02/25 -- Facebook bans Myanmar's military as coup violence continues; The political effort to limit free speech attacks our own values

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Thomas L. Knapp

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Feb 25, 2021, 9:35:15 AM2/25/21
to Freedom News Daily
  Freedom News Daily, 02/25/21
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Presented by the Liberty International

Produced by the staff of Rational Review News Digest
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Today's Freedom News:

1)  Facebook bans Myanmar's military as coup violence continues
2)  Biden Revokes Trump Orders on Financial Regulation, Immigration
3)  US regime announces it will seek seat on UN Human Rights Council
4)  Thailand: Pols jailed as junta "court" finds 26 guilty of insurrection
5)  Biden signs executive order directing research into creative new ways to wreck the economy
6)  Germany, Belgium: Regime thugs steal recreational pharmaceuticals "worth billions"
7)  Capitol police union slams "leadership dysfunction" at riot hearing
8)  South Africa: Regime to spend $712 million on mass vaccination drive
9)  Germany: Court convicts former Syrian intelligence officer of complicity in crimes against humanity
10) FDA: Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine safe, effective
11) Mars rover's giant parachute carried secret message
12) Niger: Opposition leader claims election win despite official results
13) NY: Cuomo accused of sexual harassment by former aide
14) Analysis: Urban (blue) states get more, rural (red) states less in Biden's COVID-19 relief bill
15) Russia: Regime Increases Fines for Protests After Navalny Rallies
16) Russia: Amnesty International strips Alexei Navalny of "prisoner of conscience" status
17) KY: Panel says governor, AG should not be impeached
18) Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1919-2021
19) WI: Hunters and trappers exceed wolf kill target
20) Ecuador: Prison riots leave 62 dead

Today's Freedom Commentary:

21) The political effort to limit free speech attacks our own values
22) No Warrant, No Problem: How Government Buys Its Way Around the 4th Amendment
23) Mainstream media disinformation more powerful and destructive than QAnon
24) Washington's Tiny Islands Fetish Could Endanger the American People 
25) The Perils of Voter Ignorance and Affective Polarization
26) Rewriting Amendment Number One
27) Boris Johnson's reopening plan
28) What Insurrection?
29) Crashing careers -- and lessons we can learn from them
30) The moral case for free speech
31) House Democrats Go Fox Hunting
32) Louis Armstrong Broke Barriers With Music, Optimism, and the Sheer Force of His Personality
33) States Can Provide Their Own Civil Remedies for Police Abuse
34) How and Why Government Creates Disease Panic
35) Start getting prepared for emergencies
36) Trump Thinks He's Found a New Defense
37) Putting Big Pharma Patents Before Patients, Doctors Further Erode Trust in Experts
38) Almost a Year Later, There's Still No Evidence Showing Governments Can Control the Spread of Covid-19
39) Are Europeans still committed to a US-led collective defense?
40) Cuomo's Cover-up Will be Most Effectively Weaponized by the Right
41) Physical Mail Could Be Eliminated at Federal Prisons
42) Biden Administration Should Drop Military Commitment to Saudi Arabia
43) He Who Does Not Obey, Shall Not ...
44) Did money emerge as a result of a government ruling?
45) Who is Responsible for America's Covid Disaster?
46) The Lies Aren't Secret
47) Tax Incentive Reforms Would Benefit Kansas City
48) Socialism-in-Practice Was a Nightmare, Not Utopia
49) The Gig Economy: A Vampire We Shouldn't Make Peace With
50) A New Report Shows Elijah McClain Was Killed by a Cascade of Constitutional Violations

Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:

51) Free Talk Live, 02/24/21
52) The Science of Politics, 02/24/21
53) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 02/24/21
54) The Tom Woods Show, episode 1842
55) Bloggingheads.tv, 02/24/21
56) The Tatiana Show, episode 296
57) Conflicts of Interest, episode 75
58) Now Hear This with Chris Spangle, 02/24/21
59) Punk Rock Libertarians Podcast, episode 339
60) Free Man Beyond The Wall, episode 542
61) The Engrages, episode 2
62) Electric Libertyland, episode 217
63) Enemy of the [Surveillance] State, episode 20
64) Part Of The Problem, 02/23/21
65) Everything Voluntary, episode 463

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_____ Today's Freedom News _____

1)  Facebook bans Myanmar's military as coup violence continues
Source: NBC News

"Facebook on Thursday said it had banned the Myanmar military from using its platforms with immediate effect, as weeks of mass demonstrations continue in the Southeast Asian country after the military seized power. 'Events since the February 1 coup, including deadly violence, have precipitated a need for this ban,' Facebook said in a blog post. 'We believe the risks of allowing the Tatmadaw (Myanmar army) on Facebook and Instagram are too great.' The army seized power this month after alleging fraud in a Nov. 8 election swept by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), detaining her and much of the party leadership. ... The military government could not immediately be reached for comment. Meanwhile, members of a group supporting Myanmar's military junta attacked and injured people protesting in Yangon Thursday." (02/25/21)


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2)  Biden Revokes Trump Orders on Financial Regulation, Immigration
Source: Bloomberg

