work, investigate Tesla
10) Progressives [sic] demand Biden implement agenda like a proper dictator would
11) CA: Judge rules against San Diego schools in COVID vaccine mandate suit
12) Amazon among key tech firms to drop CES plans on Covid-19 concern
13) Winter Olympics: NHL will not send players to Beijing
14) Flynn loses legal challenge to possible Capitol riot exploitation committee subpoena
15) McConnell: Manchin would feel “a lot more comfortable on our side”
16) European Gas Drops After Surging on Constrained Russian Flows
17) Turkey: US consulate worker arrested, accused of selling fake passport
18) US regime to try former Bolivian pol over chemical weapons deal with south Florida firm
19) Study: Omicron may be significantly less severe
20) KY: Task Force Created After Breonna Taylor Murder Finishes Review of Search Warrant Process
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Don’t Trust the Science
22) We Do Need a Great Reset — and a Different Burden of Proof
23) Biden Yells Into The Covid Abyss
24) Trump, Covid, and Despotism
25) The Land Where Angela Davis Is Queen
26) How the Build Back Better Act Died
27) Is SALT Really a Priority for Schools Right Now?
28) Fix California’s cannabis framework; eliminate the cultivation tax
29) The Sanity of the South
30) Fact Checking Media Tries to Debunk Great Reset Theories, Articles Ignite Heated Discussions Over Reboot Agenda
31) Covid Lockdowns Will Be Remembered as One of the Greatest Policy Failures Ever
32) Classical liberalism and the geopolitical stand-off with Russia
33) Why the 1970s are a blueprint (but not a destiny) for the 2020s
34) Honor, self-respect, and … love?
35) Max Boot’s Rant Against Oliver Stone
36) It’s Still the Trump Era and Worse is Coming
37) More Than Just High-Priced Digital Oddities, NFTs Could Curb Online Piracy
38) US’s Constitution was a mistake
39) Biden Won Big With a Bad Hand
40) Military threats won’t revive foundering Iran nuclear deal
41) Holiday Season Top Reading Recommendations
42) Faucists on the March
43) Biden Doubles Down on a Lethal Anti-Drug Strategy
44) What Do Iranians Think? Not Much of America, Thanks to Donald Trump
45) Antifa finally facing consequences, but ready for a new fight
46) Record Shows Supreme Court Overwhelmingly Protects Federal Power
47) Vax Passports: The Medium Is the Message
48) Joe Manchin for President
49) Those Electrifying Speculators
50) Biden’s Stagnant Venezuela Policy Has to Change
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Free Talk Live, 12/22/21
52) Cato Daily Podcast, 12/22/21
53) Reason Interview: Karol Markowicz
54) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 12/22/21
55) Conflicts of Interest, episode 204
56) Commentary Podcast, 12/22/21
57) The Bryan Hyde Show, 12/22/21
58) The Argument, 12/22/21
59) Bloggingheads.tv, 12/21/21
60) Part Of The Problem, 12/21/21
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
0) Happy Anniversary to Us …
Nineteen years ago today, Rational Review News Digest commenced publication (following the temporary demise of Freedom News Daily, where we worked and which we’ve since taken back over publishing as a “rebrand”). Our history actually goes back to 1991 and Libernet (which FND took over in the mid-1990s), making us the oldest daily news and commentary roundup for libertarians on the Internet.
THANK YOU to the readers who’ve given us 19 — or 30 — years of your attention and support. We’re glad to be the freedom movement’s daily newspaper, and look forward to the next year of bringing your daily dose of essential news, opinion, and multimedia!
Today is also, traditionally (well, since Seinfeld, anyway), Festivus. The day after tomorrow is, of course, Christmas (unless you’re Orthodox). Whatever winter holidays you celebrate (if any), we wish you happiness, health and prosperity as we head into a new year.
The week between Christmas and January 1 is generally a “slow news cycle,” and many of our commentary sources shut down or slow down during that week as well. For that reason, our daily editions may be shorter than usual, but we’ll bring them to you anyway.
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
-----
1) SCOTUS to hold special session on Biden vaccine mandates
Source: Politico
“The Supreme Court says it will hold a special session in just over two weeks to hear arguments on the Biden administration’s vaccine or testing requirement for large employers and a separate vaccine requirement for health care workers, an announcement that comes amid rising coronavirus cases. The high court announced late Wednesday that it would hear arguments in the cases on Jan. 7. The court had not been scheduled to hear cases again until Jan. 10.” (12/22/21)
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/22/supreme-court-special-session-vaccine-requirements-526030
-----
2) Hong Kong: University removes memorial to victims of 1989 Beijing regime massacre, tries to fob off blame on pre-Beijing-occupation law
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“A sculpture at the University of Hong Kong commemorating the victims of the Tiananmen Square crackdown was dismantled and taken away in the early hours of Thursday morning, two months after campus chiefs ordered its removal. The HKU Council, a partially government-appointed body, confirmed the removal in a morning statement, saying the decision to take down the eight-metre Pillar of Shame was made based on ‘external legal advice and risk assessment’ after a Wednesday meeting. ‘Latest legal advice given to the university cautioned that the continued display of the statue would pose legal risks … based on the Crimes Ordinance enacted under the Hong Kong colonial government,’ the statement reads.” (12/23/21)
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/3160744/university-hong-kong-covers-pillar-shame-sculpture-marking-tiananmen
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3) Biden extends student loan freeze to May 1
Source: The Hill
“President Biden on Wednesday extended the pandemic moratorium on federal student loan payments and interest accrual through May 1 amid surging cases of COVID-19. The president announced the extension in a Wednesday statement that touted the strength of the economy during his first year in office but acknowledged the new threat posed by the omicron variant. … Those who owe student loans to the federal government have not been required to make payments on their debt since former President Trump initially issued the moratorium in March 2020. Trump’s order also froze the accrual of interest on federal student loans, effectively freezing $1.6 trillion in debt owed by more than 40 million Americans. The moratorium was set to lapse on Jan. 31 per an extension signed by Biden in August, and the White House earlier this month all but ruled out another extension.” (12/22/21)
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/586942-biden-extends-student-loan-freeze-to-may-1
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4) France: Brigitte Macron to sue over false claims she was born male
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Brigitte Macron is set to take legal action over an internet conspiracy theory that she is a transgender woman and was born male. The French first lady has been targeted on social media with the false claims, after they were published on a far-right website in September then circulated by conspiracy theorists. The rumours claim she was born male under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux. The name has trended on social media with tens of thousands of mentions. A lawyer for Mrs Macron (who is the mother of three now-adult children from her first marriage) confirmed she is taking action. … The lies about the 68-year-old have been spread by accounts opposed to her husband, President Emmanuel Macron, including those on the political far-right, anti-vaccine groups and from the QAnon conspiracy movement.” (12/22/21)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59753535
