01/20 -- UK: Johnson to lift face decoration mandates, other required COVID theatrics, in England; Politics is Dead. Now What?
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Thomas L. Knapp
Jan 20, 2022, 6:36:36 AM1/20/22
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 01/20/22
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Today's Freedom News:
1) UK: Johnson to lift face decoration mandates, other required COVID theatrics, in England
2) US Senate Democrats fail in attempt to revert to actual filibuster rules instead of fake “cloture” bar
3) SCOTUS allows House’s Capitol riot exploitation committee to get disgraced former president’s White House documents
4) China: Regime gets early start on bullying Winter Olympics athletes
5) Starbucks nixes vaccine mandate after SCOTUS ruling
6) WHO: No evidence COVID boosters are needed for healthy children, young adults
7) SCOTUS signals it may side with Cruz in challenge to campaign finance rules
8) Ryabkov: Russian regime will take nothing less than NATO expansion ban
9) Sudan: US diplomats begin setting stage for unwise intervention
10) China: Regime thugs abduct lawyer for “inciting state subversion”
11) MI: U of M reaches $490 million settlement over sexual abuse
12) Biden regime announces plans for massive mask handout
13) Dog Bites Man: Blinken babbles self-serving mix of obviosity, nonsense about Russia
14) Palestine: Israeli occupation forces destroy home to prevent owners from destroying home
15) 100+ Millionaires/Billionaires to Fellow Elites: “It’s Taxes or Pitchforks”
16) NY: James says disgraced former president’s company lied to tax leeches, banks
17) McConnell: With filibuster vote, Schumer “trying to short-circuit a debate that he cannot win”
18) Czech Republic: Singer Dies After Catching Covid Deliberately
19) Netherlands: Museums and orchestras stage haircut protest over Covid rules
20) VA: Karens file lawsuit against Youngkin over executive order making face decorations optional in government schools
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Politics is Dead. Now What?
22) The Office of Unreasonable Rules
23) After a Year of Biden, Why Do We Still Have Trump’s Foreign Policy?
24) The Young and the Unmasked
25) Free speech fosters cultural diversity: Part 9 of answers to bad arguments against free speech
26) The other “Big Lie:” How Biden and Democrats fuel doubts about the 2024 election
27) The Distributional Outcomes of Rights-Based Management in Fisheries
28) The War Over Your Mind
29) Why hasn’t Biden fired anyone after a terrible first year?
30) Crisis-Filled Lives
31) Medical aid in dying should not be proscribed by society’s laws or condemned by its mores
32) Germany’s New Green Stimulus Plan Won’t Fix the Economy
33) US Empire: More Dangerous Than Ever Before
34) Ready for Another Game of Russian Roulette?
35) OSHA’s Vaccine Mandate Illustrates the Perils of Reflexively Deferring to Government Experts
36) Pay attention; it’s your responsibility
37) Bond Market Calling the Fed’s Bluff
38) Why US Diplomacy Fails
39) Why should we pay for a BBC that hates us?
40) Liberal Illusions Caused the Ukraine Crisis
41) Boris Johnson’s Greatest Fear
42) Psychology and Economics
43) Starving Afghans Use Crypto to Sidestep US Sanctions, Failing Banks, and the Taliban
44) Mandates Are About Political Control, Not Health
45) Biden’s Assault on the Common Man
46) Year of Progress: Surveying our Growth in 2021
47) Practically-A-Book Review: Yudkowsky Contra Ngo On Agents
48) Copyright Shouldn’t Stand in the Way of Your Right to Repair
49) Major US Companies Slam Voter Suppression Laws, Then Donate to Their Sponsors
50) Ode to the Dumb Car
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Interview: Bob Corn-Revere
52) Free Talk Live, 01/19/22
53) The Bryan Hyde Show, 01/19/22
54) The Learning Curve, 01/19/22
55) There’s a Policy for That with Susan Pendergrass, 01/19/22
56) Rising, 01/19/22
57) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 01/19/22
58) Electric Libertyland, episode 263
59) The Argument, 01/19/22
60) Reason Roundtable, 01/18/22
61) Judging Freedom, 01/18/22
62) How to Fix the Internet, episode 108
63) Conflicts of Interest, episode 218
64) FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast, 01/18/22
65) Cyberlaw Podcast, episode 390
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) UK: Johnson to lift face decoration mandates, other required COVID theatrics, in England
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“Boris Johnson has announced the end of all Covid measures introduced to combat the Omicron variant — compulsory mask-wearing on public transport and in shops, guidance to work from home and vaccine certificates — from next week. The prime minister also told the Commons that the legal requirement on people with coronavirus to self-isolate would be allowed to lapse when the regulations expired on 24 March, and that date could be brought forward. To cheers from some on the Conservative benches, Johnson announced an immediate end to the need for pupils to wear masks at secondary schools. While Johnson’s statement will please a number of his backbenchers, it prompted concern from [technocrats who’ve enjoyed ordering everyone else around for two years]. … The changes apply only to England, as Covid restrictions, as part of health policy, are a devolved matter.” (01/19/22)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/19/boris-johnson-announces-end-to-all-omicron-covid-restrictions-in-england
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2) US Senate Democrats fail in attempt to revert to actual filibuster rules instead of fake “cloture” bar
Source: CBS News
“Senate Republicans blocked Democrats from moving forward on voting rights legislation, and Democrats failed to get 50 votes to change the Senate rules to move forward with the legislation with a simple majority. The dramatic night started with the Senate first voting on whether to end debate on the voting rights legislation, a move that failed to get the 60 votes needed to move the bill forward. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer then brought up a vote on a rules change to move the legislation forward with a one-time exemption, which was fiercely opposed by Republicans and two members of his own party, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. … The Senate rules change proposed by Democrats would have implemented a ‘talking filibuster’ for the voting rights legislation alone. Under this plan, final passage would require a 51-vote majority, rather than the usual 60, after senators used their opportunities to speak to filibuster the bill.” (01/19/22)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/voting-rights-bill-senate-vote-likely-fail/
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3) SCOTUS allows House’s Capitol riot exploitation committee to get disgraced former president’s White House documents
Source: CNN
“The Supreme Court cleared the way Wednesday for the release of presidential records from the Trump White House to a congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. The court’s order means that more than 700 documents will be transferred to Congress that could shed light on the events leading up to the insurrection [sic] when hundreds of rioters converged on the Capitol attempting to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election results. Only Justice Clarence Thomas said publicly that he would have granted former President Donald Trump’s request to block the document handover from the National Archives to the House select committee. No other justices made an objection public. The Biden White House supports releasing the records to the committee, after determining the disclosure is in the nation’s best interest and declining to assert executive privilege.” (01/19/22)
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/supreme-court-trump-white-house-docs/index.html
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4) China: Regime gets early start on bullying Winter Olympics athletes
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Athletes at next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics face punishment for behaviour that is against the spirit of the Games or Chinese rules, an official has said. … The Games start on 4 February, followed by the Winter Paralympics from 4 March. China has been accused of committing genocide against Uighurs and other mainly Muslim peoples, an allegation China has repeatedly rejected. ‘Any expression that is in line with the Olympic spirit I’m sure will be protected and anything and any behaviour or speeches that are against the Olympic spirit, especially against Chinese laws and regulations, are also subject to certain punishment,’ said Yang Shu, deputy director general of Beijing 2022’s International Relations Department. Yang suggested that a possible punishment could be the cancellation of athletes’ accreditation.” (01/19/22)
https://www.bbc.com/sport/winter-olympics/60051072
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5) Starbucks nixes vaccine mandate after SCOTUS ruling
Source: ABC News
“Starbucks is no longer requiring its U.S. workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, reversing a policy it announced earlier this month. In a memo sent Tuesday to employees, the Seattle coffee giant said it was responding to last week’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 6-3 vote, the court rejected the Biden administration’s plan to require vaccines or regular COVID testing at companies with more than 100 workers. ‘We respect the court’s ruling and will comply,’ Starbucks Chief Operating Officer John Culver wrote in the memo. Starbucks'[s] reversal is among the most high-profile corporate actions in response to the Supreme Court ruling. Many other big companies, including Target, have been mum on their plans.” [editor’s note: There’s nothing to “comply” with in the SCOTUS ruling; it just leaves the decision up to employers – TLK] (01/19/22)
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/starbucks-nixes-vaccine-mandate-supreme-court-ruling-82352925
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6) WHO: No evidence COVID boosters are needed for healthy children, young adults
Source: Fox News
“The World Health Organization’s (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said Tuesday that there is no current evidence that suggests healthy adolescents or children need COVID-19 vaccine booster doses. Speaking at a news briefing, Swaminathan explained that more research is necessary on the shots going forward, and that the agency had been making decisions based on current science. ‘There is no evidence right now that healthy children or healthy adolescents need boosters. No evidence at all,’ she said. Swaminathan said a panel would meet later this week to consider the question of how countries should be giving out boosters ‘with the view to reducing deaths.’ … In the U.S, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized boosters of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergency use in children as young as 12 years old.” (01/19/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/health/who-no-evidence-covid-boosters-needed-healthy-children-young-adults
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7) SCOTUS signals it may side with Cruz in challenge to campaign finance rules
Source: USA Today
“The Supreme Court hinted Wednesday it may side with Sen. Ted Cruz and agree that a federal law violates the First Amendment because, in the name of curbing corruption, it limits how candidates are repaid when they lend to their own campaigns. Cruz, a Texas Republican and 2016 presidential candidate, challenged a provision of a campaign finance law signed by President George W. Bush in 2002 that governs when and how campaigns may repay candidates for loans above $250,000. While the provision itself appears to be rarely invoked, advocates on both sides of the issue said the nation’s highest court could use the case to take another whack at campaign finance rules intended to limit money flowing into federal elections. The Supreme Court has since 1976 viewed campaign spending as a form of speech.” (01/19/22)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/01/19/supreme-court-signals-may-side-sen-ted-cruz-campaign-loans/6576587001/
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8) Ryabkov: Russian regime will take nothing less than NATO expansion ban
Source: ABC News
“Russia maintained a tough posture amid the tensions over its troop buildup near Ukraine, with a top diplomat warning Wednesday that Moscow will accept nothing less but ‘watertight’ U.S. guarantees precluding NATO’s expansion to Ukraine. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led the Russian delegation at the security talks with the U.S. in Geneva last week, reaffirmed that Moscow has no intentions of invading Ukraine as the West [pretends to fear], but said that receiving Western security guarantees is the categoric imperative for Moscow. … Russia has denied that it intends to attack its neighbor but demanded guarantees from the West that NATO will not expand to Ukraine or other former Soviet nations or place its troops and weapons there.” (01/19/22)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/russia-nato-expansion-ban-82347415
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9) Sudan: US diplomats begin setting stage for unwise intervention
Source: Hindustan Times [India]