"President Joe Biden revoked a series of executive orders and memos issued by Donald Trump, affecting policies on financial regulation, immigration, funding for so-called 'anarchist' cities and architecture. The actions were Biden's latest to erase Trump's legacy and reset the nation's course, without any involvement by Congress. In Biden's first week in office alone, he issued 39 executive actions, many of which overturned Trump orders." (02/24/21)


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3)  US regime announces it will seek seat on UN Human Rights Council
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatar state media]

"US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday that Washington will seek a permanent seat on the panel for the 2022-2024 term. The announcement is the latest instance of President Joe Biden's administration's pivot towards multilateralism and rejection of former leader Donald Trump's [fake] 'America First' approach. Trump withdrew from the council in 2018 accusing it of anti-Israeli bias and allowing chronic rights-abusing states as members." (02/24/21)


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4)  Thailand: Pols jailed as junta "court" finds 26 guilty of insurrection
Source: Straits Times [Singapore]

"A Thai court on Wednesday (Feb 24) sentenced 14 political leaders to jail, including three incumbent cabinet ministers, after finding them guilty of insurrection during anti-government protests that culminated in a 2014 military coup. The court found 26 of 39 defendants guilty, a lawyer for the group said, for actions that included obstructing elections and invading government property, which took place during seven months of demonstrations against the government of Yingluck Shinawatra." (02/24/21)


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5)  Biden signs executive order directing research into creative new ways to wreck the economy
Source: CBS News

"President Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday directing federal agencies to conduct a review of supply chains for critical goods, including pharmaceuticals and large capacity batteries. Specifically, the review will target semiconductors, key minerals and materials, pharmaceuticals and their ingredients, and advanced batteries like the ones used in electric vehicles. The pandemic has revealed the United States' reliance on countries like China for supplies such as personal protective equipment.  Mr. Biden held a meeting with Democrats and Republicans Wednesday afternoon on supply chain issues. The president said it's critical that the U.S. make sure supply chains are 'secure and reliable.'" [editor's note: Any government involvement in those supply chains will make them less secure and less reliable - TLK] (02/24/21)


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6)  Germany, Belgium: Regime thugs steal recreational pharmaceuticals "worth billions"
Source: BBC News [UK state media]

"Customs authorities in Germany and Belgium have seized a record of more than 23 tonnes of cocaine that was destined for the Netherlands. German officials discovered 16 tonnes of the drug in five shipping containers that had arrived in the port of Hamburg from Paraguay earlier this month. Police in the Netherlands were notified and a further 7.2 tonnes of cocaine was seized at the Belgian port of Antwerp. Officials in Germany said the cocaine had a value of billions of euros. A 28-year-old man suspected of involvement in the trafficking of the drugs has been arrested in the Netherlands, Dutch police said on Wednesday. The two raids, which took place earlier this month, resulted in the seizure of an 'enormous amount of cocaine,' customs officials said." (02/24/21)


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7)  Capitol police union slams "leadership dysfunction" at riot hearing
Source: Fox News

"After ex-officials responsible for security at the Capitol on Jan. 6 testified before Congress Tuesday, the police union representing the rank-and-file reacted to the leadership 'dysfunction' on display at the hearing and demanded U.S. Capitol Police Acting Chief Pittman also submit her resignation, citing 'systemic failures' and intelligence breakdowns that left about 140 officers injured. 'Around 140 officers were injured during the insurrection including officers with crushed spinal discs, broken kneecaps, and traumatic brain injuries,' U.S. Capitol Police Labor Committee Chairman Gus Papathanasiou said in a statement provided to Fox News on Wednesday. 'Some of these officers may never return to duty. Many more are experiencing signs of PTSD.'" (02/24/21)


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8)  South Africa: Regime to spend $712 million on mass vaccination drive
Source: Houston Chronicle

"South Africa plans to spend $712 million to vaccinate some 67% of its 60 million people to control the country's COVID-19 battle and get the economy to rebound from its decline of 7.2% last year. Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said the vaccination drive will help South Africa's economy, the most developed in sub-Saharan Africa, to rebound by 3.4% this year. Mboweni announced the annual budget Wednesday, a day after the country's unemployment rate reached 32.5%, according to the national statistics agency. The unemployment rate among the youth is more than 60%, a staggering figure in a country where more than 16 million people receive welfare grants." (02/24/21)


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9)  Germany: Court convicts former Syrian intelligence officer of complicity in crimes against humanity
Source: BBC News [UK state media]

"A German court has sentenced a former Syrian intelligence officer to four-and-a-half years in jail for complicity in crimes against humanity. Prosecutors in Koblenz successfully argued that Eyad al-Gharib, 44, had helped to arrest protesters in 2011 who were later tortured and murdered. The case was unprecedented for its hours of witness testimony describing widespread torture in Syria. Another Syrian (Anwar Raslan, 58) remains on trial. Both fled Syria's civil war and got asylum in Germany, but were arrested in 2019. German prosecutors invoked the principle of 'universal jurisdiction' for serious crimes to bring the case. The agency the men worked for played a crucial role in suppressing the peaceful pro-democracy protests that erupted against President Assad's regime in 2011. Prosecutors argued that the two men were 'cogs in the wheel' enabling a vast state torture machine to operate." (02/24/21)