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5) Myanmar: Coup regime seeks closer ties with Beijing
Source: National Post [Canada]
“Myanmar’s military government said on Wednesday it would pilot accepting Renminbi as an official settlement currency for cross-border trade next year and that restarting development projects with neighboring China was a ‘major priority.’ Myanmar’s junta, which seized power in a Feb. 1 coup, said it enjoyed a special ‘kinship’ with China which has supported it financially and with COVID-19 vaccines. The statement issued by the ministries of information and investment identified several joint projects with China that the government is seeking to push ahead, including plans for railways and ports.” (12/22/21)
https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/myanmar-says-to-accept-renminbi-for-settlements-stresses-china-ties
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6) CO: Truck driver Rogel Aguilera-Mederos’s sentence sparks uproar
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“‘If I had the discretion, it would not be my sentence,’ the judge said after Rogel Aguilera-Mederos was convicted. His lorry had ploughed into traffic on a mountain road in Colorado in April 2019, killing four people. Convicted on 27 counts, the 26-year-old was handed a 110-year prison term the judge said he was forced to impose. The sentence sparked uproar. Some 4.5 million have signed a petition on Change.org asking for clemency …. One anonymous juror in the case told the local Fox station ‘I cried my eyes out,’ after the sentencing. Governor Jared Polis says his office is reviewing the case, and the district attorney has asked the court to reconsider the sentence. Truck drivers announced on social media they would boycott Colorado after the ruling.” (12/22/21)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59750154
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7) Billionaire Jeff Green resigns from Mormon church, says he’s donating $600K to LGBTQ group
Source: USA Today
“A billionaire — thought to be the richest man from Utah — announced he was donating $600,000 to a LGTBQ group and resigning from his Mormon church in a 900-word letter accusing the church of hindering the progress of civil rights and taking advantage of its members. Jeff Green, CEO of Trade Desk, a software marketing company, sent the letter to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or commonly referred to as LDS, President Russell Nelson on Monday requesting the removal of his records, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. … Green, who now resides in California, had been skeptical of Mormon practices for some time and drifted away from the church a decade ago, reports The Washington Post. …In the letter, Green wrote that he was making a $600,000 donation to Equality Utah, a LGBTQ civil rights and advocacy group, on behalf of his family’s foundation.” (12/22/21)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/12/22/utah-billionaire-leaves-lds-church/8993453002/
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8) AL: Wreck of last US slave ship mostly intact on coast
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
“Researchers studying the wreckage of the last U.S. slave ship, buried in mud on the Alabama coast since it was scuttled in 1860, have made the surprising discovery that most of the wooden schooner remains intact, including the pen that was used to imprison African captives during the brutal journey across the Atlantic Ocean. While the upper portion of the two-masted Clotilda is gone, the section below deck where the captured Africans and stockpiles were held is still largely in one piece after being buried for decades in a section of river that hasn’t been dredged, said maritime archaeologist James Delgado of the Florida-based SEARCH Inc.” (12/22/21)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Research-Wreck-of-last-US-slave-ship-mostly-16722553.php
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9) US regime traffic safety bureaucrats, apparently out of actual traffic safety work, investigate Tesla
Source: Reuters
“U.S auto safety regulators said Wednesday they have opened a formal safety investigation into 580,000 Tesla vehicles sold since 2017 over the automaker’s decision to allow games to be played on the front center touchscreen. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said its preliminary evaluation covers various 2017-2022 Tesla Model 3, S, X, and Y vehicles. This functionality, referred to as ‘Passenger Play,’ ‘may distract the driver and increase the risk of a crash,’ the agency said.” (12/22/21)
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-opens-investigation-into-580000-tesla-vehicles-over-game-feature-2021-12-22/
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10) Progressives [sic] demand Biden implement agenda like a proper dictator would
Source: Fox News
“House progressives are calling on President Biden to use his executive power to implement parts of Democrats’ massive legislative agenda, which stalled out in the Senate this month when Sen. Joe Manchin said he cannot vote for it. ‘Today, the elected leadership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus is calling on the President and all Democrats who believe in the need to Build Back Better for climate, care, immigrants, and those seeking economic dignity and opportunity to come together and deliver for the American people,’ the Congressional Progressive Caucus said in a statement. … ‘In Congress, we will continue to prioritize a legislative path for Build Back Better … In the meantime, the White House must continue to act on a parallel track by using the President’s incredibly powerful tool of executive action.'” [editor’s note: But wasn’t it Trump who was supposed to be the wanna-be tyrant? I vewwy confuse – SAT] (12/22/21)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-congressional-progressives-biden-executive-action-reconciliation-build-back-better
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11) CA: Judge rules against San Diego schools in COVID vaccine mandate suit
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
“A judge has ruled against the San Diego public school system’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students, saying the requirement set to begin Jan. 24 conflicts with state law. San Diego Superior Court Judge John Meyer ruled Monday that the San Diego Unified School District does not have the authority to establish its own vaccine mandate, KNSD-TV reported. The Board of Education unanimously voted Tuesday to appeal the ruling. ‘Vaccines remain the best way to protect the health and safety of our students, and we are 100-percent determined to maintain the vaccination mandate,’ the school district said in a message to staff and families. The judge’s tentative ruling sided with the parent group ‘Let Them Choose,’ which filed the lawsuit in October.” (12/22/21)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Judge-rules-against-San-Diego-schools-in-COVID-16720488.php
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12) Amazon among key tech firms to drop CES plans on Covid-19 concern
Source: CNBC