“Two senior U.S. diplomats were in Sudan Wednesday to try to find a way out of the crisis roiling the African country since an October military coup. An Israeli delegation meanwhile met with Sudan’s ruling generals to consolidate newly established ties between their countries. The Oct. 25 military takeover has upended Sudan’s transition to democratic rule after three decades of repression and international isolation under autocratic President Omar al-Bashir, ousted during a popular uprising in April 2019. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Molly Phee and the newly appointed U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa, David Satterfield, first met with pro-democracy activists from the Sudanese Professionals Association, according to the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum.” [editor’s note: Last time I checked, Sudan was not a US state or territory, so why would its internal affairs be the US regime’s business? – TLK] (01/19/22)
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-senior-diplomats-in-sudan-to-try-resolve-post-coup-crisis-101642621043798.html
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10) China: Regime thugs abduct lawyer for “inciting state subversion”
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“A human rights lawyer has been detained in China on suspicion of ‘inciting state subversion,’ according to an official notice obtained by his wife weeks after he spoke out for a hospitalised teacher. Xie Yang — who has previously defended Christians and democracy activists — has not been heard from since he was [abducted] more than a week ago in Changsha, in central Hunan province. Beijing has stepped up its crackdown on civil society since Xi Jinping took power in 2012, tightening restrictions on freedom of speech and [abducting] hundreds of activists and lawyers. … Xie’s [abduction] comes weeks after he tried to visit a teacher, Li Tiantian, who friends said was forcibly committed to a psychiatric hospital after expressing sympathy for views questioning Beijing’s narrative over the 1937 Nanking massacre.” (01/19/22)
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3163934/china-rights-lawyer-held-inciting-state-subversion
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11) MI: U of M reaches $490 million settlement over sexual abuse
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
“The University of Michigan announced a $490 million settlement Wednesday with more than 1,000 people who say they were sexually assaulted by a former sports doctor during his nearly four-decade career at the school. The university said mediation led to the deal specifying 1,050 people will share in the financial settlement, the latest in several large payouts made by American universities following accusations of repeated sexual abuse by employees. Individuals and their attorneys will determine how to split $460 million, with no input from the university, the school said in a statement. An additional $30 million will be set aside for future claims. ‘We hope this settlement will begin the healing process for survivors,’ said Jordan Acker, chair of the University of Michigan Board of Regents. ‘At the same time, the work that began two years ago, when the first brave survivors came forward, will continue.'” (01/19/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Lawyer-U-of-Michigan-reaches-490M-abuse-16787063.php
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12) Biden regime announces plans for massive mask handout
Source: CNBC
“President Joe Biden will make 400 million highly protective N95 masks available to Americans for free [sic] at pharmacies and community health centers around the U.S., a White House official said. The masks will start to become available late next week, and the program will be fully up and running by early February, according to the official. The White House said the free [sic] masks are the largest deployment of personal protective equipment in U.S. history. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in updated guidance published last week, said N95 respirators are more effective [than mere cloth face decorations] at preventing transmission of the virus than cloth and surgical masks.” (01/19/22)
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/19/biden-will-make-400-million-n95-masks-available-to-americans-for-free.html
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13) Dog Bites Man: Blinken babbles self-serving mix of obviosity, nonsense about Russia
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has accused Russia of trying to divide Ukrainian society …. At a news conference with the Ukrainian foreign minister, Mr Blinken accused Russia of trying to weaken Ukraine’s diplomatic institutions and to divide Ukrainian society, ‘using everything from election interference to disinformation to cyber attacks.’ He also pledged ‘relentless diplomatic efforts to prevent renewed aggression and to promote dialogue and peace,’ and repeated a warning of tough sanctions against Russia in the event of an invasion. Mr Blinken will meet his Russian counterpart in Geneva on Friday, after talks with European allies in Berlin.” (01/19/22)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60048395
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14) Palestine: Israeli occupation forces destroy home to prevent owners from destroying home
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatar state media]
“Israeli forces have destroyed the home of a Palestinian family in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, days after the family tried to stave off the demolition by threatening to blow up the house. Large numbers of Israeli police and special forces raided the Salhiyeh home and cordoned off the surrounding area at 3am (01:00 GMT) on Wednesday. The family told Al Jazeera that dozens of heavily armed forces broke into their home while they slept and assaulted family members, [abducting] six of them including the head of the household, Mahmoud Salhiyeh. … Israeli authorities have justified the demolition to build a special education school for the residents of the neighbourhood.” (01/19/22)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/19/israeli-forces-demolish-palestinian-home-in-sheikh-jarrah
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15) 100+ Millionaires/Billionaires to Fellow Elites: “It’s Taxes or Pitchforks”
Source: Common Dreams
“A group of more than 100 millionaires and billionaires on Wednesday presented fellow members of the global economic elite with a stark choice: ‘It’s taxes or pitchforks.’ In an open letter published amid the corporate-dominated virtual Davos summit, 102 rich individuals (including such prominent figures as Disney heiress Abigail Disney and venture capitalist Nick Hanauer) warned that ‘history paints a pretty bleak picture of what the endgame of extremely unequal societies looks like. … For all our well-being, rich and poor alike, it’s time to confront inequality and choose to tax the rich,’ the letter reads. ‘Show the people of the world that you deserve their trust.'” (01/19/22)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/01/19/100-ultra-rich-people-warn-fellow-elites-its-taxes-or-pitchforks
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16) NY: James says disgraced former president’s company lied to tax leeches, banks
Source: CBS News
“The New York attorney general’s office said late Tuesday it had told a court that its investigators had uncovered evidence that President Donald Trump’s company used ‘fraudulent or misleading’ asset valuations to get loans and tax benefits. Attorney General Letitia James'[s] office detailed its findings in a court motion seeking to force Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. to comply with subpoenas seeking their testimony. The court filing said state authorities haven’t yet decided whether to bring a civil lawsuit in connection with the allegations, but that investigators need to question Trump and his two eldest children as part of the probe.” (01/19/22)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-organization-fraudulent-misleading-asset-valuations-new-york-ag-letitia-james/
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17) McConnell: With filibuster vote, Schumer “trying to short-circuit a debate that he cannot win”
Source: Fox News
“Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., accused Democrats pushing to eliminate the filibuster for a voting rights bill of playing up ‘fake panic’ in order to undermine the American political system. In remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, McConnell claimed that Democrats were trying to divide the nation for political gain, when they should be more focused on ‘real crises’ like inflation, the coronavirus pandemic, violent crime, the southern border, or Russia’s actions in Europe. ‘Instead they’ve been consumed by a fake panic over election laws that seem to exist only in their own imaginations,’ McConnell said. The Republican spoke after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., repeated his party’s talking point that they must keep GOP-controlled states from enacting election laws that they claim are racist and meant to suppress minority votes.” (01/19/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mcconnell-senate-filibuster-vote-schumer
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18) Czech Republic: Singer Dies After Catching Covid Deliberately
Source: NDTV [India]
“An anti-vax Czech folk singer has died after she deliberately contracted Covid to obtain a health pass that would have allowed [sic] her to visit the sauna and theatre, her family said. Proof of vaccination or a recent infection is required to access cultural and sports facilities as well as for travel and for visiting bars and restaurants in the EU member state, which is facing a soaring Covid count. Hana Horka, who was the vocalist for the band Asonance, died on Sunday at the age of 57, according to her son Jan Rek. She voluntarily exposed herself to the virus when her husband and son, both vaccinated, caught it before Christmas, Rek told public radio iRozhlas.cz.” (01/19/22)
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/czech-singer-hana-horka-dies-after-catching-covid-deliberately-2717612
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19) Netherlands: Museums and orchestras stage haircut protest over Covid rules
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Under the gaze of Van Gogh, Robyn is buffing her client’s nails. Laden with primers and polishes, a long table beneath the Dutch master’s self portraits has transformed the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam into a nail salon. The museum’s director Emilie Gordenker hopes this protest, along with others across the Netherlands, will highlight what she believes is an inconsistency in government policy. Under Dutch rules, museums, theatres, bars and cafes aren’t allowed to open, but hairdressers, beauticians and gyms can. That’s why beauticians were offering cherry-blossom and starry-night nail art inspired by the master. … The Van Gogh Museum was one of many institutions taking part.” (01/19/22)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60056168
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20) VA: Karens file lawsuit against Youngkin over executive order making face decorations optional in government schools
Source: CNN
“A group of parents of public school students in Chesapeake, Virginia, filed a lawsuit Tuesday asking Virginia’s Supreme Court to block a new executive order issued by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin that makes masks voluntary for children in the state’s public schools. The lawsuit, obtained by CNN affiliate WTKR, points to guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as to a law passed by Virginia’s General Assembly last year directing local school boards to adopt in-person schooling policies that reduce the spread of Covid-19 based on CDC recommendations. The lawsuit alleges that the order, which Youngkin issued Saturday, is in ‘direct conflict’ with that statute, and therefore runs afoul of a separation of powers provision of Virginia’s Constitution.” (01/19/22)
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/virginia-parents-youngkin-masks-lawsuit/index.html
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Politics is Dead. Now What?
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Max Borders
“I’ve been calling the death of politics for nearly a decade now. I don’t need to repeat that sorry appraisal here. It’s becoming more evident to everyone. Content about how people have lost faith in the institutions has become a cottage industry. But has anyone considered the possibility that the institutions have outlived their usefulness? Technocracy always fails in time. Yet the powerful cling to power. So, anyone who claims politics is dead needs to answer the question: Now what? The answer is entrepreneurship. And that, of course, includes innovation. Our mantra is ‘Criticize by creating,’ which I shamelessly stole from educational entrepreneur Michael Strong, who stole it from Michaelangelo. You should steal it, too. It might well be the mantra of this renaissance.” (01/19/22)
https://www.aier.org/article/politics-is-dead-now-what-an-entrepreneurial-revolution/
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22) The Office of Unreasonable Rules
Source: EconLog
by Bryan Caplan
“I have a modest proposal. Every large bureaucratic organization — schools, corporations, charities, and of course every level of government — should create an Office of Unreasonable Rules. The sole power of this Office is to hear complaints about unreasonable rules elsewhere in their organizations. Should they determine that a rule is unreasonable, they (a) Grant the complainant an exception, and (b) Tell whoever made the rule to make the rule more reasonable.” (01/19/22)
https://www.econlib.org/the-office-of-unreasonable-rules/
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23) After a Year of Biden, Why Do We Still Have Trump’s Foreign Policy?