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10) FDA: Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine safe, effective
Source: CBS News

"Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine protects against COVID-19, according to an analysis by U.S. regulators Wednesday. The analysis sets the stage for a final decision on a new and easier-to-use shot to help tame the pandemic. The Food and Drug Administration's scientists confirmed that overall the vaccine is about 66% effective at preventing moderate to severe COVID-19. The agency also said J&J's shot -- one that could help speed vaccinations by requiring just one dose instead of two -- is safe to use. However, Johnson & Johnson expects to fall far short of its commitment to deliver 10 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine by the end of February, with under 4 million to be ready to ship." (02/24/21)

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11) Mars rover's giant parachute carried secret message
Source: San Francisco Chronicle

"The huge parachute used by NASA's Perseverance rover to land on Mars contained a secret message, thanks to a puzzle lover on the spacecraft team. Systems engineer Ian Clark used a binary code to spell out 'Dare Mighty Things' in the orange and white strips of the 70-foot (21-meter) parachute. He also included the GPS coordinates for the mission's headquarters at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Clark, a crossword hobbyist, came up with the idea two years ago. Engineers wanted an unusual pattern in the nylon fabric to know how the parachute was oriented during descent. Turning it into a secret message was 'super fun' he said Tuesday. Only about six people knew about the encoded message before Thursday's landing, according to Clark." (02/24/21)


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12) Niger: Opposition leader claims election win despite official results
Source: Yahoo! News

"Opposition leader Mahamane Ousmane on Wednesday claimed he narrowly won Niger's presidential elections, a day after official results said he lost by more than 11 percentage points. 'The compilation of results ... which we have in our possession through our representatives in the various polling stations give us victory with 50.3 percent of the vote,' he said, according to a video of a speech he made in the southeastern town of Zinder that was authenticated by his party. According to provisional results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), former interior minister Mohamed Bazoum picked up 55.75 percent of the vote in Sunday's runoff and Ousmane 44.25 percent. Police clashed with Ousmane supporters in the capital Niamey after CENI's announcement on Tuesday, and protests also took place in Zinder, the country's second largest city." (02/24/21)


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13) NY: Cuomo accused of sexual harassment by former aide
Source: Fox News

"A former aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo is accusing the embattled New York leader of sexually harassing her -- including unwanted kissing and touching -- and says his top female staffers 'normalized' the behavior. Lindsey Boylan, the former deputy secretary for economic development and special adviser to the governor, said Cuomo constantly sought her out and had staffers arrange meetings with her, where he made inappropriate comments. ... She said she was warned by other staffers when she joined Cuomo's administration in 2015 to 'be careful around the Governor.'" (02/24/21)


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14) Analysis: Urban (blue) states get more, rural (red) states less in Biden's COVID-19 relief bill
Source: Reuters

"The $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package now making its way through the U.S. Congress would provide $350 billion to help pandemic-hit state and local governments balance their budgets .... urban, Democratic-led states like Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts that took drastic steps to [politically capitalize on] the coronavirus'[s] spread would get about three times as much money per person as they did in the package passed at the beginning of the health crisis in March. Rural, Republican-led states including Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota that [grandstanded and locked down] less would see less cash. That's because Congress is giving greater weight to poverty and unemployment this time as it considers how to distribute money to keep police, firefighters and other public employees on the job during a pandemic that has killed more than 500,000 Americans and thrown millions out of work." [editor's note: This hardly qualifies as "news" – SAT] (02/24/21)


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15) Russia: Regime Increases Fines for Protests After Navalny Rallies
Source: US News & World Report

"Russian President Vladimir Putin approved legislation on Wednesday beefing up fines for offences committed during street protests after thousands were detained at unsanctioned rallies in support of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. The legislation increases fines for insubordination to law enforcement officers to up to 4,000 roubles ($54.30) from 1,000 roubles in addition to a maximum of 15 days in detention. The amended law also introduces fines of up to 20,000 roubles for protest organisers who violate funding regulations. Police detained more than 11,000 people at nationwide protests this year in support of Navalny, according to OVD-Info, a protest monitoring group." (02/24/21)


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16) Russia: Amnesty International strips Alexei Navalny of "prisoner of conscience" status
Source: BBC News [UK state media]

"Amnesty International has stripped the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny of his 'prisoner of conscience' status after it says it was 'bombarded' with complaints highlighting xenophobic comments that he has made in the past and not renounced. A spokesman for the human rights organisation in Moscow told the BBC that he believed the wave of requests to 'de-list' Navalny was part of an 'orchestrated campaign' to discredit Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic and 'impede' Amnesty's calls for his release from custody. But on review, Amnesty International concluded that comments made by Navalny some 15 years ago, including a video which appears to compare immigrants to cockroaches, amounted to 'hate speech' which was incompatible with the label 'prisoner of conscience'." (02/24/21)