“Amazon, Facebook parent Meta, Twitter and Pinterest will not send teams to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas as concerns grow about Omicron, the firms said on Tuesday. CES, which serves as an annual showcase of new trends and gadgets in the technology industry has attracted more than 180,000 people from around the world to a sprawling array of casinos and convention spaces in the past. Amazon and its smart-home unit Ring said they would not be onsite at next month’s event due to the ‘quickly shifting situation and uncertainty around the Omicron variant’ of coronavirus, the firm’s spokesperson told Reuters in an email.” (12/22/21)
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/22/amazon-among-key-tech-firms-to-drop-ces-plans-on-covid-19-concern.html
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13) Winter Olympics: NHL will not send players to Beijing
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“The National Hockey League (NHL) has confirmed it will not send its players to the men’s ice hockey tournament at the Beijing Winter Olympics. It follows disruption to the regular NHL season because of a surge in Covid-19 cases. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said ‘Olympic participation is no longer feasible’ with 50 league games postponed up to 23 December. The Games are scheduled to begin in China on 4 February, 2022. Without the NHL’s stars, national teams at the Olympics will resemble those that featured at the Pyeongchang Winter Games four years ago. With the time difference between South Korea and North America, many of the matches at the 2018 Games were played in the middle of the night for US audiences, and the NHL felt it was not right to put its league on hold for three weeks and allow its players to go to Pyeongchang.” (12/22/21)
https://www.bbc.com/sport/ice-hockey/59760792
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14) Flynn loses legal challenge to possible Capitol riot exploitation committee subpoena
Source: Politico
“Michael Flynn has swiftly lost his bid in court to block a possible House select committee subpoena for his phone records and to hold off demands he speak to the panel investigating January 6. The ruling comes one day after he asked a federal judge in Florida for a temporary restraining order, and it’s the first quick response to a lawsuit from a House witness, after several went to court to try to invalidate the committee and block the House from pursuing their phone records. … District Judge Mary Scriven in Tampa said in the decision that Flynn did not meet the procedural requirements to make the case for emergency intervention, and that he could refile his request in the future or allow his requests to play out on a longer schedule in court.” (12/22/21)
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/22/politics/michael-flynn-january-6-lawsuit/index.html
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15) McConnell: Manchin would feel “a lot more comfortable on our side”
Source: Fox News
“Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Fox News Wednesday that Republicans would welcome Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., with open arms if he chose to switch parties, adding that he thinks the West Virginia Democrat would be ‘a lot more comfortable on our side’. ‘A good solution to his problem would be to come across the aisle and join us,’ McConnell said in an appearance on ‘America Reports.’ ‘He would be treated with respect and find himself in agreement with the party he was caucusing with most of the time.’ … If Manchin were to switch parties and become a Republican, it would give the GOP control of the Senate with a slim 51-senator majority.” [editor’s note: All he actually has to do is declare as Independent and then stop caucusing with the Dems; GOP would then control Senate – SAT] (12/22/21)
https://www.foxnews.com/media/mcconnell-manchin-more-comfortable-republican
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16) European Gas Drops After Surging on Constrained Russian Flows
Source: Bloomberg
“European gas and power prices eased after surging to a fresh record on Tuesday as Russia keeps shipments to Europe capped. Russian gas flows into Germany’s Mallnow compressor station remained halted and the key Yamal-Europe pipeline was instead flowing gas eastward to Poland for a second day, according to network operator Gascade. The so-called reverse flows are likely the result of lower requests from buyers in Europe. Still, constrained supplies from Russia mean Europe has to rely on its already depleted storage sites, as nuclear outages in France mean more gas is needed to generate electricity. Inventories in Europe are expected to end the heating season at record-low levels, extending this year’s crunch.” [editor’s note: They might want to think hard about whether they want to give in to the US regime on the Nord Stream II pipeline … – TLK] (12/22/21)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-22/european-gas-drops-after-surging-on-constrained-russian-flows
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17) Turkey: US consulate worker arrested, accused of selling fake passport
Source: Daily Mail [UK]
“Turkish authorities have arrested an American described as a diplomat working for the US Consulate in Lebanon for allegedly selling a fake passport to a Syrian national seeking to travel to Germany, and swapping clothes with him. The Anadolu Agency, Turkey’s state-run news outlet, reported on Wednesday that the American suspect, identified only by his initials D.J.K., was detained at Istanbul Airport on November 11, and was later formally arrested on suspicion of selling the forged passport for $10,000. A US State Department spokesperson confirmed in an email to DailyMail.com on Wednesday that D.J.K. is a US citizen, but denied that he is a diplomat.” (12/22/21)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10336465/Turkey-US-diplomat-arrested-allegedly-sold-fake-passport.html
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18) US regime to try former Bolivian pol over chemical weapons deal with south Florida firm
Source: Miami Herald
“When Bolivia’s longtime leader Evo Morales was forced to step down amid political upheaval over his disputed re-election two years ago, a rival government deployed police with tear gas to attack throngs of protesters who supported the former socialist president. The chemical agent was bought from a South Florida tactical weapons company at grossly inflated prices by the conservative Bolivian officials who assumed power, according to court records and criminal charges filed in South Florida. Bribes sealed the deal, federal authorities in Miami say. At the center of the alleged foreign corruption scheme was Arturo Carlos Murillo Prijic, the former Bolivian minister of government. He was arrested earlier this year at a home in Doral and indicted in December on conspiracy and money laundering charges accusing him of accepting more than $500,000 in kickbacks from the South Florida tear-gas supplier between November 2019 and April 2020.” (12/22/21)
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article256737237.html
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19) Study: Omicron may be significantly less severe
Source: The Hill