Source: Common Dreams
by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies
“President Biden and the Democrats were highly critical of President Trump’s foreign policy, so it was reasonable to expect that Biden would quickly remedy its worst impacts. As a senior member of the Obama administration, Biden surely needed no schooling on Obama’s diplomatic agreements with Cuba and Iran, both of which began to resolve long-standing foreign policy problems and provided models for the renewed emphasis on diplomacy that Biden was promising. Tragically for America and the world, Biden has failed to restore Obama’s progressive initiatives, and has instead doubled down on many of Trump’s most dangerous and destabilizing policies. … Now the Democrats’ failure to deliver on their promises with respect to both domestic and foreign policy is undermining their prospects in November’s midterm election.” (01/19/22)
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/01/19/after-year-biden-why-do-we-still-have-trumps-foreign-policy
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24) The Young and the Unmasked
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Yes, things have gotten pretty bad in states like Florida. They let the two-year-olds breathe: unthinkable! The policymakers in these states apparently labor under the presumption that the COVID-19 pandemic is not Bubonic Plague 2.0 and that, for kids, the risk of serious COVID-19 disease has always been very low. Well, in California they take these risks seriously!!!!!!! The Golden State’s Department of Social Services has shut down the preschool McHugh was directing and pulled her license. The problem? She couldn’t get the tykes to stay masked. ‘There were a lot of children who were just too young to wear masks,’ McHugh confesses, ‘they pull them off. It’s really difficult.’ This makes it sound as if she didn’t even try handcuffing the kids so that they could not remove their masks. Talk about dereliction of duty.” (01/19/22)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2022/01/19/the-young-and-the-unmasked/
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25) Free speech fosters cultural diversity: Part 9 of answers to bad arguments against free speech
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
by Greg Lukianoff & Nadine Strossen
“Assertion: You need speech restrictions to preserve cultural diversity. Nadine: To my mind, cultural diversity is so obviously fostered by free speech — far from being hindered by it — that I have a hard time understanding the basis for this assertion. Strong free speech protections for all people and all perspectives should facilitate the flourishing of expression that is diverse in every sense, including cultural.” (01/19/22)
https://www.thefire.org/free-speech-fosters-cultural-diversity-part-9-of-answers-to-bad-arguments-against-free-speech-from-nadine-strossen-and-greg-lukianoff/
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26) The other “Big Lie:” How Biden and Democrats fuel doubts about the 2024 election
Source: The Hill
by Jonathan Turley
“For months, President Biden, Democratic politicians, and some in the media have hammered away at ‘Trump’s Big Lie’ of the 2020 election. They insist that former President Trump began months before the election to plant a false narrative that changes in election laws were part of an effort to ‘steal’ the election. However, in the last few weeks, Biden and others are pushing their own ‘Big Lie’ that state election laws are now being changed to steal the 2022 and 2024 elections. What is most striking is how these claims are detached from the actual laws themselves — the power of this claim being based entirely upon its repetition rather than its foundation.” (01/19/22)
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/590343-the-other-big-lie-how-biden-and-democrats-fuel-doubts-about-the-2024
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27) The Distributional Outcomes of Rights-Based Management in Fisheries
Source: Property and Environment Research Center
by Bryan Leonard, Josh Abbott, & Brian Garber-Yonts
“Fisheries managers have increasingly adopted rights-based management (i.e., ‘catch shares’ or ‘individual transferable quotas’ [ITQs]) to address economic and biological management challenges under prior governance regimes. Despite their ability to resolve some of the symptoms of the tragedy of the commons and improve economic efficiency, catch shares remain controversial for their potentially disruptive social effects. One criticism is that the benefits of rights-based reforms are unequally distributed across vessels and between fishery participants (e.g., crew and hired captains) and that stakeholders that do not receive an allocation of harvest rights may see their remuneration decrease. Yet, empirically assessing these claims is difficult in almost all ITQs due to poor availability of longitudinal cost, earnings, and employment data.” [abstract — full paper available as PDF download] (01/19/22)
https://www.perc.org/2022/01/19/the-distributional-outcomes-of-rights-based-management-in-fisheries/
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28) The War Over Your Mind
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Tommy Salmons
“Over the last few years (after Trump’s surprising victory) the decision as to what information and news the masses ingest is being monitored by the elites and corporate press. The rise of alternative media, especially large podcasts, has fueled their panic, and pushed their attempts to control the narrative into overdrive. The big tech companies took it upon themselves to determine what was allowable discourse. They ran mass censorship [sic] campaigns against anyone that said anything that challenged the power and prestige of the elites. What was once common speech among friends and colleagues is now hate speech. Comedians, politicians, and independent media personalities were depersoned and ostracized from the public square, social media platforms.” (01/19/22)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-war-over-your-mind/
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29) Why hasn’t Biden fired anyone after a terrible first year?
Source: Fox News
by David Marcus
“As the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency comes to an inglorious close the litany of failures he has racked up in a mere 12 months is nothing short of astonishing. On almost every issue that the American people care about he has made things worse — and in regard to many of them, drastically so. … Amid all of this disappointment, one curious question stands out. Why hasn’t any significant member of his administration been fired? Presidential administrations are traditionally like football teams. If the losses keep coming, if the squad fumbles and bumbles at every turn, then coaches, players, even general managers get sacked. While Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump was accused of using his signature phrase, ‘you’re fired’ a bit too often, Biden doesn’t even seem to realize it is an option.” (01/19/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-fire-first-year-david-marcus
-----
30) Crisis-Filled Lives
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“No one can deny that we Americans live crisis-filled lives. Right now, there is a major crisis in Ukraine with Russia. There is also an ongoing crisis with China. Other foreign-policy crises, such as with Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan, Cuba, Iraq, and North Korea. There is a terrorism crisis. Healthcare crisis. Social Security crisis. Drug-war crisis. Immigration crisis. Debt crisis. Inflation crisis. Fiscal crisis. Monetary crisis. There is a common denominator to all these crises — the federal government and, specifically, the welfare-warfare state political-economic system under which we live.” (01/19/22)
https://www.fff.org/2022/01/19/crisis-filled-lives/
-----
31) Medical aid in dying should not be proscribed by society’s laws or condemned by its mores
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“Stephen Sedley, a former judge and current Oxford University professor, notes that in the 19th century the law ‘got itself into such a tangle’ that a person who injured himself or herself in a suicide attempt ‘could be indicted for wounding with intent to kill,’ a capital offense. Some believers in an interventionist deity argued that terminal suffering, being God’s will, should not be curtailed, an objection they could also lodge against anesthesia. … Increased life expectancy, increased medical competence, increased secularism, and increased insistence on privacy and autonomy are producing increased support for legal regimes that respect the right of mentally capable and terminally ill individuals to protect themselves from lingering intense pain and mental decrepitude.” (01/19/22)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/19/medical-aid-in-dying-should-not-be-illegal/
-----
32) Germany’s New Green Stimulus Plan Won’t Fix the Economy
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Philipp Bagus
“Recently, there has been a debate in Germany on the constitutionality of additional government borrowing of €60 billion. The borrowing is debated because Germany has a constitutional debt brake. The debt brake limits the possibility of the government to indebt itself and pushes it toward a balanced budget in normal times. In times of emergency, however, the debt brake allows for exceptions and higher deficits to fight the emergency. Unsurprisingly, huge amounts of debts were issued to cope with the corona crisis. The German government plans to present a bill that transfers an unused borrowing authorization of €60 billion covid funds from last fiscal year to a special fund called the ‘Energy and Climate Fund,’ even though climate spending by itself would not be excepted from the debt brake.” (01/19/22)
https://mises.org/wire/germanys-new-green-stimulus-plan-wont-fix-economy
-----
33) US Empire: More Dangerous Than Ever Before
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Most Americans now understand that it was wrong to spend centuries enslaving millions of people. Not many Americans yet understand how equally wrong it is that their government has spent the 21st century killing millions and displacing tens of millions in its post-9/11 wars. … The US is more dangerous now as it loses global primacy than it has been at any other point in its history. There really are just two options currently on the table: either the US empire relinquishes unipolar domination voluntarily and leads a peaceful transition into a multipolar world, or it takes increasingly drastic and dangerous action to maintain planetary control. The latter choice is both horrifying and likely.” (01/19/22)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/01/19/the-us-empire-is-more-dangerous-than-ever-before-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/
-----
34) Ready for Another Game of Russian Roulette?
Source: CounterPunch
by H Bruce Franklin
“As the U.S. moves nuclear forces closer and closer to the border of Russia, and as our corporate media bang their war drums louder and louder, does anyone remember the Cuban missile crisis? In June of 1961, just three months after the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba was defeated, the United States began the deployment of fifteen Jupiter nuclear missiles to Turkey, which shared a border with the Soviet Union. … We didn’t hear about the Jupiter missiles …. At 7 p.m. eastern time on Monday, October 22, 1962, John F. Kennedy delivered the most terrifying presidential message of my lifetime. Declaring that the Soviet Union had created a ‘clear and present danger’ by placing in Cuba ‘large, long-range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction’ ‘capable of striking Washington, D.C.,’ he announced that U.S. ships would immediat[e]ly impose a ‘strict quarantine’ …” (01/19/22)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/19/ready-for-another-game-of-russian-roulette/
-----
35) OSHA’s Vaccine Mandate Illustrates the Perils of Reflexively Deferring to Government Experts
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum
“When the Supreme Court blocked enforcement of the Biden administration’s vaccinate-or-test rule for private employers last Thursday, the response from the three dissenters was familiar. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan argued that courts should not override the judgment of the government experts who know best how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The dissenters were right that the courts are not charged with formulating public health policies. But the courts are charged with deciding whether those policies are legal, and they forsake that responsibility when they reflexively defer to politicians and bureaucrats who claim an emergency justifies unprecedented restrictions on freedom.” (01/19/22)
https://reason.com/2022/01/19/oshas-vaccine-mandate-illustrates-the-perils-of-reflexively-deferring-to-government-experts/
-----
36) Pay attention; it’s your responsibility
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“There’s almost no one more dangerous than a driver who refuses to yield because they have the right-of-way. I’ve known people who got into accidents because the other person was supposed to move over or slow down, and didn’t, and they weren’t going to let the other guy ‘win.’ When two drivers of this sort encounter one another, have your camera recording. Personally, I think it’s more important to avoid an accident than to be ‘in the right.’ I’ve tried to teach my kids that their safety is always their responsibility. Responsibility isn’t fun. It means you must pay attention and do what others won’t.” (01/19/22)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2022/01/19/voices/mcmanigal-pay-attention-its-your-responsibility/170975.html
-----
37) Bond Market Calling the Fed’s Bluff
Source: American Consequences
by Greg Diamond
“Bond traders are the smartest guys in the room. This is something I learned early on in my career, and it’s worth sharing right now. This isn’t to say the actual people trading bonds are geniuses and never lose money (I’ve seen some bad ones for sure), but I’m making a statement more about what the bond market is pricing in for the future. Simply put, the bond market has a way of forecasting or discounting economic trends much better than stocks do … It’s forward looking. So when we think about the current environment and what Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve are saying they’re about to do (which is raise rates substantially), I’ve been focusing on the price action of the bond market. And it’s not lining up with the consensus.” (01/19/22)
https://americanconsequences.com/greg-diamond-the-bond-market-is-calling-the-feds-bluff/
-----
38) Why US Diplomacy Fails
Source: Antiwar.com
by Daniel Larison
“A basic problem with US diplomacy is that there are major political obstacles to concluding almost any agreement with a hostile or pariah state and virtually no political incentives to honor those agreements when they are made. When a president negotiates with these states, he has to burn a tremendous amount of political capital to get an agreement, and his successor can undo all of that effort with the stroke of a pen. … Diplomacy with Iran is further complicated by the fact that the US does not view Iran as an equal or even as a sovereign state, but instead treats it as if it were a disobedient vassal that has to be forced back into submission. Iran is expected to adhere to the restrictions contained in the nuclear deal without exception, but the US and the other major powers are effectively free to flout their obligations without suffering any penalties.” (01/19/22)
https://original.antiwar.com/daniel_larison/2022/01/18/why-us-diplomacy-fails/
-----
39) Why should we pay for a BBC that hates us?
