05/20 -- Ukraine: Surrendering troops at Mariupol registered as POWs; Red Science, Blue Science, What Science, No Science
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Thomas L. Knapp
May 20, 2022, 7:04:48 AM5/20/22
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 05/20/22
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Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
https://news.rationalreview.com/
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Today's Freedom News:
1) Ukraine: Surrendering troops at Mariupol registered as POWs
2) Boeing's capsule encounters propulsion issues on way to International Space Station
3) Sri Lanka: Regime defaults on debt for first time in its history
4) US Senate passes $40 billion bill to disguise corporate welfare and graft as Ukraine war aid
5) Twitter unveils "crisis misinformation policy"
6) Report: Google's Russian unit to file bankruptcy after regime steals bank account
7) Gun in eight-year-old's backpack goes off at school, mom charged
8) China: Regime lifts three-year ban on Canadian canola
9) New York's hasty redistricting rewrite draws ire of locals
10) EU regimes agree on mandatory gas reserves
11) Judge denies defense motion for mistrial in "Russiagate" scam case; Sussmann testimony possible
12) Sri Lanka: Regime tries to save itself by forcing citizens to hold crappy domestic fiat currency
13) OK: House passes bill banning abortion at conception
14) NY: Hochul dances in Buffalo corpses' blood, calls for more government spying, more victim disarmament
15) CO: Court tosses $300,000 hospital bill for promised $1,300 tab
16) UK: Police conclude "Partygate" investigation into Johnson regime
17) OH: HOA orders father of slain cop to remove gang colors
18) Dubya admits truth in Freudian slip
19) Canada: Indigenous leaders ask for royal apology
20) Indonesia: Regime lifts ban on cooking oil export as supply improves
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Red Science, Blue Science, What Science, No Science
22) Think Words Aren't Magic? Think Again.
23) Biden's Baby-Formula Farce
24) What Makes You My Enemy?
25) Too Many Words
26) Abortion: Not for Women Only
27) This Is Who Will Build the Roads
28) Spread the blame around for Fed's lack of accountability
29) Congress asked, the Pentagon answered -- but UFOs remain mysterious
30) The Heart Is Mightier Than the Sword
31) Beware These New Keynesians Who Claim More Spending Is Always the Answer -- Whatever the State of the Economy
32) Clarence Thomas Has Gone Full Hack
33) Non-Union Social Security Judges Doing Same Work as Their Union Counterparts
34) Gun-Control Laws Disarmed the Tops Victims
35) The BDS Movement Has Already Lost
36) Who will watch the watchers? Who will terrorize the terrorists?
37) Inconvenient Fact About Mass Killings
38) Dinesh D'Souza's Vile Big Lie Documentary Is Too Stupid Even for Fox
39) Massive State Economic Intervention Has Led to This Point
40) Pearl of Great Price
41) Overcoming an Onslaught of Dark Money Attacks, Progressive Summer Lee Declares Victory
42) For Biden's Summit of the Americas, Obama's Handshake With Raul Castro Shows the Way
43) Gun thoughts
44) Who Misread Whom in Ukraine War Debacle?
45) Joe Biden unifying the country ... in disapproval of him
46) What Mark Cuban Gets Right (and Wrong) about Student Debt "Cancellation"
47) Conservatives Are Defending a Sanitized Version of "The Great Replacement"
48) In the Ruins of Public Reason, part 2: The Barbarians at the Gates
49) On Bush's Freudian Confession
50) Protecting Unalienable Rights
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Democratic Disney vs. Republican Disney
52) Free Talk Live, 05/19/22
53) The Bryan Hyde Show, 05/19/22
54) The Experiment Podcast, 05/19/22
55) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 05/19/22
56) Rising, 05/19/22
57) JobMakers, 05/19/22
58) Finding Freedom, episode 333
59) Cato Daily Podcast, 05/18/22
60) Ted Snider on The Scott Horton Show
61) Reason Interview: Alex Epstein
62) FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast, 05/18/22
63) The Science of Politics, 05/18/22
64) Mad Dogs & Englishmen, episode 357
65) Conflicts of Interest, episode 277
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Ukraine: Surrendering troops at Mariupol registered as POWs
Source: Associated Press
"The fate of hundreds of Ukrainian fighters who surrendered after holding out against punishing attacks on Mariupol's steel factory hung in the balance Thursday, amid international fears that the Russians may take reprisals against the prisoners. The International Committee of the Red Cross gathered personal information from hundreds of the soldiers -- name, date of birth, closest relative -- and registered them as prisoners of war, as part of its role in ensuring the humane treatment of POWs under the Geneva Conventions. Amnesty International said in a tweet that the Ukrainian soldiers are now prisoners of war and as such 'must not be subjected to any form of torture or ill-treatment.' ... While Ukraine expressed hope for a prisoner exchange, Russian authorities have threatened to investigate some of the Azovstal fighters for war crimes and put them on trial, branding them 'Nazis' and criminals." (05/20/22)
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-kyiv-nato-4cf194da8b1870d26cbedc0a7ec69ed6
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2) Boeing's capsule encounters propulsion issues on way to International Space Station
Source: France 24 [French state media]
"American aerospace giant Boeing's Starliner capsule was heading for the International Space Station Thursday, in a critical uncrewed test flight that followed years of failures and false starts. The spacecraft encountered some propulsion troubles early in its journey, with two thrusters responsible for orbital maneuvering failing for unclear reasons -- but NASA officials said the mission remained on track. The Orbital Test Flight 2 (OFT-2) mission blasted off at 6:54 pm Eastern Time (2254 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the spaceship fixed atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Its success is key to repairing Boeing's frayed reputation after the first bid, back in 2019, failed to dock with the ISS due to software bugs -- one that led to it burning too much fuel to reach its destination, and another that could have destroyed the vehicle during re-entry." (05/20/22)
https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20220520-boeing-s-capsule-faces-propulsion-issues-on-way-to-international-space-station
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3) Sri Lanka: Regime defaults on debt for first time in its history
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
"Sri Lanka has defaulted on its debt for the first time in its history as the country struggles with its worst financial crisis in more than 70 years. It comes after a 30 day grace period to repay $78m (£63m) of unpaid debt interest payments expired on Wednesday. ... Asked whether the country was now in default, central bank governor P Nandalal Weerasinghe said: 'Our position is very clear, we said that until they come to the restructure [of our debts], we will not be able to pay. So that's what you call pre-emptive default.'" (05/19/22)
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61505842
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4) US Senate passes $40 billion bill to disguise corporate welfare and graft as Ukraine war aid
Source: The Hill
"The Senate voted 86-11 Thursday to approve a $40 billion Ukraine aid package that would replenish U.S. stockpiles of weapons transferred to Ukraine and provide billions of dollars to help the Ukrainian government continue operating and for humanitarian assistance. President Biden is expected to sign the legislation, which exceeds his $33 billion request to Congress, immediately. The House passed the legislation overwhelmingly earlier this month in a 368-57 vote." [editor's note: Like most "foreign aid," this money looks like it will end up in the pockets of US "defense" contractors, which is the whole point. If there wasn't a war handy to justify it already, the US regime would find a way to get one started – TLK] (05/19/22)
https://thehill.com/news/senate/3494632-senate-passes-40-billion-ukraine-aid-package/
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5) Twitter unveils "crisis misinformation policy"
Source: Axios
"Twitter on Thursday introduced a new policy aimed at making sure the social network doesn't amplify or recommend disinformation during an international armed conflict and crisis. False material proliferated on Twitter and other social networks in the early days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Twitter says it will work to vet fact-specific information in times of crisis, via 'multiple credible, publicly available sources.' Inaccurate tweets won't be removed, but instead will be put behind a warning label. They also will be unable to be liked, retweeted or shared." [editor's note: If Twitter was really worried about disinformation, it would globally ban all government accounts. Just sayin' ... – TLK] (05/19/22)
https://www.axios.com/2022/05/19/twitter-crisis-misinformation-policy
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6) Report: Google's Russian unit to file bankruptcy after regime steals bank account
Source: Business Insider
"Google's Russian unit will file for bankruptcy after authorities [stole] the tech firm's bank account, according to media reports. Google's local unit is unable to pay its employees, suppliers and vendors in Russia as a result of the [theft], the company told the Financial Times, and had published a notice of its intention to file for bankruptcy. The firm will continue to offer its search, YouTube and other free services in Russia, it told the paper. Relations between Google and Russian authorities, already strained prior to the Kremlin's order to invade Ukraine, deteriorated after the company declined to bow to pressure from Moscow to remove content related to the conflict. Google's local unit was fined 11 mn roubles ($173,000) in April for not deleting Ukraine videos from YouTube, which Moscow deemed 'banned content,' according to the FT." (05/19/22)
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-files-bankruptcy-russia-following-bank-account-seizure-2022-5
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7) Gun in eight-year-old's backpack goes off at school, mom charged
Source: SFGate
"A Chicago mother has been charged with child endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack accidentally discharged at school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said Wednesday. The 28-year-old woman appeared in court on Wednesday on three misdemeanor child endangerment counts. A judge ordered her release from Cook County Jail on $1,000 bond. During the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on the city's North Side on Tuesday. The mother has a valid firearm owners identification card. According to police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that prosecutors said during the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child's abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good condition, police said." (05/19/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Woman-charged-after-gun-in-son-s-backpack-goes-17181527.php
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8) China: Regime lifts three-year ban on Canadian canola
Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation [Canadian state media]
"A three-year Chinese ban on Canadian canola has come to an end, according to the federal government. In a joint statement released Wednesday afternoon, Trade Minister Mary Ng and Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said China has reinstated market access for two Canadian grain trading companies that have been prevented from exporting canola seed to China since March 2019. ... In March 2019, the Chinese government blocked canola shipments from Canadian companies Richardson International Ltd. and Viterra Inc. by suspending their licences, alleging the detection of pests in canola shipments. The move followed the arrest of Chinese tech giant Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver a few months earlier." (05/19/22)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/china-canada-canola-ban-ends-1.6458746
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9) New York's hasty redistricting rewrite draws ire of locals
Source: SFGate
""New Yorkers pride themselves on the dynamism of their metropolis, where it can feel totally different on the next block, where tourists walking in Chinatown quickly find themselves in Little Italy, where a neighborhood can be a proxy for a lifestyle or worldview. Figuring out the city's complexities is tough even for locals -- and complaints are pouring in claiming that the two outsiders redrawing New York's congressional districts have bungled the job by linking and slicing communities they don't understand. The retooling of the state's political district maps was taken over this spring by a rural judge seated about five hours by car from New York City after a court sided with Republicans and ruled Democrats controlling the Legislature had engaged in illegal gerrymandering." (05/19/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/New-York-s-hasty-redistricting-rewrite-draws-ire-17184619.php
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10) EU regimes agree on mandatory gas reserves
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatar state media]