“A new South African study finds that omicron could be significantly less severe than previous strains of the novel coronavirus. The study found that people with omicron infections had an 80 percent lower chance of being hospitalized, compared to other COVID-19 cases. The researchers cautioned, though, that it is unclear to what extent omicron is intrinsically less severe than earlier strains, and to what extent the drop is due to more immunity in the population, from both prior infection and vaccination, than there was in earlier waves.” [editor’s note: In New York City, reported cases have gone from a seven-day rolling average of 1,464 to 11,391 since October 1. The seven-day rolling average of deaths has increased too — from 12 to 13. I can’t find statistics on the increase in vaccination rates, but it seems unlikely to be large enough to account for those other changes – TLK] (12/22/21)
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/586895-south-african-study-finds-omicron-may-be-significantly-less-severe
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20) KY: Task Force Created After Breonna Taylor Murder Finishes Review of Search Warrant Process
Source: Newsweek
“Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said a search warrant task force, created after Breonna Taylor’s [murder by police officers], finished its review of the search warrant process Tuesday and had several recommendations. The specialized task force was created last year after police used a no-knock warrant to enter 26-year-old Taylor’s apartment, where she was [murdered] by officers. The 18-member panel recommended three main changes for the way search warrants are handled in the future, including police officers receiving additional training in search warrant procedures, the implementation of an electric database and tracking ZIP codes where search warrants are carried out.” (12/21/21)
https://www.newsweek.com/task-force-created-after-breonna-taylor-shooting-finishes-review-search-warrant-process-1661906
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Don’t Trust the Science
Source: WendyMcElroy.com
by Brad
“Over and over again, during the pandemic — and before that, about global warming — we have been exhorted to ‘trust the science.’ The problem is, that statement can mean five different things to different people — and four of them are bunkum: 1. Trust the scientific method. 2. Trust the Science. 3. Trust the scientific consensus. 4. Trust the scientists. 5. Trust the science bureaucrats. … I don’t believe in ‘The Science,’ I think the ‘scientific consensus’ is a sham, I don’t unreservedly trust any particular scientist, and I positively distrust any bureaucrat claiming authority over science. But I do trust the scientific method.” (12/22/21)
http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.11875
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22) We Do Need a Great Reset — and a Different Burden of Proof
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“The Great Reset is about finding ways to make it easier for the same people who’ve been running things for the last 400 years — since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, when the modern ‘nation-state’ model we live under came into existence — to remain in charge …. As a panarchist, one of the most amusing demands I run into is that I prove how, without monopoly government in the form it exists now, we wouldn’t run into the problem of … well, insert any major problem we already have. They’ve had 400 years to solve Problem X, and haven’t. Where Problem X is concerned, the burden of proof should be on them to prove how their solution is going to suddenly, magically start working when it never has before, not on me to prove that an untried alternative will solve what they haven’t.” (12/22/21)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/16495
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23) Biden Yells Into The Covid Abyss
Source: The American Conservative
by Bradley Devlin
“Yesterday, President Joe Biden delivered a speech from the White House to answer questions about the various risks associated with the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and what further actions the government would take to fight this new strain of disease. The question is: When will Biden and the public health officials who have effectively run the county for the last two years realize no one is listening to them anymore? … The science that both the right and left claimed to be following for the first year or so of the pandemic no longer matters much to anyone at all. It has been reduced to a club to be wielded against a professed adversary — an unvaxxed uncle, a wine aunt who wears three masks to go with her three jabs, a maskless (or masked) stranger, or a cable TV news host.” (12/22/21)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/biden-yells-into-the-covid-abyss/
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24) Trump, Covid, and Despotism
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Donald J Boudreaux
“Some of the people who support Covid restrictions, or who see in them nothing ominous, are blinded by a fear greater than their fear of Covid-19. This greater fear is that of being thought by others, and by themselves, to be insufficiently hostile to Donald Trump and Trumpism. … The thinking seems to have been this: To be pro-Trump is to be anti-science, therefore, to be anti-Trump is to be pro-science. And to be pro-science specifically is to be pro-Fauci, Birx, CNN, and the New York Times, because these persons and media are anti-Trump. People reached this conclusion without much investigation of the realities of Covid restrictions, or of Trump’s actual role in affecting a response. Careful investigation of the governments’ responses reveals that these were, and remain, dangerously disproportionate to the dangers posed by Covid. As for Trump, he played a key role in implementing lockdowns.” (12/22/21)
https://www.aier.org/article/trump-covid-and-despotism/
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25) The Land Where Angela Davis Is Queen
Source: Quillette
by Meghann McCracken
“Last summer, I experienced another flashback to my time at UC Santa Cruz as I watched the coverage of what came to be known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), established in Seattle by Black Lives Matter protesters. The iconography that appeared throughout the encampment also reminded me of the fundamentalist religion in which I was raised. Black victims of police brutality like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were being portrayed as martyrs, while intersectional feminist activists like the late bell hooks (a UCSC alumna) were elevated to sainthood. Front and center was the patron saint of them all, Angela Davis. … Davis had been fired from her position at UCLA in 1969 due to her membership in the Communist Party, and was made a professor at UCSC in 1991. Over the next few years, she had become the star professor on campus with a cult-like following in the grandly named ‘History of Consciousness’ department.” (12/22/21)
https://quillette.com/2021/12/22/the-land-where-angela-davis-is-queen/
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26) How the Build Back Better Act Died
Source: Independent Institute
by Craig Eyermann
“The Biden-Harris administration’s Build Back Better (BBB) Act is a bad spending bill. But it wasn’t until Friday, December 10, 2021 that anyone fully appreciated how bad it really is. That was the day the Congressional Budget Office released its estimate of the full cost of H.R. 5376, the legislation containing the BBB Act’s spending. In its updated analysis, the CBO dropped the pretense that politicians would allow the bill’s new spending and welfare measures to expire.” (12/22/21)
https://blog.independent.org/2021/12/22/how-the-build-back-better-act-died/
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27) Is SALT Really a Priority for Schools Right Now?