Source: spiked
by Gareth Roberts
“In a way, the BBC hasn’t changed all that much. It is doing now what it has always done, reflecting and embodying a certain section of the middle class. When that section was sane, or at least fairly sane, that could be irritating on occasion, but we all forgave it because it had its heart in the right place. But in the past decade, the nominally ‘liberal’ middle class has, to put it politely, gone both doolally and totalitarian. To consume the BBC since about 2012 is to be never more than 10 minutes away from being scolded or berated, usually based on some spurious identity-politics talking point imported from the sick vortex of American academia. (On Radio 4 this happens much more frequently, about every 35 seconds.) It is unbearable, like paying £159 a year, on pain of imprisonment, to be told off by a particularly irritating polytechnic lecturer.” (01/19/22)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/01/19/why-should-we-pay-for-a-bbc-that-hates-us/
-----
40) Liberal Illusions Caused the Ukraine Crisis
Source: Foreign Policy
by Stephen M Walt
“The situation in Ukraine is bad and getting worse. Russia is poised to invade and demanding airtight guarantees that NATO will never, ever expand farther to the east. Negotiations do not appear to be succeeding, and the United States and its NATO allies are beginning to contemplate how they will make Russia pay should it press forward with an invasion. A real war is now a distinct possibility, which would have far-reaching consequences for everyone involved, especially Ukraine’s citizens. The great tragedy is this entire affair was avoidable. Had the United States and its European allies not succumbed to hubris, wishful thinking, and liberal idealism and relied instead on realism’s core insights, the present crisis would not have occurred. Indeed, Russia would probably never have seized Crimea, and Ukraine would be safer today.” (01/19/22)
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/19/ukraine-russia-nato-crisis-liberal-illusions/
-----
41) Boris Johnson’s Greatest Fear
Source: The Atlantic
by Helen Lewis
“‘In the name of God, go!’ If you wanted to choose a quotation to wound Boris Johnson — a man who wrote a biography of Winston Churchill as a coded advertisement for his own virtues — then this would be it. When Johnson’s fellow Conservative David Davis stood up in Parliament today and said these words, he must have intended them to be a fatal blow. Davis was not comparing the prime minister to his hero Churchill. He was comparing him to Neville Chamberlain, Churchill’s weak, appeasing predecessor. … Davis is not only a fellow Tory, but a Brexiteer and a former cabinet colleague of Johnson’s; he is also a known maverick with a taste for drama. Everyone knew that he was capable of throwing a grenade. And he did.” (01/19/22)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/boris-johnson-winston-churchill/621294/
-----
42) Psychology and Economics
Source: Cobden Centre
by Frank Shostak
“Recently, a relatively new economics called Behavioural Economics (BE) has started to gain popularity. Its practitioners such as Daniel Kahneman, Vernon Smith and Richard Thaler were awarded Nobel prizes for their contribution in the field of BE. The BE framework emerged because of dissatisfaction with the neo-classical theory regarding consumer choices. In the neo-classical theory, individuals are presented as if a scale of preferences is hard-wired in their heads. Regardless of anything else, this scale remains the same all the time. The practitioners of BE hold that this is unrealistic. To make the mainstream framework more realistic they are of the view that there is the need to introduce psychology into economics. … Whilst the BE criticism of mainstream economics is valid, the question arises whether BE solves the issue of unchanged consumer preferences and presents consumers as real people and not as human machines.” (01/19/22)
http://www.cobdencentre.org/2022/01/psychology-and-economics/
-----
43) Starving Afghans Use Crypto to Sidestep US Sanctions, Failing Banks, and the Taliban
Source: The Intercept
by Lee Fang
“There are several advantages to using crypto: Afghans fleeing the Taliban can take their assets with them without risk. Humanitarian agencies seeking to bypass banks and discreetly avoid the Taliban can provide cash directly to those in need. Smugglers and intermediaries who may steal or try to resell aid packages can be circumvented if aid is given directly through a digital transaction. … Despite the steep learning curve and several barriers to entry, within Afghanistan using crypto is seen as an unqualified improvement on the status quo.” (01/19/22)
https://theintercept.com/2022/01/19/crypto-afghanistan-sanctions-taliban/
-----
44) Mandates Are About Political Control, Not Health
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jenin Younes
“For two years, the political class’s ineptitude has been on full display. School shutdowns, business closures, and endless mask mandates have all proven relatively ineffective at stemming the spread of COVID-19 (never mind reducing hospitalizations and deaths), yet politicians continued instituting these harmful and useless measures in a desperate attempt to be perceived as doing something. But over the past month or so, it has become inescapable that sheer incompetence and ignorance can no longer be the sole explanation for two years of bungled policies. Rather, the craven mindset of many of our leaders in both parties (albeit primarily Democrats) is manifest. They are using our bodies to score cheap political points, impervious to the injury they are inflicting upon us.” (01/18/22)
https://brownstone.org/articles/mandates-are-about-political-control-not-health/
-----
45) Biden’s Assault on the Common Man
Source: The Pamphleteer
by Davis Hunt
“It’s important to judge people by their actions and not their words. As Ralph Waldo Emerson opined, ‘What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.’ Or, as Pink Floyd says in an admittedly different key, ‘You are only coming through in waves, your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying.’ Let’s apply this rubric to Joe Biden’s leadership. Despite all the bally-hooing about taxing the rich, the only thing the Biden administration has managed to do is place more onerous taxes on small business owners and members of the middle class. One of the first things Biden did once he took office was sign the American Rescue Plan which created a slush fund that was then dispersed, poorly, to American citizens and business.” (01/19/22)
https://pamphleteer.co/newsletter/no-171-irish-exit-and-save-a-life/
-----
46) Year of Progress: Surveying our Growth in 2021
Source: Libertarian Policy Institute
by Nicholas Sarwark
“The Libertarian Policy Institute seized the opportunities created by a pandemic of political polarization in 2021 to focus our vision and build a solid foundation to develop and implement practical, peaceful, public policy solutions in 2022. I founded the Institute at the beginning of last year as a solo effort to continue the work started during my six years as National Chairman of the Libertarian Party by developing and promoting policies that improve lives and communities while reducing government coercion.” (01/18/22)
https://libertarianpolicy.org/candidate-information/year-of-progress/
-----
47) Practically-A-Book Review: Yudkowsky Contra Ngo On Agents
Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander
“The story thus far: AI safety, which started as the hobbyhorse of a few weird transhumanists in the early 2000s, has grown into a medium-sized respectable field. OpenAI, the people responsible for GPT-3 and other marvels, have a safety team. So do DeepMind, the people responsible for AlphaGo, AlphaFold, and AlphaWorldConquest (last one as yet unreleased). So do Stanford, Cambridge, UC Berkeley, etc, etc. Thanks to donations from people like Elon Musk and Dustin Moskowitz, everyone involved is contentedly flush with cash. They all report making slow but encouraging progress. Eliezer Yudkowsky, one of the original weird transhumanists, is having none of this. He says the problem is harder than everyone else thinks. Their clever solutions will fail. He’s been flitting around for the past few years, Cassandra-like, insisting that their plans will explode and they are doomed.” (01/18/22)
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/practically-a-book-review-yudkowsky
-----
48) Copyright Shouldn’t Stand in the Way of Your Right to Repair
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Hayley Tsukayama
“If you bought it, you own it and you can do what you want with it. That should be the end of the story — whether we’re talking about a car, a tractor, a smartphone, a computer, or really anything you buy. Yet product manufacturers have chipped away for years at the very idea of ownership, using the growing presence of software on devices to make nonsense arguments about why your tinkering with the things you own violates their copyright. It’s gotten so bad that there’s a booming market for 40-year-old tractors that don’t rely on software. We’ve worked for years with advocates with the Repair Coalition, iFixit, U.S. PIRG, and countless others, to get lawmakers to make it crystal clear that people have the right to tinker with their own stuff. It’s working.” (01/18/22)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/01/copyright-shouldnt-stand-way-your-right-repair
-----
49) Major US Companies Slam Voter Suppression Laws, Then Donate to Their Sponsors
Source: The American Prospect
by Donald Shaw
“In April 2021, as Republican-controlled states began passing bills that will restrict voting in upcoming elections, cable and media giant Comcast put out a statement declaring its opposition to the measures. ‘We believe that all Americans should enjoy equitable access to secure elections and we have long supported and promoted voter education, registration and participation campaigns across the country to achieve that goal,’ the company said in a statement it provided to Deadline. ‘Efforts to limit or impede access to this vital constitutional right for any citizen are not consistent with our values.’ In the following months, however, Comcast and its political action committees made donations to several Republican lawmakers who authored voter suppression bills that were signed into law last year.” (01/19/22)
https://prospect.org/power/major-us-companies-slam-voter-suppression-laws-then-donate-to-their-sponsors/
-----
50) Ode to the Dumb Car
Source: A Geek With Guns
by Christopher Burg
“I own three vehicles. The newest one was built in 2008. They’re all dumb vehicles. They have gauges on the dashboard and the only ‘screen’ any of them have are primitive segmented LED displays on their radios. The clocks only know how to display hours and minutes and need to be manually set whenever daylight savings time changes (or the battery is disconnected). To me a vehicle is a long term purchase. When I buy one, I assume that I’ll be driving it until is stops functioning. I want at least a decade and always hope for more. Because I tend to drive vehicles for a long time, I avoid vehicles that have built-in navigation, touch screens, or infotainment systems. Vehicle manufacturers are notoriously bad at software.” (01/18/22)
https://blog.christopherburg.com/2022/01/18/ode-to-the-dumb-car/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Interview: Bob Corn-Revere
Source: Reason
"How Today's Censors Hide Behind Science and Psychology." [various formats] (01/19/22)
https://reason.com/podcast/2022/01/19/bob-corn-revere-how-todays-censors-hide-behind-science-and-psychology/
-----
52) Free Talk Live, 01/19/22
Source: Free Talk Live
"Homebirths Up 22% :: Crazy Hospital Policies :: Universal Orphanhood Insanity :: Soviet Communism :: Probiotics :: Federal Prosecutions Post-Secession :: Mask Compliance :: Highway Fatalities :: UK Removes COVID Restrictions :: NH Exit Critic :: Kaesong Industrial Region of North Korea :: Show: 2022-01-19 Ian, Nikki, Bonnie." [Flash audio or MP3] (01/19/22)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/free-talk-live-2022-01-19
-----
53) The Bryan Hyde Show, 01/19/22
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“One good thing about difficult times is that we all learn a degree of resiliency by going through them. James Howard Kunstler has a tough but thorough analysis what we’re facing and says it’s no time for crybabies.” [various formats] (01/19/22)
https://thebryanhydeshow.podbean.com/e/2022-january-19-the-bryan-hyde-show-hour-one/
-----
54) The Learning Curve, 01/19/22
Source: Pioneer Institute
“AEI’s Ian Rowe on School Leadership, Civic Education, & Upward Mobility.” [various formats] (01/19/22)
https://pioneerinstitute.org/featured/aeis-ian-rowe-on-school-leadership-civic-education-upward-mobility/
-----
55) There’s a Policy for That with Susan Pendergrass, 01/19/22
Source: Show-Me Institute
“Parents’ Role in Education with Dr. Matthew Spalding.” [various formats] (01/19/22)
https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/education/podcast-parents-role-in-education-with-dr-matthew-spalding/
-----
56) Rising, 01/19/22
Source: The Hill
“Ryan Grim and Robby Soave discuss the White House’s new mail-order Covid test website, as well as the Biden administration’s planned ‘public reset’ in the face of falling approval numbers.” [Flash video] (01/19/22)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/590348-rising-january-19-2022
-----
57) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 01/19/22
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Narrative Collapse! From England To Israel, Governments Race To Abandon Vaccine Passports!” [Flash video] (01/19/22)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/narrative-collapse-from-england-to-israel-governments-race-to-abandon-vaccine-passports
-----
58) Electric Libertyland, episode 263
Source: Lions of Liberty
“Vindication and Inspiration in Croatia with MP Stephen Bartulica.” [various formats] (01/19/22)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/ell263
-----
59) The Argument, 01/19/22
Source: New York Times
“Does the Supreme Court Need More Justices?” [Flash audio] (01/19/22)
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/opinion/the-argument-court-reform.html
-----
60) Reason Roundtable, 01/18/22
Source: Reason
“Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillespie discuss the new COVID-19 variant and their predictions for 2022.” [various formats] (01/18/22)
https://reason.com/podcast/2022/01/18/the-democratic-party-is-the-president/
-----
61) Judging Freedom, 01/18/22
Source: Judging Freedom
“James Bovard, Libertarian author & columnist, joins Judge Napolitano to discuss the FBI’s possible role in the Jan. 6 Capitol clash. They discuss the FBI’s long history of abuses, lies & cover-ups.” [Flash audio] (01/18/22)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fbis-possible-role-in-the-jan-6-capitol-riot/id1591962689?i=1000548284947
-----
62) How to Fix the Internet, episode 108
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
“How private is your bank account?” [various formats] (01/18/22)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/01/podcast-episode-how-private-is-your-bank-account
-----
63) Conflicts of Interest, episode 218
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Biden Team Blames Trump for Iran Nuclear Deal Failure.” [various formats] (01/18/22)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-218-biden-team-blames-trump-for-iran-nuclear-deal-failure/
-----
64) FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast, 01/18/22
Source: FiveThirtyEight
“Don’t Pay Attention To That Outlier Poll You Saw.” [various formats] (01/18/22)
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/politics-podcast-dont-pay-attention-to-that-outlier-poll-you-saw/
-----
65) Cyberlaw Podcast, episode 390
Source: The Volokh Conspiracy
“Have Facebook and Google cornered the market on antitrust troubles?” [MP3] (01/18/22)
https://reason.com/volokh/2022/01/18/have-facebook-and-google-cornered-the-market-on-antitrust-troubles/
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Today's Freedom News:
1) UK: Johnson to lift face decoration mandates, other required COVID theatrics, in England
2) US Senate Democrats fail in attempt to revert to actual filibuster rules instead of fake “cloture” bar
3) SCOTUS allows House’s Capitol riot exploitation committee to get disgraced former president’s White House documents
4) China: Regime gets early start on bullying Winter Olympics athletes
5) Starbucks nixes vaccine mandate after SCOTUS ruling
6) WHO: No evidence COVID boosters are needed for healthy children, young adults
7) SCOTUS signals it may side with Cruz in challenge to campaign finance rules
8) Ryabkov: Russian regime will take nothing less than NATO expansion ban
9) Sudan: US diplomats begin setting stage for unwise intervention
10) China: Regime thugs abduct lawyer for “inciting state subversion”
11) MI: U of M reaches $490 million settlement over sexual abuse
12) Biden regime announces plans for massive mask handout
13) Dog Bites Man: Blinken babbles self-serving mix of obviosity, nonsense about Russia
14) Palestine: Israeli occupation forces destroy home to prevent owners from destroying home
15) 100+ Millionaires/Billionaires to Fellow Elites: “It’s Taxes or Pitchforks”
16) NY: James says disgraced former president’s company lied to tax leeches, banks
17) McConnell: With filibuster vote, Schumer “trying to short-circuit a debate that he cannot win”
18) Czech Republic: Singer Dies After Catching Covid Deliberately
19) Netherlands: Museums and orchestras stage haircut protest over Covid rules
20) VA: Karens file lawsuit against Youngkin over executive order making face decorations optional in government schools
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Politics is Dead. Now What?