"Negotiators from the European Parliament and the 27 European Union member states have agreed on new regulations for mandatory gas reserve levels in the EU. Gas reserves must be filled to 80 percent by November 1, rising to 90 percent from 2023 onwards until the regulation expires on December 31, 2025, the European Council, the EU body representing member states, announced in a statement on Thursday. ... Negotiators also agreed on licences for operators to regulate their energy security obligations. Should this be endangered through under-filling reserves, the licence may be withdrawn and the company compelled to forfeit control or ownership of storage facilities." (05/19/22)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/19/eu-deal-reached-on-mandatory-gas-reserves-for-supply-crises
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11) Judge denies defense motion for mistrial in "Russiagate" scam case; Sussmann testimony possible
Source: Fox News
"The federal judge presiding over the case of Michael Sussmann denied the defense's motion for a mistrial Thursday morning, as the defense left open the possibility for Sussmann to testify during trial. Sussmann's attorney, Sean Berkowitz, argued for a mistrial on Thursday morning, due to a back-and-forth that came from the hours-long questioning and testimony of former Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias on Wednesday. At one point during cross-examination by the defense, Elias was asked whether Sussmann went to the FBI in September 2016 with data alleging a covert communications channel between Donald Trump and Russia's Alfa Bank on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign. 'I think you'd have to ask Mr. Sussmann,' Elias said. Later, the prosecution brought Sussmann's response up -- a move the defense said violates Sussmann's rights." (05/19/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/judge-denies-defense-motion-mistrial-sussmann-testimony-possible
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12) Sri Lanka: Regime tries to save itself by forcing citizens to hold crappy domestic fiat currency
Source: Seattle Times
"Sri Lanka will lower the amount of foreign currency that individuals can hold to $10,000 from $15,000, and penalize anyone who holds foreign currency for more than three months by making it against the law, the island nation's central bank chief announced Thursday amid the worst economic crisis in recent memory. Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe told reporters that people are requested [sic] to deposit excess foreign currency in a bank or convert it into local currency within two weeks of his announcement. After that time, central bank officials together with police will carry out raids, he said, adding that anyone found violating the new rules will be fined." (05/19/22)
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/sri-lanka-lowers-amount-of-foreign-currency-people-can-hold/
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13) OK: House passes bill banning abortion at conception
Source: KOCO 5 News
"The Oklahoma House on Thursday passed a bill that would ban abortions at conception. House Bill 4327 also would be enforced using civil lawsuits. The bill could be the strictest abortion ban Oklahoma has passed. House Bill 4327 heads to Gov. Kevin Stitt's desk. If signed, the bill would go into effect immediately. The governor said he would sign any pro-life bill that comes across his desk." (05/19/22)
https://www.koco.com/article/oklahoma-house-passes-abortion-bill-conception/40049335
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14) NY: Hochul dances in Buffalo corpses' blood, calls for more government spying, more victim disarmament
Source: Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
"Gov. Kathy Hochul introduced an array of executive orders and new legislation Wednesday [exploiting] a mass shooting in Buffalo that left 10 dead last week. ... She signed an executive order to establish a unit within the state's Office of Counterterrorism, which is part of the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, that would focus exclusively on the rise of domestic terrorism and extremism. ... Additionally, New York will create a dedicated State Police unit within the state Intelligence Center to monitor social media for these threats. ... Hochul hinted this week that she'd tighten New York's gun laws in the shooting's immediate aftermath, saying legal loopholes should be closed to prevent [victims from defending themselves from] future gun violence." (05/18/22)
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2022/05/18/buffalo-shooting-ny-gov-kathy-hochul-executive-order-red-flag-gun-laws-domestic-terrorism/9824476002/
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15) CO: Court tosses $300,000 hospital bill for promised $1,300 tab
Source: SFGate
"Colorado's Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a woman who expected to pay about $1,300 for spinal fusion surgery but was billed more than $300,000 by a suburban Denver hospital that included charges it never disclosed she might be liable for. This week's ruling in favor of Lisa French, who underwent two surgeries in 2014, follows efforts by many U.S. states and the federal government to help curb health care costs by restricting or eliminating so-called 'surprise billing' and requiring increased price transparency for consumers. In a unanimous opinion, the Colorado justices ruled Monday that agreements French signed before surgery at St. Anthony North Health Campus in Westminster don't compel her to pay the extra charges, which stemmed from a then-secret list of prices for services that hadn't been disclosed to her." (05/19/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Court-tosses-300-000-hospital-bill-for-promised-17184747.php
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16) UK: Police conclude "Partygate" investigation into Johnson regime
Source: France 24 [French state media]
"Britain's Metropolitan Police said Thursday it has concluded its investigation into breaches of COVID-19 regulations at British government offices, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson's official residence, with a total of 126 fines issued over the offenses. Police said they issued fixed-penalty notices to 53 men and 73 women for gatherings that took place on eight dates between May 2020, at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, and April 2021. Some people received multiple fines. The case has been dubbed 'partygate' by the media. Johnson apologized last month after he revealed that he was among dozens of people who paid a police fine for attending lockdown-breaching parties and gatherings. That made him the first British leader to be sanctioned for breaking the law while in office." (05/19/22)
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220519-uk-police-concludes-partygate-investigation-into-johnson-government
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17) OH: HOA orders father of slain cop to remove gang colors
Source: Fox News
"The father of an Ohio police chief who was killed in a nursing home shooting has been told by his local homeowners association that he must stop flying a Thin Blue Line flag outside of his home. Thomas DiSario, a disabled veteran and the father of slain officer Steven Eric DiSario, told WCMH-TV this week that his HOA recently told him to remove a Thin Blue Line flag he sometimes flies in front of his home. Additionally, DiSario says he had to call the police after someone not associated with the HOA attempted to remove the flag from his property. 'The political sign in the form of a flag must be removed from your property,' the letter dated Friday to DiSario from the Omni Community Association Managers said." (05/19/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/us/ohio-hoa-father-slain-police-remove-blue-line-flag
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18) Dubya admits truth in Freudian slip
Source: The Hill
"Former President George W. Bush slipped up during a speech on Wednesday about Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, condemning instead the 'unjustified and brutal' invasion of Iraq. The comment came as Bush, who has been mocked over the years for his verbal stumbles, was criticizing Russia's electoral system and the country's history of imprisoning or eliminating political opponents in some other manner from participating in elections. 'The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq,' Bush said in Dallas. 'I mean, of Ukraine,' he added." (05/19/22)
https://thehill.com/policy/3493947-george-w-bush-condemns-unjustified-and-brutal-invasion-of-iraq-in-speech-mix-up/
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19) Canada: Indigenous leaders ask for royal apology
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
"Indigenous leaders met Prince Charles in Canada and asked for an apology from the Queen over the 'assimilation and genocide' of indigenous schoolchildren. RoseAnne Archibald, Assembly of First Nations national chief, said the prince 'acknowledged' failures in handling the relationship with indigenous people. Canada is dealing with a scandal which saw indigenous children die or be abused in residential schools. There have been calls for the Queen to apologise over the issue. The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall have been on a three-day tour of Canada (where the Queen is head of state) to mark the 96-year-old monarch's Platinum Jubilee. Ms Archibald appealed directly to Prince Charles for an apology on behalf of the Queen during a reception in the capital Ottawa, attended by indigenous leaders, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others." (05/19/22)
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61505852
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20) Indonesia: Regime lifts ban on cooking oil export as supply improves
Source: ABC News
"Indonesia said Thursday it will lift a monthlong ban on palm oil export, citing improvements in the supply and domestic price of bulk cooking oil. President Joko Widodo said exports will resume on Monday. Indonesia and Malaysia are the world's largest exporters of palm oil, which plays an important role in their economies. They account for 85% of global palm oil production. Pressure on the global supply of cooking oil has increased because of the war in Ukraine, which accounts for nearly half of the world's sunflower oil on top of the 25% from Russia." (05/19/22)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/indonesia-lifts-ban-cooking-oil-export-supply-improves-84829589
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Red Science, Blue Science, What Science, No Science
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Chris Bateman
"The cause of public health represents an alliance between medical knowledge and political goodwill. Yet, if the measures justified by those in charge of public health policy are based upon political allegiance rather than due scientific process, we are no longer dealing with medicine as we have traditionally understood it. 'First do no harm' becomes an impossible principle when definitions of 'harm' fall out along partisan lines, for what one side declares as essential will appear to their opponents as a cause of great harm, a situation we have already faced for half a century over abortion. With our failed attempts to mitigate COVID-19, we aligned public health with political partisanship rather than scientific evidence, and shattered the fundamental conditions for good public health policy." (05/19/22)
https://www.aier.org/article/red-science-blue-science-what-science-no-science/
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22) Think Words Aren't Magic? Think Again.
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
"As Mark Twain noted more than a century ago, 'the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter -- 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.' There's a reason why the two major sides of the abortion debate call themselves 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life' (who could be against either 'choice' or 'life?'), but come up with less flattering names for their counterparts. The devil is in the details, and once you're committed the details tend to matter less. ... 'Replacement Theory' isn't actually about 'replacement.' It's about people moving from one place to another, members of various groups inter-marrying, things changing as they always have and always will. But with the word 'replacement,' its advocates bottle some big-time lightning by triggering a basic insecurity. Who considers being 'replaced' a positive thing?" (05/19/22)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/16851
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23) Biden's Baby-Formula Farce
Source: Commentary
by Noah Rothman
"As crippling shortages of baby formula became a crisis that bubbled up from the streets onto cable news sets and, eventually, into the halls of power, we've been treated to a spectacle of mismanagement and abuse typical of the modern political class. Last week, as public concern over the months' long formula shortage began to preoccupy the minds of the influencers to whom the White House pays close attention, President Joe Biden deigned to address the matter. ... The urgency of America's needs became too great to preserve the unnecessary regulations that imposed artificial limits on U.S. supply. But consumers had experienced and resented those limits for months. They became intolerable when, as the Washington Post conceded, the formula shortage 'turned political.'" (05/19/22)
https://www.commentary.org/noah-rothman/bidens-baby-formula-farce/
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24) What Makes You My Enemy?