Source: Show-Me Institute
by Susan Pendergrass
“With families enduring yet another chaotic school year of mask mandates, vaccination mandates, school closures, and shortages of substitute teachers and bus drivers, you would think that the teachers unions would be up to their eyeballs trying to figure out how to get things back on track. Nevertheless, the president of the American Federation of Teachers found the time to join a protest on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. And what was the protest for? Why, to bring back the deductibility of state and local taxes on federal tax forms, of course.” (12/22/21)
https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/accountability/is-salt-really-a-priority-for-schools-right-now/
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28) Fix California’s cannabis framework; eliminate the cultivation tax
Source: Orange County Register
by Tiffany Devitt & Jim Araby
“It stinks to be in the cannabis industry in California right now. We aren’t just speaking metaphorically either. Four years after cannabis advocates and workers celebrated the opening of the largest legal recreational marijuana market in the world, misguided licensing and taxation policies have created an emporium of dysfunction. Today, hundreds of California cannabis farmers are choosing to let crops rot in the fields rather than risk a money-losing harvest or returning to the illicit market. Astonishingly, amid this crisis, California’s Department of Tax and Fee Administration recently announced yet another tax increase. … Let’s compare how much higher the cultivation tax is for cannabis than, say, wine grapes, almonds or raisins. Actually, no such comparison is possible because no other agricultural product has a cultivation tax.” (12/22/21)
https://www.ocregister.com/2021/12/22/fix-californias-cannabis-framework-eliminate-the-cultivation-tax/
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29) The Sanity of the South
Source: The Pamphleteer
by Virgil Davis
“Depending on who you are, Southerners in the United States are either the craziest people in the world or the sanest. If you’ve read this newsletter, you know I am not about to make the case for why they are the craziest except to say that they are an outlier, and typically, outliers receive the designation crazy for acting in ways others do not expect or want them to. In the midst of the pandemic, media outlets, especially our favorite enemy outpost, The Tennessean, have not shied away from demonizing and mocking the South. As if some latent nerve impulse excited by ancestral memories of the Civil War awakened at the New York Times, the South often gets castigated for the country’s ills deserving or not.” (12/22/21)
https://pamphleteer.co/post/the-sanity-of-the-south/
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30) Fact Checking Media Tries to Debunk Great Reset Theories, Articles Ignite Heated Discussions Over Reboot Agenda
Source: Bitcoin.com
by Jamie Redman
“Ever since the outbreak of Covid-19, an agenda called the Great Reset has been discussed far and wide across the globe. The subject has been tied to a number of theories that claim the global elite are planning to reset society and the economy to ‘build back better.’ A Reuters fact check article says that the initiative was named the Great Reset in June 2020. In recent times, Reuters journalists claim that an image circulating on the internet inviting Dutch politicians to a Great Reset-themed forum in Davos ‘has been taken out of context.’ Essentially, the Great Reset is an idea that claims society and the economy can be recrafted into an equitable world, one that aims to fix climate change, reform social justice, and create a different kind of capitalism called ‘stakeholder capitalism.'” (12/22/21)
https://news.bitcoin.com/fact-checking-media-tries-to-debunk-great-reset-theories-articles-ignite-heated-discussions-over-reboot-agenda/
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31) Covid Lockdowns Will Be Remembered as One of the Greatest Policy Failures Ever
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Robert Fellner
“Lockdowns were one of the ‘greatest peacetime policy disasters of all time,’ concludes Professor Douglas Allen in a paper just published by the International Journal of the Economics of Business. Elsewhere, a team of researchers with the National Bureau of Economic Research ‘failed to find’ any evidence that lockdowns led to a reduction in the covid death rate. In fact, the researchers — who examined data from forty-three countries and all US states — found that lockdowns were positively correlated with a higher total death rate. That preventing people from engaging in work, school, and socialization would cause widespread suffering is hardly surprising. Sadly, Nevadans are all too familiar with this fact.” (12/22/21)
https://mises.org/wire/covid-lockdowns-will-be-remembered-one-greatest-policy-failures-ever
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32) Classical liberalism and the geopolitical stand-off with Russia
Source: Institute of Economic Affairs
by Edwin van de Haar
“Generations of students of international relations (IR) at British universities have learned that liberals detest war and actively seek possibilities to eradicate conflict out of world politics. For example by shifting power from the nation state to international organisations, or by the expansion of international law, setting clear norms and punishing those states that do not stay within the legal framework of, for example, the United Nations. Other liberal ‘solutions’ have focused on domestic politics, notably the attempt to keep the alleged war-mongering classes (generals, diplomats, aristocrats) at bay by increasing the power of the allegedly peace-loving general public over foreign affairs. … this kind of thinking is indeed ‘liberal’ — but in the American sense. How do other types of liberals look at IR, particular in the context of the current geopolitical stand-off with Russia?” (12/22/21)
https://iea.org.uk/classical-liberalism-and-the-geopolitical-stand-off-with-russia/
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33) Why the 1970s are a blueprint (but not a destiny) for the 2020s
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by Peter Grier & Noah Robertson
“Protests. An ugly withdrawal from a botched foreign war. Inflation. Politics riven by anger and partisanship. Puff-sleeve peasant dresses. Shortages of consumer items. New music from ABBA. This was the 1970s — and perhaps also the early 2020s. History often runs in cycles, and four decades after Watergate and the debut of ‘M*A*S*H,’ the United States at times seems to have gone forward into the past, with the retreat from Afghanistan evoking the flight from Saigon, Black Lives Matter protests echoing ’70s civil rights and anti-war marches, and a spike in the cost of living reviving painful memories of a decadelong economic malady known as ‘stagflation.’ … The 1970s and early 2020s are far from twins, of course. They differ in ways both small and profound.” (12/22/21)
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2021/1222/Why-the-70s-are-a-blueprint-but-not-a-destiny-for-the-2020s
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34) Honor, self-respect, and … love?