22) The Office of Unreasonable Rules
23) After a Year of Biden, Why Do We Still Have Trump’s Foreign Policy?
24) The Young and the Unmasked
25) Free speech fosters cultural diversity: Part 9 of answers to bad arguments against free speech
26) The other “Big Lie:” How Biden and Democrats fuel doubts about the 2024 election
27) The Distributional Outcomes of Rights-Based Management in Fisheries
28) The War Over Your Mind
29) Why hasn’t Biden fired anyone after a terrible first year?
30) Crisis-Filled Lives
31) Medical aid in dying should not be proscribed by society’s laws or condemned by its mores
32) Germany’s New Green Stimulus Plan Won’t Fix the Economy
33) US Empire: More Dangerous Than Ever Before
34) Ready for Another Game of Russian Roulette?
35) OSHA’s Vaccine Mandate Illustrates the Perils of Reflexively Deferring to Government Experts
36) Pay attention; it’s your responsibility
37) Bond Market Calling the Fed’s Bluff
38) Why US Diplomacy Fails
39) Why should we pay for a BBC that hates us?
40) Liberal Illusions Caused the Ukraine Crisis
41) Boris Johnson’s Greatest Fear
42) Psychology and Economics
43) Starving Afghans Use Crypto to Sidestep US Sanctions, Failing Banks, and the Taliban
44) Mandates Are About Political Control, Not Health
45) Biden’s Assault on the Common Man
46) Year of Progress: Surveying our Growth in 2021
47) Practically-A-Book Review: Yudkowsky Contra Ngo On Agents
48) Copyright Shouldn’t Stand in the Way of Your Right to Repair
49) Major US Companies Slam Voter Suppression Laws, Then Donate to Their Sponsors
50) Ode to the Dumb Car
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Interview: Bob Corn-Revere
52) Free Talk Live, 01/19/22
53) The Bryan Hyde Show, 01/19/22
54) The Learning Curve, 01/19/22
55) There’s a Policy for That with Susan Pendergrass, 01/19/22
56) Rising, 01/19/22
57) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 01/19/22
58) Electric Libertyland, episode 263
59) The Argument, 01/19/22
60) Reason Roundtable, 01/18/22
61) Judging Freedom, 01/18/22
62) How to Fix the Internet, episode 108
63) Conflicts of Interest, episode 218
64) FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast, 01/18/22
65) Cyberlaw Podcast, episode 390
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) UK: Johnson to lift face decoration mandates, other required COVID theatrics, in England
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“Boris Johnson has announced the end of all Covid measures introduced to combat the Omicron variant — compulsory mask-wearing on public transport and in shops, guidance to work from home and vaccine certificates — from next week. The prime minister also told the Commons that the legal requirement on people with coronavirus to self-isolate would be allowed to lapse when the regulations expired on 24 March, and that date could be brought forward. To cheers from some on the Conservative benches, Johnson announced an immediate end to the need for pupils to wear masks at secondary schools. While Johnson’s statement will please a number of his backbenchers, it prompted concern from [technocrats who’ve enjoyed ordering everyone else around for two years]. … The changes apply only to England, as Covid restrictions, as part of health policy, are a devolved matter.” (01/19/22)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/19/boris-johnson-announces-end-to-all-omicron-covid-restrictions-in-england
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2) US Senate Democrats fail in attempt to revert to actual filibuster rules instead of fake “cloture” bar
Source: CBS News
“Senate Republicans blocked Democrats from moving forward on voting rights legislation, and Democrats failed to get 50 votes to change the Senate rules to move forward with the legislation with a simple majority. The dramatic night started with the Senate first voting on whether to end debate on the voting rights legislation, a move that failed to get the 60 votes needed to move the bill forward. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer then brought up a vote on a rules change to move the legislation forward with a one-time exemption, which was fiercely opposed by Republicans and two members of his own party, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. … The Senate rules change proposed by Democrats would have implemented a ‘talking filibuster’ for the voting rights legislation alone. Under this plan, final passage would require a 51-vote majority, rather than the usual 60, after senators used their opportunities to speak to filibuster the bill.” (01/19/22)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/voting-rights-bill-senate-vote-likely-fail/
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3) SCOTUS allows House’s Capitol riot exploitation committee to get disgraced former president’s White House documents
Source: CNN
“The Supreme Court cleared the way Wednesday for the release of presidential records from the Trump White House to a congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. The court’s order means that more than 700 documents will be transferred to Congress that could shed light on the events leading up to the insurrection [sic] when hundreds of rioters converged on the Capitol attempting to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election results. Only Justice Clarence Thomas said publicly that he would have granted former President Donald Trump’s request to block the document handover from the National Archives to the House select committee. No other justices made an objection public. The Biden White House supports releasing the records to the committee, after determining the disclosure is in the nation’s best interest and declining to assert executive privilege.” (01/19/22)
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/supreme-court-trump-white-house-docs/index.html
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4) China: Regime gets early start on bullying Winter Olympics athletes
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Athletes at next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics face punishment for behaviour that is against the spirit of the Games or Chinese rules, an official has said. … The Games start on 4 February, followed by the Winter Paralympics from 4 March. China has been accused of committing genocide against Uighurs and other mainly Muslim peoples, an allegation China has repeatedly rejected. ‘Any expression that is in line with the Olympic spirit I’m sure will be protected and anything and any behaviour or speeches that are against the Olympic spirit, especially against Chinese laws and regulations, are also subject to certain punishment,’ said Yang Shu, deputy director general of Beijing 2022’s International Relations Department. Yang suggested that a possible punishment could be the cancellation of athletes’ accreditation.” (01/19/22)
https://www.bbc.com/sport/winter-olympics/60051072
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5) Starbucks nixes vaccine mandate after SCOTUS ruling
Source: ABC News
“Starbucks is no longer requiring its U.S. workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, reversing a policy it announced earlier this month. In a memo sent Tuesday to employees, the Seattle coffee giant said it was responding to last week’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 6-3 vote, the court rejected the Biden administration’s plan to require vaccines or regular COVID testing at companies with more than 100 workers. ‘We respect the court’s ruling and will comply,’ Starbucks Chief Operating Officer John Culver wrote in the memo. Starbucks'[s] reversal is among the most high-profile corporate actions in response to the Supreme Court ruling. Many other big companies, including Target, have been mum on their plans.” [editor’s note: There’s nothing to “comply” with in the SCOTUS ruling; it just leaves the decision up to employers – TLK] (01/19/22)
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/starbucks-nixes-vaccine-mandate-supreme-court-ruling-82352925
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6) WHO: No evidence COVID boosters are needed for healthy children, young adults
Source: Fox News
“The World Health Organization’s (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said Tuesday that there is no current evidence that suggests healthy adolescents or children need COVID-19 vaccine booster doses. Speaking at a news briefing, Swaminathan explained that more research is necessary on the shots going forward, and that the agency had been making decisions based on current science. ‘There is no evidence right now that healthy children or healthy adolescents need boosters. No evidence at all,’ she said. Swaminathan said a panel would meet later this week to consider the question of how countries should be giving out boosters ‘with the view to reducing deaths.’ … In the U.S, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized boosters of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergency use in children as young as 12 years old.” (01/19/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/health/who-no-evidence-covid-boosters-needed-healthy-children-young-adults
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7) SCOTUS signals it may side with Cruz in challenge to campaign finance rules
Source: USA Today
“The Supreme Court hinted Wednesday it may side with Sen. Ted Cruz and agree that a federal law violates the First Amendment because, in the name of curbing corruption, it limits how candidates are repaid when they lend to their own campaigns. Cruz, a Texas Republican and 2016 presidential candidate, challenged a provision of a campaign finance law signed by President George W. Bush in 2002 that governs when and how campaigns may repay candidates for loans above $250,000. While the provision itself appears to be rarely invoked, advocates on both sides of the issue said the nation’s highest court could use the case to take another whack at campaign finance rules intended to limit money flowing into federal elections. The Supreme Court has since 1976 viewed campaign spending as a form of speech.” (01/19/22)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/01/19/supreme-court-signals-may-side-sen-ted-cruz-campaign-loans/6576587001/
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8) Ryabkov: Russian regime will take nothing less than NATO expansion ban
Source: ABC News
“Russia maintained a tough posture amid the tensions over its troop buildup near Ukraine, with a top diplomat warning Wednesday that Moscow will accept nothing less but ‘watertight’ U.S. guarantees precluding NATO’s expansion to Ukraine. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led the Russian delegation at the security talks with the U.S. in Geneva last week, reaffirmed that Moscow has no intentions of invading Ukraine as the West [pretends to fear], but said that receiving Western security guarantees is the categoric imperative for Moscow. … Russia has denied that it intends to attack its neighbor but demanded guarantees from the West that NATO will not expand to Ukraine or other former Soviet nations or place its troops and weapons there.” (01/19/22)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/russia-nato-expansion-ban-82347415
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9) Sudan: US diplomats begin setting stage for unwise intervention
Source: Hindustan Times [India]
“Two senior U.S. diplomats were in Sudan Wednesday to try to find a way out of the crisis roiling the African country since an October military coup. An Israeli delegation meanwhile met with Sudan’s ruling generals to consolidate newly established ties between their countries. The Oct. 25 military takeover has upended Sudan’s transition to democratic rule after three decades of repression and international isolation under autocratic President Omar al-Bashir, ousted during a popular uprising in April 2019. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Molly Phee and the newly appointed U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa, David Satterfield, first met with pro-democracy activists from the Sudanese Professionals Association, according to the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum.” [editor’s note: Last time I checked, Sudan was not a US state or territory, so why would its internal affairs be the US regime’s business? – TLK] (01/19/22)
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-senior-diplomats-in-sudan-to-try-resolve-post-coup-crisis-101642621043798.html
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10) China: Regime thugs abduct lawyer for “inciting state subversion”