Source: Independent Institute
"Increasingly, it seems, people are quick to escalate what might be viewed as differences into animosities. This has manifested itself in a number of different ways in recent years. It is evident in politics, where people view those with political views different from theirs as enemies. Politics is becoming less an arena where compromise and negotiation can smooth over differences and more an arena where one side wins and the other loses. If one side claims the other is their enemy, does that imply that the other side should also view them as enemies? That seems to be a recipe for escalation and conflict." (05/19/22)
https://blog.independent.org/2022/05/19/what-makes-you-my-enemy/
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25) Too Many Words
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
"The Institute for Justice (IJ) asks a question: 'Does the First Amendment protect your right to criticize public officials without being subject to frivolous lawsuits?' Kelly Gallaher is an activist in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, who provoked the ire of Village Attorney Chris Smith. Seeking punitive damages, Smith has sued Gallaher for inflicting 'emotional distress.' Her sin is penning 'hundreds of posts on social media' criticizing Smith and other officials and their policies. (Hundreds! So many scribblings by just one person?) The issue that apparently caused him to say 'By Gawd, this is the last dang straw!' is term limits." (05/19/22)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2022/05/19/too-many-words/
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26) Abortion: Not for Women Only
Source: TomDispatch
by Robert Lipsyte
"It's easy to forget just how long we've been waiting for Samuel Alito's 'opinion,' signaling that Roe v. Wade is going down the tubes. Back in 2019, I already took it for granted that the Supreme Court would indeed put an end to Roe and wrote then that, as I did, I couldn't help but think 'of my own involvement with abortion as a man.' My wife and I had indeed decided to abort a fetus because of a medical anomaly, even though we both wanted a child then. That was 10 years after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land. Now, I feel nothing but horror and sadness for couples like us who will indeed face such crises in an increasingly Trumpian America." (05/19/22)
https://tomdispatch.com/where-are-the-men
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27) This Is Who Will Build the Roads
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Starte Butone
"In the minds of many statists, economic services that are almost ubiquitously provided by the government in the United States and elsewhere could not possibly be provided by the private sector, lest they be riddled with market failures and corruption. More often than not, they only make these arguments because they simply have never lived in a society where roads were handled by anyone other than the government, and thus cannot imagine anything different. In reality, of course, roads are no different than any other good or service. Just as the free market can provide consumers with computers, food, cars, houses, and countless other products which require vast amounts of coordination and technical knowledge to create, they can handle road construction just fine as well. Right now, private companies already build almost all the roads in the United States." (05/19/22)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/this-is-who-will-build-the-roads/
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28) Spread the blame around for Fed's lack of accountability
Source: Orange County Register
by Veronique de Rugy
"After presiding over the biggest Federal Reserve failure in 40 years and with inflation rating as the top concern among Americans, Jerome Powell's nomination to a second term as chairman was approved this past week by the Senate, 80 to 19. I know the usual arguments for ignoring the Fed's spectacular errors, even at a time when inflation is such an issue. Most common are that other candidates would be even worse or that we need continuity. Maybe. The truth, though, is that a good person facing bad incentives in that job will make poor choices. Add in a lack of accountability and you repeatedly get bad policies." (05/19/22)
https://www.ocregister.com/2022/05/19/spread-the-blame-around-for-feds-lack-of-accountability/
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29) Congress asked, the Pentagon answered -- but UFOs remain mysterious
Source: The Hill
by Chris Impey
"After a 90-minute congressional hearing about UFOs on Tuesday, they retain their air of mystery. A House Intelligence subcommittee held the first congressional hearing in over half a century on military reports of unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP). UAP rebrands what most people refer to as UFOs, to avoid the stigma attached to a phenomenon that is the subject of lurid conspiracy theories. Pentagon officials who testified were Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie and Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray. Little new light was shed on UFOs, but the two officials tried to clarify the situation by ruling things out." (05/19/22)
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/3493551-congress-asked-the-pentagon-answered-but-ufos-remain-mysterious/
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30) The Heart Is Mightier Than the Sword
Source: Common Dreams
by Robert C Koehler
"They're coming for me! Sounds like a horror movie on permanent rewind through the brain, through the soul. Catch your breath, buy a gun. What other choice do you have? It's called, among other things, 'white replacement theory', but my sense is that the fear itself (fear of God-knows-what) comes first. When it finds a name, what a sense of relief that must be: knowing who the enemy is, where the enemy lives. Now you can go to war. The killer was a blatant racist, who had posted a 180-page, hate-filled manifesto online prior to his assault. Killing ten people at a grocery store (killing fifty people at two mosques) isn't murder. It's healing. I take a deep breath. Violence is situation normal, not just in the United States but across much of the planet." (05/19/22)
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/05/19/heart-mightier-sword
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31) Beware These New Keynesians Who Claim More Spending Is Always the Answer -- Whatever the State of the Economy
Source: Cato Institute
by Ryan Bourne
"Are British Keynesians wedded to a macroeconomic theory, or just engaged in motivated reasoning to justify ever more government stimulus? I ask, because last week the New Statesman's George Eaton tweeted: 'The UK is on the brink of recession -- entirely predictable given benefit cuts, tax rises and rate rises piled on top of falling real wages. Do we really have to do Keynesianism 101 again?' As this line of thinking takes off, it's worth exploring the merits of such claims. ... weirdly, a lot of today's Neo‐Keynesians want to simultaneously credit macroeconomic policy for us returning to very low unemployment levels, but overlook that real wages are falling partly because of the overexuberance of the policies they celebrate." (05/19/22)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/beware-these-new-keynesians-who-claim-more-spending-always-answer-whatever-state-economy
-----
32) Clarence Thomas Has Gone Full Hack
Source: The New Republic
by Matt Ford
"The conservative legal icon has a lot of disagreements with the Supreme Court's decisions. He's not interested in hearing any of yours, however." (05/19/22)
https://newrepublic.com/article/166534/clarence-thomas-roe-stare-decisis
-----
33) Non-Union Social Security Judges Doing Same Work as Their Union Counterparts
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
"President Joe Biden prides himself on being the most pro-union president in history. He has called out unionizing campaigns from the podium, and met with Amazon and Starbucks organizers in the White House. Biden has sought to make the federal government a 'model employer.' A report from a White House task force on worker organizing and empowerment speaks to this, vowing to 'provide greater access and information to unions seeking to represent and build membership among the federal workforce.' But the administration has not yet acted to correct an egregious anti-union effort inside the federal government, one that began 15 years ago and continues today." (05/19/22)
https://prospect.org/labor/non-union-social-security-judges-doing-same-work-as-union-counterparts/
-----
34) Gun-Control Laws Disarmed the Tops Victims
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
"Once again, with the shooting massacre at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York, we are able to see the disastrous consequence of gun-control laws. Ten innocent people dead and three others wounded. The response of the gun-control crowd is predictable. They say that the shooting shows we need even more gun control than already exists in New York, which has some of the most stringent gun-control laws in the nation. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, those laws did not prevent the Tops shootings. Thus, the question naturally arises: Why would even more stringent gun-control laws prevent mass killers from doing the same thing?" (05/19/22)
https://www.fff.org/2022/05/19/gun-control-laws-disarmed-the-tops-victims/
-----
35) The BDS Movement Has Already Lost
Source: Foreign Policy
by Steven A Cook
"If one only paid attention to what is being reported from U.S. college campuses, one might believe BDS is thriving. ... Beyond all the heat and navel-gazing about BDS on college campuses, though, the movement has mostly failed. This is not an argument that 'it's complicated,' or that BDS is antisemitic, or that Israel has nothing to answer for in its treatment of the Palestinians and stealth annexation of territory. It's merely an acknowledgment that where it counts -- in the halls of government and boardrooms -- BDS does not even register." (05/19/22)
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/19/bds-movement-boycott-israel-palestine-harvard-crimson/
-----
36) Who will watch the watchers? Who will terrorize the terrorists?
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
"The WaPo, chief publication of the government 'public-private' partners called the mainstream media, is touting the Democratic 'response' to the Buffalo New York killings. Their response in essence consists of once more demanding MORE laws to 'prevent' killings by taking more and more guns away from more and more people. AND creating more bureaucratic 'law enforcement' and 'intelligence' agencies to coordinate federal efforts against 'domestic terrorists.' ... There is the smell of 'set a crook to catch a crook' in all this. The mainstream media pretends to push back against disinformation by spreading ... disinformation. And in a like manner, the supposed battle against domestic terrorism is fought by using ... domestic terrorism!" (05/19/22)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2022/05/19/who-will-watch-the-watchers-who-will-terrorize-the-terrorists/
-----
37) Inconvenient Fact About Mass Killings
Source: Town Hall
by Larry Elder
"After the mass murder of 10 in a Buffalo, New York, supermarket committed by a man who posted a racist manifesto, Wesley Lowery, a CBS reporter, said: 'Let's be clear, the stuff Tucker (Carlson) and Laura Ingraham say every night, it could be written by white supremacists very often. ... This 'reporter' implies that 'right-wing rhetoric' incited the 18-year-old Buffalo supermarket killer. Where's the evidence? For all we know, he might've been an avid viewer of CBS News." [editor's note: Actually in his own manifesto he described himself as a "leftist authoritarian" – SAT] (05/19/22)
https://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2022/05/19/inconvenient-fact-about-mass-killings-white-males-are-underrepresented-while-blacks-and-asians-are-overrepresented-n2607484
-----
38) Dinesh D'Souza's Vile Big Lie Documentary Is Too Stupid Even for Fox
Source: The Daily Beast
by Anthony L Fisher
"The new documentary 2000 Mules (a Dinesh D'Souza Joint), is barely more credible than your average rando conspiracy theory video on YouTube, but its production values attach to it a superficial seriousness. The film's intended audience will see a rational 'just asking questions' kinda guy (D'Souza) talking with some ideological allies (like Charlie Kirk, Dennis Prager, Sebastian Gorka, and Larry Elder) who are merely concerned about voter integrity in the America they love. But the bulk of the film consists of D'Souza's highly dramatized explainer sessions with a couple of technological 'experts' (also credited as executive producers) whose claims that they've used geotracking data to uncover thousands of vote-harvesting mules fall apart under the barest of scrutiny." (05/19/22)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/dinesh-dsouzas-vile-big-lie-documentary-is-too-stupid-even-for-fox
-----
39) Massive State Economic Intervention Has Led to This Point
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Paul Tolmachev
"Where are the US economy and the other advanced economies of the world now? In a word, it is stagflation. Stagflation (declining economic growth with rising inflation) is the new reality and there are three main clusters of factors that have led to the present stance of the economy." (05/19/22)
https://mises.org/wire/massive-state-economic-intervention-has-led-point
-----
40) Pearl of Great Price
Source: The Honest Courtesan
by Maggie McNeill
The bourgeois bootlickers who think it would be a wonderful idea for everyone to be forced to use their 'real names' (i.e. their government names) on social media are at it again. They claim it would make the internet a nicer place, because as everybody knows Facebook is a perfect exemplar of how every social media site should look and operate. This tweet was in response to a blue-checked cretin named David Klion opining that every Twitter user with over 10,000 followers should be forcibly outed, based on that perennial mating-cry of the smug, sheltered, and stupid, 'If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.' ... let me tell you a little story about what happens when one speaks out publicly, not even under her government name but under a very well-known nom de guerre." (05/19/22)
https://maggiemcneill.com/2022/05/19/pearl-of-great-price/
-----
41) Overcoming an Onslaught of Dark Money Attacks, Progressive Summer Lee Declares Victory
Source: In These Times
by Nick Vachon
