$14 Billion For Ukraine - While Americans Can't Afford Gas, Food, Or Medicine?

Paying higher gas prices is simply the cost of freedom – this according to elite liberals ranging from former Clinton administration Treasury Secretary Larry Summers to actor George Takei. Both of these millionaires feel strongly that we should all – including those who AREN’T millionaires – be happy to pay more at the pump if it means keeping our petro dollars out of Vladimir Putin’s grubby Russian hands. Jimmy and American comedian Kurt Metzger discuss the elite consensus about how poor people need to dig deep into their wallets for freedom.

The Russian invasion may be devastating Ukraine and bringing untold harm to the citizens of both Ukraine and Russia, but the crisis has nevertheless created an opportunity – an opportunity for some members of Congress to line their pockets. It appears that a number of Congressional representatives have used the “inside” information gained from their positions to trade in energy stocks just as the price of fossil fuels was about to skyrocket. Jimmy and American comedian Kurt Metzger discuss just how profitable it can be to serve – and serve oneself – in Congress.

Greed, Ignorance, And Obscenity Has Killed American Popular Music

theatlantic  |  Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market, according to the latest numbers from MRC Data, a music-analytics firm. Those who make a living from new music—especially that endangered species known as the working musician—should look at these figures with fear and trembling. But the news gets worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs.

The 200 most popular new tracks now regularly account for less than 5 percent of total streams. That rate was twice as high just three years ago. The mix of songs actually purchased by consumers is even more tilted toward older music. The current list of most-downloaded tracks on iTunes is filled with the names of bands from the previous century, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Police.

I encountered this phenomenon myself recently at a retail store, where the youngster at the cash register was singing along with Sting on “Message in a Bottle” (a hit from 1979) as it blasted on the radio. A few days earlier, I had a similar experience at a local diner, where the entire staff was under 30 but every song was more than 40 years old. I asked my server: “Why are you playing this old music?” She looked at me in surprise before answering: “Oh, I like these songs.”

Never before in history have new tracks attained hit status while generating so little cultural impact. In fact, the audience seems to be embracing the hits of decades past instead. Success was always short-lived in the music business, but now even new songs that become bona fide hits can pass unnoticed by much of the population.

Only songs released in the past 18 months get classified as “new” in the MRC database, so people could conceivably be listening to a lot of two-year-old songs, rather than 60-year-old ones. But I doubt these old playlists consist of songs from the year before last. Even if they did, that fact would still represent a repudiation of the pop-culture industry, which is almost entirely focused on what’s happening right now.

Every week I hear from hundreds of publicists, record labels, band managers, and other professionals who want to hype the newest new thing. Their livelihoods depend on it. The entire business model of the music industry is built on promoting new songs. As a music writer, I’m expected to do the same, as are radio stations, retailers, DJs, nightclub owners, editors, playlist curators, and everyone else with skin in the game. Yet all the evidence indicates that few listeners are paying attention.

Consider the recent reaction when the Grammy Awards were postponed. Perhaps I should say the lack of reaction, because the cultural response was little more than a yawn. I follow thousands of music professionals on social media, and I didn’t encounter a single expression of annoyance or regret that the biggest annual event in new music had been put on hold. That’s ominous.

Can you imagine how angry fans would be if the Super Bowl or NBA Finals were delayed? People would riot in the streets. But the Grammy Awards go missing in action, and hardly anyone notices.

Today's Must Read: Physicians Amicus Briefing To The U.S. Supreme Court

supremecourt.gov | 31 pages, 25 pages are very plain language, concise, and cover succinctly what many hear have read, heard, and seen over the past 2 plus years.

“It is the consensus of the medical community that the currently available Covid-19 vaccine injections do not prevent the spread of SARS- CoV-2. Relevant federal agencies have repeatedly acknowledged this consensus. Therefore, there is no scientific or legal justification for OSHA to segregate injected and un-injected people. Indeed, since the Covid-19 injections do not confer immunity upon the recipients, but are claimed to merely reduce the symptoms of the disease, they do not fall within the long-established definition of a vaccine at all. ”

And Yes, Of Course They Aren’t A Monolith.

twitter  |  Just had an illuminating convo with my hubby where he (an essential blue collar worker who never stopped going to his job) floated the idea that all these moving goalposts in the face of what’s now an endemic virus is about professional classes not wanting to return to the office

That implicates a lot of you so maybe take a beat before replying that it’s about saving lives. I’m married to a Black Cuban immigrant who works with 100% people of color. Neither of his Black female colleagues is vaxxed, one of them didn’t even know there was a third shot… 

 

And there’s a ton of mistrust among the Black folks he works around in the vaccines. Like, him telling her people are getting a 3rd shot just makes her feel vindicated - how are these things so good that you have to keep injecting yourself??! I share all this to say that Twitter 

 

By and large acts like these people don’t exist. Whether it’s the “karen and chad” anti-vaxxer memes that totally ignore the vast vaccine hesitancy among Black folks specifically but also a fair share of Latinos, or the elitist calls for new lockdowns that don’t take into account the ppl who can’t work from home, who would be again sacrificed so the professional classes can keep getting their groceries, takeout, supplies, weed, etc - a lot of people on here are incredibly out of touch. And don’t think service workers don’t recognize it. 

