By Rich Kozlovich
We have to start recognizing there's only one number that really matters. The mortality rate. With testing going on at a rate never before in the history of the nation, we're bound to have more "cases". The question is: Are these "cases" sick, or do they just test positive? I think the latter and the tests aren't reliable.
However, here are the figures based on a population of 17,000,000, and in Ohio we have more people over sixty than under twenty, so Ohio should be having a high mortality rate, which Governor Cuomo demonstrated when he caused the deaths of thousands of the elderly in New York when he ordered these nursing home to take coronavirus patients. He refuses to divulge the actual number. Why?
I'm using this internet calculator.
As for Ohio.
Ohio and the CDC
keep playing games with the numbers. There are two numbers
representing how many coronavirus infections that have been in Ohio, and
how many died. I will cover both.
As of 10:12 AM August 11, 2020, the confirmed cases are 96,358. Percentage of infections. .05% "Probable cases" 101,731.
Percentage of "probable" infections, .05%. That number has risen substantially over the last two months. However, the number of confirmed deaths, 3,673, mortality rate, 0.02%, and the expanded number, 3,673, mortality rate, 0.02% has hardly moved.
And we're still shut down! Why? Recently governor DeWine ordered the entire state to wear masks, in spite of the fact we know "Masks
Are Neither Effective Nor Safe: A Summary Of The Science. "
Why?
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
Will America Learn from Japan’s Fiscal Decline?
August 10, 2020 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty
Compared to most of the world, Japan is a rich country. But it’s important to understand that Japan became rich when the burden of government was very small and there was no welfare state.
Indeed, as recently as 1970, Japan’s fiscal policy was rated by Economic Freedom of the World as being better than what exists today in Hong Kong.
Unfortunately, the country has since moved in the wrong direction. Back in 2016, I shared the “most depressing chart about Japan” because it showed that the overall tax burden doubled in just 45 years.
As you might expect, that rising tax burden was accompanied by a rising burden of government spending (fueled in part by enactment of a value-added tax).
And that has not been a good combination for the Japanese economy, as Douglas Carr explains in an article for National Review.
Unfortunately, the United States is soon going to follow Japan in that wrong direction according to fiscal projections from the Congressional Budget Office. Carr warns that bigger government in America won’t work any better than big government in Japan.
Moreover, the U.S. numbers may be even worse because of coronavirus-related spending and whatever new handouts that might be created after the election.
The author explains how America can be saved.
P.S. Here’s another depressing chart about Japan.
P.P.S. Unsurprisingly, the OECD and IMF have been cheerleading for Japan’s fiscal decline.
P.P.P.S. Japan’s government may win the prize for the strangest regulation and the prize for the most useless government giveaway.
Compared to most of the world, Japan is a rich country. But it’s important to understand that Japan became rich when the burden of government was very small and there was no welfare state.
Indeed, as recently as 1970, Japan’s fiscal policy was rated by Economic Freedom of the World as being better than what exists today in Hong Kong.Unfortunately, the country has since moved in the wrong direction. Back in 2016, I shared the “most depressing chart about Japan” because it showed that the overall tax burden doubled in just 45 years.
As you might expect, that rising tax burden was accompanied by a rising burden of government spending (fueled in part by enactment of a value-added tax).
And that has not been a good combination for the Japanese economy, as Douglas Carr explains in an article for National Review.
From 1993 to 2019, the U.S. averaged 2.6 percent growth, …far ahead of Japan’s meager 0.9 percent. …What happened? Big government happened… Japanese government spending was just 17.5 percent of the country’s GDP in 1960 but has grown, as illustrated below, to 38.8 percent of GDP today. …the island nation’s growth never recovered. The theory that government spending boosts long-term growth has failed… What government spending does is crowd out investment.Amen. Japan has become a parody of Keynesian spending. Here’s a chart from Mr. Carr’s article, which could be entitled “the other most depressing chart about Japan.” As you can see, the burden of government spending began to climb about 1970 and is now represents a bigger drag on their economy than what we’re enduring in the United States.
Unfortunately, the United States is soon going to follow Japan in that wrong direction according to fiscal projections from the Congressional Budget Office. Carr warns that bigger government in America won’t work any better than big government in Japan.
Rather than a problem confined to the other side of the world, Japan’s death spiral is a pointed warning to the U.S. The U.S. and Japanese economies are on the same trajectory; Japan is simply further along the big-government, low-growth path. …The United States is at risk of entering a Japanese death spiral.Here’s another chart from the article showing the inverse relationship between government spending and economic growth.
Moreover, the U.S. numbers may be even worse because of coronavirus-related spending and whatever new handouts that might be created after the election.
The negative relationship of government spending with growth and investment holds with adjustments for cyclical influences such as using ten-year averages or the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates of cyclically adjusted U.S. government spending. CBO data highlight how close the U.S. is to a Japanese-style death spiral. …Of course, CBO’s recent forecast was prepared before the coronavirus shock and does not incorporate spending by a new Democratic government, so this dismal outlook is likely to worsen.So what’s the solution? Can the United States avoid a Greek-style future?
The author explains how America can be saved.
Boosting growth means restraining government. Restraining government means reengineering entitlements… Economically, it shouldn’t be too difficult to do better. We have an insolvent, low-return government-retirement program along with an insolvent retiree-health program — part of a Rube Goldberg health-care system.He’s right. To avoid stagnation and decline, we desperately need spending restraint and genuine entitlement reform in the United States. Sadly, Trump is on the wrong side on that issue and Biden wants to add fuel to the fire by making the programs even bigger.
P.S. Here’s another depressing chart about Japan.
P.P.S. Unsurprisingly, the OECD and IMF have been cheerleading for Japan’s fiscal decline.
P.P.P.S. Japan’s government may win the prize for the strangest regulation and the prize for the most useless government giveaway.
Riot declared after Portland protesters set police union building on fire
by Anthony Leonardi, Breaking News Reporter August 09, 2020
Police in Portland, Oregon, declared another riot after local and state officials requested federal officers withdraw from the state. On Saturday, a mass gathering of protesters devolved into violence, with demonstrators later in the night blocking traffic with dumpsters, setting dumpsters on fire, and vandalizing the Portland Police Association building. A group of people later broke a window into the PPA office and ignited a fire in the building.
"Officers from the Oregon State Police and PPB arrived in the area to disperse the crowd. They were met with a hostile crowd who began throwing glass bottles and paint balloons at them," the police said in a statement. "The hostile crowd also tried to injure officers by shining green lasers into their eyes, which is a crime in Oregon. Three officers suffered injuries. Two were transported to an area hospital by police vehicle and later released. Personnel from Portland Fire and Rescue were able to gain access to the location and extinguish the fire inside the PPA Office."..........To Read More....
Police in Portland, Oregon, declared another riot after local and state officials requested federal officers withdraw from the state. On Saturday, a mass gathering of protesters devolved into violence, with demonstrators later in the night blocking traffic with dumpsters, setting dumpsters on fire, and vandalizing the Portland Police Association building. A group of people later broke a window into the PPA office and ignited a fire in the building.
"Officers from the Oregon State Police and PPB arrived in the area to disperse the crowd. They were met with a hostile crowd who began throwing glass bottles and paint balloons at them," the police said in a statement. "The hostile crowd also tried to injure officers by shining green lasers into their eyes, which is a crime in Oregon. Three officers suffered injuries. Two were transported to an area hospital by police vehicle and later released. Personnel from Portland Fire and Rescue were able to gain access to the location and extinguish the fire inside the PPA Office."..........To Read More....
Tin foil hats, amulets rule America's response to WuFlu
By A. Dru Kristenev —— Bio and Archives--August 9, 2020
Superstition has reached new heights reminiscent of the Middle Ages. Showing up as discrimination, it’s not only unchecked racism dividing the nation, striking deeper into the culture is the required fashion accessory that serves as much purpose as a tin foil hat or a garlic amulet – the facemask.
Panicked individuals sporting paper or fabric face coverings, ranging from haute couture (á lá Speaker Pelosi) to a kerchief tied around their heads, have been videoed screeching accusations of genocide at barefaced shoppers and dog walkers. The vile charges rise from ignorance of the efficacy of mandated masks, barely legal (mostly unconstitutional) edicts made by otherwise powerless authorities.
Masks are no better than a placebo that supplies a delusion of protection from a virus that is too small to be restricted by the cloth or paper contraptions hanging from a person’s ears.
