02/08 -- Biden to Iranians: My regime is no more trustworthy than Trump's; Economic Nationalists and Anti-Corporate Progressives Both Want More Government Power

5 views
Skip to first unread message

Thomas L. Knapp

unread,
Feb 8, 2021, 8:11:29 AM2/8/21
to Freedom News Daily
  Freedom News Daily, 02/08/21
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Presented by the Liberty International

Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Today's Freedom News:

1)  Biden to Iranians: My regime is no more trustworthy than Trump's
2)  Poll: Majority of Americans say Trump should be convicted, barred from holding federal office in impeachment trial
3)  Israel: Netanyahu pleads not guilty to corruption charges
4)  Protests sweep Myanmar to oppose coup, support Suu Kyi
5)  Ecuador: Runoff to come in presidential election after socialist wins first round
6)  South Africa: Regime suspends AstraZeneca vaccine drive
7)  IL: Chicago mayor touts deal with union to reopen schools
8)  George P. Schultz, 1920-2021
9)  Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund Says Entire Intelligence Community Missed Signs Of Riot
10) MA: Citizens vote on official state dinosaur
11) Turkey: Regime jails four pending trial over university protests
12) Haiti: Prime minister says about 20 people detained over alleged power grab
13) UT: Bill would prohibit forced vaccinations
14) Fox cancels vocal Trump supporter Lou Dobbs programme
15) Chinese users flock to US chat app Clubhouse, evading censors
16) Cheney says she won't quit the House despite Wyoming censure
17) Biden Bars Trump From Receiving Intelligence Briefings, Citing "Erratic Behavior"
18) Italy: Draghi wins support of two rival parties for new regime
19) SCOTUS lifts some restrictions on California church services
20) Nigeria: Regime Orders Banks To Close Accounts Involved In Cryptocurrency

Today's Freedom Commentary:

21) Economic Nationalists and Anti-Corporate Progressives Both Want More Government Power
22) Brave New World Wide Web Revisited
23) The Republican Party Is Radicalizing Against Democracy
24) Is it useless or wrong for libertarians to vote for pro-liberty candidates?
25) The Empire Must Die
26) The Journalistic Tattletale and Censorship Industry Suffers Several Well-Deserved Blows
27) A Kinky Cure for a Cruel World
28) Masking America's Greatest Natural Monuments
29) Advice for Surviving and Thriving in Lock Up
30) Transgender Madness is Destroying Girls Sports
31) The Title IX Persecution of Buddy Ullman
32) A Year On, Wuhan Victims Are Still Scarred and Still Censored
33) Some Puzzles about Trust: Which to Fix First?
34) Neighborly nudges to restore Myanmar's democracy [sic]
35) Joe Biden's Plan to Repeal the Second Amendment
36) The ECB is playing a dangerous game with "collective action clauses" on bonds
37) In Game-Changer, ICC To Take Up Israeli War Crimes and Apartheid in Palestine
38) A little bit of good doesn't justify evil
39) Insurrection or Menacing Mashup of Misrecognition?
40) Regime changers don't want Biden to re-join the Iran nuclear deal
41) The Long and Winding Road to Replacing the Gas Tax
42) Imperial America, Which Never Left, Is Back
43) Economic Reality Isn't Optional
44) Some Answers to Questions About the State of Copyright in 2021
45) Kamikaze Capital
46) David Hume on Ancient Revolutions
47) Dr. Anthony Fauci's $417,608 Tops All Federal Salaries, but Does Performance Match the Pay?
48) Fired for Being on Parler
49) Biden Says He's Ending the Yemen War, But It's Too Soon to Celebrate
50) Gamestop And The End Of Video Game Retail's Golden Age
51) The Founding Father of the Fourth Amendment
52) Baker's Dozen Reasons to expand government control
53) Second to None in the Creation of Extraordinary Wealth
54) Laffer Curve -- The Income Effect Spotted In The Wild
55) Robinhood and Redditors: Who's Robbin' Who?

Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:

56) Free Talk Live, 02/07/21
57) The Anarchist Experience, episode 305
58) Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism Video Adaptation, Chapter Five
59) The Tom Woods Show, episode 1829
60) Bette Dam on The Scott Horton Show
61) Part Of The Problem, 02/06/21
62) This Week in Common Sense, 02/06/21
63) Free Thoughts Podcast, episode 380
64) The Fifth Column, episode 224
65) Free Man Beyond The Wall, episode 534
66) The Chris Spangle Show, 02/05/21
67) PODCAST-19, 02/05/21
68) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 02/05/21
69) Bloggingheads.tv, 02/05/21
70) Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock, 02/05/21

vvvvv SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS vvvvv

ting: mobile that makes sense

25 TEXAS HEROES, by TL and Helen Hulsey

SHOP ONLINE, GET A REBATE IN BITCOIN!

TOM WOODS'S LIBERTY CLASSROOM
Learn REAL history and economics!