"On Tuesday night, Pennsylvania state Rep. Summer Lee declared victory in her hard-fought primary election for the state's 12th Congressional District. Lee, who had built a comfortable lead early in the race as an outspoken progressive leader with a record of local organizing, saw her frontrunner status evaporate by election day amid an onslaught of deceptive out-of-state attack ads funded by a variety of pro-Israel groups. If she wins the general election in the deep-blue district, Lee, who In These Times interviewed in 2018 after she won the Democratic nomination for the 34th Pennsylvania state house district, would become the first Black woman and the first democratic socialist to represent Pennsylvania in Congress." (05/18/22)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/summer-lee-pennsylvania-pa12-aipac-israel-progressive
-----
42) For Biden's Summit of the Americas, Obama's Handshake With Raul Castro Shows the Way
Source: CounterPunch
by Medea Benjamin
"On May 16, the Biden administration announced new measures to 'increase support for the Cuban people.' They included easing travel restrictions and helping Cuban-Americans support and connect with their families. They mark a step forward but a baby step, given that most U.S. sanctions on Cuba remain in place. Also in place is a ridiculous Biden administration policy of trying to isolate Cuba, as well as Nicaragua and Venezuela, from the rest of the hemisphere by excluding them from the upcoming Summit of the Americas that will take place in June in Los Angeles. ... Biden's failure at regional diplomacy is all the more inexplicable given the lesson he should have learned as vice president when Barack Obama faced a similar dilemma." (05/19/22)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/19/for-bidens-summit-of-the-americas-obamas-handshake-with-raul-castro-shows-the-way/
-----
43) Gun thoughts
Source: Kent's "Hooligan Libertarian" Blog
by Kent McManigal
"I take responsibility for my own safety and for the safety of those around me. I'd rather die, fighting back with proper tools, than live in fear all the time because of hatred for tools and the fear that someone else may have them. That's a pathetic way to live (and die). The fact that in Buffalo the armed guard was shot and killed when he confronted the evil loser doesn't mean that armed good guys are useless. He probably saved lives by distracting and delaying the evil loser. One armed guard in a place is like one sip of water in a desert. It's better than nothing, but not sufficient." (05/19/22)
https://kentmcmanigal.blogspot.com/2022/05/gun-thoughts.html
-----
44) Who Misread Whom in Ukraine War Debacle?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ronald Enzweiler
"Henry Kissinger made his first public remarks on the Ukraine war in an interview with the Financial Times of London in Washington on May 11th. In this appearance, he identified the miscalculation that turned the long simmering hostilities between the now warring parties in this conflict into a catastrophe affecting the entire world. This error was the failure of one or both sides not 'find[ing] out where the inner red line of the opponent is.' This cardinal dictum of foreign policy was followed by successive presidential administrations throughout the 43-year Cold War era and prevented this ideological confrontation from turning into a hot war involving the use of nuclear weapons. Dr. Kissinger now sees the world closer to this abyss than any time in history." (05/19/22)
https://original.antiwar.com/ronald_enzweiler/2022/05/18/who-misread-whom-in-ukraine-war-debacle/
-----
45) Joe Biden unifying the country ... in disapproval of him
Source: Fox News
by Greg Gutfeld
"Joe Biden's popularity is like his teeth at night: underwater. ... His approval rating is at 39%, even after the Roe vs. Wade leak, which was designed to breathe life into his unconscious presidency. It was one Biden leak that didn't demand a change of pants. It still didn't work. In fact, thanks to idiots heading to the justices' houses like they were invited to a barbecue, it quickly turned into a freak show. ... The worst stat of all, this jaw dropping one from NBC News, 75% of the population thinks this country is going in the wrong direction. That's astounding. You couldn't get more agreement from a room of children if you yelled 'who wants ice cream and no homework?'" (05/19/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/greg-gutfeld-joe-biden-unifying-country-disapproval
-----
46) What Mark Cuban Gets Right (and Wrong) about Student Debt "Cancellation"
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jon Miltimore
"Entrepreneur Mark Cuban made headlines Wednesday morning when he weighed in on President Biden's proposal to 'cancel' $10,000 in debt for borrowers, telling Business Insider he supports the policy -- with a caveat. 'It has to be fixed,' the Dallas Mavericks owner said in an email. 'As far as how much should be forgiven, I'm good with the Biden proposal.' The caveat, Cuban said, is that the 'ridiculous tuition fees' colleges are charging students must be addressed so students drowning in debt doesn't become 'a perennial problem.' Cuban is right that the student loan bubble needs to be fixed. There are also several problems with his comments, however." (05/18/22)
https://fee.org/articles/what-mark-cuban-gets-right-and-wrong-about-student-debt-cancellation/
-----
47) Conservatives Are Defending a Sanitized Version of "The Great Replacement"
Source: The Atlantic
by Adam Serwer
"Three years ago, when a white-supremacist fanatic killed dozens of people in El Paso, Texas, the reaction from the right was unreserved condemnation. When another white-supremacist fanatic killed 10 people at a supermarket in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, last week, the reaction from some figures on the right was to acknowledge that the guy had a point about this whole 'replacement' thing. ... This noxious ideology is now too popular on the right to isolate without risking bitter intraconservative conflict, and so, as the New York writer Jonathan Chait notes, right-wing media figures have taken to defending and rationalizing the claims that motivated the shooter, while condemning the violence itself." (05/18/22)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/buffalo-shooting-republican-great-replacement/629903/
-----
48) In the Ruins of Public Reason, part 2: The Barbarians at the Gates
Source: Notes On Liberty
by Zachary Woodman
"How exactly do dialogical illiberals view themselves during a heated discussion without epistemic norms? Dialogical illiberals of all political stripes -- from populist conservative culture warriors to sanctimoniously censorious progressives, from screeching parents at public school board meetings to ostensibly liberal democrats, from nationalistic xenophobes to anti-fascist anarchists -- view themselves as soldiers under siege in a war using their ideas as the only defensive tool to keep the barbarians at the gates. They view every conversation, every intellectual exchange as a zero-sum game, and their interlocutor is either on their side or the side of the putative barbarians–no in-between. I admit I have fallen into this habit of thinking in years past, but it is an extremely unproductive mindset and contributes to dialogical illiberalism for three main reasons." (05/18/22)
https://notesonliberty.com/2022/05/18/in-the-ruins-of-public-reason-part-ii-the-barbarians-at-the-gates/
-----
49) On Bush's Freudian Confession
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
"Oh my God. It happened. I can't believe it really happened. During a speech in Dallas at Southern Methodist University's George W Bush Presidential Center on Wednesday, the man himself, George W Bush, did the best thing ever. I am pretty sure it is the single best thing that has ever happened. I do not believe I am exaggerating when I say that. While criticizing Russia for having rigged elections and shutting out political opposition (which would already be hilarious coming from any American in general and Bush in particular), the 43rd president made the following comment: 'The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean, of Ukraine.' ... And then it got even better. After correcting himself with a nervous chuckle, Bush broke the tension in the empire-loyal crowd with the words, 'Iraq too. Anyway.'" (05/19/22)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/05/19/on-bushs-freudian-confession/
-----
50) Protecting Unalienable Rights
Source: Independent Institute
by James A Montanye
"A leaked Supreme Court draft opinion denying the constitutional legitimacy of the Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade opinion has piqued interest concerning 'unalienable' individual rights: (i) whether such rights logically exist; (ii) if so, then how are they to be reified; and (iii) which branch and level of government is constitutionally authorized and best equipped to defend them." (05/18/22)
https://blog.independent.org/2022/05/18/protecting-unalienable-rights/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Democratic Disney vs. Republican Disney
Source: Reason
"Because everything is political." [Flash video] (05/19/22)
https://reason.com/video/2022/05/19/democrat-disney-vs-republican-disney/
-----
52) Free Talk Live, 05/19/22
Source: Free Talk Live
"Cops Shoot Man to Death, Plant Gun? :: Rent-a-Car Troubles :: North Korea Announces 'Fever' Cases :: Plea Deals :: EBT Welfare :: Recession Inbound? :: Sheriffs :: Bush's BIG Freudian Slip :: Spokesbureaucrat Dodges Inflation Question :: Show: 2022-05-19 Ian, Joa." [Flash audio or MP3] (05/19/22)
https://freetalklive.com/archives/
-----
53) The Bryan Hyde Show, 05/19/22
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
"Is this the year you discover the joy of growing more of your own food? Simon Black has some thought on the coming food crisis and advises that developing your gardening skills is never a bad idea." (05/19/22)
https://anchor.fm/bryan-hyde/episodes/2022-May-19-The-Bryan-Hyde-Show-e1iojb1
-----
54) The Experiment Podcast, 05/19/22
Source: The Atlantic
"Fighting to Remember Mississippi Burning." [various formats] (05/19/22)
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2022/05/fighting-remember-mississippi-burning/629913/
-----
55) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 05/19/22
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
"Biden's 'Disinfo Board' RIP? Don't Hold Your Breath!" [Flash video] (05/19/22)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/bidens-disinfo-board-rip-dont-hold-your-breath
-----
56) Rising, 05/19/22
Source: The Hill
"Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave discuss President Biden's invocation of the Defense Production Act to address the country's baby formula shortage." [Flash video] (05/19/22)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/3493997-rising-may-19-2022/
-----
57) JobMakers, 05/19/22
Source: Pioneer Institute
"Yuliya Tarasava Invests In Americans Who Need It Most." [various formats] (05/19/22)
https://pioneerinstitute.org/economic_opportunity/yuliya-tarasava-invests-in-americans-who-need-it-most/
-----
58) Finding Freedom, episode 333
Source: Lions of Liberty
"Texas Slim on Decentralization and Buying Beef with Bitcoin." [various formats] (05/19/22)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/texas-slim-on-decentralization-and-buying-beef-with-bitcoin
-----
59) Cato Daily Podcast, 05/18/22
Source: Cato Institute
"Against the 'Vetocracy.'" [various formats] (05/18/22)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-daily-podcast/against-vetocracy
-----
60) Ted Snider on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
"Did the CIA Oust Imran Khan?" [various formats] (05/18/22)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/5-16-22-ted-snider-did-the-cia-oust-imran-khan/
-----
61) Reason Interview: Alex Epstein
Source: Reason
"The energy policy analyst says cheap and abundant gas, oil, and coal will continue to play a central role in human flourishing." [various formats] (05/18/22)
https://reason.com/podcast/2022/05/18/alex-epstein-why-the-future-needs-more-fossil-fuels/
-----
62) FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast, 05/18/22
Source: FiveThirtyEight
"What Tuesday's Primaries Could Mean For November." [various formats] (05/18/22)
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/politics-podcast-what-tuesdays-primaries-could-mean-for-november/
-----
63) The Science of Politics, 05/18/22
Source: Niskanen Center
"Abortion politics take center stage." [various formats] (05/18/22)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/abortion-politics-take-center-stage/
-----
64) Mad Dogs & Englishmen, episode 357
Source: National Review
"Kevin and Charlie discuss the Buffalo shooting and the Pennsylvania primaries." [various formats] (05/19/22)
https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/mad-dogs-englishmen/episode-357-mania-in-pennsylvania/
-----
65) Conflicts of Interest, episode 277
Source: Libertarian Institute
"The Bipartisan Consensus HATES Diplomacy." [various formats] (05/18/22)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-277-the-bipartisan-consensus-hates-diplomacy/
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https://news.rationalreview.com/
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Today's Freedom News:
1) Ukraine: Surrendering troops at Mariupol registered as POWs
2) Boeing's capsule encounters propulsion issues on way to International Space Station
3) Sri Lanka: Regime defaults on debt for first time in its history
4) US Senate passes $40 billion bill to disguise corporate welfare and graft as Ukraine war aid
5) Twitter unveils "crisis misinformation policy"
6) Report: Google's Russian unit to file bankruptcy after regime steals bank account
7) Gun in eight-year-old's backpack goes off at school, mom charged
8) China: Regime lifts three-year ban on Canadian canola
9) New York's hasty redistricting rewrite draws ire of locals
10) EU regimes agree on mandatory gas reserves
11) Judge denies defense motion for mistrial in "Russiagate" scam case; Sussmann testimony possible
12) Sri Lanka: Regime tries to save itself by forcing citizens to hold crappy domestic fiat currency
13) OK: House passes bill banning abortion at conception
14) NY: Hochul dances in Buffalo corpses' blood, calls for more government spying, more victim disarmament
15) CO: Court tosses $300,000 hospital bill for promised $1,300 tab
16) UK: Police conclude "Partygate" investigation into Johnson regime
17) OH: HOA orders father of slain cop to remove gang colors
18) Dubya admits truth in Freudian slip
19) Canada: Indigenous leaders ask for royal apology
20) Indonesia: Regime lifts ban on cooking oil export as supply improves
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Red Science, Blue Science, What Science, No Science
22) Think Words Aren't Magic? Think Again.