In this “information age,” the information being disseminated about the coronavirus’ origin, spread, deadliness and elimination amount to an official rumor mill of censored and manipulated data.
Forcing the populace to don facemasks is the institution of fallacy. Government officials may as well have ordered people to put paper sacks over their heads with eye cutouts. They’d actually be more useful to the wearer in that their lungs would be better oxygenated, relieving the headaches and other maladies mask wearers are suffering.
The superstition that masks guard against spreading infection has caused hysteria among the foolish to the point that properly informed individuals are hounded and refused service in a supposedly free society. (I underwent that myself being refused entry into a Dollar General the other night. Luckily, another DG down the road knew better than to turn away a paying customer and literally spite their own face.)...........Demanding that everyone wear masks is a symptom of an unhinging society that will bow to unreasonable fear to the extent of absurdity...............To Read More....
Superstition has reached new heights reminiscent of the Middle Ages. Showing up as discrimination, it’s not only unchecked racism dividing the nation, striking deeper into the culture is the required fashion accessory that serves as much purpose as a tin foil hat or a garlic amulet – the facemask.
Panicked individuals sporting paper or fabric face coverings, ranging from haute couture (á lá Speaker Pelosi) to a kerchief tied around their heads, have been videoed screeching accusations of genocide at barefaced shoppers and dog walkers. The vile charges rise from ignorance of the efficacy of mandated masks, barely legal (mostly unconstitutional) edicts made by otherwise powerless authorities.
Masks are no better than a placebo that supplies a delusion of protection from a virus that is too small to be restricted by the cloth or paper contraptions hanging from a person’s ears.
In this “information age,” the information being disseminated about the coronavirus’ origin, spread, deadliness and elimination amount to an official rumor mill of censored and manipulated data.
Forcing the populace to don facemasks is the institution of fallacy. Government officials may as well have ordered people to put paper sacks over their heads with eye cutouts. They’d actually be more useful to the wearer in that their lungs would be better oxygenated, relieving the headaches and other maladies mask wearers are suffering.
The superstition that masks guard against spreading infection has caused hysteria among the foolish to the point that properly informed individuals are hounded and refused service in a supposedly free society. (I underwent that myself being refused entry into a Dollar General the other night. Luckily, another DG down the road knew better than to turn away a paying customer and literally spite their own face.)...........Demanding that everyone wear masks is a symptom of an unhinging society that will bow to unreasonable fear to the extent of absurdity...............To Read More....
Trump Heroically Defies a Lawless Supreme Court
By Matthew Vadum -- Front Page Mag—— Bio and Archives--August 10, 2020
President Donald Trump is quietly turning a stinging defeat at the Supreme Court over an illegal amnesty for hundreds of thousands of young illegal aliens into what could end up being a victory for the Constitution and the rule of law. The Supreme Court, of course, has no authority to tell the president of the United States that he cannot rescind an illegal executive amnesty ordered by his predecessor in the same manner it was instituted.
Normally, presidents of both parties rush to raise their arms in surrender whenever the black-robed life-tenured politicians on the high court demand it. Not Trump.
The president appears to be taking a stand against rampant judicial supremacism by drawing inspiration from President Andrew Jackson, whose portrait proudly hangs in the Oval Office.
After the chief justice of the day overreached in Jackson’s opinion, the 7th president allegedly uttered the following immortal words: “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”.............
The federal judiciary, not President Trump, is violating the law, commentator Daniel Horowitz argues.
President Donald Trump is quietly turning a stinging defeat at the Supreme Court over an illegal amnesty for hundreds of thousands of young illegal aliens into what could end up being a victory for the Constitution and the rule of law. The Supreme Court, of course, has no authority to tell the president of the United States that he cannot rescind an illegal executive amnesty ordered by his predecessor in the same manner it was instituted.
Normally, presidents of both parties rush to raise their arms in surrender whenever the black-robed life-tenured politicians on the high court demand it. Not Trump.
The president appears to be taking a stand against rampant judicial supremacism by drawing inspiration from President Andrew Jackson, whose portrait proudly hangs in the Oval Office.
After the chief justice of the day overreached in Jackson’s opinion, the 7th president allegedly uttered the following immortal words: “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”.............
The federal judiciary, not President Trump, is violating the law, commentator Daniel Horowitz argues.
“The courts are defying the law, the Constitution, and 130 years of their own settled case law that illegal aliens have no standing to sue for a right to remain in the country against the will of the political branches of government. It is they who are defying the law. Moreover, as Hamilton noted in Federalist #78, the courts ‘must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm for the efficacy of its judgments.’ Thus, Trump declining to actively use his powers to violate immigration laws duly passed by Congress is not defying the courts; it’s following the law being defied by the judiciary.”..........“If separation of powers means anything at all and we are to preserve a country of checks and balances, Trump must not issue these visas.”............Like so many Supreme Court decisions nowadays, the court opinion is a pseudo-legal essay brimming with lawyerly codswallop, an after-the-fact rationalization written to justify a preordained result. The goal was not to do justice but to frustrate Donald Trump............To Read More....
How Therapists Became Gods
By Judith Acosta August 9, 2020
In the space of what feels like a breath, we went from the Greatest Generation to the legalization of infanticide, from a country with a singular and evolved moral code to the ripping down of the Ten Commandments in courtrooms across the country, from a rational acknowledgment of natural gender to drag-queen story hour at the public library.
How in the world did this happen?
I’m saddened to say that some of the biggest players in this cultural catastrophe have been psychotherapists.
My generation was bottle fed with the nectar of psychotherapy and a philosophy that presented itself as secular wisdom but was really the religion of “Whatever.” Anyone who was anyone had heard the news: Nietzsche was right, God was dead and the religions that preached that ancient moral code were also dead, or worse, passé. And if God was dead or uninvolved and unimportant, why pay Him any mind? Why deny yourself anything? Why wait for anything? Why condemn yourself for anything?
My generation was bottle fed with the nectar of psychotherapy and a philosophy that presented itself as secular wisdom but was really the religion of “Whatever.” Anyone who was anyone had heard the news: Nietzsche was right, God was dead and the religions that preached that ancient moral code were also dead, or worse, passé. And if God was dead or uninvolved and unimportant, why pay Him any mind? Why deny yourself anything? Why wait for anything? Why condemn yourself for anything?.............To Read More
In the space of what feels like a breath, we went from the Greatest Generation to the legalization of infanticide, from a country with a singular and evolved moral code to the ripping down of the Ten Commandments in courtrooms across the country, from a rational acknowledgment of natural gender to drag-queen story hour at the public library.
How in the world did this happen?
I’m saddened to say that some of the biggest players in this cultural catastrophe have been psychotherapists.
My generation was bottle fed with the nectar of psychotherapy and a philosophy that presented itself as secular wisdom but was really the religion of “Whatever.” Anyone who was anyone had heard the news: Nietzsche was right, God was dead and the religions that preached that ancient moral code were also dead, or worse, passé. And if God was dead or uninvolved and unimportant, why pay Him any mind? Why deny yourself anything? Why wait for anything? Why condemn yourself for anything?
My generation was bottle fed with the nectar of psychotherapy and a philosophy that presented itself as secular wisdom but was really the religion of “Whatever.” Anyone who was anyone had heard the news: Nietzsche was right, God was dead and the religions that preached that ancient moral code were also dead, or worse, passé. And if God was dead or uninvolved and unimportant, why pay Him any mind? Why deny yourself anything? Why wait for anything? Why condemn yourself for anything?.............To Read More
Evidence from Italy: Less Regulation = More Jobs and Higher Earnings
August 8, 2020 by Dan MitchellThis is why it’s probably best to think of government red tape as an obstacle course that increases the difficulty of engaging in commerce.
An expensive obstacle course.
Some new research published by Italy’s central bank gives us an opportunity to understand the consequences of red tape.
The study, authored by Lucia Rizzica, Giacomo Roma, and Gabriele Rovigatti, looked at a real-world example of product market regulation (PMR) governing retail hours in Italy..........To Read More....
Who and what are killing African Americans?
August 9, 2020 By Richard Baehr @ American Thinker
Black Lives Matter is convulsing the country over the alleged high death toll of unarmed African Americans at the hands of police, which must be defunded to protect blacks. But what do the numbers tell us about the death toll of African Americans compared to whites? It is estimated that 19.5 to 22 million black babies have died in abortions since Roe v Wade was handed down by the Supreme Court in 1973.