 

The pandemic has exacerbated our class divide where white-collar workers are completely divorced from the experiences of blue-collar workers who can’t do their jobs from home but must continue for society to keep functioning. Yes, there are larger structural forces at play - our lack of a safety

net, lack of universal paid leave and healthcare, etc. But that has never been the country we live in and it’s preposterous for people to argue that our whole society should shut down with zero services. They don’t want that. They’re not even considering the vast implications. 

 

It’s fucking Twitter socialism at its most absurd. 

Anyway this thread went a little wonky cuz I’m talking about two different things: vax hesitancy and lockdowns. But they both relate to the racialized class divide and how it’s so rarely acknowledged on here & in pub health msg 

 

So maybe we need a little less listening to Fauci and Walensky and a little more getting the hell out of our homes and start asking our maintenance people, baristas, bus drivers, grocery store workers what they think and how they feel. 

Newspapers Will Have You Hating The Oppressed And Loving The Oppressors

greenwald |  It continues to be staggering how media outlets which purport to explain the Rittenhouse case get caught over and over spreading utter falsehoods about the most basic facts of the case, proving they did not watch the trial or learn much about what happened beyond what they heard in passing from like-minded liberals on Twitter. There is simply no way to have paid close attention to this case, let alone have watched the trial, and believe that he carried a gun across state lines, yet this false assertion made it past numerous Post reporters, editors and fact-checkers purporting to "correct the record” about this case. Yet again, we find that the same news outlets which love to accuse others of “disinformation” — and want the internet censored in the name of stopping it — frequently pontificate on topics about which they know nothing, without the slightest concern for whether or not it is true.

"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." Malcolm X. pic.twitter.com/mPboLhg3QQ

— COMMON (@common) November 16, 2020

Those who continue to condemn Rittenhouse as a white supremacist — including the author of The Post op-ed published four days after the paper concluded the accusation was baseless — typically point to his appearance at a bar in January, 2021, for a photo alongside members of the Proud Boys in which he was photographed making the “okay” sign. That once-common gesture, according to USA Today, “has become a symbol used by white supremacists.” Rittenhouse insists that the appearance was arranged by his right-wing attorneys Lin Wood and John Pierce — whom he quickly fired and accused of exploiting him for fund-raising purposes — and that he had no idea that the people with whom he was posing for a photo were Proud Boys members ("I thought they were just a bunch of, like, construction dudes based on how they looked”), nor had he ever heard that the “OK” sign was a symbol of "white power.”

Rittenhouse's denial about this once-benign gesture seems shocking to people who spend all their days drowning in highly politicized Twitter discourse — where such a claim is treated as common knowledge — but is completely believable for the vast majority of Americans who do not. In fact, the whole point of the adolescent 4chan hoax was to convert one of the most common and benign gestures into a symbol of white power so that anyone making it would be suspect. As The New York Times recounted, the gesture has long been “used for several purposes in sign languages, and in yoga as a symbol to demonstrate inner perfection. It figures in an innocuous made-you-look game. Most of all, it has been commonly used for generations to signal 'O.K.,’ or all is well.”

But whatever one chooses to believe about that episode is irrelevant to whether these immediate declarations of Rittenhouse's "white supremacy” were valid. That bar appearance took place in January, 2021 — five months after the Kenosha shootings. Yet Rittenhouse was instantly declared to be a "white supremacist” — and by “instantly,” I mean: within hours of the shooting. “A 17 year old white supremacist domestic terrorist drove across state lines, armed with an AR 15,” was how Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) described Rittenhouse the next day in a mega-viral tweet; her tweet consecrated not only this "white supremacist” accusation which persisted for months, but also affirmed the falsehood that he crossed state lines with an AR-15. It does not require an advanced degree in physics to understand that his posing for a photo in that bar with Proud Boys members, flashing the OK sign, five months later in January, 2021, could not serve as a rational evidentiary basis for Rep. Pressley's accusation the day after the shootings that he was a "white supremacist,” nor could it serve as the justification for five consecutive months of national media outlets accusing him of the same. Unless his accusers had the power to see into the future, they branded him a white supremacist with no basis whatsoever — or, as The Post put it this week, “despite a lack of evidence.”

Throw An Aspirin In With Your Vitamins D, C, Zinc, And Ivermectin

jpost  | Over-the-counter aspirin could protect the lungs of COVID-19 patients and minimize the need for mechanical ventilation, according to new research at the George Washington University.