23) Biden's Baby-Formula Farce
24) What Makes You My Enemy?
25) Too Many Words
26) Abortion: Not for Women Only
27) This Is Who Will Build the Roads
28) Spread the blame around for Fed's lack of accountability
29) Congress asked, the Pentagon answered -- but UFOs remain mysterious
30) The Heart Is Mightier Than the Sword
31) Beware These New Keynesians Who Claim More Spending Is Always the Answer -- Whatever the State of the Economy
32) Clarence Thomas Has Gone Full Hack
33) Non-Union Social Security Judges Doing Same Work as Their Union Counterparts
34) Gun-Control Laws Disarmed the Tops Victims
35) The BDS Movement Has Already Lost
36) Who will watch the watchers? Who will terrorize the terrorists?
37) Inconvenient Fact About Mass Killings
38) Dinesh D'Souza's Vile Big Lie Documentary Is Too Stupid Even for Fox
39) Massive State Economic Intervention Has Led to This Point
40) Pearl of Great Price
41) Overcoming an Onslaught of Dark Money Attacks, Progressive Summer Lee Declares Victory
42) For Biden's Summit of the Americas, Obama's Handshake With Raul Castro Shows the Way
43) Gun thoughts
44) Who Misread Whom in Ukraine War Debacle?
45) Joe Biden unifying the country ... in disapproval of him
46) What Mark Cuban Gets Right (and Wrong) about Student Debt "Cancellation"
47) Conservatives Are Defending a Sanitized Version of "The Great Replacement"
48) In the Ruins of Public Reason, part 2: The Barbarians at the Gates
49) On Bush's Freudian Confession
50) Protecting Unalienable Rights
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Democratic Disney vs. Republican Disney
52) Free Talk Live, 05/19/22
53) The Bryan Hyde Show, 05/19/22
54) The Experiment Podcast, 05/19/22
55) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 05/19/22
56) Rising, 05/19/22
57) JobMakers, 05/19/22
58) Finding Freedom, episode 333
59) Cato Daily Podcast, 05/18/22
60) Ted Snider on The Scott Horton Show
61) Reason Interview: Alex Epstein
62) FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast, 05/18/22
63) The Science of Politics, 05/18/22
64) Mad Dogs & Englishmen, episode 357
65) Conflicts of Interest, episode 277
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Ukraine: Surrendering troops at Mariupol registered as POWs
Source: Associated Press
"The fate of hundreds of Ukrainian fighters who surrendered after holding out against punishing attacks on Mariupol's steel factory hung in the balance Thursday, amid international fears that the Russians may take reprisals against the prisoners. The International Committee of the Red Cross gathered personal information from hundreds of the soldiers -- name, date of birth, closest relative -- and registered them as prisoners of war, as part of its role in ensuring the humane treatment of POWs under the Geneva Conventions. Amnesty International said in a tweet that the Ukrainian soldiers are now prisoners of war and as such 'must not be subjected to any form of torture or ill-treatment.' ... While Ukraine expressed hope for a prisoner exchange, Russian authorities have threatened to investigate some of the Azovstal fighters for war crimes and put them on trial, branding them 'Nazis' and criminals." (05/20/22)
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-kyiv-nato-4cf194da8b1870d26cbedc0a7ec69ed6
-----
2) Boeing's capsule encounters propulsion issues on way to International Space Station
Source: France 24 [French state media]
"American aerospace giant Boeing's Starliner capsule was heading for the International Space Station Thursday, in a critical uncrewed test flight that followed years of failures and false starts. The spacecraft encountered some propulsion troubles early in its journey, with two thrusters responsible for orbital maneuvering failing for unclear reasons -- but NASA officials said the mission remained on track. The Orbital Test Flight 2 (OFT-2) mission blasted off at 6:54 pm Eastern Time (2254 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the spaceship fixed atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Its success is key to repairing Boeing's frayed reputation after the first bid, back in 2019, failed to dock with the ISS due to software bugs -- one that led to it burning too much fuel to reach its destination, and another that could have destroyed the vehicle during re-entry." (05/20/22)
https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20220520-boeing-s-capsule-faces-propulsion-issues-on-way-to-international-space-station
-----
3) Sri Lanka: Regime defaults on debt for first time in its history
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
"Sri Lanka has defaulted on its debt for the first time in its history as the country struggles with its worst financial crisis in more than 70 years. It comes after a 30 day grace period to repay $78m (£63m) of unpaid debt interest payments expired on Wednesday. ... Asked whether the country was now in default, central bank governor P Nandalal Weerasinghe said: 'Our position is very clear, we said that until they come to the restructure [of our debts], we will not be able to pay. So that's what you call pre-emptive default.'" (05/19/22)
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61505842
-----
4) US Senate passes $40 billion bill to disguise corporate welfare and graft as Ukraine war aid
Source: The Hill
"The Senate voted 86-11 Thursday to approve a $40 billion Ukraine aid package that would replenish U.S. stockpiles of weapons transferred to Ukraine and provide billions of dollars to help the Ukrainian government continue operating and for humanitarian assistance. President Biden is expected to sign the legislation, which exceeds his $33 billion request to Congress, immediately. The House passed the legislation overwhelmingly earlier this month in a 368-57 vote." [editor's note: Like most "foreign aid," this money looks like it will end up in the pockets of US "defense" contractors, which is the whole point. If there wasn't a war handy to justify it already, the US regime would find a way to get one started – TLK] (05/19/22)
https://thehill.com/news/senate/3494632-senate-passes-40-billion-ukraine-aid-package/
-----
5) Twitter unveils "crisis misinformation policy"
Source: Axios
"Twitter on Thursday introduced a new policy aimed at making sure the social network doesn't amplify or recommend disinformation during an international armed conflict and crisis. False material proliferated on Twitter and other social networks in the early days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Twitter says it will work to vet fact-specific information in times of crisis, via 'multiple credible, publicly available sources.' Inaccurate tweets won't be removed, but instead will be put behind a warning label. They also will be unable to be liked, retweeted or shared." [editor's note: If Twitter was really worried about disinformation, it would globally ban all government accounts. Just sayin' ... – TLK] (05/19/22)
https://www.axios.com/2022/05/19/twitter-crisis-misinformation-policy
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6) Report: Google's Russian unit to file bankruptcy after regime steals bank account
Source: Business Insider
"Google's Russian unit will file for bankruptcy after authorities [stole] the tech firm's bank account, according to media reports. Google's local unit is unable to pay its employees, suppliers and vendors in Russia as a result of the [theft], the company told the Financial Times, and had published a notice of its intention to file for bankruptcy. The firm will continue to offer its search, YouTube and other free services in Russia, it told the paper. Relations between Google and Russian authorities, already strained prior to the Kremlin's order to invade Ukraine, deteriorated after the company declined to bow to pressure from Moscow to remove content related to the conflict. Google's local unit was fined 11 mn roubles ($173,000) in April for not deleting Ukraine videos from YouTube, which Moscow deemed 'banned content,' according to the FT." (05/19/22)
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-files-bankruptcy-russia-following-bank-account-seizure-2022-5
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7) Gun in eight-year-old's backpack goes off at school, mom charged
Source: SFGate
"A Chicago mother has been charged with child endangerment after a gun in her second grader's backpack accidentally discharged at school, injuring a 7-year-old classmate, police said Wednesday. The 28-year-old woman appeared in court on Wednesday on three misdemeanor child endangerment counts. A judge ordered her release from Cook County Jail on $1,000 bond. During the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the woman's 8-year-old son found the gun underneath her bed and took it to Walt Disney Magnet School on the city's North Side on Tuesday. The mother has a valid firearm owners identification card. According to police, the backpack was in the boy's classroom when, just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the gun discharged. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that prosecutors said during the hearing that the bullet ricocheted off the floor and grazed the child's abdomen. The child was taken to a hospital in good condition, police said." (05/19/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Woman-charged-after-gun-in-son-s-backpack-goes-17181527.php
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8) China: Regime lifts three-year ban on Canadian canola
Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation [Canadian state media]
"A three-year Chinese ban on Canadian canola has come to an end, according to the federal government. In a joint statement released Wednesday afternoon, Trade Minister Mary Ng and Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said China has reinstated market access for two Canadian grain trading companies that have been prevented from exporting canola seed to China since March 2019. ... In March 2019, the Chinese government blocked canola shipments from Canadian companies Richardson International Ltd. and Viterra Inc. by suspending their licences, alleging the detection of pests in canola shipments. The move followed the arrest of Chinese tech giant Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver a few months earlier." (05/19/22)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/china-canada-canola-ban-ends-1.6458746
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9) New York's hasty redistricting rewrite draws ire of locals
Source: SFGate
""New Yorkers pride themselves on the dynamism of their metropolis, where it can feel totally different on the next block, where tourists walking in Chinatown quickly find themselves in Little Italy, where a neighborhood can be a proxy for a lifestyle or worldview. Figuring out the city's complexities is tough even for locals -- and complaints are pouring in claiming that the two outsiders redrawing New York's congressional districts have bungled the job by linking and slicing communities they don't understand. The retooling of the state's political district maps was taken over this spring by a rural judge seated about five hours by car from New York City after a court sided with Republicans and ruled Democrats controlling the Legislature had engaged in illegal gerrymandering." (05/19/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/New-York-s-hasty-redistricting-rewrite-draws-ire-17184619.php
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10) EU regimes agree on mandatory gas reserves
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatar state media]
"Negotiators from the European Parliament and the 27 European Union member states have agreed on new regulations for mandatory gas reserve levels in the EU. Gas reserves must be filled to 80 percent by November 1, rising to 90 percent from 2023 onwards until the regulation expires on December 31, 2025, the European Council, the EU body representing member states, announced in a statement on Thursday. ... Negotiators also agreed on licences for operators to regulate their energy security obligations. Should this be endangered through under-filling reserves, the licence may be withdrawn and the company compelled to forfeit control or ownership of storage facilities." (05/19/22)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/19/eu-deal-reached-on-mandatory-gas-reserves-for-supply-crises
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11) Judge denies defense motion for mistrial in "Russiagate" scam case; Sussmann testimony possible
Source: Fox News