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17) KY: Panel says governor, AG should not be impeached
Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"A legislative panel wrapped up its review of a flurry of impeachment efforts targeting the top levels of Kentucky government, recommending Tuesday night that the Democratic governor and the Republican attorney general not face removal from office. A handful of Kentuckians filed separate petitions weeks ago against Gov. Andy Beshear for his coronavirus-related restrictions and Attorney General Daniel Cameron for his handling of the Breonna Taylor death investigation. Both leaders had denounced the petitions as meritless. Others saw the Bluegrass State impeachment frenzy as reflecting the bitter political divide dominating public discourse nationally." (02/24/21)


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18) Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1919-2021
Source: New York Times

"Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a poet, publisher and political iconoclast who inspired and nurtured generations of San Francisco artists and writers from City Lights, his famed bookstore, died on Monday at his home in San Francisco. He was 101. The cause was interstitial lung disease, his daughter, Julie Sasser, said. ... While older and not a practitioner of their freewheeling personal style, Mr. Ferlinghetti befriended, published and championed many of the major Beat poets, among them Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Michael McClure. His connection to their work was exemplified -- and cemented -- in 1956 with his publication of Ginsberg's most famous poem, the ribald and revolutionary 'Howl,' an act that led to Mr. Ferlinghetti's arrest on charges of 'willfully and lewdly' printing 'indecent writings.' In a significant First Amendment decision, he was acquitted, and 'Howl' became one of the 20th century's best-known poems." (02/23/21)


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19) WI: Hunters and trappers exceed wolf kill target
Source: San Francisco Chronicle

"Hunters and trappers exceeded Wisconsin's wolf kill target by Wednesday morning and still had hours left to kill more of the animals. The Department of Natural Resources reported that 135 wolves had been killed since the brief hunting season began Monday, which was 16 more than the state's target of 119. The agency estimated that about 1,000 wolves roamed the state before the hunt began. The department's population goal is 350. The season had been scheduled to run through Sunday, but DNR officials said it would end throughout the state by Wednesday at 3 p.m. because so many of the animals had been killed in the first two days." (02/24/21)


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20) Ecuador: Prison riots leave 62 dead
Source: NBC News

"Sixty-two inmates have died in riots at prisons in three cities in Ecuador as a result of fights between rival gangs and an escape attempt, authorities said Tuesday. Prisons Director Edmundo Moncayo said in a news conference that 800 police offices have been helping to regain control of the facilities. Hundreds of officers from tactical units had been deployed since the clashes broke out late Monday. Moncayo said that two groups were trying to gain 'criminal leadership within the detention centers' and that the clashes were precipitated by a search for weapons carried out Monday by police officers." (02/24/21)


_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____

21) The political effort to limit free speech attacks our own values
Source: The Hill
by Jonathan Turley

"Increasingly, free speech in the United States is described as a danger that needs to be controlled, as opposed to the very value that defines us as a people. While I am viewed as a 'free speech purist' by many, I maintain what once was a mainstream view of free speech. I believe free speech is the greatest protection against bad speech. That view is, admittedly, under fire and may even be a minority view today. But history has shown that public or private censorship does not produce better speech. It only produces more censorship and more controlled speech." (02/24/21)


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22) No Warrant, No Problem: How Government Buys Its Way Around the 4th Amendment
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Ken Silva

"When the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that law enforcement agencies need warrants before they can request geolocation data from cell phone companies, civil liberties advocates touted the judgment as a major win for privacy. But since then, government agencies have devised a new surveillance method: instead of getting warrants to force companies to provide data, they simply purchase the information from brokers. Call it entrepreneurial innovation in the market for tyranny." (02/24/21)


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23) Mainstream media disinformation more powerful and destructive than QAnon
Source: Fox News Forum
by Tucker Carlson

"We at 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' have watched with growing amusement as our media gatekeepers thrash about in a frenzy of foaming hysteria at the possibility that someone, somewhere might dare to present facts or form opinions without their express written permission. Freelance thinking is what they hate most, because it's a threat to their monopoly. They can't say that out loud, so instead they call it 'disinformation.' ... Imagine if you had spent 30 years making a good living as a car mechanic, and all of a sudden GM invents an engine that anyone can fix at home with a screwdriver. You'd be upset. That's how CNN feels about the internet. It's exposing their scam, so naturally, they're a little irrational about it. The thing about disinformation, they're telling us, is not that it's simply harmful to you personally." (02/24/21)


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24) Washington's Tiny Islands Fetish Could Endanger the American People
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Galen Carpenter

"Most Americans likely do not realize the U.S. defense treaty with Japan does not just entail a commitment to help defend the heavily populated Japanese home islands. Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden all have affirmed that the treaty also covers a chain of remote, uninhabited rocks that are closer to China than they are to the rest of Japan. Those islets, known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyus in China, are the subject of a longstanding, bitter territorial dispute between Tokyo and Beijing -- a dispute that has been heating up noticeably in recent months. Washington has entangled itself in a dangerous situation with little apparent thought to the possible consequences. US leaders also have undertaken that expanded obligation without seeking approval from either Congress or the American people." (02/25/21)


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25) The Perils of Voter Ignorance and Affective Polarization
Source: Cato Unbound
by Irina Soboleva