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“Urban areas — regardless of their size — feature some of the best and the worst of ‘civilized living.’ The best can be wonderful. But the worst is often beyond rational understanding, sickening beyond belief. We here at The Price of Liberty are agrarian in nature. No, we do not believe in ‘agrarian democracy’ as Jefferson is sometimes viewed: we believe that democracy is flawed severely at best, and evil more often than not. Nor are we great promoters of an ‘agrarian republic’ for republic still denotes a mandatory government, antithetical to self-governing and human liberty. Perhaps we are ‘agrarian’ anarchists because free-market anarchy seems to have a better chance of existence in a frontier and rural society. Why? Let’s explore.” (12/22/21)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2021/12/22/honor-self-respect-and-love/
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35) Max Boot’s Rant Against Oliver Stone
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Max Boot, a conservative who has long favored regime-change operations on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment, is going after Hollywood producer and director Oliver Stone. His beef with Stone? He’s upset because Stone has long maintained that the U.S. national-security establishment employed one of its patented regime-change operations here at home, against President John F. Kennedy. … Interestingly, Boot makes a reference to Stone’s accusation ‘that Kennedy’s autopsy reports were falsified.’ Actually, the more accurate way to put it is that the U.S. national-security establishment conducted a fraudulent autopsy. That fraud was reflected in both the autopsy photographs as well as the final autopsy report.” (12/22/21)
https://www.fff.org/2021/12/22/max-boots-rant-against-oliver-stone/
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36) It’s Still the Trump Era and Worse is Coming
Source: CounterPunch
by Paul Street
“Fellow US-Americans, do you have the strange sensation of still being in the fascistic Donald Trump era during the neoliberal Joe Biden administration? You are not crazy. Yes, the president is still Sleepy Time Joe, a Democrat who announced his 2020 campaign with a video (softly) linking Trump to the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany, and the Congress is still run by slim Democrat majorities in both of its houses. But for how long? Under the powerful influence of Trump’s Big Stolen Election Lie (BSEL), a wildly potent evidence-defying deception that Hitler and Goebbels would admire, the Republican Party is rigging the electoral game at the state level.” (12/22/21)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/22/its-still-the-trump-era-and-worse-is-coming/
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37) More Than Just High-Priced Digital Oddities, NFTs Could Curb Online Piracy
Source: American Consequences
by Trish Regan
“A decade ago, I traveled to the lawless tri-border area of Paraguay, one of the most active hubs in the massive global counterfeit-goods industry. I was shooting a documentary about American companies desperate to combat counterfeiting. There, on the streets of Ciudad del Este, a landlocked jungle town bordering Argentina and Brazil, vendors were willing to sell me anything and everything, from fake phones to pirated movies to counterfeit Microsoft software. And these fakes were quite good… indetectable in their differences to the real products. Counterfeiting has a real cost to our economy… The International Chamber of Commerce estimates that counterfeit goods cost businesses nearly $1 trillion a year in lost revenue. But what if there was a way to truly stop the business of counterfeiting in its tracks — at least online?” (12/22/21)
https://americanconsequences.com/more-than-just-high-priced-digital-oddities-nfts-could-curb-online-piracy/
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38) US’s Constitution was a mistake
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“For many years I was desperate to believe in and support the Constitution, and saw it as the greatest achievement in human government. Only after I stopped believing in political government of any sort could I see the Constitution clearly. The Constitution was presented as a gift, but once unwrapped turned out to be worse than a lump of coal. It may have been the sneakiest Trojan horse in history. I won’t criticize you if you still believe in Santa or the Constitution, though.” (12/22/21)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2021/12/22/news/opinion-uss-constitution-was-a-mistake/170725.html
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39) Biden Won Big With a Bad Hand
Source: The Atlantic
by David Frum
“Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia is taking heat for sinking, at least for the moment, the Biden administration’s Build Back Better Act. But before pointing fingers, Democrats should use those fingers to count votes. … Instead of fulminating against Manchin for calling quits when he did, Democrats might want to reflect on how much of their agenda got enacted only thanks to the team spirit of a senator from a state that Trump won in 2020 by 39 points. Anybody can win a poker game with a good hand. It takes a real maestro to play a bad one. Biden won a bigger pool with worse cards than any Democratic president ever. He won that pool because Manchin gave Biden more loyalty under more adverse conditions than the moderate Democrats of 2009 gave to President Obama.” (12/22/21)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/joe-manchin-biden-majority-agenda/621085/
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40) Military threats won’t revive foundering Iran nuclear deal
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Gregory Brew
“As negotiations to renew the nuclear deal between Iran and the United States in Vienna grind on, commentators have begun to seriously float the idea of a military strike on Iran to prevent it from going nuclear. Leon Panetta, Michele Flournoy, Dennis Ross and others wrote that the threat of a strike would be necessary to convince Iran ‘it will suffer severe consequences if it stays on its current path.’ Regional experts Eric Brewer and Henry Rome reached the same conclusion: the threat of a strike should be kept in reserve to convince Iran to rein in its activity. … Threats of a military strike aren’t going to coerce Iran, as they might have done in the past. The only practical course to deter Iran is through diplomatic engagement, both at the regional level and through the Vienna discussions including the P5+1.” (12/22/21)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/12/22/sanctions-relief-could-revive-the-iran-nuclear-deal/
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41) Holiday Season Top Reading Recommendations