"The federal judge presiding over the case of Michael Sussmann denied the defense's motion for a mistrial Thursday morning, as the defense left open the possibility for Sussmann to testify during trial. Sussmann's attorney, Sean Berkowitz, argued for a mistrial on Thursday morning, due to a back-and-forth that came from the hours-long questioning and testimony of former Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias on Wednesday. At one point during cross-examination by the defense, Elias was asked whether Sussmann went to the FBI in September 2016 with data alleging a covert communications channel between Donald Trump and Russia's Alfa Bank on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign. 'I think you'd have to ask Mr. Sussmann,' Elias said. Later, the prosecution brought Sussmann's response up -- a move the defense said violates Sussmann's rights." (05/19/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/judge-denies-defense-motion-mistrial-sussmann-testimony-possible
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12) Sri Lanka: Regime tries to save itself by forcing citizens to hold crappy domestic fiat currency
Source: Seattle Times
"Sri Lanka will lower the amount of foreign currency that individuals can hold to $10,000 from $15,000, and penalize anyone who holds foreign currency for more than three months by making it against the law, the island nation's central bank chief announced Thursday amid the worst economic crisis in recent memory. Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe told reporters that people are requested [sic] to deposit excess foreign currency in a bank or convert it into local currency within two weeks of his announcement. After that time, central bank officials together with police will carry out raids, he said, adding that anyone found violating the new rules will be fined." (05/19/22)
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/sri-lanka-lowers-amount-of-foreign-currency-people-can-hold/
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13) OK: House passes bill banning abortion at conception
Source: KOCO 5 News
"The Oklahoma House on Thursday passed a bill that would ban abortions at conception. House Bill 4327 also would be enforced using civil lawsuits. The bill could be the strictest abortion ban Oklahoma has passed. House Bill 4327 heads to Gov. Kevin Stitt's desk. If signed, the bill would go into effect immediately. The governor said he would sign any pro-life bill that comes across his desk." (05/19/22)
https://www.koco.com/article/oklahoma-house-passes-abortion-bill-conception/40049335
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14) NY: Hochul dances in Buffalo corpses' blood, calls for more government spying, more victim disarmament
Source: Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
"Gov. Kathy Hochul introduced an array of executive orders and new legislation Wednesday [exploiting] a mass shooting in Buffalo that left 10 dead last week. ... She signed an executive order to establish a unit within the state's Office of Counterterrorism, which is part of the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, that would focus exclusively on the rise of domestic terrorism and extremism. ... Additionally, New York will create a dedicated State Police unit within the state Intelligence Center to monitor social media for these threats. ... Hochul hinted this week that she'd tighten New York's gun laws in the shooting's immediate aftermath, saying legal loopholes should be closed to prevent [victims from defending themselves from] future gun violence." (05/18/22)
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2022/05/18/buffalo-shooting-ny-gov-kathy-hochul-executive-order-red-flag-gun-laws-domestic-terrorism/9824476002/
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15) CO: Court tosses $300,000 hospital bill for promised $1,300 tab
Source: SFGate
"Colorado's Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a woman who expected to pay about $1,300 for spinal fusion surgery but was billed more than $300,000 by a suburban Denver hospital that included charges it never disclosed she might be liable for. This week's ruling in favor of Lisa French, who underwent two surgeries in 2014, follows efforts by many U.S. states and the federal government to help curb health care costs by restricting or eliminating so-called 'surprise billing' and requiring increased price transparency for consumers. In a unanimous opinion, the Colorado justices ruled Monday that agreements French signed before surgery at St. Anthony North Health Campus in Westminster don't compel her to pay the extra charges, which stemmed from a then-secret list of prices for services that hadn't been disclosed to her." (05/19/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Court-tosses-300-000-hospital-bill-for-promised-17184747.php
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16) UK: Police conclude "Partygate" investigation into Johnson regime
Source: France 24 [French state media]
"Britain's Metropolitan Police said Thursday it has concluded its investigation into breaches of COVID-19 regulations at British government offices, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson's official residence, with a total of 126 fines issued over the offenses. Police said they issued fixed-penalty notices to 53 men and 73 women for gatherings that took place on eight dates between May 2020, at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, and April 2021. Some people received multiple fines. The case has been dubbed 'partygate' by the media. Johnson apologized last month after he revealed that he was among dozens of people who paid a police fine for attending lockdown-breaching parties and gatherings. That made him the first British leader to be sanctioned for breaking the law while in office." (05/19/22)
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220519-uk-police-concludes-partygate-investigation-into-johnson-government
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17) OH: HOA orders father of slain cop to remove gang colors
Source: Fox News
"The father of an Ohio police chief who was killed in a nursing home shooting has been told by his local homeowners association that he must stop flying a Thin Blue Line flag outside of his home. Thomas DiSario, a disabled veteran and the father of slain officer Steven Eric DiSario, told WCMH-TV this week that his HOA recently told him to remove a Thin Blue Line flag he sometimes flies in front of his home. Additionally, DiSario says he had to call the police after someone not associated with the HOA attempted to remove the flag from his property. 'The political sign in the form of a flag must be removed from your property,' the letter dated Friday to DiSario from the Omni Community Association Managers said." (05/19/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/us/ohio-hoa-father-slain-police-remove-blue-line-flag
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18) Dubya admits truth in Freudian slip
Source: The Hill
"Former President George W. Bush slipped up during a speech on Wednesday about Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, condemning instead the 'unjustified and brutal' invasion of Iraq. The comment came as Bush, who has been mocked over the years for his verbal stumbles, was criticizing Russia's electoral system and the country's history of imprisoning or eliminating political opponents in some other manner from participating in elections. 'The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq,' Bush said in Dallas. 'I mean, of Ukraine,' he added." (05/19/22)
https://thehill.com/policy/3493947-george-w-bush-condemns-unjustified-and-brutal-invasion-of-iraq-in-speech-mix-up/
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19) Canada: Indigenous leaders ask for royal apology
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
"Indigenous leaders met Prince Charles in Canada and asked for an apology from the Queen over the 'assimilation and genocide' of indigenous schoolchildren. RoseAnne Archibald, Assembly of First Nations national chief, said the prince 'acknowledged' failures in handling the relationship with indigenous people. Canada is dealing with a scandal which saw indigenous children die or be abused in residential schools. There have been calls for the Queen to apologise over the issue. The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall have been on a three-day tour of Canada (where the Queen is head of state) to mark the 96-year-old monarch's Platinum Jubilee. Ms Archibald appealed directly to Prince Charles for an apology on behalf of the Queen during a reception in the capital Ottawa, attended by indigenous leaders, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others." (05/19/22)
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61505852
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20) Indonesia: Regime lifts ban on cooking oil export as supply improves
Source: ABC News
"Indonesia said Thursday it will lift a monthlong ban on palm oil export, citing improvements in the supply and domestic price of bulk cooking oil. President Joko Widodo said exports will resume on Monday. Indonesia and Malaysia are the world's largest exporters of palm oil, which plays an important role in their economies. They account for 85% of global palm oil production. Pressure on the global supply of cooking oil has increased because of the war in Ukraine, which accounts for nearly half of the world's sunflower oil on top of the 25% from Russia." (05/19/22)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/indonesia-lifts-ban-cooking-oil-export-supply-improves-84829589
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Red Science, Blue Science, What Science, No Science
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Chris Bateman
"The cause of public health represents an alliance between medical knowledge and political goodwill. Yet, if the measures justified by those in charge of public health policy are based upon political allegiance rather than due scientific process, we are no longer dealing with medicine as we have traditionally understood it. 'First do no harm' becomes an impossible principle when definitions of 'harm' fall out along partisan lines, for what one side declares as essential will appear to their opponents as a cause of great harm, a situation we have already faced for half a century over abortion. With our failed attempts to mitigate COVID-19, we aligned public health with political partisanship rather than scientific evidence, and shattered the fundamental conditions for good public health policy." (05/19/22)
https://www.aier.org/article/red-science-blue-science-what-science-no-science/
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22) Think Words Aren't Magic? Think Again.
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
"As Mark Twain noted more than a century ago, 'the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter -- 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.' There's a reason why the two major sides of the abortion debate call themselves 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life' (who could be against either 'choice' or 'life?'), but come up with less flattering names for their counterparts. The devil is in the details, and once you're committed the details tend to matter less. ... 'Replacement Theory' isn't actually about 'replacement.' It's about people moving from one place to another, members of various groups inter-marrying, things changing as they always have and always will. But with the word 'replacement,' its advocates bottle some big-time lightning by triggering a basic insecurity. Who considers being 'replaced' a positive thing?" (05/19/22)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/16851
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23) Biden's Baby-Formula Farce
Source: Commentary
by Noah Rothman
"As crippling shortages of baby formula became a crisis that bubbled up from the streets onto cable news sets and, eventually, into the halls of power, we've been treated to a spectacle of mismanagement and abuse typical of the modern political class. Last week, as public concern over the months' long formula shortage began to preoccupy the minds of the influencers to whom the White House pays close attention, President Joe Biden deigned to address the matter. ... The urgency of America's needs became too great to preserve the unnecessary regulations that imposed artificial limits on U.S. supply. But consumers had experienced and resented those limits for months. They became intolerable when, as the Washington Post conceded, the formula shortage 'turned political.'" (05/19/22)
https://www.commentary.org/noah-rothman/bidens-baby-formula-farce/
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24) What Makes You My Enemy?