The team investigated more than 400 COVID patients from hospitals across the United States who take aspirin unrelated to their COVID disease, and found that the treatment reduced the risk of several parameters by almost half: reaching mechanical ventilation by 44%, ICU admissions by 43%, and overall in-hospital mortality by 47%.

 

“As we learned about the connection between blood clots and COVID-19, we knew that aspirin – used to prevent stroke and heart attack – could be important for COVID-19 patients,” said Dr. Jonathan Chow of the study team. “Our research found an association between low-dose aspirin and decreased severity of COVID-19 and death.”

 

Low-dose aspirin is a common treatment for anyone suffering from blood clotting issues or in danger of stroke, including most people who had a heart attack or a myocardial infarction. Although affecting the respiratory system, the coronavirus has been associated with small blood vessel clotting, causing tiny blockages in the pulmonary blood system, leading to ARDS - acute respiratory distress syndrome.

 

Israeli researchers reached similar results in a preliminary trial at the Barzilai Medical Center in March. In addition to its effect on blood clots, they found that aspirin carried immunological benefits and that the group taking it was 29% less likely to become infected with the virus in the first place.

“Aspirin is low cost, easily accessible and millions are already using it to treat their health conditions,” said Chow. “Finding this association is a huge win for those looking to reduce risk from some of the most devastating effects of COVID-19.”

A 10,000 Fold Increase In Imaging Capacity Captures More Murders Than UFO's

overcomingbias |  That is, in response to any question of theory, it seems that they say the only acceptable answer is “I don’t know”. One must not express more refined degrees of belief, neither numerically nor in terms a more refined partition of possibilities. Regarding various possible hypotheses, one must not discuss their prior plausibility, the likelihood which which each one predicts various empirical details, nor the appropriate posterior beliefs that best combine prior plausibility and empirical fit. Just say “I don’t know” and shut up.

(Yes, they allow an exception for expressing confidence that hoaxes, lies, delusions, and honest mistakes don’t work as explanations. And for giving detailed reasons for this confidence. But only those exceptions.)

This anti-theory taboo among the “serious” who study UFOs seems to me quite wide-spread and it has been going for a long time. You can find a vast amount of UFO work on many particular cases, some work on patterns across those cases, and even some work considering concrete physical mechanisms to explain some common patterns. But you will find almost nothing among the “serious” people on less proximate more social explanations. They are okay with saying that UFOs often seem intelligent, aware, and responsive, but not with discussing the goals, agendas, origins, or histories of those intelligences.

Alas, I have seen this before, in other areas of social science. In fields similarly dominated by empiricists who keep throwing more data papers on the pile, but offering few rewards to those who might try to make sense of all that data. Often because they wouldn’t like the best explanations. It seems that UFOs is now such a field.

Apparently reports have been submitted on over 100,000 UFO encounters worldwide in the last 75 years. Of which 5-10%, or 5K-10K, seem quite hard to explain. Yes, the taboo may have discouraged reports on ten times that number, and yes some governments have actively taken or prevented some data. But the rate at which encounters allow concrete physical samples to be collected seems to have gone way down over the decades, and it isn’t obvious to me that we will really learn that much more from sharper and longer pictures, videos, and radar images.

So an anti-theory taboo risks us spending another 75 years in data collection, after which we may still not know that much more than we do now. The point of data is to inform theory, and it still seems to me that we now have plenty enough data, not only to judge if there is something real, but also to do some theorizing. Yes much theorizing so far has been motivated and/or sloppy, but honestly most of that has been done by folks not very experience or skilled at social science theory. Which is why it seems a shame that social theorists Wendt and Duvall explicitly endorse the anti-theory taboo.

Well I plan to continue to ignore both taboos, both the anti-UFO one and the anti-UFO-theory one. And I invite other experienced and knowledgeable social theorists to join me. It may be less fun at times to work on tabooed topics, but when the taboo is unfair you can have much higher of making valuable contributions on them. And the huge potential importance of this topic seems obvious.

The Answer Is Out There...,

Strongest argument against aliens pic.twitter.com/eF2FFZpJQE

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2021

richardhanania |  Imagine an alien civilization that can make it to this planet from somewhere in the universe beyond what we can observe. Once they get here, they are so advanced that all of our scientific knowledge leaves us dumbfounded about how they can achieve such speed and mobility.

At the same time, these aliens keep getting caught on camera, and sometimes on radar (while humans have already invented aircraft that largely avoids it). But the pictures are never any good! They’re just dots in the distance that seem to move around erratically, and despite all of our improvements in technology and camera resolution, our pictures and videos of them never improve.

I can imagine three possibilities:

1) Aliens visit this planet and want to get caught.

2) Aliens visit this planet and don’t care if they get caught because they’re too advanced and physics-defying to care what we think.