There are about 500,000 black babies born each year, with an infant mortality rate of 11.4 per 1,000. The overall US rate is 5.8 per 1,000. Therefore, we are talking about 5,500 who die (instead of the proportional number of 2,800) per year. Over 47 years, that totals 258,000, and about half of that as excess: 129,000. This does exactly match the abortion number, where blacks are 33% or more of total, with 12-13% of population.
Now, two more on the BLM meter:
An average of about 7,000 blacks have been murdered per year in recent years, and more back in the 1980s and 90s. Let’s assume 9,000 per year for 47 years, for total of 417,000 over 47 years.
The average number of unarmed blacks killed by police (the raison’ d’etre of BLM) is about 10-15 per year, slightly more in earlier decades. Let’s assume 20 per year for 47 years: a total toll 940.
The total number of blacks killed by cops per year is about 250 (95% of them armed blacks). That total over 47 years is a bit less than 12,000 over 47 years. So, abortion and murder trump infant mortality or blacks killed by cops. Unarmed blacks killed by cops amount to a rounding error.
Black Lives Matter is convulsing the country over the alleged high death toll of unarmed African Americans at the hands of police, which must be defunded to protect blacks. But what do the numbers tell us about the death toll of African Americans compared to whites? It is estimated that 19.5 to 22 million black babies have died in abortions since Roe v Wade was handed down by the Supreme Court in 1973.
There are about 500,000 black babies born each year, with an infant mortality rate of 11.4 per 1,000. The overall US rate is 5.8 per 1,000. Therefore, we are talking about 5,500 who die (instead of the proportional number of 2,800) per year. Over 47 years, that totals 258,000, and about half of that as excess: 129,000. This does exactly match the abortion number, where blacks are 33% or more of total, with 12-13% of population.
Now, two more on the BLM meter:
An average of about 7,000 blacks have been murdered per year in recent years, and more back in the 1980s and 90s. Let’s assume 9,000 per year for 47 years, for total of 417,000 over 47 years.
The average number of unarmed blacks killed by police (the raison’ d’etre of BLM) is about 10-15 per year, slightly more in earlier decades. Let’s assume 20 per year for 47 years: a total toll 940.
The total number of blacks killed by cops per year is about 250 (95% of them armed blacks). That total over 47 years is a bit less than 12,000 over 47 years. So, abortion and murder trump infant mortality or blacks killed by cops. Unarmed blacks killed by cops amount to a rounding error.
Chicago police return fire as looters hit Mag Mile, smashing windows and confronting officers
Chicago Tribune, by Paige Fry & Jeremy Gorner
Hundreds of people swept through the Magnificent Mile and other parts of downtown Chicago early Monday, smashing windows, looting stores, confronting police and at one point exchanging gunfire with officers, authorities said. The officers had stopped several people on Lake Street near Michigan Avenue when shots were fired from a passing car around 4:30 a.m., nearly five hours into the widespread vandalism, according to police spokesman Tom Ahern. No officers were shot but a squad car was hit, he said. It was not known if anyone in the gunman's car was shot. Ahern said other officers were injured through the night.............Original Article
Hundreds of people swept through the Magnificent Mile and other parts of downtown Chicago early Monday, smashing windows, looting stores, confronting police and at one point exchanging gunfire with officers, authorities said. The officers had stopped several people on Lake Street near Michigan Avenue when shots were fired from a passing car around 4:30 a.m., nearly five hours into the widespread vandalism, according to police spokesman Tom Ahern. No officers were shot but a squad car was hit, he said. It was not known if anyone in the gunman's car was shot. Ahern said other officers were injured through the night.............Original Article
Ron Johnson subpoenas FBI Director Wray in Crossfire Hurricane investigation
Washington Examiner,by Jerry Dunleavy
A top Republican senator subpoenaed FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday to appear before the Senate and produce "all records" related to the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Russian election interference and allegations of Trump-Russia collusion. The subpoena, a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Examiner, includes a request for the documents the FBI handed over to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz for his damning report the surveillance of onetime Trump campaign associate Carter Page and the bureau's reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele's flawed dossier.... Original Article
A top Republican senator subpoenaed FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday to appear before the Senate and produce "all records" related to the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Russian election interference and allegations of Trump-Russia collusion. The subpoena, a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Examiner, includes a request for the documents the FBI handed over to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz for his damning report the surveillance of onetime Trump campaign associate Carter Page and the bureau's reliance on British ex-spy Christopher Steele's flawed dossier.... Original Article
Brooklyn College Education Prof. Claims Math Is White Supremacist Patriarchy
Tom Ciccotta 9 Aug 2020
Brooklyn College Professor of Math Education Laurie Rubel argued this week on Twitter that the mathematical equation 2+2=4 “reeks of white supremacist patriarchy.” Rubel’s tweet was retweeted and promoted by several academics at universities and colleges around the nation. According to a report by Campus Reform, Brooklyn College Professor Laurie...........To Read More....
My Take - Once again John Wayne is proven right that life is tough but it's even tougher when your stupid.
Magnificent Mile Riots, Looting Hit Democrat-Run Chicago
Breitbart Politics, by John Nolte
Hundreds of people swept through the Magnificent Mile and other parts of downtown Chicago early Monday, smashing windows, looting stores, reports the Chicago Tribune.
There was also gunfire and violence against police officers. As of this writing, downtown Chicago is all but closed to those trying to get to work on a Monday morning. (Snip)The details reveal just how organized this was.
The looting and rioting started just after midnight and lasted nearly five hours. Get this: People darted through broken store windows and doors along Michigan Avenue carrying shopping bags full of merchandise, the Tribune reports, adding, Cars dropped off more people as the crowd grew. At least one U-Haul van...............Original Article
Hundreds of people swept through the Magnificent Mile and other parts of downtown Chicago early Monday, smashing windows, looting stores, reports the Chicago Tribune.
There was also gunfire and violence against police officers. As of this writing, downtown Chicago is all but closed to those trying to get to work on a Monday morning. (Snip)The details reveal just how organized this was.
The looting and rioting started just after midnight and lasted nearly five hours. Get this: People darted through broken store windows and doors along Michigan Avenue carrying shopping bags full of merchandise, the Tribune reports, adding, Cars dropped off more people as the crowd grew. At least one U-Haul van...............Original Article
Sunday, August 9, 2020
Subsidized Unemployment and Societal Capital
August 4, 2020 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty
In early June, I pontificated about the upside-down incentives that are created when government pays people more to be idle than they could get by working.
Otherwise we wind up with the real-world version of this satirical Wizard-of-Id cartoon.
In early June, I pontificated about the upside-down incentives that are created when government pays people more to be idle than they could get by working.
This is a real-world concern because the crowd in Washington earlier
this year approved a $600-per-week bonus for people getting unemployment
benefits. And that resulted in many people getting far more from benefits than they could get from employment. In some cases, even twice as much. Anyhow, that bonus expired at the end of July, which has triggered a debate on whether to renew the policy.
In her Washington Post column, Catherine Rampell argues that super-charged benefits don’t discourage employment.
State benefits, on average, cover about 40 percent of the typical worker’s lost wages… Given the extraordinary economic crisis, federal lawmakers wanted to “top up” state benefits so that workers would get close to 100 percent of their lost wages. …So Congress passed a $600 weekly supplement because it seemed about the right amount to make the average worker whole. …a majority of unemployed workers received more in benefits than they earned in their most recent paychecks. …this prompted concerns that the benefits themselves might slow down the recovery, discouraging people from returning to work because being on the dole was too darn comfortable. …five…recent studies…concluded the…$600 federal supplement does not appear to have depressed job growth. …Yes, at some point, …fears about work disincentives may materialize, as the economy recovers and job opportunities become more plentiful. We’re nowhere near that point now.
The Wall Street Journal also opined on this topic, specifically debunking one of the studies cited by Ms. Rampell.
Most Americans understand intuitively that if people make more money by not working, fewer people will work. Then there are politicians and economists who want to pass out more money while claiming that disincentives to work are irrelevant. …a study by Yale economists…purportedly finds the $600 federal enhancement to jobless benefits hasn’t affected the incentive to work. …Yet the study excluded part-time workers and those who hadn’t been working at a business in their sample last year. In other words, the study focused on workers with more loyalty to their employers. …Notably, states with more generous unemployment benefits for low-wage workers generally have had larger declines in labor-force participation. In Kentucky the lowest-paid 25% of unemployed workers on average have made 216% of what they did working. The state’s labor-force participation has declined 4.8 percentage points since February. …If you subsidize not working, you get less work.