Tyranny Demands AN ACT OF SELF-DEFENSE: A NOVEL BY ERNE LEWIS

^^^^^ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS ^^^^^

_____ Today's Freedom News _____

1)  Biden to Iranians: My regime is no more trustworthy than Trump's
Source: BBC News [UK state media]

"US President Joe Biden says he will not lift economic sanctions against Iran until it complies with the terms agreed under a 2015 nuclear deal [which the US violated first]. Mr Biden was speaking in a CBS News interview aired on Sunday. But Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Tehran would only return to compliance if the US first lifted all economic sanctions. The 2015 deal sought to limit Iran's nuclear programme, with sanctions eased in return. Former President Donald Trump, however, [violated] the deal in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions, leading Iran to roll back on a number of its commitments. ... In a short clip of the interview published before the full broadcast at 16:00 EST (21:00 GMT) on Sunday, Mr Biden was asked if he would [return the US to meeting its commitments] to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table, and he replied: 'No.'" (02/07/21)


-----

2)  Poll: Majority of Americans say Trump should be convicted, barred from holding federal office in impeachment trial
Source: ABC News

"With his impeachment trial set to begin this week, a narrow majority of Americans say they support the Senate convicting former President Donald Trump and barring him from holding federal office again, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday. Compared to public attitudes in the early days of his first impeachment trial, support for the Senate convicting Trump is higher now. In an ABC News/Washington Post poll published in late January 2020, when the first trial was ongoing but before senators had voted, 47% of Americans said the Senate should vote to remove Trump from office and 49% said he should not be removed. But in this latest poll, 56% of Americans say Trump should be convicted and barred from holding office again, and 43% say he should not be. The new poll was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos' KnowledgePanel." (02/07/21)


-----

3)  Israel: Netanyahu pleads not guilty to corruption charges
Source: CNN

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told a Jerusalem court he is not guilty of one charge of bribery and three charges of fraud and breach of trust. ... Netanyahu, who is the first sitting Israeli Prime Minister to appear in court as a defendant, is charged in three separate cases. In the most serious case, Netanyahu is accused of advancing regulatory benefits worth more than 1 billion shekels (more than $300 million) in favor of a telecommunications company controlled by a millionaire friend, prosecutors say. In exchange, Netanyahu received favorable coverage from a news site, even influencing wording and story selection, prosecutors allege. ... Israelis vote in a general election in six weeks' time, and in a possible indication of the Prime Minister's desire to delay the prosecution opening and calling of witnesses, one of his most loyal party allies has called on judges to postpone further hearings until after the vote on March 23." (02/08/21)


-----

4)  Protests sweep Myanmar to oppose coup, support Suu Kyi
Source: Reuters

"Tens of thousands of people rallied across Myanmar on Sunday to denounce last week's coup and demand the release of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in the biggest protests since the 2007 Saffron Revolution that helped lead to democratic reforms. In a second day of widespread protests, crowds in the biggest city, Yangon, sported red shirts, red flags and red balloons, the colour of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy Party (NLD). 'We don't want military dictatorship! We want democracy!' they chanted. On Sunday afternoon, the junta ended a day-long blockade of the internet that had further inflamed anger since the coup last Monday that has halted the Southeast Asian nation's troubled transition to democracy and drawn international outrage. Pope Francis expressed 'solidarity with the people' on Sunday and asked Myanmar's leaders to seek 'democratic' harmony." (02/07/21)


-----

5)  Ecuador: Runoff to come in presidential election after socialist wins first round
Source: Yahoo! Finance

"A socialist economist feared by bond investors won the first round of Ecuador's presidential election .... Andres Arauz, who rejects austerity measures and attacked Ecuador's deal last year with the International Monetary Fund, got 31.5% of votes cast, according to the quick count published by the electoral authority late on Sunday. The race for second place is still too close to call, after a surprisingly weak performance by the conservative Guillermo Lasso. In the fast count, Yaku Perez, from the indigenous party Pachakutik, got 20.04%, giving him a wafer-thin lead over the conservative Lasso, who got 19.97%. Polls had mostly predicted that Lasso would comfortably make it to the second round. The possibility of a runoff between two leftist candidates is likely to trigger a selloff in the nation's dollar bonds on Monday, said Siobhan Morden, head of Latin America fixed income strategy at Amherst Pierpont in New York." (02/07/21)


-----

6)  South Africa: Regime suspends AstraZeneca vaccine drive
Source: NBC News

"South Africa has suspended plans to inoculate its front-line health care workers with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after a small clinical trial suggested that it isn't effective in preventing mild to moderate illness from the variant dominant in the country. South Africa got its first 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine last week and was expected to begin giving shots to health care workers in mid-February. The disappointing early results indicate that an inoculation drive using the AstraZeneca vaccine may not be useful. Preliminary data from a small study suggested that the AstraZeneca vaccine offers only 'minimal protection against mild-moderate disease' caused by the variant in South Africa." (02/07/21)


-----

7)  IL: Chicago mayor touts deal with union to reopen schools
Source: San Francisco Chronicle

"Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot touted a preliminary agreement with the teachers union over COVID-19 safety protocols on Sunday, potentially averting a strike in the nation's third-largest school district. Some students could return to classrooms as soon as Thursday, with the reopening of school phased-in by grade. Also, the city agreed to vaccinate 1,500 teachers and staff weekly at vaccination sites dedicated to Chicago Public Schools. The possible deal -- which still requires approval from the Chicago Teachers Union -- also includes metrics that would trigger school closings when cases spike. The union and district have been fighting for months over a plan to gradually reopen the roughly 340,000-student district, with talks breaking down in recent days on issues including vaccinations." (02/07/21)


-----

8)  George P. Schultz, 1920-2021
Source: CNN

"Former US Secretary of State George P. Shultz died Saturday at age 100, according to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University where he served for over 30 years. Shultz held four different federal Cabinet-level positions throughout his long career, one of only two Americans to do so. Shultz is best known for serving as secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan, and played a key role in diplomatic relations during the Cold War. He also served as secretary of the Department of Treasury, secretary of the Department of Labor and director of the Office of Management and Budget during President Richard Nixon's administration." (02/07/21)


-----

9)  Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund Says Entire Intelligence Community Missed Signs Of Riot
Source: KSRO News Talk Radio

"Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund sent an eight-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Congressional leaders on Monday, providing a detailed account of the events leading up to the Jan. 6 riots as well as a detailed timeline of events as he saw them unfold on that day. Pelosi immediately called for Sund to step down on Jan. 7. Later that day, Sund submitted a letter of resignation. ABC News obtained a copy of the letter, which was first reported by CNN. ... 'Perfect hindsight does not change the fact that nothing in our collective experience or our intelligence -- including intelligence provided by FBI, Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and D.C. Metropolitan Police (MPD) -- indicated that a well-coordinated [sic], armed assault on the Capitol might occur on Jan. 6,' Sund wrote." (02/07/21)


-----

10) MA: Citizens vote on official state dinosaur
Source: WWLP 22 News

"The people of Massachusetts have spoken and selected an official state dinosaur. Podokesaurus holyokensis received more than 60% of the roughy 35,000 votes cast in a social media campaign started last month by state Rep. Jack Lewis, besting the other choice, Anchisaurus polyselus. The winner was announced during a live virtual event Thursday hosted by Boston's Museum of Science. Lewis, a Framingham Democrat, was inspired to select a state dinosaur by one of his children's Cub Scouts dens, which was studying fossils. He said his goal was to teach children about the legislative process and spur interest in paleontology." (02/07/21)


-----

11) Turkey: Regime jails four pending trial over university protests
Source: Reuters

"Four people were formally arrested as part of an investigation into protests against President Tayyip Erdogan's appointment of a rector at one of the country's top universities, an Istanbul prosecutor's office said on Sunday. The protests began last month over Erdogan's appointment of Melih Bulu, an academic and former political candidate, as rector of Istanbul's Bogazici University. Students and faculty say the process was undemocratic. Istanbul Anadolu prosecutor's office said four people were jailed pending trial over protests at Istanbul's Kadikoy district. They were variously charged with crimes including damaging public property and terrorism propaganda. Two others were placed under house arrest, it said." (02/07/21)


-----

12) Haiti: Prime minister says about 20 people detained over alleged power grab
Source: Reuters

"Haitian Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe on Sunday said more than 20 people have been arrested in Haiti after an alleged power grab, while in the capital Port-Au-Prince demonstrators protesting against President Jovenel Moise clashed with the police. Individuals arrested included a Supreme Court judge and a senior police official, Jouthe told a news conference. It was unclear as to whom was behind the alleged power grab in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation, which has been riven by political and economic crises on top of the damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic. Police in the capital fired tear gas at protestors who are demanding Moise leave power and respect the constitution. Moise is due to speak at a press conference later in the afternoon." (02/07/21)


-----

13) UT: Bill would prohibit forced vaccinations
Source: KUTV 2 News

"tate and local governments in Utah could not force you to get a COVID-19 vaccine shot, under a new bill introduced at the Legislature. 'I don't see this as an anti-vaccine bill,' said Rep. Robert Spendlove, R-Sandy, the sponsor of HB 308. 'I think it actually helps someone to make the decision that's best for them.' Under the measure, the governor, the Legislature, courts, educators including school districts, cities, and counties could not require people to get coronavirus vaccines. The bill would not apply to private businesses, which conceivably could require vaccinations for employees." (02/06/21)


-----

14) Fox cancels vocal Trump supporter Lou Dobbs programme
Source: BBC News [UK state media]

"US broadcaster Fox has cancelled the TV programme hosted by Lou Dobbs, a vocal Trump supporter who is accused of using his platform to spread baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election. The news emerged a day after Dobbs was named in a defamation lawsuit filed by the voting machine maker Smartmatic. The $2.7bn (£2bn) lawsuit claims Dobbs was part of a 'disinformation campaign' against the company. Fox, which denies the allegations, said the Dobbs decision was not linked. The veteran financial journalist, 75, has presented Lou Dobbs Tonight on the Fox Business Network since 2011. He was also an occasional commentator on Fox News, the conservative channel that has been home to several staunch supporters of Mr Trump." (02/07/21)


-----

15) Chinese users flock to US chat app Clubhouse, evading censors
Source: Channel News Asia [Singapore]

"Private social audio app Clubhouse is attracting masses of new users from mainland China, where the US app remains uncensored by authorities despite flourishing discussions on rights, national identity and other sensitive topics. Western social media apps including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are banned in China, where the local Internet is tightly censored to weed out content that could undermine the ruling communist party. ... While Clubhouse remains uncensored, it is only available on iOS devices and is unavailable in the local Apple app store, both major barriers for its widespread use in China. Mainland Chinese users can access the app by modifying the location of their app store." (02/07/21)


-----

16) Cheney says she won't quit the House despite Wyoming censure
Source: San Francisco Chronicle

"Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking House GOP leader, said Sunday she was undeterred by a censure from Wyoming Republicans and criticism from some House colleagues over her vote to impeach Donald Trump, and will not resign or back off her repudiation of the former president. Cheney said the oath she took to the Constitution compelled her vote for impeachment, 'and it doesn't bend to partisanship, it doesn't bend to political pressure.' She suggested that if she were in the Senate, she might vote to convict Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Trump's trial in the Senate begins Tuesday." (02/07/21)


-----

17) Biden Bars Trump From Receiving Intelligence Briefings, Citing "Erratic Behavior"
Source: New York Times

"President Biden said on Friday that he would bar his predecessor, Donald J. Trump, from receiving intelligence briefings traditionally given to former presidents, saying that Mr. Trump could not be trusted because of his 'erratic behavior' even before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The move was the first time that a former president had been cut out of the briefings, which are provided partly as a courtesy and partly for the moments when a sitting president reaches out for advice. Currently, the briefings are offered on a regular basis to Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. ... The question of how Mr. Trump handles intelligence came up several times during his presidency. ... But there was a deeper worry about how Mr. Trump could use intelligence now that he has retreated to Mar-a-Lago, his club in Florida." (02/05/21)