3) Aliens visit this planet and don’t want to get caught.

We can rule out 1, as if they wanted to get caught they’d clearly provide much stronger evidence.

I think we can also rule out 2, because a common theme of these sightings is that when military cameras start to lock in on the aliens, they fly away and disappear. If they didn’t care if we saw them, it’s likely they would leave some more evidence behind, and not freak out when they’re observed.

As for 3, it’s hard to imagine that a species this advanced would be so incompetent. Intergalactic travel seems a lot harder than avoiding radar and US military pilots. Maybe aliens are flying around all the time, it’s just their lowest IQ pilots that keep getting caught. But you’d think a species that advanced would have a more meritocratic selection process for space missions.

 

Internet Porn A MUCH BIGGER Cause Of Sex Addiction Than Evangelical Christianity Or Racism

nbcnews  |   While authorities said Atlanta-area spa shooting suspect Robert Aaron Long, 21, told investigators he was motivated by "sexual addiction" and claimed he had no racial motivation, health specialists say the explanation falls short.

Capt. Jay Baker, a spokesman for the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office, said Long — who is accused of killing eight people, six of them Asian women — indicated that the spas were "a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate." However, experts say such rationale has been used before in attempts to exonerate white men. The explanation also discounts racial dynamics and can “cause harm” in the way the public understands these issues.

White men have traditionally been given a pass when they say it — and have the privilege of overlooking how race is a factor, experts say.

“Historically, the term ‘sex addiction’ has been used by white males to absolve themselves from personal and legal responsibility for their behaviors,” Apryl Alexander, associate professor in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the University of Denver, told NBC Asian America. “It is often used as an excuse to pathologize misogyny.”

The defense of sex addiction itself, Alexander said, is a highly controversial one as those in the fields of psychology, psychiatry and sex research continue to debate whether to formally recognize it. Currently, the idea that sex addiction is a disorder is not supported by research, nor is it accepted as a clinical diagnosis, she said.

“A lot of individuals who are doing this kind of self-reports of sexual addiction are having normative sexual behaviors and urges, but they might be excessive. Or for a lot of people, it's rooted in shame that ‘I'm having these attractions and emotional desires that are normal, but I don't recognize them as normal,’” Alexander said.

Though the American Psychiatric Association added the concept of sexual addiction to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1987, it later retracted the term and has since rejected the addition of the idea to its later editions including the DSM–5, which is widely seen as the definitive resource on mental disorders, on the basis of a lack of supporting evidence.

Alexander said this sexual behavior doesn’t affect the brain in the same ways other addictions, including substance use and gambling behavior, do, either, calling the characterization of Long’s behavior “concerning.”

The self-identification of sex addiction, she said, is often seen in individuals who are raised in conservative and religious environments, “where there's a high level of moral disapproval of their natural kind of sexual urges and desires.” Many of these populations are overwhelmingly white.

 

 

 

I Spent A Lot Of Time On The SPP.Org Website This Past Week

omaha |  Nebraska’s publicly owned utilities generated more power than their customers used during this week’s brutal cold snap in the country’s midsection.

But energy experts say the targeted rolling blackouts criticized by Gov. Pete Ricketts prevented Nebraska and other states from catastrophic failure of a shared electricity grid.

Those cuts, dictated by the Arkansas-based Southwest Power Pool, likely prevented Nebraskans from living the nightmare facing Texas, where millions went without power for days.

The World-Herald spoke with energy experts, utility leaders and others about what happened, why it happened and what might prevent a repeat occurrence.

Why did Nebraska have rolling blackouts?

A polar vortex brought freezing temperatures to the southern U.S., with the cold snap staying for days as far south as the Mexican border.

Utilities in Oklahoma and slices of Texas that belong to the power pool struggled to operate some natural gas, coal and wind power plants not equipped to run in such cold temperatures.

Getting natural gas out of the ground was also slowed in both states, with frozen wells and pipelines making it harder to deliver the gas needed to generate electricity and heat homes.

Even in Nebraska, where colder temperatures are common, some power plants struggled in sub-zero conditions to operate at full capacity, including coal-fired units in Nebraska City.

The loss of that power production left the power pool, which manages electrical supply and demand across a 14-state power grid, with a power imbalance.

 

To Believe In Non-Violence Is To Exist At The Whim Of Those Who Believe In Violence

ianwelsh |  A sea change happened in the 60s and 70s: one where the legitimacy of violence was rejected by the left, and violence was gifted to the right. The end of the draft and the left wing hatred of all violence meant that the left gave the military to the right wing. Cops have always been right wing, of course, but the draft had meant that the rank and file military included many left wingers. It also meant that people on the left had violent skills, taught courtesy of the military.

That ended. Meanwhile the right, including the most far right, encouraged their people to join the military and the policy, to learn the skills and to make sure those institutions were run by right wingers from top to bottom.