Source: Independent Institute
"Increasingly, it seems, people are quick to escalate what might be viewed as differences into animosities. This has manifested itself in a number of different ways in recent years. It is evident in politics, where people view those with political views different from theirs as enemies. Politics is becoming less an arena where compromise and negotiation can smooth over differences and more an arena where one side wins and the other loses. If one side claims the other is their enemy, does that imply that the other side should also view them as enemies? That seems to be a recipe for escalation and conflict." (05/19/22)
https://blog.independent.org/2022/05/19/what-makes-you-my-enemy/
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25) Too Many Words
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
"The Institute for Justice (IJ) asks a question: 'Does the First Amendment protect your right to criticize public officials without being subject to frivolous lawsuits?' Kelly Gallaher is an activist in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, who provoked the ire of Village Attorney Chris Smith. Seeking punitive damages, Smith has sued Gallaher for inflicting 'emotional distress.' Her sin is penning 'hundreds of posts on social media' criticizing Smith and other officials and their policies. (Hundreds! So many scribblings by just one person?) The issue that apparently caused him to say 'By Gawd, this is the last dang straw!' is term limits." (05/19/22)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2022/05/19/too-many-words/
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26) Abortion: Not for Women Only
Source: TomDispatch
by Robert Lipsyte
"It's easy to forget just how long we've been waiting for Samuel Alito's 'opinion,' signaling that Roe v. Wade is going down the tubes. Back in 2019, I already took it for granted that the Supreme Court would indeed put an end to Roe and wrote then that, as I did, I couldn't help but think 'of my own involvement with abortion as a man.' My wife and I had indeed decided to abort a fetus because of a medical anomaly, even though we both wanted a child then. That was 10 years after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land. Now, I feel nothing but horror and sadness for couples like us who will indeed face such crises in an increasingly Trumpian America." (05/19/22)
https://tomdispatch.com/where-are-the-men
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27) This Is Who Will Build the Roads
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Starte Butone
"In the minds of many statists, economic services that are almost ubiquitously provided by the government in the United States and elsewhere could not possibly be provided by the private sector, lest they be riddled with market failures and corruption. More often than not, they only make these arguments because they simply have never lived in a society where roads were handled by anyone other than the government, and thus cannot imagine anything different. In reality, of course, roads are no different than any other good or service. Just as the free market can provide consumers with computers, food, cars, houses, and countless other products which require vast amounts of coordination and technical knowledge to create, they can handle road construction just fine as well. Right now, private companies already build almost all the roads in the United States." (05/19/22)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/this-is-who-will-build-the-roads/
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28) Spread the blame around for Fed's lack of accountability
Source: Orange County Register
by Veronique de Rugy
"After presiding over the biggest Federal Reserve failure in 40 years and with inflation rating as the top concern among Americans, Jerome Powell's nomination to a second term as chairman was approved this past week by the Senate, 80 to 19. I know the usual arguments for ignoring the Fed's spectacular errors, even at a time when inflation is such an issue. Most common are that other candidates would be even worse or that we need continuity. Maybe. The truth, though, is that a good person facing bad incentives in that job will make poor choices. Add in a lack of accountability and you repeatedly get bad policies." (05/19/22)
https://www.ocregister.com/2022/05/19/spread-the-blame-around-for-feds-lack-of-accountability/
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29) Congress asked, the Pentagon answered -- but UFOs remain mysterious
Source: The Hill
by Chris Impey
"After a 90-minute congressional hearing about UFOs on Tuesday, they retain their air of mystery. A House Intelligence subcommittee held the first congressional hearing in over half a century on military reports of unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP). UAP rebrands what most people refer to as UFOs, to avoid the stigma attached to a phenomenon that is the subject of lurid conspiracy theories. Pentagon officials who testified were Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie and Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray. Little new light was shed on UFOs, but the two officials tried to clarify the situation by ruling things out." (05/19/22)
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/3493551-congress-asked-the-pentagon-answered-but-ufos-remain-mysterious/
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30) The Heart Is Mightier Than the Sword
Source: Common Dreams
by Robert C Koehler
"They're coming for me! Sounds like a horror movie on permanent rewind through the brain, through the soul. Catch your breath, buy a gun. What other choice do you have? It's called, among other things, 'white replacement theory', but my sense is that the fear itself (fear of God-knows-what) comes first. When it finds a name, what a sense of relief that must be: knowing who the enemy is, where the enemy lives. Now you can go to war. The killer was a blatant racist, who had posted a 180-page, hate-filled manifesto online prior to his assault. Killing ten people at a grocery store (killing fifty people at two mosques) isn't murder. It's healing. I take a deep breath. Violence is situation normal, not just in the United States but across much of the planet." (05/19/22)
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/05/19/heart-mightier-sword
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31) Beware These New Keynesians Who Claim More Spending Is Always the Answer -- Whatever the State of the Economy
Source: Cato Institute
by Ryan Bourne
"Are British Keynesians wedded to a macroeconomic theory, or just engaged in motivated reasoning to justify ever more government stimulus? I ask, because last week the New Statesman's George Eaton tweeted: 'The UK is on the brink of recession -- entirely predictable given benefit cuts, tax rises and rate rises piled on top of falling real wages. Do we really have to do Keynesianism 101 again?' As this line of thinking takes off, it's worth exploring the merits of such claims. ... weirdly, a lot of today's Neo‐Keynesians want to simultaneously credit macroeconomic policy for us returning to very low unemployment levels, but overlook that real wages are falling partly because of the overexuberance of the policies they celebrate." (05/19/22)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/beware-these-new-keynesians-who-claim-more-spending-always-answer-whatever-state-economy
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32) Clarence Thomas Has Gone Full Hack
Source: The New Republic
by Matt Ford
"The conservative legal icon has a lot of disagreements with the Supreme Court's decisions. He's not interested in hearing any of yours, however." (05/19/22)
https://newrepublic.com/article/166534/clarence-thomas-roe-stare-decisis
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33) Non-Union Social Security Judges Doing Same Work as Their Union Counterparts
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
"President Joe Biden prides himself on being the most pro-union president in history. He has called out unionizing campaigns from the podium, and met with Amazon and Starbucks organizers in the White House. Biden has sought to make the federal government a 'model employer.' A report from a White House task force on worker organizing and empowerment speaks to this, vowing to 'provide greater access and information to unions seeking to represent and build membership among the federal workforce.' But the administration has not yet acted to correct an egregious anti-union effort inside the federal government, one that began 15 years ago and continues today." (05/19/22)
https://prospect.org/labor/non-union-social-security-judges-doing-same-work-as-union-counterparts/
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34) Gun-Control Laws Disarmed the Tops Victims
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
"Once again, with the shooting massacre at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York, we are able to see the disastrous consequence of gun-control laws. Ten innocent people dead and three others wounded. The response of the gun-control crowd is predictable. They say that the shooting shows we need even more gun control than already exists in New York, which has some of the most stringent gun-control laws in the nation. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, those laws did not prevent the Tops shootings. Thus, the question naturally arises: Why would even more stringent gun-control laws prevent mass killers from doing the same thing?" (05/19/22)
https://www.fff.org/2022/05/19/gun-control-laws-disarmed-the-tops-victims/
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35) The BDS Movement Has Already Lost
Source: Foreign Policy
by Steven A Cook
"If one only paid attention to what is being reported from U.S. college campuses, one might believe BDS is thriving. ... Beyond all the heat and navel-gazing about BDS on college campuses, though, the movement has mostly failed. This is not an argument that 'it's complicated,' or that BDS is antisemitic, or that Israel has nothing to answer for in its treatment of the Palestinians and stealth annexation of territory. It's merely an acknowledgment that where it counts -- in the halls of government and boardrooms -- BDS does not even register." (05/19/22)
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/19/bds-movement-boycott-israel-palestine-harvard-crimson/
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36) Who will watch the watchers? Who will terrorize the terrorists?
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
"The WaPo, chief publication of the government 'public-private' partners called the mainstream media, is touting the Democratic 'response' to the Buffalo New York killings. Their response in essence consists of once more demanding MORE laws to 'prevent' killings by taking more and more guns away from more and more people. AND creating more bureaucratic 'law enforcement' and 'intelligence' agencies to coordinate federal efforts against 'domestic terrorists.' ... There is the smell of 'set a crook to catch a crook' in all this. The mainstream media pretends to push back against disinformation by spreading ... disinformation. And in a like manner, the supposed battle against domestic terrorism is fought by using ... domestic terrorism!" (05/19/22)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2022/05/19/who-will-watch-the-watchers-who-will-terrorize-the-terrorists/
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37) Inconvenient Fact About Mass Killings
Source: Town Hall
by Larry Elder
"After the mass murder of 10 in a Buffalo, New York, supermarket committed by a man who posted a racist manifesto, Wesley Lowery, a CBS reporter, said: 'Let's be clear, the stuff Tucker (Carlson) and Laura Ingraham say every night, it could be written by white supremacists very often. ... This 'reporter' implies that 'right-wing rhetoric' incited the 18-year-old Buffalo supermarket killer. Where's the evidence? For all we know, he might've been an avid viewer of CBS News." [editor's note: Actually in his own manifesto he described himself as a "leftist authoritarian" – SAT] (05/19/22)
https://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2022/05/19/inconvenient-fact-about-mass-killings-white-males-are-underrepresented-while-blacks-and-asians-are-overrepresented-n2607484
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38) Dinesh D'Souza's Vile Big Lie Documentary Is Too Stupid Even for Fox
Source: The Daily Beast
by Anthony L Fisher
"The new documentary 2000 Mules (a Dinesh D'Souza Joint), is barely more credible than your average rando conspiracy theory video on YouTube, but its production values attach to it a superficial seriousness. The film's intended audience will see a rational 'just asking questions' kinda guy (D'Souza) talking with some ideological allies (like Charlie Kirk, Dennis Prager, Sebastian Gorka, and Larry Elder) who are merely concerned about voter integrity in the America they love. But the bulk of the film consists of D'Souza's highly dramatized explainer sessions with a couple of technological 'experts' (also credited as executive producers) whose claims that they've used geotracking data to uncover thousands of vote-harvesting mules fall apart under the barest of scrutiny." (05/19/22)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/dinesh-dsouzas-vile-big-lie-documentary-is-too-stupid-even-for-fox
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39) Massive State Economic Intervention Has Led to This Point
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Paul Tolmachev
"Where are the US economy and the other advanced economies of the world now? In a word, it is stagflation. Stagflation (declining economic growth with rising inflation) is the new reality and there are three main clusters of factors that have led to the present stance of the economy." (05/19/22)
https://mises.org/wire/massive-state-economic-intervention-has-led-point
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40) Pearl of Great Price
Source: The Honest Courtesan
by Maggie McNeill
The bourgeois bootlickers who think it would be a wonderful idea for everyone to be forced to use their 'real names' (i.e. their government names) on social media are at it again. They claim it would make the internet a nicer place, because as everybody knows Facebook is a perfect exemplar of how every social media site should look and operate. This tweet was in response to a blue-checked cretin named David Klion opining that every Twitter user with over 10,000 followers should be forcibly outed, based on that perennial mating-cry of the smug, sheltered, and stupid, 'If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.' ... let me tell you a little story about what happens when one speaks out publicly, not even under her government name but under a very well-known nom de guerre." (05/19/22)