-----

18) Italy: Draghi wins support of two rival parties for new regime
Source: KSAT 12 News

"Italian Premier-designate Mario Draghi on Saturday secured preliminary support from two key parties for forming a new government that will decide how to spend more than 200 billion euros ($240 billion) in European Union funds to help relaunch Italy's pandemic-ravaged economy. The populist 5-Star Movement and the right-wing League both signaled support for a Draghi-led government, saying they were ready to put aside bitter rivalries for the good of the country and increasing the potential for a broad-based government of national unity. ... Italy's president tapped Draghi this week to form a government after the resignation of ex-Premier Giuseppe Conte, who lost support of a small but key coalition party." (02/06/21)


-----

19) SCOTUS lifts some restrictions on California church services
Source: The Hill

"The Supreme Court late Friday ruled that California can't enforce some of its restrictions on church services, partially lifting limits put in place during the coronavirus pandemic. In a 6-3 ruling, the judges held that the state can't ban indoor worship, but it can cap indoor services at 25 percent capacity. The court also didn't stop the state from enforcing a ban on indoor singing and chanting. The court ruled in two cases brought against the state by churches -- one by South Bay United Pentecostal Church and another by Harvest Rock Church -- over restrictions in the state. California had moved to bar indoor worship services and other indoor activities such as dining and movie screenings in areas designated as 'Tier 1' -- which covers most of the state -- due to high coronavirus numbers." (02/06/21)


-----

20) Nigeria: Regime Orders Banks To Close Accounts Involved In Cryptocurrency
Source: International Business Times

"Nigeria's central bank on Friday ordered banks and financial institutions to close down accounts involved in the transfer or exchange of cryptocurrencies, warning of sanctions it they did not comply. Africa's largest economy has become a huge market for crypocurrency trade, but the central bank has warned for several years that the currencies are not regulated or legal tender in Nigeria. 'The bank hereby wishes to remind regulated financial institutions that dealing with cryptocurrencies or facilitating payments for cryptocurrency exchanges is prohibited,' it said in a statement posted on its website." (02/05/21)


_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____

21) Economic Nationalists and Anti-Corporate Progressives Both Want More Government Power
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Richard Morrison & Jessica Melugin

"We often hear that left-wing and right-wing politics couldn't be more polarized, but two of the loudest interest groups in the economic policy world these days have an oddly similar approach. Progressives are trying to use antitrust law to address dilemmas that have nothing to do with antitrust, and economic nationalists are trying to solve problems that, ultimately, have little to do with economics. What they both say they want would increase government power beyond a mere centrally planned economy and require a centrally planned society. Not only is this a foolish goal, but these efforts could kneecap the US economy at exactly the time, post-COVID, when we will most need resilience and renewal." (02/05/21)


-----

22) Brave New World Wide Web Revisited
Source: Garrison Center
by Joel Schlosberg

"February 8 marks the silver anniversary of an iconic early manifesto defending the Internet as a space where personal liberties and social cooperation might flourish free of political control ... just in time. John Perry Barlow emailed 'A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' from the World Economic Forum the day Bill Clinton signed into law restraints on free expression via the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Barlow couldn't have foreseen that on February 2, 2021, The New York Times would print a call for incoming President Joe Biden to appoint a 'reality czar' to verify online information. He did predict that national administrative substitutes for 'parental responsibilities' would fail to contain 'the virus of liberty' in 'a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media." (02/06/21)


-----

23) The Republican Party Is Radicalizing Against Democracy
Source: The Atlantic
by Chris Hayes

"The Republican Party is radicalizing against democracy. This is the central political fact of our moment. Instead of organizing its coalition around shared policy goals, the GOP has chosen to emphasize hatred and fear of its political opponents, who -- they warn -- will destroy their supporters and the country. Those Manichaean stakes are used to justify every effort to retain power, and make keeping power the GOP's highest purpose. We are living with a deadly example of just how far those efforts can go, and things are likely to get worse. At the same time, the Republican Party is moderating on policy. On a host of issues, the left [sic] is winning. It's not a rout -- and ideological battles continue -- but public opinion is trending left [sic]. Yesterday's progressive heresy has become today's unremarkable consensus." (02/08/21)


-----

24) Is it useless or wrong for libertarians to vote for pro-liberty candidates?
Source: Radical Classical Liberals
by Neera Badhwar

"Contemporary libertarians who reject electoral politics sometimes argue that to vote for a candidate, even a pro-liberty candidate, is to participate in the oppression of the state because no candidate is consistently libertarian. So if you vote for such a candidate, you are partly responsible for her oppressive actions. However, if your reason for voting for an imperfectly libertarian candidate is to defeat the anti-liberty candidate and reduce oppression, how can it make you complicit in the former's oppressive actions? And even if it does, how can allowing the far more anti-liberty candidate to win not make you even more complicit in the perpetuation of oppression?" (02/05/21)


-----

25) The Empire Must Die
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

"Q: What is a liberal? A: A liberal is a violent white supremacist extremist who supports and participates in the mass slaughter of brown-skinned human beings overseas while tweeting that white supremacist extremists are bad. ... Q: What is capitalism? A: Capitalism is a wonderful economic and political system which has given us powerful technology, a wide assortment of breakfast cereals, and near term human extinction. ... Q: Who is the biggest leak source of CIA documents to the news media? A: The CIA. ... Q: What's the difference between a prostitute and a mainstream media pundit? A: One gets paid handfuls of cash to do shameful and degrading things which tear apart the fabric of society, the other earns an honest living as a sex worker." (02/06/21)