So there are two likely reasons the Michigan legislature gave into violence. One: they think that right wing violence is legitimate. Two, they don’t trust the police or national guard to stop right wingers they sympathize with and support.

Meanwhile only two parts of the left believe they have a right to be violent: Antifa, and the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers have taken to armed escort of legislators they support.

Those who disarm; those who believe fanatically in non-violence, always exist at the whim of those who believe in violence and are good at it.

This is the position the left has put itself in in America and many other countries: disarmed, bad at violence, with no influence over the violent organs of the state and almost no tradition or skill in violence in the few organs it still has influence over (like some unions.)

Some of this weakness was caused by the right: as with their gutting of unions in the 80s. But much of it is because the left both believes that violence is always wrong and that it is ineffective.

Michigan is the fruit of those beliefs.

And, children, history is a record of violence often working. Sometimes non-violence works, yes, sometimes it even works very well. But effective violence, especially if it is perceived as legitimate, is also a winning strategy.

I've Never Started A Fight But Every Fight I've Ever Been In Resulted From Deficient Vice Signaling

independent |  The right's embrace of vice-signaling, and indeed of vice, is how we got Trump. It's also why his administration has been so unable to deal with a crisis requiring collective civic virtue.

Conservatives have long embraced a kind of tough-love, individualistic ethos which trumpets callousness as a good in itself. They have attacked "bleeding heart" liberals for decades for the moral sin of caring about people who are suffering, and for thinking that collectively we should try to address injustice and inequality, rather than submitting to economic Darwinism.

Little wonder, then, that the right weaponized the term “virtue-signaling" over the past few years. The phrase is now used to sneer at anyone who expresses public concern about sexism, racism, homophobia, poverty, or bigotry of any sort. If you ask someone not to use a racial slur, or not to misgender someone, you are supposedly engaged in “virtue-signaling”— which is to say, that you are only objecting to cruelty because you want other people to like you or admire you. The term “virtue-signaling" assumes that anyone who speaks about the value of virtue is hypocritical and self-aggrandizing. 

But virtue is about how you treat other people. To create virtuous communities, you need to talk about what it means to be good. Labeling virtue talk as bad means you're rejecting the pursuit of virtue as a goal. 

The right has in fact in many ways rejected the pursuit of virtue. Instead, they have chosen to create communities tied together with virtue's opposite. Conservative thinkers and pundits today frequently insist that reality does not have any place for communal and collective good, and instead call on people to admit, or even revel in, openly callous and bloodthirsty expressions of hatred or immorality. 

The most extreme example of this comes, as usual, from radio show conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.  Jones recently said that if there were coronavirus food shortages, he would eat his neighbors in order to feed his children. 

But the vice-signaler-in-chief is, of course, Donald Trump. When the 45th president initially refused to condemn neo-Nazis rioting in Charlottesville, VA, in 2017, treating the request to condemn evil as some sort of trick, he earned that title.

An NBC reporter named Peter Alexander in a press briefing in March practically begged Trump to virtue-signal, asking him if he could offer people reassurance during the crisis: "What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now, who are scared?” he asked. Trump refused the opportunity to utter some words of comfort, instead launching into a tirade in which he said the journalist was a "terrible reporter" and that it was a "very nasty question." Rather than talk about virtue, and encourage people to be virtuous, Trump invariably urges people to be callous, angry and afraid. 

A public health crisis requires public, collective action for good. To survive Covid-19, we need people to join together and make sacrifices for a collective good. We need a government willing to acknowledge those sacrifices and enact policies to make them less onerous. We need, in short, a vision of, and a commitment to, communal good.

What Would Jesus Do?

vice |  Earlier this week, someone showed up at a protest in Nashville, Tennessee with a sign reading "Sacrifice the weak." Real Housewives of Orange County star Kelly Dodd offered a similar message when she called the novel coronavirus "God's way of thinning the herd." Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick has said, "There are more important things than living." President Donald Trump goes on television every night to say effectively the same thing. What was different about the person who made the sign was that they were an ordinary person, not a politician or celebrity or pundit. That was the point.

The protest was fake in the way all the recent protests against social-distancing policies and the closure of the U.S. economy have been: Organized and supported by right-wing activists and politicians, and presenting the iconography of a populist uprising while expressing a position unpopular even within the Republican Party, these sham protests' purpose is to draw attention to their own existence. They're a function of an attention economy in which the willingness to say the most outrageous thing you can think of is a kind of power that can be effortlessly weaponized.

The protest was also real, though: An ordinary person actually did make the sign and carry it out into the world, achieving their ends, and those of others. The purpose of calling for the weak to be sacrificed is to let people know that you've done so; the purpose of ginning up a protest at which someone will do so is to amass power. The only question is the use to which that power will be put. We already know the answer: It will be used by those who want people to go back to work and make their employers richer even if it kills tens of thousands or more, because they would rather have that happen than adopt the social welfare policies of a civilized nation.