Source: Common Dreams
by Ralph Nader
“The most important books exposing real injustices are often the least read. Nearly all of the hundreds of thousands of neighborhood book clubs insist on only reading and discussing works of fiction. They don’t want hard feelings over disagreements. Major book awards and prizes rarely select books addressing corporate crimes and what to do about them. Not surprisingly, you rarely read about these books or see or hear about them on television and radio shows, including PBS and NPR. Corporate funders prefer convenient alternatives such as art, culture, history, and entertainment. The following recent books connect us to the grim reality, pulling us back from myths and virtual reality escapes to the societal mirror we all must face for the common good of today and tomorrow …” (12/22/21)
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/12/22/ralph-naders-holiday-season-top-reading-recommendations
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42) Faucists on the March
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“While many experts, including Southwest Airline’s CEO, think that the air filtration systems on jetliners are so good that wearing protective face coverings (‘masks’) is pointless, our Doctor Anthony Fauci will have none of it. When the National Institutes of Health head honcho and Big Pharma Pusher No. 1 was asked about whether we can ditch masks on airplanes, he responded predictably: no. … Contra Fauci, these once-discouraged and now-forever-exalted masks are not nearly as effective as made out. And they have severe ‘unintended’ effects.” (12/22/21)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2021/12/22/faucists-on-the-march/
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43) Biden Doubles Down on a Lethal Anti-Drug Strategy
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum
“For more than a century, the U.S. government has failed to prevent Americans from consuming politically disfavored intoxicants. Worse, it has systematically made drug use more dangerous by forcing consumers to rely on black-market products of unknown composition and by pushing traffickers toward increasingly potent substances that are easier to smuggle. The ongoing ‘opioid crisis,’ which has driven drug-related deaths to record levels, illustrates both of those phenomena. But instead of recognizing the lethal effects of prohibition, President Joe Biden is doubling down on a strategy that has never worked as intended.” (12/22/21)
https://reason.com/2021/12/22/biden-doubles-down-on-a-lethal-anti-drug-strategy/
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44) What Do Iranians Think? Not Much of America, Thanks to Donald Trump
Source: Antiwar.com
by Doug Bandow
“When President Donald Trump took office the Islamist Iranian regime was contained by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Then Trump, knowing nothing of Iran, ignorant of the JCPOA’s terms, certain of his negotiating genius, and in thrall [to] both Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, tore up the agreement and announced his ‘maximum pressure’ campaign. Trump expected Iran’s rulers to scurry to Washington, D.C., acclaim his greatness, and sign surrender documents. Instead, Tehran proceeded to demonstrate that Trump’s America was a ‘paper tiger,’ as Mao Zedong once insisted. … A recent survey from the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland and IranPoll has little good news for the US. Trump’s maladroit sanctions did worsen Iran’s economy, as expected …. However, as a result of US policy, public opinion also modestly shifted blame from domestic mismanagement to foreign pressure.” (12/22/21)
https://original.antiwar.com/doug-bandow/2021/12/21/what-do-iranians-think-not-much-of-america-thanks-to-donald-trump/
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45) Antifa finally facing consequences, but ready for a new fight
Source: Fox News
by Jason Rantz
“Antifa thugs and radical activists who participated in last year’s ‘mostly peaceful protests’ are finally facing steep jail sentences for their destructive criminal behavior. Too bad so few in the media are noticing. The lack of attention allows Antifa to regroup for the next big fight. And it’s coming sooner than you realize. The FBI arrested Justin Christopher Moore earlier this month for allegedly bringing 12 Molotov cocktails to an Antifa and Black Lives Matter protest-turned-riot outside the Seattle Police Officers Guild offices on Labor Day 2020. He’s been charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Activists threw explosives and rocks at cops and sprayed them with bear spray. Nevertheless, Seattle media whitewashed the riot as merely a ‘protest.’ Anyone who covered it at the time, as I did for my Seattle-based talk radio show, knew it was a planned assault.” (12/22/21)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/antifa-riots-crime-portland-seattle-jason-rantz
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46) Record Shows Supreme Court Overwhelmingly Protects Federal Power
Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by TJ Martinell
“One of the most prevalent political strategies is to sue and hope federal courts rein in unconstitutional federal overreach. But evidence shows it almost never turns out that way. While some justices and Supreme Court opinions have restricted federal power over the years, in most cases, SCOTUS protects and institutionalizes federal power.” (12/22/21)
https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2021/12/22/record-shows-supreme-court-overwhelmingly-protects-federal-power/
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47) Vax Passports: The Medium Is the Message
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Michael Riches
“As the concept of vaccine certificates began tickling the fancy of certain segments of the public last spring and summer, opponents reliably invoked Orwell in response to what came to be called ‘freedom passports,’ ‘green passes,’ or other such cute names. The public intellectual that came to my mind, though, was Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan coined his renowned maxim, ‘The medium is the message,’ in 1964’s Understanding Media …. Look at the cards in your wallet. What do they say? A driver’s licence has content, but in certain environments it says, ‘I am of drinking age.’ … A vaccine certificate likewise has a simple amount of content, but with greater and more potent messages. Users will say that these objects simply say, ‘I am safe.'” (12/21/21)
https://brownstone.org/articles/vax-passports-the-medium-is-the-message/
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48) Joe Manchin for President
Source: The Intercept
by Ryan Grim