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“A human rights lawyer has been detained in China on suspicion of ‘inciting state subversion,’ according to an official notice obtained by his wife weeks after he spoke out for a hospitalised teacher. Xie Yang — who has previously defended Christians and democracy activists — has not been heard from since he was [abducted] more than a week ago in Changsha, in central Hunan province. Beijing has stepped up its crackdown on civil society since Xi Jinping took power in 2012, tightening restrictions on freedom of speech and [abducting] hundreds of activists and lawyers. … Xie’s [abduction] comes weeks after he tried to visit a teacher, Li Tiantian, who friends said was forcibly committed to a psychiatric hospital after expressing sympathy for views questioning Beijing’s narrative over the 1937 Nanking massacre.” (01/19/22)
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3163934/china-rights-lawyer-held-inciting-state-subversion
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11) MI: U of M reaches $490 million settlement over sexual abuse
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
“The University of Michigan announced a $490 million settlement Wednesday with more than 1,000 people who say they were sexually assaulted by a former sports doctor during his nearly four-decade career at the school. The university said mediation led to the deal specifying 1,050 people will share in the financial settlement, the latest in several large payouts made by American universities following accusations of repeated sexual abuse by employees. Individuals and their attorneys will determine how to split $460 million, with no input from the university, the school said in a statement. An additional $30 million will be set aside for future claims. ‘We hope this settlement will begin the healing process for survivors,’ said Jordan Acker, chair of the University of Michigan Board of Regents. ‘At the same time, the work that began two years ago, when the first brave survivors came forward, will continue.'” (01/19/22)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Lawyer-U-of-Michigan-reaches-490M-abuse-16787063.php
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12) Biden regime announces plans for massive mask handout
Source: CNBC
“President Joe Biden will make 400 million highly protective N95 masks available to Americans for free [sic] at pharmacies and community health centers around the U.S., a White House official said. The masks will start to become available late next week, and the program will be fully up and running by early February, according to the official. The White House said the free [sic] masks are the largest deployment of personal protective equipment in U.S. history. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in updated guidance published last week, said N95 respirators are more effective [than mere cloth face decorations] at preventing transmission of the virus than cloth and surgical masks.” (01/19/22)
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/19/biden-will-make-400-million-n95-masks-available-to-americans-for-free.html
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13) Dog Bites Man: Blinken babbles self-serving mix of obviosity, nonsense about Russia
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has accused Russia of trying to divide Ukrainian society …. At a news conference with the Ukrainian foreign minister, Mr Blinken accused Russia of trying to weaken Ukraine’s diplomatic institutions and to divide Ukrainian society, ‘using everything from election interference to disinformation to cyber attacks.’ He also pledged ‘relentless diplomatic efforts to prevent renewed aggression and to promote dialogue and peace,’ and repeated a warning of tough sanctions against Russia in the event of an invasion. Mr Blinken will meet his Russian counterpart in Geneva on Friday, after talks with European allies in Berlin.” (01/19/22)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60048395
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14) Palestine: Israeli occupation forces destroy home to prevent owners from destroying home
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatar state media]
“Israeli forces have destroyed the home of a Palestinian family in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, days after the family tried to stave off the demolition by threatening to blow up the house. Large numbers of Israeli police and special forces raided the Salhiyeh home and cordoned off the surrounding area at 3am (01:00 GMT) on Wednesday. The family told Al Jazeera that dozens of heavily armed forces broke into their home while they slept and assaulted family members, [abducting] six of them including the head of the household, Mahmoud Salhiyeh. … Israeli authorities have justified the demolition to build a special education school for the residents of the neighbourhood.” (01/19/22)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/19/israeli-forces-demolish-palestinian-home-in-sheikh-jarrah
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15) 100+ Millionaires/Billionaires to Fellow Elites: “It’s Taxes or Pitchforks”
Source: Common Dreams
“A group of more than 100 millionaires and billionaires on Wednesday presented fellow members of the global economic elite with a stark choice: ‘It’s taxes or pitchforks.’ In an open letter published amid the corporate-dominated virtual Davos summit, 102 rich individuals (including such prominent figures as Disney heiress Abigail Disney and venture capitalist Nick Hanauer) warned that ‘history paints a pretty bleak picture of what the endgame of extremely unequal societies looks like. … For all our well-being, rich and poor alike, it’s time to confront inequality and choose to tax the rich,’ the letter reads. ‘Show the people of the world that you deserve their trust.'” (01/19/22)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/01/19/100-ultra-rich-people-warn-fellow-elites-its-taxes-or-pitchforks
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16) NY: James says disgraced former president’s company lied to tax leeches, banks
Source: CBS News
“The New York attorney general’s office said late Tuesday it had told a court that its investigators had uncovered evidence that President Donald Trump’s company used ‘fraudulent or misleading’ asset valuations to get loans and tax benefits. Attorney General Letitia James'[s] office detailed its findings in a court motion seeking to force Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. to comply with subpoenas seeking their testimony. The court filing said state authorities haven’t yet decided whether to bring a civil lawsuit in connection with the allegations, but that investigators need to question Trump and his two eldest children as part of the probe.” (01/19/22)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-organization-fraudulent-misleading-asset-valuations-new-york-ag-letitia-james/
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17) McConnell: With filibuster vote, Schumer “trying to short-circuit a debate that he cannot win”
Source: Fox News
“Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., accused Democrats pushing to eliminate the filibuster for a voting rights bill of playing up ‘fake panic’ in order to undermine the American political system. In remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, McConnell claimed that Democrats were trying to divide the nation for political gain, when they should be more focused on ‘real crises’ like inflation, the coronavirus pandemic, violent crime, the southern border, or Russia’s actions in Europe. ‘Instead they’ve been consumed by a fake panic over election laws that seem to exist only in their own imaginations,’ McConnell said. The Republican spoke after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., repeated his party’s talking point that they must keep GOP-controlled states from enacting election laws that they claim are racist and meant to suppress minority votes.” (01/19/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mcconnell-senate-filibuster-vote-schumer
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18) Czech Republic: Singer Dies After Catching Covid Deliberately
Source: NDTV [India]
“An anti-vax Czech folk singer has died after she deliberately contracted Covid to obtain a health pass that would have allowed [sic] her to visit the sauna and theatre, her family said. Proof of vaccination or a recent infection is required to access cultural and sports facilities as well as for travel and for visiting bars and restaurants in the EU member state, which is facing a soaring Covid count. Hana Horka, who was the vocalist for the band Asonance, died on Sunday at the age of 57, according to her son Jan Rek. She voluntarily exposed herself to the virus when her husband and son, both vaccinated, caught it before Christmas, Rek told public radio iRozhlas.cz.” (01/19/22)
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/czech-singer-hana-horka-dies-after-catching-covid-deliberately-2717612
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19) Netherlands: Museums and orchestras stage haircut protest over Covid rules
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Under the gaze of Van Gogh, Robyn is buffing her client’s nails. Laden with primers and polishes, a long table beneath the Dutch master’s self portraits has transformed the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam into a nail salon. The museum’s director Emilie Gordenker hopes this protest, along with others across the Netherlands, will highlight what she believes is an inconsistency in government policy. Under Dutch rules, museums, theatres, bars and cafes aren’t allowed to open, but hairdressers, beauticians and gyms can. That’s why beauticians were offering cherry-blossom and starry-night nail art inspired by the master. … The Van Gogh Museum was one of many institutions taking part.” (01/19/22)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60056168
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20) VA: Karens file lawsuit against Youngkin over executive order making face decorations optional in government schools
Source: CNN
“A group of parents of public school students in Chesapeake, Virginia, filed a lawsuit Tuesday asking Virginia’s Supreme Court to block a new executive order issued by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin that makes masks voluntary for children in the state’s public schools. The lawsuit, obtained by CNN affiliate WTKR, points to guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as to a law passed by Virginia’s General Assembly last year directing local school boards to adopt in-person schooling policies that reduce the spread of Covid-19 based on CDC recommendations. The lawsuit alleges that the order, which Youngkin issued Saturday, is in ‘direct conflict’ with that statute, and therefore runs afoul of a separation of powers provision of Virginia’s Constitution.” (01/19/22)
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/virginia-parents-youngkin-masks-lawsuit/index.html
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Politics is Dead. Now What?
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Max Borders
“I’ve been calling the death of politics for nearly a decade now. I don’t need to repeat that sorry appraisal here. It’s becoming more evident to everyone. Content about how people have lost faith in the institutions has become a cottage industry. But has anyone considered the possibility that the institutions have outlived their usefulness? Technocracy always fails in time. Yet the powerful cling to power. So, anyone who claims politics is dead needs to answer the question: Now what? The answer is entrepreneurship. And that, of course, includes innovation. Our mantra is ‘Criticize by creating,’ which I shamelessly stole from educational entrepreneur Michael Strong, who stole it from Michaelangelo. You should steal it, too. It might well be the mantra of this renaissance.” (01/19/22)
https://www.aier.org/article/politics-is-dead-now-what-an-entrepreneurial-revolution/
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22) The Office of Unreasonable Rules
Source: EconLog
by Bryan Caplan
“I have a modest proposal. Every large bureaucratic organization — schools, corporations, charities, and of course every level of government — should create an Office of Unreasonable Rules. The sole power of this Office is to hear complaints about unreasonable rules elsewhere in their organizations. Should they determine that a rule is unreasonable, they (a) Grant the complainant an exception, and (b) Tell whoever made the rule to make the rule more reasonable.” (01/19/22)
https://www.econlib.org/the-office-of-unreasonable-rules/
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23) After a Year of Biden, Why Do We Still Have Trump’s Foreign Policy?