In Philadelphia, where I live and which has been, in comparison to other places in the Northeast, mercifully lightly hit by the pandemic, dead bodies were recently seen being delivered to the medical examiner's office in a pickup truck. Across the United States, around 2,000 people are dying of COVID-19 every day, and that's with much of the country having been locked down for multiple incubation cycles; the numbers don't even make headlines anymore. Due to the exhaustively reported-on failures of the federal government to do anything useful as public health authorities warned of what was coming or to use the time during which Americans have been in quarantine to do so, there's no obvious way out of the current situation. With social and economic life frozen—tens of millions can't work because the government has banned it while offering them next to nothing in support—thousands die every day. If the unsustainable status quo is changed, it seems likely even more will.

AG Bill Barr Don't Remember Voting For No Bill Gates

dailywire |  LAURA: Bill Gates, the Gates Foundation are in favor of developing digital certificates that would certify that individuals, American citizens, have an immunity to this virus and potentially other viruses going forward to then facilitate travel and work and so forth. What are your thoughts from a civil libertarian point of view about these types of – what some would say tracking mechanisms that would be adopted going forward to reopen our broader economy?

BARR: Yeah, I’m very concerned about the slippery slope in terms of continuing encroachments on personal liberty. I do think during the emergency, appropriate, reasonable steps are fine.

LAURA: But a digital certificate to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has – of people who’ve received it. That’s his answer in a Reddit ask me anything. They had a little forum.

BARR: Yeah, I’d be a little concerned about that, the tracking of people and so forth, generally, especially going forward over a long period of time.

LAURA: Are you surprised at how wildly partisan a response to this pandemic has become in the United States? I know everything’s political, but this is about saving lives and saving the broader life of America, and yet from a drug like hydroxychloroquine that’s been around for 65 years, 70 years, to other measures the president’s taken, working with Democrat governors quite well, looks like, it never seems to be good enough.

BARR: No, I have been surprised at it. In fact, it was very disappointing because I think the president went out at the beginning of this thing and really was statesman like, trying to bring people together, working with all the governors, keeping his patience as he got these snarky, gotcha questions from the White House media pool. And it – the stridency of the partisan attacks on him has gotten higher and higher, and it’s really disappointing to see. And the politicization of decisions like hydroxychloroquine has been amazing to me. Before the president said anything about it, there was fair and balanced coverage of this very promising drug, and the fact that it had such a long track record, that the risks were pretty well known, and as soon as he said something positive about it, the media’s been on a jahad to discredit the drug, it’s quite strange.

LAURA: There’s a lot of concern now, given the — again, the length of this time, the concern when you hear Dr. Fauci say, well we probably can’t go back to normal life until a vaccine, would be like 12 months, 18 months, that if things don’t open up pretty soon, over some gradual reopening with new protocols and all that, there’s a concern about social unrest. You’re seeing a lot of stores boarded up in San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, and you’re seeing more of that, small businesses affected, especially by theft and — and other criminal activity. How concerned are you about the social unrest and criminal activity in an ongoing shutdown?

BARR: I mean, I think if we extend a full shutdown, that’s a real — that’s a real threat in some of our communities. But, I don’t think it’s limited to that. I think the president’s absolutely right, we cannot keep, for a long period of time, our economy shut down. Just on the public health thing, you know, it means less cancer — cancer researchers are at home. A lot of the disease researchers, who will save lives in the future, that’s being held in abeyance. The money that goes into these institutions, whether philanthropic sources or government sources, is going to be reduced. We will have a weaker healthcare system if we go into a deep depression. So, just measured in lives, the cure cannot be worse than the disease. But when you think of everything else, generations of families who have built up businesses, for generations in this country — and recent immigrants who have — who have built businesses, snuffed out. Small business that may not be able to come back if this goes on too long. So, we have to find, after the 30 day period, we have to find a way of allowing businesses to adapt to this situation and figure out how they can best get started. That’s not necessarily instantaneously going back to the way life was —

LAURA: Well, people are going to be afraid to go out for a long period of time.

BARR: A period of time.

LAURA: And they’re going to be afraid to restaurants, not — maybe won’t go to the re-up at their health club —

BARR: Right. Right.

LAURA: — but people have to have confidence that it’s decently safe out there to move around.

BARR: Right. And that’s why they have to be given accurate information. But also we have to make PPE more broadly available. Restaurants have to change their protocols, perhaps, or other businesses —

LAURA: A lot of them can’t stay in business if they can’t pack it in. You know D.C., and they’ve got to pack — that’s the only way they make money paying these jacked up rents.

BARR: That’s — right, that’s a danger. That’s a danger. So, I think we have to allow people to figure out ways of getting back to work and keep their workers and customers safe. I’m not suggesting we stop social distancing overnight. There may come a time where we have to worry less about that. So, you know, I don’t know when that will be.