"In this edition's lead essay, Kevin Vallier argues that the erosion of trust represents an undesirable development in public life, one that interacts with political polarization to create a climate of illiberalism which threatens our liberties and civil society. In his fascinating new book, he argues that these two phenomena mutually reinforce one another in a causal feedback loop, something he calls the 'distrust-divergence hypothesis.' Vallier is right to address these important concurrent developments, but I fear that he does not paint a bleak enough picture of the current American political environment. We are in the midst of a period of political ignorance, affective polarization, tribalism, and democratic backsliding unlike any in recent memory, and I have yet to find evidence that would make me optimistic that these trends will experience a sharp enough reversal anytime soon." (02/24/21)


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26) Rewriting Amendment Number One
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob

"People once wondered -- perhaps not very seriously -- whether falsely shouting 'Fire!' in a theater and telling hit men 'Here's $50,000; you will get the rest when you finish the job' count as speech that should be protected as a matter of right. They do not. And it's not so puzzling that freedom to exercise a legitimate right does not entail license to violate the rights of others. But some people are eager to prohibit us from uttering statements that don't come within twenty parsecs of such alleged quandaries. These censorious ones include big-tech firms and big DC politicians like, for example, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a bully urging social-media firms to crack down harder on the speech of ''antivax' groups.'" (02/24/21)


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27) Boris Johnson's reopening plan
Source: EconLog
by Alberto Mingardi

"Since the virus is a collective problem, governments have all somehow assumed that there can be no bottom up solutions. But the 'struggle against the virus,' by any practical purpose, is in fact a series of attempts and actions aiming at keeping our lives together and similar to what they were before, as much as possible despite the pandemic. These attempts and actions could benefit a great deal from bottom-up, trial-and-errors endeavor. Governments have chosen to do without them. This may increase the costs of non pharmacological interventions, but it also means that we won't benefit from tinkering solutions. It is an old story: the government assumes its experts have superior knowledge." (02/24/21)


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28) What Insurrection?
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger

"Somebody still needs to get a memo to the Justice Department about the so-called insurrection at the Capitol on January 6 because it has yet to charge anyone with that offense. All I is see is a range of criminal offenses like disorderly conduct, assault, trespass, illegal gun possession, and 'conspiracy' to commit these types of offenses. ... How can anyone really buy into this nonsense, especially when the Justice Department and its grand juries are not? It's like these people live in an alternative universe in which they convince themselves of a false reality and then all reinforce it to each other." (02/24/21)


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29) Crashing careers -- and lessons we can learn from them
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton

"All around us, it seems that political careers of major movers and shakers are cratering. Boom! Flatter than a pancake. They are in both old parties -- with various political philosophies. But I think we can learn a lot from their trials and tribulations. Even if we don't gloat over their falls." (02/24/21)


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30) The moral case for free speech
Source: spiked
by Wendy Kaminer

"Free-speech advocates should reconsider the claim that 'good' speech is the best defence against 'bad,' or that truth will triumph in a marketplace of ideas. In fact, the 'bad' speech will often drown out the 'good,' as political fictions drown out facts, and truth will only triumph sometimes, rather arbitrarily. Sunshine is not 'the best disinfectant,' as early 20th-century Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said. Thanks to social media, sunshine is less a disinfectant than a super-spreader. So, instead of relying on an instrumental defence of free speech, we need to make the moral case for it, as essential to freedom of conscience." (02/24/21)


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31) House Democrats Go Fox Hunting
Source: Cato Institute
by Walter Olson

"On Monday, Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney, both California Democrats, sent a letter on congressional letterhead to top executives of various cable, satellite, and communications companies, including Alphabet, the parent of Google, which distributes video via its YouTube TV streaming service and Google Play app. The letter denounces Fox News, as well as newer competitors to its right such as Newsmax and One America News Network, as purveyors of misinformation and extremism. And it gets directly to the point with its demands: 'Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News [and the others] ... both now and beyond any contract renewal date? If so, why?' The tone of threat is not idle. Both Eshoo and McNerney are majority members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which draws up legislation and oversees regulation relevant to cable and telecom providers and technology firms generally." (02/24/21)


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32) Louis Armstrong Broke Barriers With Music, Optimism, and the Sheer Force of His Personality
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Lawrence W Reed

"Aside from his innovative music and his unforgettable voice, what I remember the most about Louis Armstrong was his smile. It was no ordinary one. Not only was it ever-present, it was also the widest smile I've ever seen. It was so infectious that I still find myself smiling back any time I watch one of his recorded performances. It's just my conjecture but I think that characteristic Armstrong smile reflected his naturally happy and optimistic outlook on life. He loved making others smile. He grew up in a world where racial animosity was all too common, and in a part of the country where segregation was the norm. But he never let it darken any corner of his own soul." (02/24/21)


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33) States Can Provide Their Own Civil Remedies for Police Abuse
Source: Town Hall
by Jacob Sullum

"Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is scheduled to be tried next month on murder and manslaughter charges in connection with the May 25 arrest of George Floyd, who died while Chauvin kneeled on his neck for eight minutes. Yet whether or not Chauvin is convicted, it is not at all clear that he can be held accountable for his actions that day under a federal statute that authorizes lawsuits against government officials who violate people's constitutional rights. Despite the details of Floyd's death, which shocked Americans of all political persuasions and provoked a series of protests across the country, the federal civil rights lawsuit that his family filed last July must overcome 'qualified immunity.'" (02/24/21)


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34) How and Why Government Creates Disease Panic
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Barry Brownstein

"Famed Johns Hopkins doctor Marty Makary recently wondered why 'amid the dire Covid warnings, one crucial fact has been largely ignored: Cases are down 77% over the past six weeks.' He points out that 'If a medication slashed cases by 77%, we'd call it a miracle pill.' The number of cases is 'plummeting much faster than experts predicted' because Makary writes, 'natural immunity from prior infection is far more common than can be measured by testing.' Makary has this good news: 'Covid will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.' Most Americans haven't heard Makary's forecast. While he was sharing good news, Anthony Fauci moved the goal line further back, saying it will not be until 2022 when life will 'approximate the kind of normality we've been used to.'" (02/24/21)


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35) Start getting prepared for emergencies
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal

"During the recent cold spell, I heard personal stories from people who huddled in their cars for hours trying to stay warm; of school buses being distributed and parked in neighborhoods as emergency shelters from the cold; of burst pipes and house fires. People died from carbon monoxide poisoning because they didn't understand how to safely stay warm when the grid is down. We were lucky in this area. This time. People have an individual responsibility to be prepared for storms, record cold (and heat), and power outages. It's not all their fault, though. They've been lulled into a false sense of security." (02/24/21)


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36) Trump Thinks He's Found a New Defense
Source: The Atlantic
by David A Graham

"Reading Trump in the medium of the emailed statement, post-Twitter ban, remains disorienting. His statements maintain the vitriol of his tweets, but they have none of the concision, instead meandering through long lists of grievances. Nonetheless, the outlines of how Trump might try to frame his defense against legal investigations in the next stage of his career are starting to emerge. Trump makes four main claims: I've already been investigated, and I was found innocent; this is a fishing expedition by prosecutors; this is a politically motivated prosecution; and I got 75 million votes in the 2020 election. There's a mix of the true, false, and irrelevant here worth teasing apart, but it's the last claim -- that the fact that so many people voted for him means he can't be guilty of any crimes -- that is most likely to endure, and most dangerous." (02/24/21)


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37) Putting Big Pharma Patents Before Patients, Doctors Further Erode Trust in Experts
Source: Common Dreams
by Jonathan Cook

"I have spent the past several years on my blog trying to highlight one thing above all others: that the institutions we were raised to regard as authoritative are undeserving of our blind trust. It is not just that expert institutions have been captured wholesale by corporate elites over the past 40 years and that, as a result, knowledge, experience and expertise have been sidelined in favour of elite interests -- though that is undoubtedly true. The problem runs deeper: these institutions were rarely as competent or as authoritative as we fondly remember them being. They always served elite interests. What has changed most are our perceptions of institutions that were once beloved or trusted. It is we who have changed more than the institutions." (02/24/21)


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38) Almost a Year Later, There's Still No Evidence Showing Governments Can Control the Spread of Covid-19
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Anthony Roznajzi

"As we approach the one-year anniversary of fifteen days to flatten the curve, we have yet to acquire any data suggesting that the past year of life-destroying lockdowns and politicized behavioral mandates has done anything to keep us safe from covid-19. While discussions surrounding the reintroduction of nationwide lockdowns seem to have ceased -- it's impossible to ignore the lockdowns' disproportionately deadly effects and the numerous studies demonstrating their futility -- the media still retain their grip on the narrative that nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as mask mandates, curfews, capacity restrictions, gathering restrictions, and others remain necessary to prevail in our fight against covid-19. Government officials, in lockstep with big tech and nearly all major news outlets, have controlled the NPI narrative to such an extent that its proponents have simply sidestepped the burden of proof ..." (02/

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39) Are Europeans still committed to a US-led collective defense?
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Ted Galen Carpenter

"In speech to the annual Munich Security Conference, President Biden emphasized that the United States had returned to its customary role as leader of NATO after four years of Trumpus interruptus. His stance is based on the assumption that the Western alliance was in fine shape before Donald Trump became president and adopted the abrasive 'America First' policy that alienated the European allies. Biden's approach misses two key underlying problems. First, NATO was showing serious signs of strain years before Trump set foot in the Oval Office. Second, despite the prevailing assumption of the foreign policy establishment on this side of the Atlantic, the Europeans are not salivating to follow Washington wherever U.S. leaders might wish to go." (02/24/21)


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40) Cuomo's Cover-up Will be Most Effectively Weaponized by the Right
Source: CounterPunch
by Will Solomon