Source: Common Dreams
by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies
“President Biden and the Democrats were highly critical of President Trump’s foreign policy, so it was reasonable to expect that Biden would quickly remedy its worst impacts. As a senior member of the Obama administration, Biden surely needed no schooling on Obama’s diplomatic agreements with Cuba and Iran, both of which began to resolve long-standing foreign policy problems and provided models for the renewed emphasis on diplomacy that Biden was promising. Tragically for America and the world, Biden has failed to restore Obama’s progressive initiatives, and has instead doubled down on many of Trump’s most dangerous and destabilizing policies. … Now the Democrats’ failure to deliver on their promises with respect to both domestic and foreign policy is undermining their prospects in November’s midterm election.” (01/19/22)
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/01/19/after-year-biden-why-do-we-still-have-trumps-foreign-policy
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24) The Young and the Unmasked
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Yes, things have gotten pretty bad in states like Florida. They let the two-year-olds breathe: unthinkable! The policymakers in these states apparently labor under the presumption that the COVID-19 pandemic is not Bubonic Plague 2.0 and that, for kids, the risk of serious COVID-19 disease has always been very low. Well, in California they take these risks seriously!!!!!!! The Golden State’s Department of Social Services has shut down the preschool McHugh was directing and pulled her license. The problem? She couldn’t get the tykes to stay masked. ‘There were a lot of children who were just too young to wear masks,’ McHugh confesses, ‘they pull them off. It’s really difficult.’ This makes it sound as if she didn’t even try handcuffing the kids so that they could not remove their masks. Talk about dereliction of duty.” (01/19/22)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2022/01/19/the-young-and-the-unmasked/
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25) Free speech fosters cultural diversity: Part 9 of answers to bad arguments against free speech
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
by Greg Lukianoff & Nadine Strossen
“Assertion: You need speech restrictions to preserve cultural diversity. Nadine: To my mind, cultural diversity is so obviously fostered by free speech — far from being hindered by it — that I have a hard time understanding the basis for this assertion. Strong free speech protections for all people and all perspectives should facilitate the flourishing of expression that is diverse in every sense, including cultural.” (01/19/22)
https://www.thefire.org/free-speech-fosters-cultural-diversity-part-9-of-answers-to-bad-arguments-against-free-speech-from-nadine-strossen-and-greg-lukianoff/
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26) The other “Big Lie:” How Biden and Democrats fuel doubts about the 2024 election
Source: The Hill
by Jonathan Turley
“For months, President Biden, Democratic politicians, and some in the media have hammered away at ‘Trump’s Big Lie’ of the 2020 election. They insist that former President Trump began months before the election to plant a false narrative that changes in election laws were part of an effort to ‘steal’ the election. However, in the last few weeks, Biden and others are pushing their own ‘Big Lie’ that state election laws are now being changed to steal the 2022 and 2024 elections. What is most striking is how these claims are detached from the actual laws themselves — the power of this claim being based entirely upon its repetition rather than its foundation.” (01/19/22)
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/590343-the-other-big-lie-how-biden-and-democrats-fuel-doubts-about-the-2024
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27) The Distributional Outcomes of Rights-Based Management in Fisheries
Source: Property and Environment Research Center
by Bryan Leonard, Josh Abbott, & Brian Garber-Yonts
“Fisheries managers have increasingly adopted rights-based management (i.e., ‘catch shares’ or ‘individual transferable quotas’ [ITQs]) to address economic and biological management challenges under prior governance regimes. Despite their ability to resolve some of the symptoms of the tragedy of the commons and improve economic efficiency, catch shares remain controversial for their potentially disruptive social effects. One criticism is that the benefits of rights-based reforms are unequally distributed across vessels and between fishery participants (e.g., crew and hired captains) and that stakeholders that do not receive an allocation of harvest rights may see their remuneration decrease. Yet, empirically assessing these claims is difficult in almost all ITQs due to poor availability of longitudinal cost, earnings, and employment data.” [abstract — full paper available as PDF download] (01/19/22)
https://www.perc.org/2022/01/19/the-distributional-outcomes-of-rights-based-management-in-fisheries/
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28) The War Over Your Mind
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Tommy Salmons
“Over the last few years (after Trump’s surprising victory) the decision as to what information and news the masses ingest is being monitored by the elites and corporate press. The rise of alternative media, especially large podcasts, has fueled their panic, and pushed their attempts to control the narrative into overdrive. The big tech companies took it upon themselves to determine what was allowable discourse. They ran mass censorship [sic] campaigns against anyone that said anything that challenged the power and prestige of the elites. What was once common speech among friends and colleagues is now hate speech. Comedians, politicians, and independent media personalities were depersoned and ostracized from the public square, social media platforms.” (01/19/22)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-war-over-your-mind/
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29) Why hasn’t Biden fired anyone after a terrible first year?
Source: Fox News
by David Marcus
“As the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency comes to an inglorious close the litany of failures he has racked up in a mere 12 months is nothing short of astonishing. On almost every issue that the American people care about he has made things worse — and in regard to many of them, drastically so. … Amid all of this disappointment, one curious question stands out. Why hasn’t any significant member of his administration been fired? Presidential administrations are traditionally like football teams. If the losses keep coming, if the squad fumbles and bumbles at every turn, then coaches, players, even general managers get sacked. While Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump was accused of using his signature phrase, ‘you’re fired’ a bit too often, Biden doesn’t even seem to realize it is an option.” (01/19/22)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-fire-first-year-david-marcus
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30) Crisis-Filled Lives
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“No one can deny that we Americans live crisis-filled lives. Right now, there is a major crisis in Ukraine with Russia. There is also an ongoing crisis with China. Other foreign-policy crises, such as with Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan, Cuba, Iraq, and North Korea. There is a terrorism crisis. Healthcare crisis. Social Security crisis. Drug-war crisis. Immigration crisis. Debt crisis. Inflation crisis. Fiscal crisis. Monetary crisis. There is a common denominator to all these crises — the federal government and, specifically, the welfare-warfare state political-economic system under which we live.” (01/19/22)
https://www.fff.org/2022/01/19/crisis-filled-lives/
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31) Medical aid in dying should not be proscribed by society’s laws or condemned by its mores
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“Stephen Sedley, a former judge and current Oxford University professor, notes that in the 19th century the law ‘got itself into such a tangle’ that a person who injured himself or herself in a suicide attempt ‘could be indicted for wounding with intent to kill,’ a capital offense. Some believers in an interventionist deity argued that terminal suffering, being God’s will, should not be curtailed, an objection they could also lodge against anesthesia. … Increased life expectancy, increased medical competence, increased secularism, and increased insistence on privacy and autonomy are producing increased support for legal regimes that respect the right of mentally capable and terminally ill individuals to protect themselves from lingering intense pain and mental decrepitude.” (01/19/22)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/19/medical-aid-in-dying-should-not-be-illegal/
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32) Germany’s New Green Stimulus Plan Won’t Fix the Economy
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Philipp Bagus
“Recently, there has been a debate in Germany on the constitutionality of additional government borrowing of €60 billion. The borrowing is debated because Germany has a constitutional debt brake. The debt brake limits the possibility of the government to indebt itself and pushes it toward a balanced budget in normal times. In times of emergency, however, the debt brake allows for exceptions and higher deficits to fight the emergency. Unsurprisingly, huge amounts of debts were issued to cope with the corona crisis. The German government plans to present a bill that transfers an unused borrowing authorization of €60 billion covid funds from last fiscal year to a special fund called the ‘Energy and Climate Fund,’ even though climate spending by itself would not be excepted from the debt brake.” (01/19/22)
https://mises.org/wire/germanys-new-green-stimulus-plan-wont-fix-economy
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33) US Empire: More Dangerous Than Ever Before
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Most Americans now understand that it was wrong to spend centuries enslaving millions of people. Not many Americans yet understand how equally wrong it is that their government has spent the 21st century killing millions and displacing tens of millions in its post-9/11 wars. … The US is more dangerous now as it loses global primacy than it has been at any other point in its history. There really are just two options currently on the table: either the US empire relinquishes unipolar domination voluntarily and leads a peaceful transition into a multipolar world, or it takes increasingly drastic and dangerous action to maintain planetary control. The latter choice is both horrifying and likely.” (01/19/22)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/01/19/the-us-empire-is-more-dangerous-than-ever-before-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/
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34) Ready for Another Game of Russian Roulette?
Source: CounterPunch
by H Bruce Franklin
“As the U.S. moves nuclear forces closer and closer to the border of Russia, and as our corporate media bang their war drums louder and louder, does anyone remember the Cuban missile crisis? In June of 1961, just three months after the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba was defeated, the United States began the deployment of fifteen Jupiter nuclear missiles to Turkey, which shared a border with the Soviet Union. … We didn’t hear about the Jupiter missiles …. At 7 p.m. eastern time on Monday, October 22, 1962, John F. Kennedy delivered the most terrifying presidential message of my lifetime. Declaring that the Soviet Union had created a ‘clear and present danger’ by placing in Cuba ‘large, long-range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction’ ‘capable of striking Washington, D.C.,’ he announced that U.S. ships would immediat[e]ly impose a ‘strict quarantine’ …” (01/19/22)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/19/ready-for-another-game-of-russian-roulette/
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35) OSHA’s Vaccine Mandate Illustrates the Perils of Reflexively Deferring to Government Experts
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum
“When the Supreme Court blocked enforcement of the Biden administration’s vaccinate-or-test rule for private employers last Thursday, the response from the three dissenters was familiar. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan argued that courts should not override the judgment of the government experts who know best how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The dissenters were right that the courts are not charged with formulating public health policies. But the courts are charged with deciding whether those policies are legal, and they forsake that responsibility when they reflexively defer to politicians and bureaucrats who claim an emergency justifies unprecedented restrictions on freedom.” (01/19/22)
https://reason.com/2022/01/19/oshas-vaccine-mandate-illustrates-the-perils-of-reflexively-deferring-to-government-experts/
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36) Pay attention; it’s your responsibility
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“There’s almost no one more dangerous than a driver who refuses to yield because they have the right-of-way. I’ve known people who got into accidents because the other person was supposed to move over or slow down, and didn’t, and they weren’t going to let the other guy ‘win.’ When two drivers of this sort encounter one another, have your camera recording. Personally, I think it’s more important to avoid an accident than to be ‘in the right.’ I’ve tried to teach my kids that their safety is always their responsibility. Responsibility isn’t fun. It means you must pay attention and do what others won’t.” (01/19/22)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2022/01/19/voices/mcmanigal-pay-attention-its-your-responsibility/170975.html
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37) Bond Market Calling the Fed’s Bluff
Source: American Consequences
by Greg Diamond
“Bond traders are the smartest guys in the room. This is something I learned early on in my career, and it’s worth sharing right now. This isn’t to say the actual people trading bonds are geniuses and never lose money (I’ve seen some bad ones for sure), but I’m making a statement more about what the bond market is pricing in for the future. Simply put, the bond market has a way of forecasting or discounting economic trends much better than stocks do … It’s forward looking. So when we think about the current environment and what Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve are saying they’re about to do (which is raise rates substantially), I’ve been focusing on the price action of the bond market. And it’s not lining up with the consensus.” (01/19/22)
https://americanconsequences.com/greg-diamond-the-bond-market-is-calling-the-feds-bluff/
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38) Why US Diplomacy Fails
Source: Antiwar.com
by Daniel Larison
“A basic problem with US diplomacy is that there are major political obstacles to concluding almost any agreement with a hostile or pariah state and virtually no political incentives to honor those agreements when they are made. When a president negotiates with these states, he has to burn a tremendous amount of political capital to get an agreement, and his successor can undo all of that effort with the stroke of a pen. … Diplomacy with Iran is further complicated by the fact that the US does not view Iran as an equal or even as a sovereign state, but instead treats it as if it were a disobedient vassal that has to be forced back into submission. Iran is expected to adhere to the restrictions contained in the nuclear deal without exception, but the US and the other major powers are effectively free to flout their obligations without suffering any penalties.” (01/19/22)
https://original.antiwar.com/daniel_larison/2022/01/18/why-us-diplomacy-fails/
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39) Why should we pay for a BBC that hates us?