LAURA: One question I didn’t ask before — federalism, states rights, the president has been very clear on that during this health crisis. Are you surprised that certain states, New Jersey, in particular, had come in to say that gun stores are nonessential, gun shops are nonessential, but abortion facilities are essential, given — given what we’re facing?

BARR: Well, I’m not surprised. I mean, that’s where our politics are these days. But, obviously, the federal government agreed that gun stores are essential.

LAURA: And abortion facilities in Texas deemed nonessential by the governor, lieutenant governor very strong on that, that saw a lot of legal challenges. Do you foresee —

BARR: I think it was just upheld.

Only the Hard and Strong May Call Themselves Spartans, Only the Hard, Only the Strong...,

Summit |  Drag queen Kitty Demure posted a viral video in which he expressed his amazement at why ‘woke’ parents are allowing their kids to be around drag queens, asking, “Would you want a stripper or a porn star to influence your child?” 

Demure questioned why drag queens had attracted so much “respect” from the left given that they’ve done little more than “put on make-up, jump on the floor and writhe around and do sexual things on stage.”

“I have absolutely no idea why you would want that to influence your child, would you want a stripper or a porn star to influence your child?” he asked.

Demure went on to point out that drag queens perform in clubs for adults and that backstage “there’s a lot of sex, nudity and drugs, so I don’t think this is an avenue you would want your child to explore.”

“To get them involved in drag is extremely irresponsible on your part,” Demure told parents, adding that many went along with it to appear “cool” or “woke” to their leftist friends.

“You can raise your child to be just a normal regular everyday child without including them in gay, sexual things,” said Demure.

Who "Debunked" Biden's $Multi-Million Influence Peddling in Ukraine?

sicsempertyrannis |  the MSM and online projects like the American Independent incessantly insist that the simple fact that Hunter Biden and his dear old dad, a "Union Man," solicited money in Ukraine and in China for services not rendered proves nothing, that nothing has been proven  against them and that any mention of these occurrences is evidence of harsh partisan rhetoric based on fantasy and equivalent to belief in the Loch Ness Monster.

 

Well, pilgrims I want to know who and what investigation or investigations cleared the Bidens of anything.

It is obvious that Hunter is qualified for employment as a bag man and not much else.  He has a law degree?  So what?  As in the matter of the qualifications of doctors, not all learn much in medical or law school.

"US Officials" say the Bidens are pure in heart and deed?  Hah!  Is it not clear that The Borg (foreign policy establishment) hate Donald Trump and will say anything possible to injure him?

"Debunked," "Discredited," "Conspiracy theories?"

Trickery in the press is the real truth, trickery intended to protect the only viable candidate in the Democratic Party field.

Ban Baby-Making Unless Parents Are Licensed

ieet  |  For the sake of the children, let’s control human breeding. No one should be permitted to reproduce until they pass a battery of tests.

Does that proposal enrage you? Go ahead, hate me. Call me vile names like “Neo-Nazi-Elitist-Baby-Killing-Totalitarian-Sicko.” Or simply “Eugenicist.” I don’t care. I know I’m right. 

It’s blatantly clear that 15-year-old intoxicated half-wits can easily spawn, but should they? Hell no. Let’s control human breeding, please. Let’s keep babies away from buffoons, and let’s test fetuses meticulously to guarantee healthy infants. No one should be permitted to reproduce unless and until they pass a battery of tests. 

Philosophers, psychologists, and social workers have advanced this idea for 30+ years, notably Hugh LaFollette in his seminal essay, “Licensing Parents” (1980), and Peg Tittle, editor of Should Parents Be Licensed? (2004). Their suggested reform—based on humanitarian concerns for the rights of children—is always booed down hysterically with the shrill vocabulary that I listed above. 

But the reformers are right. Completely. Ethically. I agree with Joseph Fletcher, who notes, “It is depressing…to realize that most people are accidents,” and with George Schedler, who states, “Society has a duty to ensure that infants are born free of avoidable defects.”

Traditionalists regard pregnancy and parenting as a natural right that should never be curtailed. But what’s the result of this laissez-faire attitude? Catastrophic suffering. Millions of children born disadvantaged, crippled in childhood, destroyed in adolescence. Procreation cannot be classified as a self-indulgent privilege—it needs to be viewed as a life-and-death responsibility. 

Look at it this way: adoption centers don’t allow knuckleheads to walk out with a child; they maintain standards that we should apply to every wannabe parent.

Below I’ve compiled a list of deplorable situations caused by flawed individuals who should not be allowed to impregnate, gestate, reproduce, and parent because they’re mentally, physically, emotionally, or genetically unsuitable for the ambitious task.