"On February 11, news broke that the Cuomo administration intentionally hid data on COVID-related nursing home deaths from the federal government and New York state legislators, ostensibly for fear of a Department of Justice investigation and potential federal prosecution. The revelation was fairly shocking, but hardly out of character. Cuomo's mishandling of the pandemic -- coupled with a particularly personal brand of megalomaniacal arrogance -- has been plenty obvious for some time. ... Calls for accountability are growing, and they may indeed have some effect. But it is the New York State Republican Party -- a not-impotent force -- that is poised to take fullest advantage of this blunder, and Cuomo's many other missteps." (02/24/21)


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41) Physical Mail Could Be Eliminated at Federal Prisons
Source: The American Prospect
by Marcia Brown & David Dayen

"In his first-week blitz of executive actions, Joe Biden directed the Justice Department to not renew federal contracts with the private prison industry. '[W]e must reduce profit-based incentives to incarcerate by phasing out the Federal Government's reliance on privately operated criminal detention facilities,' the order stated. But the profit motive will still exist in the federal prison system, even after private prison operations contracts are exhausted. Food, medicine, telecommunications, banking, and practically every other service for incarcerated people are almost entirely privatized, through a network of subcontractors. ... One such contractor is poised to gain control of the means by which people communicate with those in the federal prison system." [editor's note: Well, let's see; I've used the US mail about three times in the last six months, and only to file medical claims that would not accept email without a signature on the document; I think they will survive – SAT] (02/24/21)


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42) Biden Administration Should Drop Military Commitment to Saudi Arabia
Source: Antiwar.com
by Doug Bandow

"President Joe Biden's most important accomplishment so far has been to drain the fetid swamp that was Mike Pompeo's State Department. Pompeo spent nearly three years swaggering about the globe, a faux diplomat who exuded arrogance and sanctimony while spewing dictates, demands, threats, ultimatums, orders, and insults. America's image and credibility suffered accordingly. Indeed, his policies were collectively an almost complete, total, abject, and humiliating failure. ... In a short tenure filled with discreditable, foolish, and counterproductive acts, the former secretary's shameless subservience to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia stood out. He dedicated himself to protecting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the latter seized solitary control of the Kingdom, tyrannized his people, destabilized the Mideast, destroyed Yemen, and embarrassed America. ... To his credit, almost immediately after his inauguration Biden acted on his promise to treat the KSA's wannabe dictator as a pariah." (02/24/21)


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43) He Who Does Not Obey, Shall Not ...
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Chris Rossini

"A mental error was embraced by the American people and the American federal government a century ago. No longer would individual liberty and limited government be the guiding principles in the land of the free. Instead hyper-interventionism by the federal government would be unleashed, both domestically and internationally. The false idea that government is a tool (not to protect individual liberty) but to re-make and perfect the citizens, took hold. But American citizens wouldn't be the only ones to be re-made, All the people of the world would fall under this purification project." (02/24/21)


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44) Did money emerge as a result of a government ruling?
Source: Cobden Centre
by Dr. Frank Shostak

"By some theories such as the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), money originated on account of the government decree. Money according to the MMT is what the State decides it is going to be. ... To establish the origin of money we have to ascertain how a money-using economy evolved. Money emerged because of the fact that barter could not support the market economy. The distinguishing characteristic of money is its function as the general medium of exchange. It has evolved from the most marketable commodity." (02/24/21)


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45) Who is Responsible for America's Covid Disaster?
Source: American Consequences
by Buck Sexton

"Hitting 500,000 COVID-19 deaths is a grim milestone. We are now one year into this pandemic, and it's difficult to look at hospitalizations and deaths month after month without feeling like there had to have been a better way to deal with this. If this is what it looks like when lockdowns and mask mandates are 'working,' one has to wonder what a more focused protection approach would have yielded. Earlier this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, America's favorite lab-coat authoritarian, inscribed his epitaph for our fight against COVID-19 by telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos, 'I believe that if you look back historically, we've done worse than most any other country, and we're a highly developed, rich country.' ... As anyone who has been a close observer of this man for the past year knows, this statement is classic Fauci: sanctimonious and deceptive." (02/24/21)


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46) The Lies Aren't Secret
Source: The American Conservative
by Jim Bovard

"Secrecy is the ultimateentitlement program for the Deep State. The federal government is creating trillions of pages of new secrets every year. The more documents bureaucrats classify, the more lies politicians and government officials can tell. In Washington, deniability is prized far more than truth. At the end of the Trump era, the Deep State is triumphant at home and abroad. Trump's epic clashes with federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies helped cripple his administration, and they illustrate the continued danger of Deep State secrecy. If all of the FBI's shenanigans on Russiagate came to light, it would be far more difficult for the FBI to manipulate American politics and presidents in the future." (02/24/21)


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47) Tax Incentive Reforms Would Benefit Kansas City
Source: Show-Me Institute
by David Stokes

"Ulysses S. Grant was known to say that in war, anything was better than inaction or indecision. Doing something was always necessary to make sure that the enemy was responding to you, not dictating to you. Even doing the wrong thing was preferable to inaction, as you could realize it was wrong, stop what you were doing, and do something else. General Grant may have saved our Union and helped free millions from bondage with those beliefs, but clearly he never served on a TIF commission. That key part about realizing that what you are doing is not working and doing something else could be a vital lesson to the members of the various Kansas City tax incentive boards." (02/23/21)


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48) Socialism-in-Practice Was a Nightmare, Not Utopia
Source: Heartland Institute
by Richard Ebeling

"If the reality of actual socialism in the 20th century is brought up, many 'progressives' and 'democratic' socialists respond by insisting that none of these historical episodes were instances of 'real' socialism. It was just that the wrong people had been in charge, or it had not been implemented in the right way, or political circumstances had prevented it from getting a 'fair chance' of successfully working, or it is all lies or exaggerations .... Tyranny, terror, mass murder, and economic stagnation, along with political plunder and privilege for the few at the top of socialist government hierarchies were not indicative of what socialism could be. Just give it one more chance. And, then, another chance, and another." (02/23/21)


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49) The Gig Economy: A Vampire We Shouldn't Make Peace With
Source: In These Times
by Hamilton Nolan

"When organized labor frets about the future of worker power in America, they usually focus on the decline of organized labor itself: a half-century of plummeting union density has reduced unions from a powerhouse institution to a niche. That's a problem. There is an even larger underlying issue, though, that the labor movement now has to factor into everything it does: Not just the disappearance of unions, but the eradication of jobs as we know them. That doesn't mean mass unemployment. It means the 'gig economy,' a friendly name for a force of capitalist nature that systematically seeks to set everyone's nice, traditional full-time job on fire and blow the ashes into the wind." [editor's note: Posted only to show how clueless some people are about "opportunity" and "liberty;" with the impending $15 minwage for "real jobs," "gigs" may be the only hope – SAT] (02/24/21)


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50) A New Report Shows Elijah McClain Was Killed by a Cascade of Constitutional Violations
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum

"A new report on Elijah McClain's fatal 2019 encounter with police in Aurora, Colorado, concludes that the 23-year-old black man's death followed a series of unconstitutional decisions, the questionable use of force, and reckless medical care by EMTs who injected him with an outsized dose of ketamine. In the 157-page report, an independent panel appointed by the Aurora City Council also criticizes the police department's slipshod investigation of the incident, which provoked local protests and became yet another exhibit in the national conversation about police brutality and racially biased law enforcement." (02/23/21)


_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____

51) Free Talk Live, 02/24/21
Source: Free Talk Live

"Guantanamo Torture :: Bitcoin Adoption :: Chris Cantwell Sentenced to 41 Months in Prison :: Free Stater State Reps :: Dave in NY Fired from Instacart :: First they came for the NAZIs. :: Loneliness :: Moving for Freedom :: Hosts -- Ian, Mark, Bonnie." [Flash audio or MP3] (02/24/21)


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52) The Science of Politics, 02/24/21
Source: Niskanen Center

"How Political Values and Social Influence Drive Polarization." [Flash audio] (02/24/21)


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53) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 02/24/21
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report

"The Invisible Victims Of The Covid Lockdowns." [Flash video] (02/24/21)


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54) The Tom Woods Show, episode 1842
Source: The Tom Woods Show

"What Successful People Share in Common." [various formats] (02/24/21)


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55) Bloggingheads.tv, 02/24/21
Source: Bloggingheads.tv

"Framing Britney | Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Alana May Johnson." [Flash video] (02/24/21)


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56) The Tatiana Show, episode 296
Source: The Tatiana Show

"The Pending Patent Problem with Stephan Kinsella & Jed Grant of the Open Crypto Alliance." [various formats] (02/24/21)


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57) Conflicts of Interest, episode 75
Source: Libertarian Institute

"Did Fauci Discredit Himself By Covering for Israeli Medical Apartheid?" [various formats] (02/24/21)


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58) Now Hear This with Chris Spangle, 02/24/21
Source: We Are Libertarians

"Children's Bureau + Families First Announce Merger." [various formats] (02/24/21)


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59) Punk Rock Libertarians Podcast, episode 339
Source: The Daily Liberator

"In The Dark On Texas." [various formats] (02/24/21)


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60) Free Man Beyond The Wall, episode 542
Source: Free Man Beyond The Wall

"CV19 Death Numbers, Vaccines And More w/ Jeremy R Hammond." [various formats] (02/24/21)


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61) The Engrages, episode 2
Source: Center for a Stateless Society

"Joel Williamson discusses with Eric Fleischmann their recent piece for C4SS 'The End Is the Beginning: Abolition as Communicative Creation.'" [various formats] (02/24/21)


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62) Electric Libertyland, episode 217
Source: Lions of Liberty

"Does Nevada Bill Invite Libertarian Utopia or Big Gov Techno Nightmare?" [various formats] (02/24/21)


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63) Enemy of the [Surveillance] State, episode 20
Source: Enemy of the [Surveillance] State

"Nazis, IBM, Censorship, and the Surveillance State." [various formats] (02/23/21)


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64) Part Of The Problem, 02/23/21
Source: GaS Digital Network

"It's A Rigged Game." [various formats] (02/23/21)


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65) Everything Voluntary, episode 463
Source: Everything Voluntary

"Aphorisms in Honor of Liberty, Part Ten." [various formats] (02/23/21)


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