https://maggiemcneill.com/2022/05/19/pearl-of-great-price/
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41) Overcoming an Onslaught of Dark Money Attacks, Progressive Summer Lee Declares Victory
Source: In These Times
by Nick Vachon
"On Tuesday night, Pennsylvania state Rep. Summer Lee declared victory in her hard-fought primary election for the state's 12th Congressional District. Lee, who had built a comfortable lead early in the race as an outspoken progressive leader with a record of local organizing, saw her frontrunner status evaporate by election day amid an onslaught of deceptive out-of-state attack ads funded by a variety of pro-Israel groups. If she wins the general election in the deep-blue district, Lee, who In These Times interviewed in 2018 after she won the Democratic nomination for the 34th Pennsylvania state house district, would become the first Black woman and the first democratic socialist to represent Pennsylvania in Congress." (05/18/22)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/summer-lee-pennsylvania-pa12-aipac-israel-progressive
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42) For Biden's Summit of the Americas, Obama's Handshake With Raul Castro Shows the Way
Source: CounterPunch
by Medea Benjamin
"On May 16, the Biden administration announced new measures to 'increase support for the Cuban people.' They included easing travel restrictions and helping Cuban-Americans support and connect with their families. They mark a step forward but a baby step, given that most U.S. sanctions on Cuba remain in place. Also in place is a ridiculous Biden administration policy of trying to isolate Cuba, as well as Nicaragua and Venezuela, from the rest of the hemisphere by excluding them from the upcoming Summit of the Americas that will take place in June in Los Angeles. ... Biden's failure at regional diplomacy is all the more inexplicable given the lesson he should have learned as vice president when Barack Obama faced a similar dilemma." (05/19/22)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/19/for-bidens-summit-of-the-americas-obamas-handshake-with-raul-castro-shows-the-way/
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43) Gun thoughts
Source: Kent's "Hooligan Libertarian" Blog
by Kent McManigal
"I take responsibility for my own safety and for the safety of those around me. I'd rather die, fighting back with proper tools, than live in fear all the time because of hatred for tools and the fear that someone else may have them. That's a pathetic way to live (and die). The fact that in Buffalo the armed guard was shot and killed when he confronted the evil loser doesn't mean that armed good guys are useless. He probably saved lives by distracting and delaying the evil loser. One armed guard in a place is like one sip of water in a desert. It's better than nothing, but not sufficient." (05/19/22)
https://kentmcmanigal.blogspot.com/2022/05/gun-thoughts.html
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44) Who Misread Whom in Ukraine War Debacle?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ronald Enzweiler
"Henry Kissinger made his first public remarks on the Ukraine war in an interview with the Financial Times of London in Washington on May 11th. In this appearance, he identified the miscalculation that turned the long simmering hostilities between the now warring parties in this conflict into a catastrophe affecting the entire world. This error was the failure of one or both sides not 'find[ing] out where the inner red line of the opponent is.' This cardinal dictum of foreign policy was followed by successive presidential administrations throughout the 43-year Cold War era and prevented this ideological confrontation from turning into a hot war involving the use of nuclear weapons. Dr. Kissinger now sees the world closer to this abyss than any time in history." (05/19/22)
https://original.antiwar.com/ronald_enzweiler/2022/05/18/who-misread-whom-in-ukraine-war-debacle/
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45) Joe Biden unifying the country ... in disapproval of him
Source: Fox News
by Greg Gutfeld
"Joe Biden's popularity is like his teeth at night: underwater. ... His approval rating is at 39%, even after the Roe vs. Wade leak, which was designed to breathe life into his unconscious presidency. It was one Biden leak that didn't demand a change of pants. It still didn't work. In fact, thanks to idiots heading to the justices' houses like they were invited to a barbecue, it quickly turned into a freak show. ... The worst stat of all, this jaw dropping one from NBC News, 75% of the population thinks this country is going in the wrong direction. That's astounding. You couldn't get more agreement from a room of children if you yelled 'who wants ice cream and no homework?'" (05/19/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/greg-gutfeld-joe-biden-unifying-country-disapproval
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46) What Mark Cuban Gets Right (and Wrong) about Student Debt "Cancellation"
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jon Miltimore
"Entrepreneur Mark Cuban made headlines Wednesday morning when he weighed in on President Biden's proposal to 'cancel' $10,000 in debt for borrowers, telling Business Insider he supports the policy -- with a caveat. 'It has to be fixed,' the Dallas Mavericks owner said in an email. 'As far as how much should be forgiven, I'm good with the Biden proposal.' The caveat, Cuban said, is that the 'ridiculous tuition fees' colleges are charging students must be addressed so students drowning in debt doesn't become 'a perennial problem.' Cuban is right that the student loan bubble needs to be fixed. There are also several problems with his comments, however." (05/18/22)
https://fee.org/articles/what-mark-cuban-gets-right-and-wrong-about-student-debt-cancellation/
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47) Conservatives Are Defending a Sanitized Version of "The Great Replacement"
Source: The Atlantic
by Adam Serwer
"Three years ago, when a white-supremacist fanatic killed dozens of people in El Paso, Texas, the reaction from the right was unreserved condemnation. When another white-supremacist fanatic killed 10 people at a supermarket in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, last week, the reaction from some figures on the right was to acknowledge that the guy had a point about this whole 'replacement' thing. ... This noxious ideology is now too popular on the right to isolate without risking bitter intraconservative conflict, and so, as the New York writer Jonathan Chait notes, right-wing media figures have taken to defending and rationalizing the claims that motivated the shooter, while condemning the violence itself." (05/18/22)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/buffalo-shooting-republican-great-replacement/629903/
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48) In the Ruins of Public Reason, part 2: The Barbarians at the Gates
Source: Notes On Liberty
by Zachary Woodman
"How exactly do dialogical illiberals view themselves during a heated discussion without epistemic norms? Dialogical illiberals of all political stripes -- from populist conservative culture warriors to sanctimoniously censorious progressives, from screeching parents at public school board meetings to ostensibly liberal democrats, from nationalistic xenophobes to anti-fascist anarchists -- view themselves as soldiers under siege in a war using their ideas as the only defensive tool to keep the barbarians at the gates. They view every conversation, every intellectual exchange as a zero-sum game, and their interlocutor is either on their side or the side of the putative barbarians–no in-between. I admit I have fallen into this habit of thinking in years past, but it is an extremely unproductive mindset and contributes to dialogical illiberalism for three main reasons." (05/18/22)
https://notesonliberty.com/2022/05/18/in-the-ruins-of-public-reason-part-ii-the-barbarians-at-the-gates/
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49) On Bush's Freudian Confession
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
"Oh my God. It happened. I can't believe it really happened. During a speech in Dallas at Southern Methodist University's George W Bush Presidential Center on Wednesday, the man himself, George W Bush, did the best thing ever. I am pretty sure it is the single best thing that has ever happened. I do not believe I am exaggerating when I say that. While criticizing Russia for having rigged elections and shutting out political opposition (which would already be hilarious coming from any American in general and Bush in particular), the 43rd president made the following comment: 'The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean, of Ukraine.' ... And then it got even better. After correcting himself with a nervous chuckle, Bush broke the tension in the empire-loyal crowd with the words, 'Iraq too. Anyway.'" (05/19/22)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/05/19/on-bushs-freudian-confession/
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50) Protecting Unalienable Rights
Source: Independent Institute
by James A Montanye
"A leaked Supreme Court draft opinion denying the constitutional legitimacy of the Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade opinion has piqued interest concerning 'unalienable' individual rights: (i) whether such rights logically exist; (ii) if so, then how are they to be reified; and (iii) which branch and level of government is constitutionally authorized and best equipped to defend them." (05/18/22)
https://blog.independent.org/2022/05/18/protecting-unalienable-rights/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Democratic Disney vs. Republican Disney
Source: Reason
"Because everything is political." [Flash video] (05/19/22)
https://reason.com/video/2022/05/19/democrat-disney-vs-republican-disney/
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52) Free Talk Live, 05/19/22
Source: Free Talk Live
"Cops Shoot Man to Death, Plant Gun? :: Rent-a-Car Troubles :: North Korea Announces 'Fever' Cases :: Plea Deals :: EBT Welfare :: Recession Inbound? :: Sheriffs :: Bush's BIG Freudian Slip :: Spokesbureaucrat Dodges Inflation Question :: Show: 2022-05-19 Ian, Joa." [Flash audio or MP3] (05/19/22)
https://freetalklive.com/archives/
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53) The Bryan Hyde Show, 05/19/22
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
"Is this the year you discover the joy of growing more of your own food? Simon Black has some thought on the coming food crisis and advises that developing your gardening skills is never a bad idea." (05/19/22)
https://anchor.fm/bryan-hyde/episodes/2022-May-19-The-Bryan-Hyde-Show-e1iojb1
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54) The Experiment Podcast, 05/19/22
Source: The Atlantic
"Fighting to Remember Mississippi Burning." [various formats] (05/19/22)
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2022/05/fighting-remember-mississippi-burning/629913/
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55) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 05/19/22
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
"Biden's 'Disinfo Board' RIP? Don't Hold Your Breath!" [Flash video] (05/19/22)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/bidens-disinfo-board-rip-dont-hold-your-breath
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56) Rising, 05/19/22
Source: The Hill
"Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave discuss President Biden's invocation of the Defense Production Act to address the country's baby formula shortage." [Flash video] (05/19/22)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/3493997-rising-may-19-2022/
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57) JobMakers, 05/19/22
Source: Pioneer Institute
"Yuliya Tarasava Invests In Americans Who Need It Most." [various formats] (05/19/22)
https://pioneerinstitute.org/economic_opportunity/yuliya-tarasava-invests-in-americans-who-need-it-most/
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58) Finding Freedom, episode 333
Source: Lions of Liberty
"Texas Slim on Decentralization and Buying Beef with Bitcoin." [various formats] (05/19/22)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/texas-slim-on-decentralization-and-buying-beef-with-bitcoin
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59) Cato Daily Podcast, 05/18/22
Source: Cato Institute
"Against the 'Vetocracy.'" [various formats] (05/18/22)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-daily-podcast/against-vetocracy
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60) Ted Snider on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
"Did the CIA Oust Imran Khan?" [various formats] (05/18/22)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/5-16-22-ted-snider-did-the-cia-oust-imran-khan/
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61) Reason Interview: Alex Epstein
Source: Reason
"The energy policy analyst says cheap and abundant gas, oil, and coal will continue to play a central role in human flourishing." [various formats] (05/18/22)
https://reason.com/podcast/2022/05/18/alex-epstein-why-the-future-needs-more-fossil-fuels/
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62) FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast, 05/18/22
Source: FiveThirtyEight
"What Tuesday's Primaries Could Mean For November." [various formats] (05/18/22)
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/politics-podcast-what-tuesdays-primaries-could-mean-for-november/
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63) The Science of Politics, 05/18/22
Source: Niskanen Center
"Abortion politics take center stage." [various formats] (05/18/22)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/abortion-politics-take-center-stage/
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64) Mad Dogs & Englishmen, episode 357
Source: National Review
"Kevin and Charlie discuss the Buffalo shooting and the Pennsylvania primaries." [various formats] (05/19/22)
https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/mad-dogs-englishmen/episode-357-mania-in-pennsylvania/
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65) Conflicts of Interest, episode 277
Source: Libertarian Institute
"The Bipartisan Consensus HATES Diplomacy." [various formats] (05/18/22)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-277-the-bipartisan-consensus-hates-diplomacy/
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