-----

26) The Journalistic Tattletale and Censorship Industry Suffers Several Well-Deserved Blows
Source: Glenn Greenwald
by Glenn Greenwald

"A new and rapidly growing journalistic 'beat' has arisen over the last several years that can best be described as an unholy mix of junior high hall-monitor tattling and Stasi-like citizen surveillance. It is half adolescent and half malevolent. ... The profound pathologies driving all of this were on full display on Saturday night as the result of a reckless and self-humiliating smear campaign by one of The New York Times'[s] star tech reporters, Taylor Lorenz. She falsely and very publicly accused Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen of having used the 'slur' word 'retarded' .... Lorenz lied. Andreessen never used that word. And rather than apologize and retract it, she justified her mistake by claiming it was a 'male voice' that sounded like his, then locked her Twitter account as though she -- rather than the person she falsely maligned -- was the victim." (02/07/21)


-----

27) A Kinky Cure for a Cruel World
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid

"The thing the vanilla world can't seem to comprehend about BDSM is that it's all about correcting institutional power imbalances. The relationships I cultivate seek to confront my abusive childhood by becoming the authority figure that psychiatry and organized religion drove me to mythologize and fetishize. By exploring these feelings openly and reserving them strictly to consensual contracts among consenting adults in the confines of my own boudoir, I am avoiding the need to play them out in far more malignant rolls in the outside world. I no longer dream of being Lenin on the battlefield because I can be Lenin in the bedroom. And this is what BDSM has to offer to society at large, extinguishing what Wilhelm Reich referred to as the totalitarian personality." (02/07/21)


-----

28) Masking America's Greatest Natural Monuments
Source: JimBovard.com
by Jim Bovard

"The Biden administration just issued an edict that will spur endless pointless conflicts for Americans seeking to peacefully enjoy hundreds of national parks. On Groundhog Day, the National Park Service (NPS) mandated wearing face masks on all National Park Service lands 'when physical distancing cannot be maintained, including narrow or busy trails, overlooks and historic homes.' Probably 95% of the Park Service's 800+ million acres is uncrowded 95% of the time. But the new mandate is an entitlement program for anyone who wants to harass anyone on federal land who is not wearing a mask, regardless of social distancing, wide open spaces, or trails wide enough for 18-wheel trucks." (02/06/21)


-----

29) Advice for Surviving and Thriving in Lock Up
Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Sean Swain

"Since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a number of protesters and rioters of the dumpster-fire and ski-mask variety have found themselves detained for noble acts that change the world– like toppling statues of racists or torching cop cars or inflicting necessary violence. No good deed, it seems, goes unpunished. But, many of these savage cannibal maniacs have never previously experienced lock up, either because they got lucky or because cops are just that incompetent. At any rate, as this is a new experience, they would benefit from a kind of primer on how to navigate this world. I have a bit of experience at this shit. So, here goes ..." (02/06/21)


-----

30) Transgender Madness is Destroying Girls Sports
Source: Town Hall
by Michael Reagan

"It's not right. It's not fair. And, on top of all that, President Biden's executive order allowing transgender [girls] to compete against girls is going to destroy girls sports in America. ... It was a dumb, divisive and arrogant order for a unity president to make." [editor's note: Scott Adams has a different take on this. He notes that ALL sports competition "discriminates against" those with lesser natural physical skills, and dividing by gender is less valid than doing so by overall competence. (He also thinks, as do I, that penalizing older athletes for trying to restore their HGH levels artificially is "age discrimination") – SAT] (02/06/21)


-----

31) The Title IX Persecution of Buddy Ullman
Source: WendyMcElroy.com
by Buddy Ullman

"My Title IX ordeal involved five investigations over three years and resulted in the destruction of my professional career and job termination. The details of these investigations are myriad, convoluted, and complex, and therefore, I only present the skeletal outline of the adversities that I faced. There is documentation for everything that I assert, much of which is or was in possession of the Office for Civil Rights, Seattle Branch, in the Department of Education (OCR Reference No. 10152256). The original dual purpose for these investigations was to silence me and to deny me access to the educational programs and activities of the university, which seems counterintuitive to Title IX's purpose, but these multiple inquiries eventually morphed into a mechanism to destroy my very successful, externally funded research career and to fire me." (02/07/21)


-----

32) A Year On, Wuhan Victims Are Still Scarred and Still Censored
Source: Foreign Policy
by Tracy Wen Liu

"Seven stories of the coronavirus pandemic and its consequences." (02/07/21)


-----

33) Some Puzzles about Trust: Which to Fix First?
Source: 200-Proof Liberals
by Jason Brennan

"Here are two claims which both seem true to me: 1. The empirical evidence on generalized social trust, including trust in government and institutions, shows that it's generally a very good thing if people have a high degree of trust in each other and their institutions. It makes them behave better, free ride less, cheat less, and so on. 2. Many prominent US institutions are not trustworthy. Most media is heavily biased and has an agenda other than promoting the truth. Government does some good things, but does lots of very bad or dumb things for self-serving reasons. ... Our universities are mostly run by selfish people for their own private benefit. Other Americans are fairly lousy people, morally speaking, and are highly biased and tribalistic. Looking around, it seems sensible not to repose trust in many of our institutions or in others." (02/07/21)


-----

34) Neighborly nudges to restore Myanmar's democracy [sic]
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff

"Worldwide, fewer than 1 in 10 people live in a full democracy. In fact, largely as a result of COVID-19 restrictions, last year saw the biggest rollback of individual freedoms ever undertaken by governments during peacetime, according to the Democracy Index. And now a military coup against an elected government in Myanmar has only worsened the trend. What can existing democracies do about it? That's exactly what Indonesia and Malaysia, two of Myanmar's neighbors, asked on Friday. Their top leaders requested an urgent meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to address Myanmar's 'backward' step on democracy [sic]. 'We fear the political unrest in Myanmar could disturb the security and stability in this region,' said Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin in a meeting with his Indonesian counterpart." (02/05/21)


-----

35) Joe Biden's Plan to Repeal the Second Amendment
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Matt Agorist

"HR127, known as the Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act introduced by Rep. Jackson Lee, Sheila [D-TX-18], is, without a doubt, the most tyrannical gun control bill ever proposed. Like all gun control measures, this bill would hit the poor and minority communities the hardest. Its massive scope would also turn tens of millions of legal, law abiding gun owners into felons overnight. As TFTP reported in December, before Joe Biden took office, his administration has major plans for eviscerating the Second Amendment. Biden has been an outspoken gun grabber and on his campaign website, he's stated that he will use executive action to enforce gun control." (02/06/21)


-----

36) The ECB is playing a dangerous game with "collective action clauses" on bonds
Source: Cobden Centre
by Malachy McDermott

"There is a clause to European bond sales called a collective action clause. In fact, 'all bonds issued by Eurozone member states with maturities exceeding one year, issued after January 1, 2013, have a mandatory collective action clause.' This clause is the first part in a dangerous game of perpetual growth with zero savings that European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are playing at the moment. But firstly, what is a collective action clause (CAC)? To put it simply, it's a mechanism whereby a bond's value can be legally reduced by the issuer in times of hardship, originally very unpopular (in the '80s and '90s)." (02/05/21)


-----

37) In Game-Changer, ICC To Take Up Israeli War Crimes and Apartheid in Palestine
Source: Common Dreams
by Juan Cole

"On Friday, the International Criminal Court found that it had jurisdiction to consider war crimes and crimes against humanity and the crime of apartheid in the Palestinian territories. Israel has egregiously violated the 1949 Geneva Convention on the treatment of people in occupied territories by flooding its own citizens into the Palestinian territories, by stealing Palestinian land from its owners and building squatter settlements on it, and by using disproportional force against Palestinian demonstrators at the Gaza border. Israeli politician Abba Eban once quipped that Palestinians never lost the opportunity to lose an opportunity. But Palestinians have carefully, methodically created this opportunity to be heard in an international tribunal. It is the ruling Israeli right wing about which one can now quip about missing opportunities." (02/06/21)


-----

38) A little bit of good doesn't justify evil
Source: Kent's "Hooligan Libertarian" Blog
by Kent McManigal

"Over and over again I am stunned to see the lengths people will go to so they can keep believing in political government. No matter what it does, no matter the actual results, they defend its existence in the face of 5000+ years of evidence. Even if they admit government sometimes commits great evil -- more than any other group has ever managed to commit -- they won't face the flawed premise it is built upon: that wrong isn't wrong if enough people sanction it. They seem to imagine that any potential good justifies the very real evil." (02/05/21)


-----

39) Insurrection or Menacing Mashup of Misrecognition?
Source: CounterPunch
by John O'Kane

"It is tempting to read this raid as a festival for the gathering of a motley array of cultural disruptors who represent groups alienated in one way or another by the drift of American society and are having difficulty fully grasping why, such an understanding obviously needed to begin expressing what replacing power will entail. As a result, some act out their frustrations in behaviors that resemble those of the theatrically inclined Yippies, even resorting to sartorial excesses. But their rebellious assaults don't measure up to the meaning and force of pranks. They display, on their persons or on banners and placards and flags, snips of slogans regurgitated ever since Trump sashayed into the public consciousness, essentially mimicking their leader's limited conceptual range. They offer no articulation of stories that could potentially be plotted into a larger narrative ..." (02/05/21)


-----

40) Regime changers don't want Biden to re-join the Iran nuclear deal
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Matthew Petti

"Several proponents of regime change and war -- as well as a Saudi prince and intelligence chief -- signed a letter asking President Joe Biden to be 'bipartisan' by continuing the Trump administration's pressure campaign against Iran. The letter was organized by United Against Nuclear Iran, a pressure group that received funding from recently-deceased Republican Party megadonor Sheldon Adelson, and Thomas Kaplan, an investor whose companies looked to profit from unrest in the Middle East. The letter calls for 'the economic and diplomatic isolation of the Iranian regime,' and was printed as a full page advertisement on Friday in the New York Times." (02/05/21)


-----

41) The Long and Winding Road to Replacing the Gas Tax
Source: The American Prospect
by Gabrielle Gurley

"Pete Buttigieg has parachuted in for a soft landing at the Department of Transportation. ... But feel-good television blots out the problems of a sector cracking under the weight of early-21st-century inaction. There is a stunning lack of urgency in Congress about the virtual insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund, which shores up roads and public transit with fuel taxes that were last increased in 1993 and are not indexed to inflation. President Biden and Secretary Buttigieg are on the spot to devise interim measures to address the diminishing returns of gas taxes as cars grow more fuel-efficient and electrification looms -- or to come up with something better." [editor's note: A "progressive" advocating user fees over #taxationistheft? – SAT] (02/05/21)


-----

42) Imperial America, Which Never Left, Is Back
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman

"In a cliche-ridden foreign-policy speech delivered at the State Department on Thursday, President Joe Biden declared that 'America is back' -- on the global stage, presumably, as policeman of the world, but certainly not a disinterested policeman. The problem is that it never left. Despite some uncouth rhetoric and regular New York Times headlines regarding 'American isolationism,' Donald Trump never withdrew the U.S. government from its meddling role in the world. He baited Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela, and ended no war or U.S. assistance to other wars." (02/05/21)


-----

43) Economic Reality Isn't Optional
Source: Cafe Hayek

"Mr. L___: Thanks for your e-mail in response to my criticism of the City of Long Beach's decision to order certain supermarkets to give their workers a 'Hero' pay raise of $4 per hour. You ask if I 'worry if some supermarkets close down in Long Beach because of the higher minimum wage that the government would react by passing a law outlawing supermarkets from closing down for that kind of reason.' I'm sure that a City Council so arrogant and economically ignorant as to raise the minimum wage might be sufficiently arrogant and ignorant also to enact legislation of the sort that you describe. But even if, contrary to fact, such 'anti-closing' legislation would confront no legal barriers, ultimately it would achieve an outcome quite the opposite of its ostensible goal of helping low-skilled workers." (02/05/21)


-----

44) Some Answers to Questions About the State of Copyright in 2021
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Katharine Trendacosta & Cara Gagliano

"The Protecting Lawful Streaming Act of 2020 only had text publicly released about two weeks before it became law, and interest in it was high. This was partially because people heard there was a felony streaming law but no details whatsoever. It isn't a great law -- we simply do not need more penalties for copyright infringement and definitely not ones that make it a felony -- but the good news is it won't affect most people. ... The CASE Act is a different story altogether. It is, at best, a huge waste of time and money. At worst, it will hover unconstitutionally like a dark cloud over everyone attempting to share anything online." (02/05/21)


-----

45) Kamikaze Capital
Source: American Consequences
by Kim Iskyan

"In recent weeks, amateur speculators have gathered on message-board website Reddit to orchestrate squeezes on beleaguered stocks (GameStop, AMC, Blackberry and others) that are targeted by short-selling hedge funds. Many of them are young people relatively new to investing, often introduced to it through the online free brokerage app Robinhood. Some of these stocks have shot up by 1,500% and more in a matter of days, as bloodied short sellers have had to buy back shares to avoid going broke. ... many have applauded these Reddit investors, and news stories cite them as embattled in the latest war of Main Street versus Wall Street. But I'm calling this latest craze 'kamikaze capital' -- They're out to get even. And even as this trend is blowing itself up, it's also changing the world we invest in." (02/05/21)


-----

46) David Hume on Ancient Revolutions
Source: EconLog
by Dan Kleim

"The longest essay in the modern edition of David Hume's Essays is 'Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations,' first published in 1752. The essay aims to discomfort those who lionize the ancients of Greece and Rome, by arguing, in effect, that neither had succeeded in establishing a political order that truly achieved what we today would call the rule of law. That is a mark of 'every wise, just, and mild government' (382). The moderns have succeeded better, somehow." (02/07/21)


-----

47) Dr. Anthony Fauci's $417,608 Tops All Federal Salaries, but Does Performance Match the Pay?
Source: Independent Institute
by K Lloyd Billingsley

"The highest-paid federal government employee is Dr. Anthony Fauci, with a salary of $417,608 according to a Fox Business report based on a Freedom of Information request by OpenTheBooks.com. Whether Dr. Fauci deserves a higher salary than the president of the United States is a matter of some controversy. Dr. Fauci has headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 but his career in government goes back 53 years. In 1968, two years after he earned his medical degree, Dr. Fauci hired on with the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Fauci has changed his mind on the threat of the Wuhan coronavirus, the utility of masks, the damaging effects of lockdowns, and the date when herd immunity might be achieved." (02/05/21)


-----

48) Fired for Being on Parler
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

"Is the desire to speak freely a bad thing? In tweets now 'protected' from public view, Jennifer De Chiara, president of Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency, professed distress upon learning 'that one of our agents has been using the social media platforms Gab and Parler. We do not condone this activity.' Her agency, she added, works 'to ensure a voice of unity, equality, and one that is on the side of social justice.' So 'Colleen Oefelein is no longer an agent at The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency.'" (02/05/21)


-----

49) Biden Says He's Ending the Yemen War, But It's Too Soon to Celebrate
Source: In These Times
by Shireen Al-Adeimi & Sarah Lazare

"The February 4 announcement by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan that President Biden would end U.S. support for 'offensive operations' in Yemen was understandably met with celebration by those opposed to the war. Almost six years of the U.S.-Saudi‑U.A.E. war on Yemen have left the country devastated by humanitarian disaster and famine. ... But Biden's foreign policy speech, delivered just hours after Sullivan's teaser, unfortunately underscored that we must not celebrate the end of the war until we verify that it has actually, materially ended. That is because Biden's remarks leave just enough room for the president to gesture toward ending the war without actually halting all U.S. participation in it." (02/04/21)


-----

50) Gamestop And The End Of Video Game Retail's Golden Age
Source: The American Conservative
by Addison Del Mastro

"Try being a typewriter store in 1991. It's tough -- doable, maybe, if you move into computers. Try being a video game store in 2021. It might be a little tougher. That's the story of Not For Resale, a recent documentary on video game stores and the decline of physical media, and it's also part of the story of the recent Gamestop saga. ... There are any number of possible takes here, one of which is the pleasant idiosyncrasy of attempting to use the digital no-mans-land of modern trading to actually shore up a brick-and-mortar company. But if nostalgia was truly as much a motivation as profit, then there's another story here, which goes all the way back to the golden age of video gaming." (02/05/21)


-----

51) The Founding Father of the Fourth Amendment
Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by staff