“When Lyndon B. Johnson took over leadership of the Senate Democratic caucus in the early 1950s, anybody who suggested that he would one day become the most consequential elected champion of civil rights in nearly 100 years would have been laughed out of the smoke-filled room. Yet just a few years later, the protege of the arch-segregationist and white supremacist Sen. Richard Russell had broken with his mentor and muscled through the 1957 Civil Rights Act, followed later, as president, by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act. None of that meant Johnson stopped being racist; rather, he saw where the future was heading. … Ironically, a path remarkably similar to the one that opened up for Johnson is now laid out before Manchin, but Manchin’s narrow view of himself and his potential means that he’s unlikely to see it.” (12/21/21)
https://theintercept.com/2021/12/21/joe-manchin-president-lbj/
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49) Those Electrifying Speculators
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“Upon the news of the Build Back Better Act’s untimely death (well, it’s mostly dead), electric-vehicle stocks tanked. The bill had incentive payments of up to $12,500 for consumers purchasing an EV, and their loss could crush demand, especially for young companies banking on a robust market. But the Biden administration’s revised fuel efficiency standard, setting a benchmark of 55 miles per gallon by the 2026 model year, does boost EV fortunes. The only way to get a fleet that green is to expand electrification, and that rising tide should give every company in the space new opportunities. Nationwide charging infrastructure, which was part of the bipartisan infrastructure law, also creates favorable conditions for EVs. The green vehicle transition, in other words, is under way and inevitable, and large automakers are adapting to this reality.” (12/22/21)
https://prospect.org/environment/those-electrifying-speculators/
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50) Biden’s Stagnant Venezuela Policy Has to Change
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison
“Sanctions hawks continue to rely on a crude theory of political change in which imposing severe hardship causes the immiserated population to rise up in protest. Of course, what predictably happens is that making people poorer and making them more preoccupied with basic material needs serve the status quo and the forces of authoritarianism. Authoritarian rulers may not want to be under sanctions, but they know how to turn a sanctions regime to their advantage. When the population faces greater scarcity because of sanctions, they are forced to rely on the existing authorities more. Political dissent and resistance become more difficult, and people struggling to feed their families have much less time and energy to devote to political activism and protest. Economic coercion can destroy lives and livelihoods, but it does not bring freedom, accountability, or justice.” (12/21/21)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/bidens-stagnant-venezuela-policy
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Free Talk Live, 12/22/21
Source: Free Talk Live
"Trolling cops :: The Great Reset’s mysterious agenda :: Stakeholder capitalism :: Sarah advocates slavery :: Changes in North Korea :: The failures of capitalism :: What is capitalism? :: Word salad :: David bitches about Free Talk Live :: You’ll own nothing and be happy about it :: Show: 2021-12-22 Aria, Ian, Bonnie." [Flash audio or MP3] (12/22/21)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/free-talk-live-2021-12-22
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52) Cato Daily Podcast, 12/22/21
Source: Cato Institute
“Ranked‐Choice Voting and Political Polarization.” [various formats] (12/22/21)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-daily-podcast/ranked-choice-voting-political-polarization
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53) Reason Interview: Karol Markowicz
Source: Reason
“This Brooklyn-bred New York Post columnist and her family are fleeing to Florida due to bad education policy and COVID mismanagement.” [various formats] (12/22/21)
https://reason.com/podcast/2021/12/22/karol-markowiczs-escape-from-new-york-should-worry-blue-state-america/
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54) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 12/22/21
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Austria Going Full Gestapo?” [Flash video] (12/22/21)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/austria-going-full-gestapo
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55) Conflicts of Interest, episode 204
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Are America and Israel Waking Up to the Iran Reality?” [various formats] (12/22/21)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-204-are-america-and-israel-waking-up-to-the-iran-reality/
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56) Commentary Podcast, 12/22/21
Source: Commentary
“Biden Has Nothing to Say About Omicron.” [various formats] (12/22/21)
https://www.commentary.org/john-podhoretz/biden-has-nothing-to-say-about-omicron/
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57) The Bryan Hyde Show, 12/22/21
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“Whether you recognize it or not, freedom is at stake in a way that it hasn’t been for some time. It’s not just a matter of voting the right people into office. It’s about people who understand what their rights are and what constitutes proper government.” (12/22/21)
https://thebryanhydeshow.podbean.com/e/2021-december-22-the-bryan-hyde-show-hour-one/
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58) The Argument, 12/22/21
Source: New York Times
“Sherrilyn Ifill: ‘There Is No Guarantee We Make It Out of This Period as a Democracy.’” [various formats] (12/22/21)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/22/opinion/sherrilyn-ifill-naacp-kyle-rittenhouse.html
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59) Bloggingheads.tv, 12/21/21
Source: Bloggingheads.tv
“Some Meanings of Christmas | Robert Wright & Father William Dailey.” [Flash video] (12/22/21)
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/63365
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60) Part Of The Problem, 12/21/21
Source: GaS Digital Network
Dave Smith and Angela McArdle discuss McArdle’s debate on vaccine mandates with Ilya Somin (but, curiously, not her attempt to pre-rig the audience vote outcome by asking supporters to falsely pretend they were coming in “undecided”), as well as their efforts to wreck the Libertarian Party. [various formats] (12/21/21)
https://art19.com/shows/d0ab5d6f-1972-4441-b3f8-6b61d09f7f15/embed?playlist_type=playlist&playlist_size=10#
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