In this Rampell vs. WSJ debate, I’m more sympathetic to the latter. When the big fight over extended unemployment benefits during the Obama years was finally resolved, it showed that people are significantly more likely to find jobs when they’re no longer getting paid for not working.
This doesn’t mean that it will be easy (especially in an environment
where there is still uncertainty about the coronavirus), or that we
shouldn’t have sympathy for people facing pressure to find jobs after
losing their previous positions. But if we want prosperity and rising living standards, there’s really no alternative. I’ll close with another excerpt from Ms. Rampell’s column She cites
an economist who found that some people went back to work even though
they received less money than they were getting from the government.
Evercore ISI economist, Ernie Tedeschi, …observed that in June, around 70 percent of unemployment recipients who resumed working had been receiving more from benefits than their prior wage — yet nonetheless returned to work.
This is largely good news since it shows that America still enjoys a high degree of societal capital (work ethic, desire to earn rather than get handouts, etc). But this underscores why we shouldn’t erode that valuable form of
capital by making people feel like chumps for doing the right thing (a
point I emphasized earlier this year when criticizing Elizabeth Warren’s dependency agenda).
Otherwise we wind up with the real-world version of this satirical Wizard-of-Id cartoon.
P.S. Speaking of satire, Nancy Pelosi actually argued that paying people not to work was a form of stimulus.
P.P.S. Here are a couple of anecdotes, one from Ohio and one from Michigan, about the perverse impact of excessive unemployment benefits during the last downturn.
P.P.P.S. If you want more academic literature on the relationship between government benefits and joblessness, click here and here.
P.P.P.P.S. Last but not least, prominent economists on the left (including Paul Krugman) actually agree the unemployment benefits encourage joblessness.
The Case Against the Public Option
August 5, 2020 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty
Even though Joe Biden has embraced a very left-wing agenda, I suspect many of the items on his wish list are designed to placate Bernie-type activists who have considerable influence in the Democratic Party. As such, I don’t think Biden will push “Medicare for All” if he’s elected. But I fear he may support a “public option” that is less radical but still misguided.
Simply stated, vote-buying politicians will deliberately under-price the cost of the public option. And the presence of a subsidized and under-priced government health plan will make employer-based policies less attractive over time – especially since the subsidies almost certainly will expand.
However, people generally like their employer-based health plans and presumably will be skeptical of any plan that threatens that system (and it’s probably safe to assume that health insurance companies will have an incentive to educate people about that likely outcome).
By the way, it’s not my intention to defend the employer-based system, which largely exists because of a foolish loophole in the tax code. As far as I’m concerned, that system is a convoluted and inefficient mess that has contributed to the health care system’s third-party payer crisis.
What we need is a restoration of free markets in health care.
But with the public option, the best-case scenario is that many people over time will get pushed from the top line of this image to the bottom line.
And that’s also the worst-case scenario since no problems will be fixed, but overall costs will be even higher thanks to greater government involvement.
For what it’s worth, some advocates of the public option claim it can actually save money by lowering reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals. That could happen in theory, but exploding costs for Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare show that it doesn’t happen in reality.
The bottom line is that more government intervention in health care won’t solve the problems caused by existing levels of government intervention in health care (a tragic example of Mitchell’s Law). Which is why I fear that the public option ultimately would be a slow-motion version of Medicare for All.
Why don’t these black lives matter?
Child labor, human rights abuses and deaths are routinely ignored by Greens and Democrats
Politicians and activists in California, and across the country and world, think a primary solution to our “manmade climate crisis” and other environmental ills is “clean, ethical, climate-friendly, sustainable” electric vehicles (EVs).
They never consider that replacing just that one state’s 15,000,000 cars with EVs would require nearly 1,000,000 tons of copper – plus huge amounts of other metal and mineral ores that have to be dug out of the ground, crushed, processed, smelted and turned into those vehicles, all with fossil fuels, and often with enormous ecological damage when the mines and other facilities are not operated under US standards.
Nor do they consider the HUMAN costs: child and slave labor, lung and skin diseases, cancers, injuries and deaths in faraway countries like Mongolia, Tibet, Chile and Congo, where much of that mining and processing take place ... because we don’t allow it here. All those lives of darker-skinned people ought to matter. But they rarely get much news coverage – any more than the deaths of David Dorn, LeGend Taliferro and thousands of other blacks and other minorities in the United States get the attention they deserve.
Thank you for posting my article, quoting from it, and forwarding it to your friends and colleagues.
Best regards, Paul
By Paul Driessen
Marathon Petroleum recently announced it will “indefinitely idle” its Martinez Refinery. The decision will remove hundreds of jobs, billions of dollars, and nearly 7 million gallons of gasoline, diesel and other petroleum liquids per day from the energy-hungry California economy. It will also send fuel prices even higher for minority and other poor families that already pay by far the highest gasoline prices in the continental United States: $1.32 more per gallon of regular than in Louisiana and Texas.
California’s
green and political interests don’t want drilling or fracking,
pipelines, or nuclear, coal or hydroelectric power plants – or mining
for the materials needed to manufacture electric cars. They prefer to
have that work done somewhere else, and just import the energy, cars and
consumer goods.
They’ve long wanted a totally
electric vehicle (EV) fleet, which they claim would be clean, ethical,
climate-friendly and sustainable. Of course, those labels hold up only
so long as they look solely at activities and emissions within
California state boundaries – and not where the mining, manufacturing
and electricity generation take place. That kind of “life cycle”
analysis would totally disrupt their claims.
Consider
copper. A typical internal combustion engine uses about 50 pounds (23
kilograms) of this vital everyday metal, the International Copper
Association says. A hybrid car requires almost 90 lb (40 kg); a plug-in
EV needs 132 lb (60 kg); and a big electric bus can use up to 812 lb (369 kg) of copper. If all 15,000,000 California cars were EVs, they would need almost 1,000,000 tons of copper.
But copper ores average just 0.5% metal by weight, notes energy analyst Mark Mills. That means 200,000,000 tons of ore
would have to be dug up, crushed, processed and refined to get that
much copper. Almost every step in that process would require fossil
fuels – and emit carbon dioxide and pollutants.
That’s just California. According to Cambridge University Emeritus Professor of Technology Michael Kelly, replacing all the United Kingdom’s vehicles
with next-generation EVs would require more than half the world’s
annual production of copper; twice its annual cobalt; three quarters of
its yearly lithium carbonate output; and nearly its entire annual
production of neodymium.
Just one electric car
or backup-power battery weighs 1,000 pounds and requires extracting and
processing some 500,000 pounds of various ores, Mills says. The true
costs of “green” energy are staggering.
Imagine
replacing all of the USA’s nearly 300,000,000 cars, SUVs, pickup
trucks, buses, trucks and other vehicles with electric versions under
the Green New Deal
– and then charging them daily. The millions of wind turbines, billions
of solar panels, billions of backup-power batteries, thousands of miles
of new transmission lines, grid upgrades and million or so fast
charging stations all across America would also require copper,
concrete, all these other metals and many more materials, in
incomprehensible quantities.
Alaska’s Pebble Mine deposit
has an estimated 35 million tons of high-grade copper ore and 3 million
tons of molybdenum and other critical GND ores. The copper alone is
nearly two times the world’s 2019 output of that essential element.
Permits were blocked for years for questionable reasons. But the US Army Corps of Engineers recently found
that mining would not have a “measurable effect” on sockeye salmon
numbers in the Bristol Bay watershed and should be allowed to proceed,
under tough US pollution control, reclamation, wildlife protection,
workplace safety, fair wage and child labor laws.
Environmentalists
intend to delay the Pebble Mine as long as possible – and block other
US exploration and mining projects. That’s why most mining and
processing is done overseas, much of it in China and Mongolia or by Chinese companies in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where none of these laws apply.
Most
of the world’s rare earth ores are extracted near Baotou, Inner
Mongolia by pumping acid into the ground, then processed using more
acids and chemicals. Producing one ton
of rare earth metals releases up to 420,000 cubic feet of toxic gases,
2,600 cubic feet of acidic wastewater, and a ton of radioactive waste.
The resulting black sludge is piped into a foul, lifeless lake.
Numerous local people suffer from severe skin and respiratory diseases,
children are born with soft bones, and cancer rates have soared.