Source: spiked
by Gareth Roberts
“In a way, the BBC hasn’t changed all that much. It is doing now what it has always done, reflecting and embodying a certain section of the middle class. When that section was sane, or at least fairly sane, that could be irritating on occasion, but we all forgave it because it had its heart in the right place. But in the past decade, the nominally ‘liberal’ middle class has, to put it politely, gone both doolally and totalitarian. To consume the BBC since about 2012 is to be never more than 10 minutes away from being scolded or berated, usually based on some spurious identity-politics talking point imported from the sick vortex of American academia. (On Radio 4 this happens much more frequently, about every 35 seconds.) It is unbearable, like paying £159 a year, on pain of imprisonment, to be told off by a particularly irritating polytechnic lecturer.” (01/19/22)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/01/19/why-should-we-pay-for-a-bbc-that-hates-us/
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40) Liberal Illusions Caused the Ukraine Crisis
Source: Foreign Policy
by Stephen M Walt
“The situation in Ukraine is bad and getting worse. Russia is poised to invade and demanding airtight guarantees that NATO will never, ever expand farther to the east. Negotiations do not appear to be succeeding, and the United States and its NATO allies are beginning to contemplate how they will make Russia pay should it press forward with an invasion. A real war is now a distinct possibility, which would have far-reaching consequences for everyone involved, especially Ukraine’s citizens. The great tragedy is this entire affair was avoidable. Had the United States and its European allies not succumbed to hubris, wishful thinking, and liberal idealism and relied instead on realism’s core insights, the present crisis would not have occurred. Indeed, Russia would probably never have seized Crimea, and Ukraine would be safer today.” (01/19/22)
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/19/ukraine-russia-nato-crisis-liberal-illusions/
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41) Boris Johnson’s Greatest Fear
Source: The Atlantic
by Helen Lewis
“‘In the name of God, go!’ If you wanted to choose a quotation to wound Boris Johnson — a man who wrote a biography of Winston Churchill as a coded advertisement for his own virtues — then this would be it. When Johnson’s fellow Conservative David Davis stood up in Parliament today and said these words, he must have intended them to be a fatal blow. Davis was not comparing the prime minister to his hero Churchill. He was comparing him to Neville Chamberlain, Churchill’s weak, appeasing predecessor. … Davis is not only a fellow Tory, but a Brexiteer and a former cabinet colleague of Johnson’s; he is also a known maverick with a taste for drama. Everyone knew that he was capable of throwing a grenade. And he did.” (01/19/22)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/boris-johnson-winston-churchill/621294/
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42) Psychology and Economics
Source: Cobden Centre
by Frank Shostak
“Recently, a relatively new economics called Behavioural Economics (BE) has started to gain popularity. Its practitioners such as Daniel Kahneman, Vernon Smith and Richard Thaler were awarded Nobel prizes for their contribution in the field of BE. The BE framework emerged because of dissatisfaction with the neo-classical theory regarding consumer choices. In the neo-classical theory, individuals are presented as if a scale of preferences is hard-wired in their heads. Regardless of anything else, this scale remains the same all the time. The practitioners of BE hold that this is unrealistic. To make the mainstream framework more realistic they are of the view that there is the need to introduce psychology into economics. … Whilst the BE criticism of mainstream economics is valid, the question arises whether BE solves the issue of unchanged consumer preferences and presents consumers as real people and not as human machines.” (01/19/22)
http://www.cobdencentre.org/2022/01/psychology-and-economics/
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43) Starving Afghans Use Crypto to Sidestep US Sanctions, Failing Banks, and the Taliban
Source: The Intercept
by Lee Fang
“There are several advantages to using crypto: Afghans fleeing the Taliban can take their assets with them without risk. Humanitarian agencies seeking to bypass banks and discreetly avoid the Taliban can provide cash directly to those in need. Smugglers and intermediaries who may steal or try to resell aid packages can be circumvented if aid is given directly through a digital transaction. … Despite the steep learning curve and several barriers to entry, within Afghanistan using crypto is seen as an unqualified improvement on the status quo.” (01/19/22)
https://theintercept.com/2022/01/19/crypto-afghanistan-sanctions-taliban/
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44) Mandates Are About Political Control, Not Health
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jenin Younes
“For two years, the political class’s ineptitude has been on full display. School shutdowns, business closures, and endless mask mandates have all proven relatively ineffective at stemming the spread of COVID-19 (never mind reducing hospitalizations and deaths), yet politicians continued instituting these harmful and useless measures in a desperate attempt to be perceived as doing something. But over the past month or so, it has become inescapable that sheer incompetence and ignorance can no longer be the sole explanation for two years of bungled policies. Rather, the craven mindset of many of our leaders in both parties (albeit primarily Democrats) is manifest. They are using our bodies to score cheap political points, impervious to the injury they are inflicting upon us.” (01/18/22)
https://brownstone.org/articles/mandates-are-about-political-control-not-health/
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45) Biden’s Assault on the Common Man
Source: The Pamphleteer
by Davis Hunt
“It’s important to judge people by their actions and not their words. As Ralph Waldo Emerson opined, ‘What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.’ Or, as Pink Floyd says in an admittedly different key, ‘You are only coming through in waves, your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying.’ Let’s apply this rubric to Joe Biden’s leadership. Despite all the bally-hooing about taxing the rich, the only thing the Biden administration has managed to do is place more onerous taxes on small business owners and members of the middle class. One of the first things Biden did once he took office was sign the American Rescue Plan which created a slush fund that was then dispersed, poorly, to American citizens and business.” (01/19/22)
https://pamphleteer.co/newsletter/no-171-irish-exit-and-save-a-life/
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46) Year of Progress: Surveying our Growth in 2021
Source: Libertarian Policy Institute
by Nicholas Sarwark
“The Libertarian Policy Institute seized the opportunities created by a pandemic of political polarization in 2021 to focus our vision and build a solid foundation to develop and implement practical, peaceful, public policy solutions in 2022. I founded the Institute at the beginning of last year as a solo effort to continue the work started during my six years as National Chairman of the Libertarian Party by developing and promoting policies that improve lives and communities while reducing government coercion.” (01/18/22)
https://libertarianpolicy.org/candidate-information/year-of-progress/
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47) Practically-A-Book Review: Yudkowsky Contra Ngo On Agents
Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander
“The story thus far: AI safety, which started as the hobbyhorse of a few weird transhumanists in the early 2000s, has grown into a medium-sized respectable field. OpenAI, the people responsible for GPT-3 and other marvels, have a safety team. So do DeepMind, the people responsible for AlphaGo, AlphaFold, and AlphaWorldConquest (last one as yet unreleased). So do Stanford, Cambridge, UC Berkeley, etc, etc. Thanks to donations from people like Elon Musk and Dustin Moskowitz, everyone involved is contentedly flush with cash. They all report making slow but encouraging progress. Eliezer Yudkowsky, one of the original weird transhumanists, is having none of this. He says the problem is harder than everyone else thinks. Their clever solutions will fail. He’s been flitting around for the past few years, Cassandra-like, insisting that their plans will explode and they are doomed.” (01/18/22)
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/practically-a-book-review-yudkowsky
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48) Copyright Shouldn’t Stand in the Way of Your Right to Repair
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Hayley Tsukayama
“If you bought it, you own it and you can do what you want with it. That should be the end of the story — whether we’re talking about a car, a tractor, a smartphone, a computer, or really anything you buy. Yet product manufacturers have chipped away for years at the very idea of ownership, using the growing presence of software on devices to make nonsense arguments about why your tinkering with the things you own violates their copyright. It’s gotten so bad that there’s a booming market for 40-year-old tractors that don’t rely on software. We’ve worked for years with advocates with the Repair Coalition, iFixit, U.S. PIRG, and countless others, to get lawmakers to make it crystal clear that people have the right to tinker with their own stuff. It’s working.” (01/18/22)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/01/copyright-shouldnt-stand-way-your-right-repair
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49) Major US Companies Slam Voter Suppression Laws, Then Donate to Their Sponsors
Source: The American Prospect
by Donald Shaw
“In April 2021, as Republican-controlled states began passing bills that will restrict voting in upcoming elections, cable and media giant Comcast put out a statement declaring its opposition to the measures. ‘We believe that all Americans should enjoy equitable access to secure elections and we have long supported and promoted voter education, registration and participation campaigns across the country to achieve that goal,’ the company said in a statement it provided to Deadline. ‘Efforts to limit or impede access to this vital constitutional right for any citizen are not consistent with our values.’ In the following months, however, Comcast and its political action committees made donations to several Republican lawmakers who authored voter suppression bills that were signed into law last year.” (01/19/22)
https://prospect.org/power/major-us-companies-slam-voter-suppression-laws-then-donate-to-their-sponsors/
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50) Ode to the Dumb Car
Source: A Geek With Guns
by Christopher Burg
“I own three vehicles. The newest one was built in 2008. They’re all dumb vehicles. They have gauges on the dashboard and the only ‘screen’ any of them have are primitive segmented LED displays on their radios. The clocks only know how to display hours and minutes and need to be manually set whenever daylight savings time changes (or the battery is disconnected). To me a vehicle is a long term purchase. When I buy one, I assume that I’ll be driving it until is stops functioning. I want at least a decade and always hope for more. Because I tend to drive vehicles for a long time, I avoid vehicles that have built-in navigation, touch screens, or infotainment systems. Vehicle manufacturers are notoriously bad at software.” (01/18/22)
https://blog.christopherburg.com/2022/01/18/ode-to-the-dumb-car/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Interview: Bob Corn-Revere
Source: Reason
"How Today's Censors Hide Behind Science and Psychology." [various formats] (01/19/22)
https://reason.com/podcast/2022/01/19/bob-corn-revere-how-todays-censors-hide-behind-science-and-psychology/
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52) Free Talk Live, 01/19/22
Source: Free Talk Live
"Homebirths Up 22% :: Crazy Hospital Policies :: Universal Orphanhood Insanity :: Soviet Communism :: Probiotics :: Federal Prosecutions Post-Secession :: Mask Compliance :: Highway Fatalities :: UK Removes COVID Restrictions :: NH Exit Critic :: Kaesong Industrial Region of North Korea :: Show: 2022-01-19 Ian, Nikki, Bonnie." [Flash audio or MP3] (01/19/22)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/free-talk-live-2022-01-19
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53) The Bryan Hyde Show, 01/19/22
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“One good thing about difficult times is that we all learn a degree of resiliency by going through them. James Howard Kunstler has a tough but thorough analysis what we’re facing and says it’s no time for crybabies.” [various formats] (01/19/22)
https://thebryanhydeshow.podbean.com/e/2022-january-19-the-bryan-hyde-show-hour-one/
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54) The Learning Curve, 01/19/22
Source: Pioneer Institute
“AEI’s Ian Rowe on School Leadership, Civic Education, & Upward Mobility.” [various formats] (01/19/22)
https://pioneerinstitute.org/featured/aeis-ian-rowe-on-school-leadership-civic-education-upward-mobility/
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55) There’s a Policy for That with Susan Pendergrass, 01/19/22
Source: Show-Me Institute
“Parents’ Role in Education with Dr. Matthew Spalding.” [various formats] (01/19/22)
https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/education/podcast-parents-role-in-education-with-dr-matthew-spalding/
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56) Rising, 01/19/22
Source: The Hill
“Ryan Grim and Robby Soave discuss the White House’s new mail-order Covid test website, as well as the Biden administration’s planned ‘public reset’ in the face of falling approval numbers.” [Flash video] (01/19/22)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/590348-rising-january-19-2022
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57) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 01/19/22
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Narrative Collapse! From England To Israel, Governments Race To Abandon Vaccine Passports!” [Flash video] (01/19/22)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/narrative-collapse-from-england-to-israel-governments-race-to-abandon-vaccine-passports
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58) Electric Libertyland, episode 263
Source: Lions of Liberty
“Vindication and Inspiration in Croatia with MP Stephen Bartulica.” [various formats] (01/19/22)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/ell263
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59) The Argument, 01/19/22
Source: New York Times
“Does the Supreme Court Need More Justices?” [Flash audio] (01/19/22)
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/opinion/the-argument-court-reform.html
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60) Reason Roundtable, 01/18/22
Source: Reason
“Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillespie discuss the new COVID-19 variant and their predictions for 2022.” [various formats] (01/18/22)
https://reason.com/podcast/2022/01/18/the-democratic-party-is-the-president/
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61) Judging Freedom, 01/18/22
Source: Judging Freedom
“James Bovard, Libertarian author & columnist, joins Judge Napolitano to discuss the FBI’s possible role in the Jan. 6 Capitol clash. They discuss the FBI’s long history of abuses, lies & cover-ups.” [Flash audio] (01/18/22)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fbis-possible-role-in-the-jan-6-capitol-riot/id1591962689?i=1000548284947
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62) How to Fix the Internet, episode 108
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
“How private is your bank account?” [various formats] (01/18/22)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/01/podcast-episode-how-private-is-your-bank-account
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63) Conflicts of Interest, episode 218
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Biden Team Blames Trump for Iran Nuclear Deal Failure.” [various formats] (01/18/22)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-218-biden-team-blames-trump-for-iran-nuclear-deal-failure/
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64) FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast, 01/18/22
Source: FiveThirtyEight
“Don’t Pay Attention To That Outlier Poll You Saw.” [various formats] (01/18/22)
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/politics-podcast-dont-pay-attention-to-that-outlier-poll-you-saw/
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65) Cyberlaw Podcast, episode 390
Source: The Volokh Conspiracy
“Have Facebook and Google cornered the market on antitrust troubles?” [MP3] (01/18/22)
https://reason.com/volokh/2022/01/18/have-facebook-and-google-cornered-the-market-on-antitrust-troubles/
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