Mueller Will Not Indict Trump For Obstruction, Collusion, Or Any Other Crime...,

theatlantic |  The latest revelations about President Trump have, once again, excited the interest of the public, leading to speculation that Special Counsel Robert Mueller may have amassed sufficient evidence to charge the president with obstruction of justice. Trump’s attempt to fire Mueller (which happened last June, but is only now being publicly reported) is, under this line of thinking, the final straw.

Color me deeply skeptical.

Mueller will not indict Trump for obstruction of justice or for any other crime.  Period. Full stop. End of story. Speculations to the contrary are just fantasy.

He won’t do it for the good and sufficient reason that the Department of Justice has a long-standing legal opinion that sitting presidents may not be indicted. First issued in 1973 during the Nixon era, the policy was reaffirmed in 2000, during the Clinton era. These rules bind all Department of Justice employees, and Mueller, in the end, is a Department of Justice employee. More to the point, if we know anything about Mueller, we think we know that he follows the rules—all of them. Even the ones that restrict him in ways he would prefer they not. And if he were to choose not to follow the rules, that, in turn, would be a reasonable justification for firing him. So … the special counsel will not indict the president.

Bruh..., Telling Truth In Public Will Be The End Of You ...,

DailyCaller |  A California city councilman and high school history teacher at El Rancho High School in Pico Rivera, Calif, was caught on video disparaging the United States military and calling its members “dumbshits” who are not “high-level thinkers.”

Gregory Salcido is a current member of the Pico Rivera City Council.

Three profanity-laced videos surfaced on Facebook Friday of Salcido declaring to his students that members of the military are dumb people who joined because they were poor students and that they are the “lowest of our low” of the country.

“They’re the frickin’ lowest of our low,” Salcido can be heard saying.

Three video of Salcido’s comments were posted to Facebook by a family friend of the student who took it and they quickly went viral. The student, who wished to remain anonymous, is the son and nephew of military veterans and told the local paper, “It was so disrespectful to my dad and my uncles and all veterans and those still in the military.”

Throughout the three videos, Salcido can be heard using vulgar language to describe the military as failed students with no other options but to serve. “We’ve got a bunch of dumbshits over there. Think about the people who you know who are over there — your freaking stupid uncle Louis or whatever, they’re dumbshits. They’re not, like, high-level thinkers, they’re not academic people, they’re not intellectual people, they’re the freaking lowest of our low. Not morally, I’m not saying they make bad moral decisions, they’re not talented people,”

Occupy and BLM Were Symptoms Of A Broken System Too

theglobeandmail |  The #MeToo moment is a symptom of a broken legal system. All too frequently, women and other sexual-abuse complainants couldn't get a fair hearing through institutions – including corporate structures – so they used a new tool: the internet. Stars fell from the skies. This has been very effective, and has been seen as a massive wake-up call. But what next? The legal system can be fixed, or our society could dispose of it. Institutions, corporations and workplaces can houseclean, or they can expect more stars to fall, and also a lot of asteroids.

If the legal system is bypassed because it is seen as ineffectual, what will take its place? Who will be the new power brokers? It won't be the Bad Feminists like me. We are acceptable neither to Right nor to Left. In times of extremes, extremists win. Their ideology becomes a religion, anyone who doesn't puppet their views is seen as an apostate, a heretic or a traitor, and moderates in the middle are annihilated. Fiction writers are particularly suspect because they write about human beings, and people are morally ambiguous. The aim of ideology is to eliminate ambiguity.

The UBC Accountable letter is also a symptom – a symptom of the failure of the University of British Columbia and its flawed process. This should have been a matter addressed by Canadian Civil Liberties or B.C. Civil Liberties. Maybe these organizations will now put up their hands. Since the letter has now become a censorship issue – with calls being made to erase the site and the many thoughtful words of its writers – perhaps PEN Canada, PEN International, CJFE and Index on Censorship may also have a view.

The letter said from the beginning that UBC failed accused and complainants both. I would add that it failed the taxpaying public, who fund UBC to the tune of $600-million a year. We would like to know how our money was spent in this instance. Donors to UBC – and it receives billions of dollars in private donations – also have a right to know.

In this whole affair, writers have been set against one another, especially since the letter was distorted by its attackers and vilified as a War on Women. But at this time, I call upon all – both the Good Feminists and the Bad Feminists like me – to drop their unproductive squabbling, join forces and direct the spotlight where it should have been all along – at UBC. Two of the ancillary complainants have now spoken out against UBC's process in this affair. For that, they should be thanked.

Once UBC has begun an independent inquiry into its own actions – such as the one conducted recently at Wilfrid Laurier University – and has pledged to make that inquiry public, the UBC Accountable site will have served its purpose. That purpose was never to squash women. Why have accountability and transparency been framed as antithetical to women's rights?

A war among women, as opposed to a war on women, is always pleasing to those who do not wish women well. This is a very important moment. I hope it will not be squandered.