Lithium comes largely from Tibet and arid highlands of the Argentina-Bolivia-Chile “lithium triangle.” Dead, toxic fish join
carcasses of cows and yaks floating down Tibet’s Liqi River, which has
been poisoned by the Ganzizhou Rongda mine. Native people in the ABC
triangle say lithium operations contaminate streams needed for humans,
livestock and irrigation, and leave mountains of discarded salt.
The world’s top producer of cobalt is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where some 40,000 children
as young as four toil with their parents for less than $2 a day up to
12 hours a day. Many die in cave-ins, or more slowly from constant
exposure to toxic, radioactive mud, dust, water and air that puts
dangerous levels of cobalt, lead, uranium and other heavy metals into
their bodies. The cobalt ore is sent to China for processing by the
Chinese-owned Congo Dongfang International Mining Company.
That’s just to meet current
raw material requirements. Try to picture the raw material demands,
Third World mining and child labor conditions, and ecological
destruction, under the Green New Deal.
Liberals
often say they support sustainable, ethical coffee, sneakers, handbags
and diamonds. No child labor, sweat shops or unsafe conditions
tolerated. But it’s a different story with green energy and EVs. In
2019, California Assembly Bill 735 proposed that the state certify that
“zero emission” electric vehicles sold there are free of any materials
or components that involve child labor. Democrats voted it down.
The matter is complicated, they “explained.” It would be too hard to
enforce, cost too much and imperil state climate goals. And besides,
lots of other industries also use child labor. (So shut up about it.)
Last
month, the US House of Representatives had an opportunity to legislate a
national certification that federally funded electric buses and
charging stations would not include minerals mined with child labor. The
Transportation Committee approved the amendment 43-19 (all 19 nay votes
were Democrats). But Pete DeFazio(D-OR) quietly replaced
the enforceable certification language with a meaningless statement
that “it is the policy of the United States” that funds “should not be
used” for items involving child labor.
DeFazio
claimed certification is unnecessary because US trade agreements
prohibit child labor. But there is no agreement with Congo, and China
has shown no interest in ending child labor in its supply chains. (Plus,
the matter is complicated, hard to enforce and perilous for climate and
Green New Deal goals.)
It’s easy for Nancy
Pelosi and her colleagues to wear Kente cloth stoles in solidarity with
Black Lives Matter. And for Sierra Club staff to criticize the
organization’s “history and culture of white supremacy” – what I call
callous, deadly and arguably racist eco-imperialism and carbon
colonialism. We need real reform, and an end to the cancel culture that
silences discussion about the horrors of what’s going on in too many
non-white areas of the United States and world.
The
human and ecological realities of GND policies cry out for debate. So
do the violence and death that preceded and followed George Floyd’s
inexcusable death. Not just the 25 police killings of
unarmed blacks all across America in 2019 that have become the narrow
focus of Black Lives Matter, politicians and rioters. But also the murders of David Dorn, Patrick Underwood and other police officers; Mekhi James, LeGend Taliferro, Secoriea Turner and other black children gunned down by their fellow blacks; and as many as 7,000 American black men, women and children murdered by blacks every year.
In
Chicago, over the July 4 weekend, police reported 87 shootings and 17
deaths, and nearly a dozen of those shot were children caught in the
crossfire, the New York Post despaired. In fact, the black-on-black
Windy City murder toll over almost any two recent successive weekends
exceeds those 25 police killings.
“Every single person who has been shot in New York City [so far] this July, nearly 100 in total, has been a member of the minority community,”
NBC News reporter Tom Winter tweeted, “and 97% of shooting victims in
June were members of the city’s minority community.” The solution is
defunding the police?
ALL these African, Asian,
Latin American and minority American lives matter. It’s time to talk
about it honestly, figure out what’s really driving the inhumanity, and
create a world we can be proud to live in.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, environment, climate and human rights issues.
The Other Pandemic
August 10, 2020 By Michael D. Shaw @ HealthNewsDigest
(Certain material contained herein is adapted from Michael J. Goldberg, MD.) In this article, we will need to be precise with our definitions, for reasons that will become clear. Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defines “pandemic” only as an adjective: “Denoting a disease affecting or attacking the population of an extensive region, country, continent, global; extensively epidemic.” Referring to the Oxford English Dictionary, we find: “A pandemic is a widespread epidemic that may affect entire continents or even the world.”
The pandemic on everyone’s mind these days, of course, is the scourge of COVID-19. However, Goldberg argues that there is another pandemic occurring that could involve perhaps 20-30 percent of Americans. This missed pandemic consists of a variety of unrecognized, untreated viral and immune connected issues that he refers to as Neuro-Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, or NIDS. Some of these issues are more popularly referred to as Autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), ADD or ADHD, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/CFIDS). Many classic autoimmune diseases may have a treatable NIDS component.
The term “autism” was first used in 1911 by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, who presumably invoked the Greek autos, meaning “self.” Bleuler was describing the behavior of many schizophrenics, withdrawing into their own inner world. But it was the brilliant Dr. Leo Kanner, founder of child psychiatry, later assisted by Dr. Leon Eisenberg, who would produce the definitive works on this disease.
In a 1956 paper entitled “Early Infantile Autism 1943–1955,” Kanner and Eisenberg distilled the former’s five diagnostic criteria down to these two features, whereby the typical clinical picture would reliably present…
1. A profound lack of affective contact
2. Repetitive, ritualistic behavior, which must be of an elaborate kind
At the time, it was noted that this condition might be observed in one to two children per 10,000. Compare this today’s widely touted 1 in 54 figure. By any criterion, a condition affecting nearly two percent of our kids should be considered an epidemic—if not a pandemic. But, there is no such thing as an epidemic of a developmental disorder. Any epidemic or pandemic must have an underlying medical cause, which is almost always a pathogen.
Moreover, one of Kanner’s original criteria was “A fascination for objects, which are handled with skill in fine motor movements.” Thus, we have a big problem from the get-go. Contrary to Kanner’s precepts, most of today’s “autistic” kids are affectionate, and have lost gross or fine motor skills. Also, contrary to at least the spirit of Kanner’s work, today’s autism comprises an entire “spectrum” of symptoms and severity of symptoms, such that Bill Gates, Jerry Seinfeld, and Mark Zuckerberg have been put “on the spectrum” by some commentators.
Further complicating matters is that in a classic sense, a developmental disorder can be managed, but not cured. Yet, several studies including this one from 2013 as well as Goldberg’s own successes contradict this notion. What if today’s autism-like illness is not Kanner’s autism at all, but is rather a disease that partially mimics some of the symptoms? It is the contention of Goldberg and others that this “non-Kanner autism” is really a neuroimmune disease that can be treated medically.
Kanner must be spinning in his grave. A once-rare debilitating disorder has morphed into a “spectrum” encompassing mentally superior individuals, along with an occasional mockery of “neurotypicals.”
Looking for a pandemic? It is acknowledged in recent pediatric publications that 1 – 1.5% of newborns have Cytomegalovirus, but it is usually asymptomatic, and 1% of newborns have Human Herpesvirus 6 , but it too is mostly asymptomatic. As Goldberg points out, older physicians would not be quite so accepting of this. No healthy newborn should be born with a virus, and both viruses can cause serious diseases. Why are these viruses in newborns, and what can “asymptomatic” mean without follow-up for at least a couple of years in these patients?
The changing role of viruses and our failure to properly identify and treat viral infections—and those who are reactivated viral carriers—means we are presently in the midst of an overlooked medical pandemic. This includes medical disorders that could be treated, were they not passed off as either psychological problems or untreatable developmental disorders. Somehow, though, if the virus is SARS-CoV-2, there is no more urgent matter in the whole wide world.
We just can’t escape it: Everything in healthcare is a fad.
(Certain material contained herein is adapted from Michael J. Goldberg, MD.) In this article, we will need to be precise with our definitions, for reasons that will become clear. Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defines “pandemic” only as an adjective: “Denoting a disease affecting or attacking the population of an extensive region, country, continent, global; extensively epidemic.” Referring to the Oxford English Dictionary, we find: “A pandemic is a widespread epidemic that may affect entire continents or even the world.”
The pandemic on everyone’s mind these days, of course, is the scourge of COVID-19. However, Goldberg argues that there is another pandemic occurring that could involve perhaps 20-30 percent of Americans. This missed pandemic consists of a variety of unrecognized, untreated viral and immune connected issues that he refers to as Neuro-Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, or NIDS. Some of these issues are more popularly referred to as Autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), ADD or ADHD, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/CFIDS). Many classic autoimmune diseases may have a treatable NIDS component.
The term “autism” was first used in 1911 by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, who presumably invoked the Greek autos, meaning “self.” Bleuler was describing the behavior of many schizophrenics, withdrawing into their own inner world. But it was the brilliant Dr. Leo Kanner, founder of child psychiatry, later assisted by Dr. Leon Eisenberg, who would produce the definitive works on this disease.
In a 1956 paper entitled “Early Infantile Autism 1943–1955,” Kanner and Eisenberg distilled the former’s five diagnostic criteria down to these two features, whereby the typical clinical picture would reliably present…
1. A profound lack of affective contact
2. Repetitive, ritualistic behavior, which must be of an elaborate kind
At the time, it was noted that this condition might be observed in one to two children per 10,000. Compare this today’s widely touted 1 in 54 figure. By any criterion, a condition affecting nearly two percent of our kids should be considered an epidemic—if not a pandemic. But, there is no such thing as an epidemic of a developmental disorder. Any epidemic or pandemic must have an underlying medical cause, which is almost always a pathogen.
Moreover, one of Kanner’s original criteria was “A fascination for objects, which are handled with skill in fine motor movements.” Thus, we have a big problem from the get-go. Contrary to Kanner’s precepts, most of today’s “autistic” kids are affectionate, and have lost gross or fine motor skills. Also, contrary to at least the spirit of Kanner’s work, today’s autism comprises an entire “spectrum” of symptoms and severity of symptoms, such that Bill Gates, Jerry Seinfeld, and Mark Zuckerberg have been put “on the spectrum” by some commentators.
Further complicating matters is that in a classic sense, a developmental disorder can be managed, but not cured. Yet, several studies including this one from 2013 as well as Goldberg’s own successes contradict this notion. What if today’s autism-like illness is not Kanner’s autism at all, but is rather a disease that partially mimics some of the symptoms? It is the contention of Goldberg and others that this “non-Kanner autism” is really a neuroimmune disease that can be treated medically.
Kanner must be spinning in his grave. A once-rare debilitating disorder has morphed into a “spectrum” encompassing mentally superior individuals, along with an occasional mockery of “neurotypicals.”
Looking for a pandemic? It is acknowledged in recent pediatric publications that 1 – 1.5% of newborns have Cytomegalovirus, but it is usually asymptomatic, and 1% of newborns have Human Herpesvirus 6 , but it too is mostly asymptomatic. As Goldberg points out, older physicians would not be quite so accepting of this. No healthy newborn should be born with a virus, and both viruses can cause serious diseases. Why are these viruses in newborns, and what can “asymptomatic” mean without follow-up for at least a couple of years in these patients?
The changing role of viruses and our failure to properly identify and treat viral infections—and those who are reactivated viral carriers—means we are presently in the midst of an overlooked medical pandemic. This includes medical disorders that could be treated, were they not passed off as either psychological problems or untreatable developmental disorders. Somehow, though, if the virus is SARS-CoV-2, there is no more urgent matter in the whole wide world.
We just can’t escape it: Everything in healthcare is a fad.
Teen Vogue op-ed calls for ending property rights, decries 'cruelty of payment-based housing'
The columnist says, 'basically we just need to abolish landlords'
News August 07, 2020 Breck Dumas
Teen Vogue published an op-ed declaring that no one should have the right to own real property, pushing for the abolishment of landlords while decrying the "cruelty of payment-based housing."
News August 07, 2020 Breck Dumas
Teen Vogue published an op-ed declaring that no one should have the right to own real property, pushing for the abolishment of landlords while decrying the "cruelty of payment-based housing."
Desperate: Biden grasps for Gretchen Whitmer as potential running mate
August 8, 2020 By Monica Showalter
He's desperate. Faced with a slew of baggage-laden female black candidates for his running mate, each of whom could drag his ticket down, Joe Biden is reaching out and around the vaunted race box to consider Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan as his running mate.........
.Whitmer, who is a national co-chairwoman for Biden's campaign, visited the former vice president last Sunday, according to two high-ranking Michigan Democrats who spoke on the condition of anonymity to the AP because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The first-term governor of the battleground state has long been on his shortlist of possible running mates.............it's well known that he so badly wanted a black female candidate in the era of BLM. The problem is that the three he picked were walking disasters................
Here's one more problem for Joe: Rep. Maxine Waters of California, who's a powerhouse in the Congressional Black Caucus, says no dice on Gretchen Whitmer ,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Any questions as to why Biden can't seem to decide? This is a sign of a campaign in trouble, and Biden's got a load of bad candidates, all of them as baggage-laden as himself. If he can't pick a running mate unless it's someone who brings him nothing, he's a goner. And his desperation is showing...........To Read More.....
My Take - You live by identity politics, you die by identity politics.
He's desperate. Faced with a slew of baggage-laden female black candidates for his running mate, each of whom could drag his ticket down, Joe Biden is reaching out and around the vaunted race box to consider Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan as his running mate.........
.Whitmer, who is a national co-chairwoman for Biden's campaign, visited the former vice president last Sunday, according to two high-ranking Michigan Democrats who spoke on the condition of anonymity to the AP because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The first-term governor of the battleground state has long been on his shortlist of possible running mates.............it's well known that he so badly wanted a black female candidate in the era of BLM. The problem is that the three he picked were walking disasters................
Here's one more problem for Joe: Rep. Maxine Waters of California, who's a powerhouse in the Congressional Black Caucus, says no dice on Gretchen Whitmer ,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Any questions as to why Biden can't seem to decide? This is a sign of a campaign in trouble, and Biden's got a load of bad candidates, all of them as baggage-laden as himself. If he can't pick a running mate unless it's someone who brings him nothing, he's a goner. And his desperation is showing...........To Read More.....
My Take - You live by identity politics, you die by identity politics.
Antifa Violence Continues With Wooden Shields, Lasers, Rocks and Fires
Oregonian | Aug 8, 2020 | News | 1
Protests continued Friday in Portland, hours after President Donald Trump slammed the demonstrations and the local police response to them. Trump claimed federal agents could immediately stop some destructive acts at ongoing protests, if only they were asked to help. He said anarchists and “mobs” have been given free rein and that leftist Democrats want to replicate Portland’s lawlessness across the country...........Trump described the situation as an angry mob full of “lawless rioters” and assigned blame to Mayor Ted Wheeler. The mayor’s office said he had no comment in response to the remarks...............To Read More..
My Take - So Wheeler had no comment? His last idiotic comment was the rioting was re-started because the federal government had the nerve to send federal officers to protect federal property from the rioters. But they've left, so why are they still rioting? Why are they preparing for battle?
Why is Wheeler still mayor?
The Democrats are calling this "free speech" and these rioters should be protected. So, if insurrection is free speech, and is acceptable to the left, I wonder what they would think about the police in Portland conducting a coup d'etat as an act of free speech.
Protests continued Friday in Portland, hours after President Donald Trump slammed the demonstrations and the local police response to them. Trump claimed federal agents could immediately stop some destructive acts at ongoing protests, if only they were asked to help. He said anarchists and “mobs” have been given free rein and that leftist Democrats want to replicate Portland’s lawlessness across the country...........Trump described the situation as an angry mob full of “lawless rioters” and assigned blame to Mayor Ted Wheeler. The mayor’s office said he had no comment in response to the remarks...............To Read More..
My Take - So Wheeler had no comment? His last idiotic comment was the rioting was re-started because the federal government had the nerve to send federal officers to protect federal property from the rioters. But they've left, so why are they still rioting? Why are they preparing for battle?
Why is Wheeler still mayor?
The Democrats are calling this "free speech" and these rioters should be protected. So, if insurrection is free speech, and is acceptable to the left, I wonder what they would think about the police in Portland conducting a coup d'etat as an act of free speech.
When the Counterculture Becomes the Culture
Ben Shapiro | Aug 8, 2020 | Commentary | 2
In November 2015, three years after taking the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl, quarterback Colin Kaepernick was benched in favor of Blaine Gabbert, a career journeyman most recently unsuccessful with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The following preseason, Kaepernick began donning garb designed to mock police officers, including socks with cops dressed as pigs. He also remained seated for the national anthem during a preseason game, claiming, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”
At the time, multiple NFL players spoke out in opposition to Kaepernick’s symbolic move: New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz said, “You’ve got to respect the flag, and you’ve got to stand up with your teammates. It’s bigger than just you, in my opinion. You go up there; you’re with a team; and you go and pledge your allegiance to the flag, and sing the national anthem with your team, and then you go about your business.” At the time, this was a majority proposition: Seventy-two percent of Americans thought the gesture unpatriotic, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Kaepernick never regained a starting role in the NFL … but his career took off again. He signed a lucrative endorsement deal with Nike to cash in on his supposed bravery; he cut a content deal with Disney. When he was offered a private tryout with NFL teams, he promptly violated all protocols and blew up the process. In June 2020, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell urged NFL teams to sign Kaepernick anyway. On July 4, Kaepernick tweeted: “Black ppl have been dehumanized, brutalized, criminalized + terrorized by America for centuries, & are expected to join your commemoration of ‘independence,’ while you enslaved our ancestors. We reject your celebration of white supremacy & look forward to liberation for all.” ...........To Read More...
In November 2015, three years after taking the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl, quarterback Colin Kaepernick was benched in favor of Blaine Gabbert, a career journeyman most recently unsuccessful with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The following preseason, Kaepernick began donning garb designed to mock police officers, including socks with cops dressed as pigs. He also remained seated for the national anthem during a preseason game, claiming, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”
At the time, multiple NFL players spoke out in opposition to Kaepernick’s symbolic move: New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz said, “You’ve got to respect the flag, and you’ve got to stand up with your teammates. It’s bigger than just you, in my opinion. You go up there; you’re with a team; and you go and pledge your allegiance to the flag, and sing the national anthem with your team, and then you go about your business.” At the time, this was a majority proposition: Seventy-two percent of Americans thought the gesture unpatriotic, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Kaepernick never regained a starting role in the NFL … but his career took off again. He signed a lucrative endorsement deal with Nike to cash in on his supposed bravery; he cut a content deal with Disney. When he was offered a private tryout with NFL teams, he promptly violated all protocols and blew up the process. In June 2020, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell urged NFL teams to sign Kaepernick anyway. On July 4, Kaepernick tweeted: “Black ppl have been dehumanized, brutalized, criminalized + terrorized by America for centuries, & are expected to join your commemoration of ‘independence,’ while you enslaved our ancestors. We reject your celebration of white supremacy & look forward to liberation for all.” ...........To Read More...
Saturday, August 8, 2020
Quote of the Day
Diversity without accomplishment is philosophy without form and incompetence without consequence. Rich Kozlovich
Crime is Free Speech and Self Defense is Crime!
The farther society drifts from the truth the more it will hate those who speak it. - George Orwell
By Rich Kozlovich
On August 04, 2020 Breck Dumas published the article, Ted Cruz challenges Democratic senator to condemn Antifa. She storms out of hearing instead. He goes on to say:
How Orwellian is that? Is that not insanity?
During the Kavanaugh hearings Mazie Hirono's actions demonstrated she has been a disgrace and a hypocrite forever, not only as a politician, but as a human being. How do these people get re-elected? I find it hard to imagine that any state can have so many stupid voters they'd re-elect this parasite, but Churchill was right - "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter"!
The problem is the alternative is unacceptable, and ultimately even more disastrous, and it's a problem America is always fixing. Why is this a problem and what's the fix? The problem starts with public education and the fix is purging leftist ideologues from our public schools and universities.
In the article, Will the Senate Censure Crazy Mazie Hirono?, the sub title was, Hawaii’s Joe McCarthy loses it. The piece goes on to note that "without doubt it is Crazy Mazie’s conduct as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that was clearly dishonorable, the very epitome of what McCarthy was seen as being: “bullying, reckless, and dishonest."'
Unlike McCarthy, her “bullying, reckless, and dishonest” actions wasn't sufficient for the Senate to condemn her. What's left out of this article is there is a difference between Hirono and Joe McCarthy. She was "reckless and dishonest", and was wrong. He was "reckless and dishonest", and he was right . His overall argument that the federal government had become badly infested with communists, socialists and fellow travelers was true!
McCarthy was a troubled man. He said and did things, and made accusations that undermined his efforts, and his credibility, but in the overall picture - in the thrust of his investigation - he was right!
The federal government under the FDR administration was filled with traitors, and we know that to be true because of the release of the VENONA intercepts, and so much of the Soviet Union's archives that were opened after the fall of the Soviet Union. FDR had to know about it and allowed it, making him a traitor also. That infestation continued, and has metastasized throughout every American institution.
Here is a list of Americans in the Venona papers, and remember, this is only a partial list because so many of the intercepts weren't translated. You will notice the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) , was infested with Soviet agents during WWII and when the OSS became the CIA they migrated into the CIA.
Make no mistake about this. If Biden, a notorious liar wins, the communists, no matter what they're calling themselves, will work to take over America and do what they've planned for all these years - destroy the Constitution, the American Economy, the American culture and the American identity. And useful idiots in the FBI, like Strzok and others in government law enforcement and Americas intelligence agencies are secretly KGB agents at heart, and long to act accordingly.
How did they come to believe in this? Again, the public and higher education systems in America are devoted to teaching Americans to hate America. The destruction of America awaits if Biden is elected.
If Biden wins, and the Democrats take the Congress by gaming the system, they will game it further by adding the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as states giving them greater chance of permanent control of the Senate and the Electoral College, ending capitalism and restructuring American society under socialist rules and Critical Theory based of the the thinking of the Frankfurt School socialists.
Hard to believe? Paraphrasing Ben Shapiro: When the rule of law is dead, we face anarchy. In many cities that's a reality. When laws are only enforced selectively we're living in tyranny. In many states that too is a reality. To prevent Trump from being re-elected the left will riot, especially in battleground states, and will violently attempt to prevent Trump supporters from voting.
If Trump wins, there will be an all out effort by the left to destroy the nation. Those promoting this are perfect Democrats because "Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out"
It's long overdue for a lot of them to end up in prison, and that needs to start with Biden, Obama, the Clintons, Comey, Strzok, Brennan, Clapper, and the host of lesser players who supported their treason.
By Rich Kozlovich
On August 04, 2020 Breck Dumas published the article, Ted Cruz challenges Democratic senator to condemn Antifa. She storms out of hearing instead. He goes on to say:
A Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing ended abruptly Tuesday, when ranking member Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) announced she could no longer listen to Chairman Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) speech on the threat of Antifa's violence in the U.S. Before she left, Cruz offered Hirono the opportunity to condemn the actions of Antifa, but she refused — choosing to storm out, instead.Hirono's comments:
"There are all these attacks on Black Lives Matter, and what they're saying. I mean, how many of us even think that defunding police departments should be taken literally?" she asked. "I mean, I certainly don't. So, you know, we have this pesky thing called freedom of speech, and I'd say that the people who support Black Lives Matter — and if they're calling for various boycotts and all that — that's called freedom of speech." She went to say that everyone can agree to condemn "violent extremism of all stripes," adding, "so to constantly accuse Democrats of not caring about that, is really—""Accusing Democrats of not caring about that is really".....really what? The truth? The people she's defending are beating up people who disagree with them, shouting them down, threatening those who want an end to this, including the Chief of Police of Seattle. She's defending radical insurrectionists who are burning down buildings, putting people out of business, extorting money from people, rioting, raping, murdering, destroying private property, blocking streets and highways armed with automatic or semi-automatic weapons, threatening citizens for standing up for their rights, and even officials who are enforcing the law.
- Four in Five Black Americans Want Same or More Cop Presence in Neighborhood
- Seattle Police Chief Reacts to City Council Voting to Slash Pay Within SPD
- 'It's Outrageous': CBP Commissioner Shreds 'Lying' Dems Still Claiming DHS Agents Were 'Unidentifiable'
- Hundreds of new homeless turn UWS into a spectacle of drugs and harassment: residents
How Orwellian is that? Is that not insanity?
During the Kavanaugh hearings Mazie Hirono's actions demonstrated she has been a disgrace and a hypocrite forever, not only as a politician, but as a human being. How do these people get re-elected? I find it hard to imagine that any state can have so many stupid voters they'd re-elect this parasite, but Churchill was right - "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter"!
The problem is the alternative is unacceptable, and ultimately even more disastrous, and it's a problem America is always fixing. Why is this a problem and what's the fix? The problem starts with public education and the fix is purging leftist ideologues from our public schools and universities.
- How Identity Politics Is Harming the Sciences
- Economics professor says Wright State won't let him open class critical of Marxism to all students
- Liberalism is rampant on campus and ruining academia
- Are liberal college students little fascists?
"We're turning out a generation of poorly educated people with no skill, no ambition, no guidance, and no real expectations of what it means to go to work. - Mike RoweMazie Hirono is the perfect representation of an elected Democrat, and a lot of Republicans, like Mitt Romney and John Kasich. Please review my Mazie Hirono file where her lies, hypocrisy and stupidity are clearly outlined.
In the article, Will the Senate Censure Crazy Mazie Hirono?, the sub title was, Hawaii’s Joe McCarthy loses it. The piece goes on to note that "without doubt it is Crazy Mazie’s conduct as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that was clearly dishonorable, the very epitome of what McCarthy was seen as being: “bullying, reckless, and dishonest."'
Unlike McCarthy, her “bullying, reckless, and dishonest” actions wasn't sufficient for the Senate to condemn her. What's left out of this article is there is a difference between Hirono and Joe McCarthy. She was "reckless and dishonest", and was wrong. He was "reckless and dishonest", and he was right . His overall argument that the federal government had become badly infested with communists, socialists and fellow travelers was true!
McCarthy was a troubled man. He said and did things, and made accusations that undermined his efforts, and his credibility, but in the overall picture - in the thrust of his investigation - he was right!
The federal government under the FDR administration was filled with traitors, and we know that to be true because of the release of the VENONA intercepts, and so much of the Soviet Union's archives that were opened after the fall of the Soviet Union. FDR had to know about it and allowed it, making him a traitor also. That infestation continued, and has metastasized throughout every American institution.
Here is a list of Americans in the Venona papers, and remember, this is only a partial list because so many of the intercepts weren't translated. You will notice the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) , was infested with Soviet agents during WWII and when the OSS became the CIA they migrated into the CIA.
Make no mistake about this. If Biden, a notorious liar wins, the communists, no matter what they're calling themselves, will work to take over America and do what they've planned for all these years - destroy the Constitution, the American Economy, the American culture and the American identity. And useful idiots in the FBI, like Strzok and others in government law enforcement and Americas intelligence agencies are secretly KGB agents at heart, and long to act accordingly.
How did they come to believe in this? Again, the public and higher education systems in America are devoted to teaching Americans to hate America. The destruction of America awaits if Biden is elected.
If Biden wins, and the Democrats take the Congress by gaming the system, they will game it further by adding the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as states giving them greater chance of permanent control of the Senate and the Electoral College, ending capitalism and restructuring American society under socialist rules and Critical Theory based of the the thinking of the Frankfurt School socialists.
Hard to believe? Paraphrasing Ben Shapiro: When the rule of law is dead, we face anarchy. In many cities that's a reality. When laws are only enforced selectively we're living in tyranny. In many states that too is a reality. To prevent Trump from being re-elected the left will riot, especially in battleground states, and will violently attempt to prevent Trump supporters from voting.
If Trump wins, there will be an all out effort by the left to destroy the nation. Those promoting this are perfect Democrats because "Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out"
It's long overdue for a lot of them to end up in prison, and that needs to start with Biden, Obama, the Clintons, Comey, Strzok, Brennan, Clapper, and the host of lesser players who supported their treason.
Joe Biden Mocked Trump's Faith for Months, Shocked When Trump Fires Back
Joel B. Pollak 7 Aug 2020
Former Vice President Joe Biden professed shock and outrage on Thursday after President Donald Trump told supporters in Cleveland, Ohio, that Biden would “hurt the Bible” and “hurt God.” In a statement, Biden complained about “President Trump’s decision today to profane God and to smear my faith in a political attack.” But Biden has been smearing Trump’s faith for months for political gain. His objection is simply that Trump has turned the tables and played by the same rules. In June, after President Trump walked across Lafayette Park and held up a Bible in front of the burned-out facade of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., Biden claimed that Trump never read the Bible: “The president held up the Bible at St. John’s church yesterday. I just wish he opened it once in a while instead of brandishing it. If he opened it, he could have learned something.”.......To Read More....
My Take - Ya just gotta luv this guy. His hypocrisy knows no bounds. He and Nancy Pelosi, both of whom claim to be devout Catholics, are in fact heretics, if for no other reason than their support of abortion. Neither are in a position to criticize anyone else's of faith, and if Trump did read the Bible, he could easily show why Biden is a hypocrite and a heretic. If he didn't read the Bible, Biden would still be a hypocrite and a heretic.
Former Vice President Joe Biden professed shock and outrage on Thursday after President Donald Trump told supporters in Cleveland, Ohio, that Biden would “hurt the Bible” and “hurt God.” In a statement, Biden complained about “President Trump’s decision today to profane God and to smear my faith in a political attack.” But Biden has been smearing Trump’s faith for months for political gain. His objection is simply that Trump has turned the tables and played by the same rules. In June, after President Trump walked across Lafayette Park and held up a Bible in front of the burned-out facade of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., Biden claimed that Trump never read the Bible: “The president held up the Bible at St. John’s church yesterday. I just wish he opened it once in a while instead of brandishing it. If he opened it, he could have learned something.”.......To Read More....
My Take - Ya just gotta luv this guy. His hypocrisy knows no bounds. He and Nancy Pelosi, both of whom claim to be devout Catholics, are in fact heretics, if for no other reason than their support of abortion. Neither are in a position to criticize anyone else's of faith, and if Trump did read the Bible, he could easily show why Biden is a hypocrite and a heretic. If he didn't read the Bible, Biden would still be a hypocrite and a heretic.
Tulane Canceled a Talk by the Author of an Acclaimed Anti-Racism Book After Students Said the Event Was 'Violent'
In Life of a Klansman, Edward Ball reckons with a white supremacist ancestor. Try explaining that to the students.
Life of a Klansman: A Family History of White Supremacy is the latest book by Edward Ball, whose award-winning 1998 book Slaves in the Family traces the histories of people enslaved by Ball's own ancestors. In Klansman, Ball tells the story of a racist great-grandfather who joined the Ku Klux Klan.
The New York Times hailed it as "a haunting tapestry of interwoven stories that inform us not just about our past but about the resentment-bred demons that are all too present in our society today," and the anti-racism scholar Ibram X. Kendi participated in a virtual discussion about it with Ball. Tulane University was slated to host another such event, featuring Ball and Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, an assistant professor of geography and African American studies.
That event was supposed to take place tonight, but the university opted to postpone it following blinkered outrage from students who insisted that the event was "not only inappropriate but violent towards the experience of Black people in the Tulane community and our country." Other members of the Tulane community called it "harmful and offensive," and demanded its cancellation. Still others said the university should apologize and take action against whoever approved the event. (I verified that the people who made these kinds of comments were Tulane students, graduates, and employees. I chose not to name most of them in order to prevent individual harassment, though I did identify two student government officials who affixed their names to an appalling demand for censorship.).......To Read More...
Life of a Klansman: A Family History of White Supremacy is the latest book by Edward Ball, whose award-winning 1998 book Slaves in the Family traces the histories of people enslaved by Ball's own ancestors. In Klansman, Ball tells the story of a racist great-grandfather who joined the Ku Klux Klan.
The New York Times hailed it as "a haunting tapestry of interwoven stories that inform us not just about our past but about the resentment-bred demons that are all too present in our society today," and the anti-racism scholar Ibram X. Kendi participated in a virtual discussion about it with Ball. Tulane University was slated to host another such event, featuring Ball and Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, an assistant professor of geography and African American studies.
That event was supposed to take place tonight, but the university opted to postpone it following blinkered outrage from students who insisted that the event was "not only inappropriate but violent towards the experience of Black people in the Tulane community and our country." Other members of the Tulane community called it "harmful and offensive," and demanded its cancellation. Still others said the university should apologize and take action against whoever approved the event. (I verified that the people who made these kinds of comments were Tulane students, graduates, and employees. I chose not to name most of them in order to prevent individual harassment, though I did identify two student government officials who affixed their names to an appalling demand for censorship.).......To Read More...
President Donald Trump made six promises to American workers Thursday if he is reelected in November. During a speech to workers at a Whirlpool manufacturing facility in
Ohio, President Trump boasted that he had kept all of his 2016 campaign
promises to the American worker, including his promise to replace the
NAFTA trade deal and end former President Barack Obama’s proposed
Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Not content to rest on his success, however, Trump outlined his agenda for American workers if elected to a second term.
Defeat the China Virus.....
Rebuild American manufacturing....
Build America into a Center of Medical Manufacturing....
Move Millions of Manufacturing Jobs Back to America....
Put Workers First....
The Obama and Biden administration were a joke, and they were happy to let China win, your jobs disappear, and your factory to close............To Read More...
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