"February 5 marks the birth of the American who had the greatest hand in what became the 4th Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures -- James Otis. Unfortunately, 'one of the most passionate and effective protectors of American rights' is too-little remembered today." (02/05/21)


-----

52) Baker's Dozen Reasons to expand government control
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton

"Now 10 days into the new era of 'restoring democracy' after the fascist (Republican) regime of The Donald, are we seeing better just what the reasons to reset the Fifty States are?" (02/05/21)


-----

53) Second to None in the Creation of Extraordinary Wealth
Source: Notes On Liberty
by Kevin Kallmes

"The most important historical question to help understand our rise from the muck to modern civilization is: how did we go from linear to exponential productivity growth? Let's call that question 'who started modernity?' People often look to the industrial revolution, which is certainly an acceleration of growth ... but it is hard to say it caused the growth because it came centuries after the initial uptick." (02/05/21)


-----

54) Laffer Curve -- The Income Effect Spotted In The Wild
Source: Continental Telegraph
by Tim Worstall

"The Laffer Curve is one of those things that certain types love to insist doesn't actually happen. Yet also one of those things which is simply a basic truth about our world. There are tax rates high enough to lower the amount of revenue collected. This means that, if the rate is currently above that, then revenue can be increased by lowering rates. The corollary is also that there are rates too low to be revenue maximising. It doesn't then go on to prove what Art Laffer himself has been saying for some decades now, that lower tax rates always pay for themselves. It does say just what it does say, that there's a -- or even several -- peaks in revenue collection as a tax rate goes from 0% to 100%." (02/05/21)


-----

55) Robinhood and Redditors: Who's Robbin' Who?
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Roger Koppl

"The 'Redditors' squeezed the heck out of the hedge funds. A win for the little guy! But then suddenly you couldn't buy GameStop on Robinhood, the broker so many of these 'Redditors' used. Robinhood had restricted trading in GameStop stock and several other stocks experiencing similar gyrations. Does this episode prove that 'the free market is a lie?'? I suppose it depends on where you think the lie is. I think it is no 'lie' that free markets generally 'work,' although simple formulas can lead you astray. We should heed Hayek's admonition to eschew the 'wooden insistence' on 'the principle of laissez faire.' The 'lie,' which is no lie at all but just an unfortunate error, is that financial markets are free. Financial markets are heavily regulated and have little to do with 'the free market.'" (02/05/21)


_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____

56) Free Talk Live, 02/07/21
Source: Free Talk Live

"Paradox-Free Time Travel is Plausible :: 49 percent is more than half :: All civilian space mission :: Space X :: Biologically engineered supersoldiers :: Hosts: Captain Kickass, Rich E Rich, Peakless Mounatineer." [Flash audio or MP3] (02/07/21)


-----

57) The Anarchist Experience, episode 305
Source: The Anarchist Experience

"Rich, MC, and KS discuss the long term future of Bitcoin, Energy subsidies across industries, whether or not we have an environmental crisis on the horizon, and population control." [various formats] (02/07/21)


-----

58) Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism Video Adaptation, Chapter Five
Source: Libertarian Institute

"September 11th and Afghanistan." [Flash video] (02/06/21)


-----

59) The Tom Woods Show, episode 1829
Source: The Tom Woods Show

"Staying Sane and Building Community in Dystopian Times." [various formats] (02/06/21)


-----

60) Bette Dam on The Scott Horton Show
Source: Libertarian Institute

"How Flawed Intelligence Leads to War Crimes in Afghanistan." [various formats] (02/06/21)


-----

61) Part Of The Problem, 02/06/21
Source: GaS Digital Network

"Jesse Kelly." [various formats] (02/06/21)


-----

62) This Week in Common Sense, 02/06/21
Source: Common Sense

"Aldous Huxley versus Brian Stelter." [Flash audio or MP3] (02/06/21)


-----

63) Free Thoughts Podcast, episode 380
Source: Libertarianism.org

"Kevin Vallier comes back on the show to discuss the decline of trust in society." [various formats] (02/05/21)


-----

64) The Fifth Column, episode 224
Source: The Fifth Column

"MTG v AOC, Merit is so Racist, Determined Incuriosity." [various formats] (02/05/21)


-----

65) Free Man Beyond The Wall, episode 534
Source: Free Man Beyond The Wall

"The Thought of Ioseb Besarionis dzе Jughashvili (Joseph Stalin)." [various formats] (02/05/21)


-----

66) The Chris Spangle Show, 02/05/21
Source: We Are Libertarians

"How Do Cities Approach Solving Homelessness?" [various formats] (02/05/21)


-----

67) PODCAST-19, 02/05/21
Source: FiveThirtyEight

"The Ethical Dilemmas Prompted By The Vaccine Rollout." [various formats] (02/05/21)


-----

68) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 02/05/21
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report

"The End of The Insanity is Near -- Will a $15 Minimum Wage Save Us?." [Flash video] (02/05/21)


-----

69) Bloggingheads.tv, 02/05/21
Source: Bloggingheads.tv

"The Post-Trump Republican Crackup | Robert Wright & Mickey Kaus." [Flash video] (02/05/21)


-----

70) Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock, 02/05/21
Source: Freedom's Phoenix

"Ernest goes over the headline news on Freedom's Phoenix ... Matt Smith on getting an RV and touring America ... Paul Puey (CEO / Co-founder at Edge) comes on to talk about the Edge Wallet, Crypto, etc." [MP3] (02/05/21)


----------------------------------------------------------------------
FND is published every weekday except on holidays. Forward freely.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:

Support the Liberty International (tax deductible)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages