Fauci Goes There: Finally Admits Kids Not Being Hospitalized From COVID

For the past 18 months we've reported how a large percentage of those 'hospitalized with Covid' were actually admitted for other ailments, only to test positive after admission during routine screening - meaning 'Covid hospitalizations' for the purposes of policymaking (and fear mongering) were vastly overstated in many (if not most) cases.

Public health officials have largely avoided this important distinction, while pushing the false narrative over hospitalizations - until now.

In a Thursday appearance on MSNBC, America's top Covid official, Dr. Anthony Fauci, admitted to a distinction between the number of children hospitalized with Covid as opposed to "because of Covid."

"And what we mean by that: If a child goes into the hospital, they automatically get tested for COVID and they get counted as a COVID-hospitalized individual, when, in fact, they may go in for a broken leg or appendicitis or something like that. So it’s over counting the number of children who are, quote, hospitalized with COVID as opposed to because of COVID," said Fauci.

Fauci: "If you look at the children that are hospitalized, many of them are hospitalized with Covid, as opposed to because of Covid." pic.twitter.com/57Rdx8gPg3

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) December 31, 2021

Fauci - whose comments come after a record surge of children in the US having been "hospitalized with Covid" - was slammed by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who tweeted: "Now Fauci says this?" adding "Is this because pandemic politics have changed for the Biden admin?" (h/t Fox News)

Now Fauci says this?

Is this because pandemic politics have changed for the Biden admin? https://t.co/1IJKSHQ2gS

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) December 31, 2021

And of course, despite Fauci's admission, he still recommends that parents vaccinate children, telling NewsNations's "Morning in America" that while it's true that "the numbers are very low," parents have to consider that "when it's your child, it's a very high number."

So - an appeal to emotion by 'the science' in order to get kids jabbed.

Reprinted with permission from ZeroHedge.

from Fauci Goes There: Finally Admits Kids Not Being Hospitalized From COVID

The Covid narrative is insane and illogical…and maybe that’s no accident

“Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.” George Orwell, 1984

The “Covid pandemic” narrative is insane. That is long-established at this point, we don’t really need to go into how or why here. Read our back catalogue.

The rules are meaningless and arbitrary, the messaging contradictory, the very premise nonsensical.

Every day some new insanity is launched out into the world, and while many of us roll our eyes, raise our voices, or just laugh…many more accept it, believe it, allow it to continue.

Take the situation in Canada right now, where the government has enforced a vaccine mandate on healthcare workers, meaning in British Columbia alone over 3000 hospital staff were on unpaid leave by November 1st.

How have local governments responded to staff shortages?

They are asking vaccinated employees who have tested positive for Covid to work.

Whether or not you believe the test means anything, they notionally do. In the reality they try to sell us every day, testing positive means you are carrying a dangerous disease.

So they are requesting people allegedly carrying a “deadly virus” work, rather than letting perfectly healthy unvaccinated people simply have their jobs back.

This is insanity.

But could anything more perfectly illustrate the priorities of those running the game?

We already know it’s not about a virus, it’s not about protecting the health service and it’s not about saving lives. Every day the people running the “pandemic” admit as much by their actions, and even their words.

Rather, it seems to be about enforcing rules that make little to no sense, requiring conformity at the price of reason, drawing arbitrary lines in the sand and demanding people respect them, making people believe “facts” that are provably untrue.

But why? Why is the story of Covid irrational and contradictory? Why are we told on the one hand to be afraid, and on the other that there is nothing to be afraid of?

Why is the “pandemic” so completely insane?

You could argue that it’s simple happenstance. The by-product of a multi-focused evolving narrative, a story being told by a thousand authors all at once, each concerned with covering their own little patch of agenda. A car with multiple drivers fighting over a single steering wheel.

There’s probably some truth to that.

But it’s also true that control, true control, can only be achieved with a lie.

In clinical psychology one of the diagnostic signs of the psychopath is that they tell elaborate lies, compulsively. Many times they will tell a lie even if the truth would be more beneficial.

Nobody knows why they do this, but I have a theory, and it applies to the swarming groups of little rat minds running the sewers of power as much as it does any individual monstrosity.

If you want to control people, you need to lie to them, that’s the only way to guarantee you have power.

Fair use excerpt. Read the whole article here.

from The Covid narrative is insane and illogical…and maybe that’s no accident

Killjoy Fauci: 'No Hugging Or Kissing On New Year's!'

Fauci is again in front of the camera, hectoring people to stay home on New Year's - and whatever they do, DON'T hug each other to greet the New Year. What's wrong with this guy? Also today - is Biden purposely withholding a proven Covid treatment? Florida's Surgeon General says so. And...is a massive purge of Marines who have religious objections to the vaccine a way to "honor the troops"? Every single request has been denied. Fraud? Watch today's Liberty Report:



from Killjoy Fauci: 'No Hugging Or Kissing On New Year's!'

The Zoom Class Gets Covid

For nearly two years, we’ve wondered how this will end. In retrospect, the clue is in how it began. 

The initial lockdowns had a strong class-based component. The working classes were assigned the job of delivering groceries, tending to the sick, driving the trucks filled with goods, keeping the lights on, and keeping the fuel running. The professional class, among whom were the people who pushed lockdowns in the name of disease avoidance/suppression, were assigned the job of staying home in their pajamas and staying safe. 

It all happened seemingly in an instant. We all had to figure out whether our job qualified and what we should do. More striking at the time was the very notion that government bureaucrats could slice and dice the population this way, deciding what can open and what cannot, who must work and who must not, what we can and cannot do based on our station in life. 

So it now seems obvious to me. This whole disaster would finally come to an end (or at least the end would begin) when it became obvious that the great strategy of class division and demarcation would fail to protect the Zoom class from infection. 

That day has finally arrived, with cases soaring in many parts of the country and hitting everyone of every class, whether they are being “careful” and adhering to the “mitigation measures” or not. What’s even more striking is how even the vaccines, which were supposed to codify the wisdom of class segregation, have not protected against infection. 

All of this seems to have taken place over the course of December 2021, with the arrival of the seemingly mild Omicron variant. Still the other variants circulate widely, causing various degrees of severity with or without hospitalization much less death. In other words, millions from among all classes of people are finally getting sick. At this point, we seem to be seeing a big shift in attitudes. 

A lot of this comes from casual conversation. A person comes down with Covid, perhaps confirmed by the newly fashionable at-home tests. “Did you get vaccinated?” the person is invariably asked. The answer comes back: yes and boosted. That’s when the chill happens. It appears that nothing can ultimately protect people from this. In which case, it is time we change our tune. 

“Thousands who ‘followed the rules’ are about to get covid. They shouldn’t be ashamed,” headlines the Washington Post. 

Feeling ashamed about getting covid-19 isn’t healthy or helpful, experts agree…. Remember: You’re not a failure. “Millions of other people have gotten sick,” (Seema) Varma says. “Unfortunately, you’re not alone. You’re not the only one. You’re not the first one to get covid, and you won’t be the last.” And that positive test, she reiterates, “doesn’t make you an irresponsible person.”

So on the piece goes, with a complete flip of the narrative they have long preached: anyone who gets Covid has failed to comply, disregards of Fauci’s advice, probably lives in a Red state, rejects the science, and otherwise bears the mark of selfishness and the desire to put freedom ahead of public health. 

Getting Covid has heretofore been part of a human stain, consistent with the very long history of demonization of the diseased and the attempt to attribute sickness to moral sin. This impulse dates back to the ancient world, revived with a ferocity in 2020. 

To be sure, the concept of class has always been less prescient in American history, due to our long history of having eschewed titles and social barriers and in favor of mobility and universal rights. Slavery was unsustainable in this history for this very reason. The American ethos has aspired perhaps not to a classless society but to one in which the concept is so opaque as not to have much cultural or political explanatory power.

That all changed with lockdowns. We were introduced to strict, state-imposed categories that had been previously unthinkable. Sheets were issued by public-health bureaucrats with long lists of institutions that could stay open and must stay open, businesses that must shut because they are “unessential,” and workers who were suddenly entitled to get paid even though they did not show up to their jobs. It became overwhelmingly obvious who was who.

In addition, this strict categorization of people and life conditions affected even sickness. Most governors in the US overrode the learned experience and knowledge of hospital administration and forcibly reserved medical services only for Covid patients or emergency services. “Elective” surgeries and procedures would just have to wait.

This was true So too for essential and nonessential travel and activities too. As time went on, we gradually found out what was considered nonessential. It was church. It was singing. It was going to the beach, attending parties, holding parties, hanging out in a bar, traveling on vacation. Essentially, anything that would normally be considered fun came to be associated with disease, thus further cementing some kind of cultural relationship between sin and disease.

So powerful was this class demarcation that it overrode people’s normal political instincts. The left, long priding itself on its egalitarianism and universal class aspiration, took to the new class system very quickly and easily, as if the betrayal of all political ideals was just fine given the public health emergency. The demand that everyone go along with the experts was something that decades of American political experience had taught us to be gravely mistaken. But in a few fateful months lasting nearly two years, this demand drove out every other consideration.

The driving ambition here, though never explicitly stated, was to assign the burden of bearing the disease to the lessers among us. That is a conventional model used in illiberal societies throughout history. The elites who had both granted and benefited from lockdowns took it as axiomatic that they deserved disease purity and health more than those who worked to keep society running. And that scheme seemed to work for a very long time. They stayed home and stayed safe and kept clean while the virus circulated in season after season.

It’s hard to know what the end game here was. Did the Zoom class honestly believe that they could forever avoid exposure and infection and thus the development of natural immunity? Certainly they did for a time believe that the shots would spare them. Once that did not happen, there was a huge problem. There were no more tools remaining to perpetuate the disease castes that had been forged back in the day.

Now that the people who tried to protect themselves are no longer able to do so, we are seeing a sudden rethinking of disease stigmatization, class disdain, and the treatment of others as sandbags to shield people based on class. Now it is suddenly no longer a sin to be sick.

Fascinating! What went wrong here? Everything. The notion that public health should thusly divide people – based on one pathogen – contradicts every democratic principle. That idea still survives with the vaccines, regardless of the known limitations. The people who invested in these personally and socially will continue to use them to divide and conquer. 

It’s all very dangerous to the notion of freedom itself. The proper way to demarcate the protected should relate not to class, income, and job but rather vulnerability, which in the case of Covid is mostly related to age. That’s how the 20th century learned to manage seasonal infectious disease and pandemics too.

What they attempted in 2020-21 was without precedent in the modern world. It did not finally work, even to achieve the aim of keeping the professional classes disease free. This is perhaps the moment when it all finally comes to an end, not with repudiation but with resignation, acquiescence, and surrender. You can stigmatize anyone but you go too far when we do that to the ruling class elites themselves.

Reprinted with permission from Brownstone Institute.

from The Zoom Class Gets Covid

Fauci's Amazing Golden Parachute - Will He Jump?

Thanks to a FOIA request we now know that Biden's covid czar Anthony Fauci will, when he retires, enjoy the highest pension in US history! He will be pulling in more than $350K for his 50+ years of "public service." But according to Fauci he has no plans of leaving: in a recent interview he said that him retiring now, before covid is defeated, would be like the US leaving in the middle of World War II. How's that for megalomania? Also today: lockdowns were the worst policy failure in history and even a government-funded study proves it. Watch today's Liberty Report:



from Fauci's Amazing Golden Parachute - Will He Jump?

America's Wars Are Far More Costly than the Pentagon Admits

America’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan was greeted with disdain in some quarters. But so far, most pundits have explored this debacle from the vantage point of foreign affairs by either lamenting the decline of American influence or lauding the move as a justified containment of an aggressive foreign policy. Both views are worth pondering. However, Afghanistan and other foreign policy failures should spark a broader debate on the economics of war.

America’s engagement in war has proven to be quite costly. According to a major 2019 study, from 2001 to 2019, taxpayers incurred a cost of $6.4 trillion for US wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Pakistan. A key finding of the report is that the total budgetary burden of the post-9/11 wars will continue to balloon as the American government remains committed to interest payments and funding the rising expenses of veteran care.

Further, estimates compiled by the Pentagon suggest that the military escapades of the US have cost each taxpayer $7,623. Invariably, international bankers and defense contractors benefit from wars, though in the long run, war reverberates throughout the economy. Yet despite the costs of warfare, the idea that wars drive innovation is still widely promulgated. This argument has some merit because history demonstrates that the demands of wartime have spurred innovations like penicillin, electronic computers, and the radar.

Innovations birthed by the pangs of warfare can serve a useful commercial function; however, on the flip side, warfare diverts the attention of the sharpest minds from solving scientific and commercial problems to crafting solutions aimed at destroying life. According to Nathan Rosenberg, during the Industrial Revolution, the quest to solve commercial problems led to the emergence of novel products, so in the absence of war, the potential of scientists is deployed to more productive use.

While warfare has resulted in notable inventions, we will never know the industrial innovations that were never conceptualized because engineers and scientists were busy aiding the military-industrial complex. On the basis that involvement in World War II stimulated scientific research, economists Daniel Gross and Bhaven Sampat conclude in a recent report that war-related efforts led to the emergence of technology clusters. Some might mistake this deduction as evidence for the innovation-inducing effects of warfare.

Doing so, however, is premature, since there is no guarantee that applications designed to conduct warfare will be germane to industry. The building of military technology is not motivated by a desire to enhance the utility of consumers or create scientific breakthroughs. Such developments are therefore coincidental. Indeed, commercially viable inventions wrought by warfare must be celebrated, but there is a possibility that these innovations are mediocre substitutes for the actual products that would have been created had inventors been laboring to create commercial or scientific value.

Moreover, the innovation effect of the world wars could be contingent on time. Twentieth-century wars produced superior inventions due to institutional quality and access to a sophisticated body of scientific research. Similarly, because sectoral linkages were more robust, recognizing connections across industries became a sensible business strategy. Readers may contend that this thesis is vitiated by Geoffrey Packer’s audacious text The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, but the two theses complement each other.

Packer’s landmark study is just one text in a stream of studies aiming to provide an answer for the rise of Western civilization. To arrive at his conclusion, Packer had to interrogate multiple facets of European history and culture. Other regions duly engaged in ferocious battles, but their conflicts did not lead to a profound transformation in the art of war and military technology. Europeans built a project dedicated to maximizing the efficiency of warfare by updating technology, whereas institutions of a similar caliber elsewhere were nonexistent. The innovations induced by warfare are determined by the expertise and agenda of those waging war. Always remember that gunpowder was invented in China, but its full potential was actualized in the West.

Likewise, economic analysis disputes the narrative that America’s participation in World War II laid the basis for postwar economic growth. Instead the evidence shows that America’s insertion in the war crippled productivity in the manufacturing sector. Alexander J. Field explains: “Between 1941 and 1948, total factor productivity within manufacturing declined…. Considering the effects on TFP, the labor force, and the physical capital stock, the impact of World War II on the level and trajectory of U.S. potential output following the war, was, on balance, almost certainly negative.”

Additionally, warfare entails the diminution of consumer welfare. Taxes extracted from hapless citizens to finance military expenses could have been invested, saved, or spent on commodities to increase the utility of consumers. An economy is judged based on its capacity to enhance the utility of consumers, and the war economy fails in this regard when taxes decrease utility by diminishing resources available to citizens. Meanwhile, applying the law of unseen costs to the government, it becomes obvious that expenditure on war limits the availability of resources for critical sectors like healthcare and education. By expending resources on fruitless wars, politicians indicate that their propoor rhetoric is empty talk.

However, in documenting the effects of war we should remind readers that trauma inflicted on the battleground negatively affects the well-being of combatants. After returning home, many ex-soldiers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Victims of post-traumatic stress disorder find it challenging to reintegrate into society and struggle to maintain social connections. Their inability to adjust to postwar life affects productivity and employability. Unfortunately, the damages sustained by some veterans preclude them from working.

The burden of post-traumatic stress disorder compounded by physical ailments entails a stressful environment for families. Hence, the effects of warfare ripple throughout society because the depressed state of veterans can adversely affect the well-being of family members. Caring for ailing veterans is costly, even when they receive philanthropic and governmental support. As such, doing so is likely to deplete scarce resources. Such circumstances regress the productivity of people associated with veterans and restrain the supply of labor when employees exit the labor market to nurse relatives. Lastly, in accounting for the effects of warfare, it must be noted that affected veterans put additional strain on the health sector, minimizing the quality of care that could be provided to other patients in their absence.

Politicians and intellectuals may project the rhetoric that wars are in our long-term interest, but the facts reveal that on average their results are deleterious to the utility and well-being of citizens.

Reprinted with permission from Mises.org.

from America's Wars Are Far More Costly than the Pentagon Admits

Biden Surrenders on Covid - Can We End Federal Mandates Now?

President Biden told US governors this week that there is no federal solution to the ongoing covid "crisis." "It's up to all of you," he essentially told them. While it's good news for people living in mostly free states like Florida and Texas, governors in New York and other authoritarian states and localities may use this as permission to crack down harder. But one thing is clear: with no more federal in the war on covid, there should be no more federal mandates in the war on covid. Done! Also today: Fauci suggests, then retreats from, a position that a vaccine pass should be required for domestic travel. Is Fauci's "sell-by" date expired? Watch today's Liberty Report:



from Biden Surrenders on Covid - Can We End Federal Mandates Now?

Alternate Reality Traps Democrats in World of Dumb

In early December Hillary Clinton appeared on the Today show to read aloud her never-used victory speech from 2016. The scene was bizarre, Clinton tearing up as she read in first-person, present tense about becoming the first woman president, something which in real life did not happen. She then layered on another alternate reality, one in which President Hillary travels back in time to tell her dead mother “your daughter will grow up and become the president of the United States.” She glowed; she was hearing applause that never happened.

The unreality of it all was leavened somewhat by the reveal Hillary is selling a video “masterclass” on resilience and the speech is somehow an example of that. While this may be just another example of a Clinton grift, like selling a Bill and Hillary Bass-o-Matic, the thing that stands out is never before has a Democrat loser been reanimated from the grave like Hillary. Al Gore and Michael Dukakis are two of those people you Google to see if they are still alive, and even an attention hound like John Kerry pretends his own presidential wipe out never even happened. A good political rule of thumb is to usher your losers off stage (or make them ambassadors.) Instead, Hillary was on the flagship Today show, not a late night infomercial where garbage like “masterclasses” in resilience usually is peddled.

But Hillary’s delusional take is not hers alone. After a second White Claw the faithful will insist Hillary did win the popular vote, which counts as actually winning in Clinton Math. They’ll quickly tell you Hillary only lost because Trump cheated or the Russians helped. The Dems and the media so believed that Trump did not actually win-win that they spent his entire term in office trying (unsuccessfully) to negate him, impeach him, prosecute him, or just magically wish him away with a fan-fiction interpretation of the 25th Amendment which presupposed Mike Pence was more evil then they were. The high point of the delusion was Russiagate, a saga entirely made-to-order by the Clinton team and fluffed by the media. It’s one thing to self-righteously say “Not my president” (some MSM pundits would add an asterisk to the word president* when referring to Trump) but it is delusional to say “and he can’t be yours, either.”

With Hillary granted a pass because she is using her defeat delusion to sell merch, one would have hoped the whole thing would have gone away with the election of Joe Biden. Democrats, you won! And you got the House! You can right all wrongs! Instead, the delusions just continue, an entire party seeming in the grip of political Alzheimer’s. One delusion is Trump will be pre-defeated ahead of 2024 by a mythical… something. This has been kicking around since Trump won in 2016, the idea that he’ll soon go to jail over taxes, property valuations in New York, or one of his lady victims successfully suing him. Sure, the IRS has had Trump’s taxes for decades, there is at worst a civil penalty in property valuation tomfoolery, and all those victims only seem to end up dragging Dems deeper into the mud of hypocrisy as we’re told to believe all women except those who accuse Uncle Joe of getting a little handsy. Dems, if this is your best, your best won’t do.

Nah, that stuff is just chum in the water while the Grand Illusion is tweaked. That one is a dramatic statement democracy is dying in America and only defeating Trump (again, once was not enough) will save it. It is a big ask to a weary voting block because a) it is untrue; b) the only evidence lies in a made-up retelling of the Capitol riot and c) the Democrats won in 2020 in an election, something which strongly suggests democracy did its job. The rebuttal that January 6 was just a rehearsal is fact-free, and after all, real Nazis only needed one crack at burning down the Reichstag.

One can find examples of the delusion almost by throwing darts at the Internet, but a concise one is MSNBC meat puppet Brian Williams’ farewell address. Williams of course earned America’s trust as a journalist by constantly lying throughout his career, usually in ways that suggested he was studlier than the Rock. Williams said “I will wake up tomorrow in the America of the year 2021, a nation unrecognizable to those who came before us and fought to protect it, which is what you must do now. They’ve decided to burn it all down with us inside… But the darkness on the edge of town has spread to the main roads and highways and neighborhoods… Grown men and women who swore an oath to our Constitution, elected by their constituents, possessing the kinds of college degrees I could only dream of, have decided to join the mob.”

First of course, an acknowledgement Williams plagiarized the phrase, “darkness on the edge of town,” from Bruce Springsteen, himself given over to the delusion because even as he pals around with Barack Obama all the characters from his songs now vote Republican.

If you haven’t guessed it, Williams is referring to the delusion that the Capitol riot was the seminal event of American democracy. Williams, like others, believes Hillary won in 2016, that the Trump years saw America held prisoner, and that Trump spun up a mob on January 6 to overturn the election and remain in the White House as dictator. That none of that happened, and in fact could never have happened, matters not if you believe in it hard enough.

Williams is far from alone. “Democracy will be on trial in 2024,” the Atlantic’s Barton Gellman writes. “American democracy is tottering,” warns Vox. “Can American democracy escape the doom loop?” says one Salon piece. “If America really surrenders to fascism, then what?” asks another. “If Merrick Garland Doesn’t Charge Trump and His Coup Plotters, Our Democracy Is Toast,” says the Daily Beast.

“Are we doomed?” writes the once sentient George Packer. Packer actually imagines “A blue militia sacks Trump National Golf Club Bedminster; a red militia storms Oberlin College. The new president takes power in a state of siege.” Google up as many examples as you want, they are as common as anti-anxiety meds should be on Brian Williams’ night stand. Even Hillary has weighed in, warning “[2024] is a make-or-break point. Are we going to give in to all these lies and this disinformation and this organized effort to undermine our rule of law and our institutions, or are we going to stand up to it?”

Charles Blow in the NYT seems to take the prize, in an article headlined “We’re Edging Closer to Civil War.” Blow claims “this war won’t be only about the subjugation of black people but also about the subjugation of all who challenge the white racist patriarchy. It will seek to push back against all the ‘others’: black people, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ people and, yes, women, particularly liberal ones.”

So looking ahead to the democracy dies in the darkness delusion which appears to be the centerpiece of the Democratic campaign of 2024, Americans must be tutored to believe the Capitol riot was part of a massive conspiracy involving Trump, hoping to end democracy in the United States by overturning the 2020 election results via some means no one is able to articulate. All that could have happened was Congress delayed its largely ceremonial blessing of the electoral college results for a day, assuming they just did not convene the afternoon of January 6 somewhere else besides the chaotic Capitol. There is no realistic scenario that could have changed anything that mattered, and no evidence of any national-scale conspiracy underlaying the riot. It was just a bunch of angry people who got out of control for a couple of hours then went home to wait on being arrested months later. None of the rioters has been charged with treason or terrorism, mostly just trespassing. None of the arrested claimed they acted under any organized structure set in place by Trump or anyone else. In their trials each basically said the same, things got out of hand.

After selling voters that something that did not happen happened, the Democrats must then explain how after four years in power they have not really done much to bulk up democracy except whine about stuff that’s unfair, such as Republican gerrymandering (but not Democratic gerrymandering) and Republican poll watchers (but not Democratic poll watchers) and Republicans not accepting election results (but not Democrats like Stacey Adams not accepting election results.) Never mind out-and-out garbage like the same court system is racist when it acquits one shooter and on-the-mark when it finds another guilty based on the races of shooter and victim. Voters will also have to buy in to the Democratic delusion all the bad stuff they said Trump was gonna do but did not do — LGBT concentration camps, war with Iran, fascism — will for certain happen the next time.

Elect us to save democracy, say the delusional Democrats, ignoring the reality that democracy is bumbling along pretty much as it was intended to do. The Dem line would all make more sense if Trump had appeared bare chested at the Biden inauguration atop an M1 tank or something, but that is the nature of delusion.

Reprinted with permission from WeMeantWell.com.

from Alternate Reality Traps Democrats in World of Dumb

The Real Reason Politicians Want Legal Cannabis Is Tax Money

The latest two states to legalize recreational cannabis are New York and New Jersey. However, if one believes governors and legislators in those states have finally adopted a more libertarian view of the topic, one will be severely disappointed. Legalization of recreational cannabis in both states is driven by the need for tax revenue—tax revenue to plug the holes in state budgets for social programs, holes in the state budget that were exasperated by the failed covid policies in both states. Politicians, clever as they are in hiding their true intentions for public policy changes, want the public to believe that legalization is mostly aimed at ending decades-long practices of racist cannabis enforcement, pointing to the disparities in drug enforcement. However, one will quickly realize that this is only a smokescreen to hide the true reason.

A good starting point is Colorado. In 2002, voters in Colorado passed Amendment 64 and legalized recreational cannabis. Over the last six years, Colorado has collected over $1.6 billion in cannabis taxes and fees at the state level alone. In 2014, Colorado collected just shy of $70 million in cannabis tax revenue, and by 2020 it collected close to $390 million. The State of Washington, probably the closest example to use in estimating the size of potential cannabis tax revenue for both New Jersey and New York, depending on how each state structures the taxes and fees imposed, collected in 2015 close to $65 million in cannabis taxes. By 2020, the number had increased to $470 million, an increase of $400 million in five years. While Colorado levies a 15 percent excise tax and a 15 percent sales tax on cannabis, Washington State levies a 37 percent retail tax on cannabis (for details, see the Tax Foundation). Even in Oklahoma, which created arguably the most free-market cannabis industry in the country, with no limits on how many business licenses can be issued, after voters approved Oklahoma State Question 788 in 2018, lawmakers are very candid about being motivated by dollar signs in times when states are facing a budget crisis. From June 2020 to 2021, Oklahoma collected almost $140 million in revenue from excise and license fees.

Colorado and Washington State have shown governors in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic how much potential revenue from the legalization of recreational cannabis has been slipping through their fingers. New Jersey and New York, both with projected budget shortfalls, are eager to take advantage of the new potential revenue source. The first state to act was New Jersey. In March 2021, New Jersey governor Philip D. Murphy signed into law three bills that effectively permit and regulate the use of recreational cannabis. At that point, New Jersey was the most populous state in the Northeast ahead of Massachusetts to fully legalize cannabis. While Governor Murphy and state lawmakers talk about ending disparities in drug enforcement and the problem of subsequent overcrowded prisons, behind the scenes lawmakers are already counting on a new source of revenue to continue their spending programs. The new legal cannabis industry in New Jersey is expected to generate about $126 million a year in revenue for the state. Not to be outdone by their smaller neighbor, New York state lawmakers, worried about losing out on significant tax revenue to New Jersey, in July 2021 approved a bill to legalize recreational cannabis. Facing a budget shortfall of more than $60 billion over the next four years, New York’s legalization of cannabis is estimated to generate about $300 to $400 million annually in tax revenue when the legal market is fully established. New York, by far the most populous state in the Northeast, may serve as a catalyst for the cannabis industry in the region. According to the New York Medical Cannabis Industry Association, the cannabis market in New York is estimated to be worth about $4.2 to $4.6 billion and projected to grow to about $5.8 billion in 2027. Pennsylvania, having the longest border with New York, may be forced to legalize recreational cannabis use in order to not lose out on tax revenue. Already a bipartisan bill legalizing recreational cannabis has been introduced in Pennsylvania. More and more states are realizing that legalizing recreational cannabis is the easiest new source of significant government revenue. In April, Virginia became the first state in the South to legalize recreational cannabis.

What is more telling about New York’s motivation to change its attitude towards legalization is the long-standing fight between the governor’s office and the legislature on how to distribute the enormous amount of potential tax revenue that will be generated by legalizing cannabis. Governor Cuomo and Democrats in the state legislature tried several times to legalize cannabis, but each effort unraveled under disagreements over how to regulate the industry. But more telling is the disagreement on how to distribute tax dollars from cannabis sales and distribution licenses. 

Legal sales of cannabis are a few years away in both New Jersey and New York. In Massachusetts, it was two years from the time voters approved nonmedical cannabis to the launch of the state’s first dispensaries. Politicians and lawmakers are already injecting into the legalization effort measures that have little to do with creating a regulatory environment conducive to a growing industry. For example, lawmakers are talking about reserving sizable portions of business licenses for minority business owners, disabled veterans, and distressed farmers. If the Paycheck Protection Program and the Restaurant Revitalization Fund are any indication of the success of such initiative, more money will be wasted on social engineering programs that have nothing to do with supporting small businesses. It is very clear that states’ legalization of recreational and medical cannabis is motivated by a need to tap into a new large revenue stream to balance budgets in addition to ending racist cannabis enforcement.

Reprinted with permission from Mises.org.

from The Real Reason Politicians Want Legal Cannabis Is Tax Money

The Tyrant Says He Means Well

Tyrants just about always say they mean well in imposing tyranny. Sweeping prohibitions, coupled with harsh enforcement, the tyrants say, are necessary to advance important conditions, such as health, economic wellbeing, or defense from an enemy’s menace. So it goes as well with United States President Joe Biden who has unilaterally exercised broad tyrannical powers on matters including mask mandates and vaccine mandates in the name of protecting people’s health. Addressing his mandates...

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from Peace and Prosperity http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2021/december/27/the-tyrant-says-he-means-well/

'Thousands Died Because Fauci Ignored Natural Immunity' - With Special Guest Sen. Rand Paul

Exclusive! Senator Rand Paul joins the Liberty Report to discuss the massive errors - driven by arrogance - committed by White House coronavirus advisor Anthony Fauci. Dr. Fauci's insistence on ignoring natural immunity and his refusal to consider theraputics have cost thousands and thousands of lives! And here's a bombshell you'll only here in today's Liberty Report: Sen. Paul's shocking explanation of why the coming mid-term elections will be Fauci's worst nightmare! Don't miss today's very special Liberty Report:



from 'Thousands Died Because Fauci Ignored Natural Immunity' - With Special Guest Sen. Rand Paul

Is the Crack-up Boom Here?

Bloomberg News recently solicited advice from Argentinians who lived through that country’s high inflation on how Americans should cope with rising inflation. The Argentinians suggested Americans spend their paychecks as fast as possible to avoid future price increases. They also suggested taking out loans that can be paid back later in devalued currency. These strategies may make sense for individuals. However, encouraging debt and discouraging savings is disastrous for the country. Relying...

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from Is the Crack-up Boom Here?

The Businessman and the Holy Family

At the heart of the Christmas story rests some important lessons concerning free enterprise, government, and the role of wealth in society. Let’s begin with one of the most famous phrases: “There’s no room at the inn.” This phrase is often invoked as if it were a cruel and heartless dismissal of the tired travelers Joseph and Mary. Many renditions of the story conjure up images of the couple going from inn to inn only to have the owner barking at them to go away and slamming the door. In...

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from The Businessman and the Holy Family

A Paul Family Christmas With Carol And Kelley Paul

Today's Liberty Report is something completely different! Senator Rand Paul's wife Kelley joins Carol Paul to share Paul family Christmas memories. You will not want to miss this wonderful program! Don't miss this special Liberty Report!

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from A Paul Family Christmas With Carol And Kelley Paul

Failure of US Media on Ukraine

We need to constantly remind ourselves about the US media. During the Cold War, there was the saying that the difference between the New York Times and the Soviet Pravda was that Pravda readers knew they were being lied to. Unfortunately, current coverage by the US media about the movement of Russian troops demonstrates the applicability of that saying today. Lies by Omission For example, the US public is continually being told that the movement of a large number of Russian troops is a...

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from Failure of US Media on Ukraine

Emergency Powers Deployed to Impose Vaccine Passports

In its infinite Scientific™ wisdom, the city of Boston, Massachusetts just announced a new “vaccine passport” system set to take effect next month. This was one of the first major actions of the recently-elected mayor, Michelle Wu, who’d been hailed by many as a paradigm-shifter for her inspiring Progressive potential. Wu’s passport system is endearingly called “B Together,” because there’s nothing more emblematic of heartwarming communal “togetherness” than compulsory monitoring of medical...

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from Emergency Powers Deployed to Impose Vaccine Passports

Chicago Mayor Lightfoot To Unvaccinated: 'Your Time Is Up!'

Although the omicron variant is rapidly vanishing in its South African country of origin, US tyrants like Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Fauci are still trying to ramp up the fear to put Americans against Americans. Lightfoot's threats against a class of people have no place in a civilized country. Also today: New York officials redefine "vaxxed" and Alex Berenson sues Twitter. Today on the Liberty Report:

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from Chicago Mayor Lightfoot To Unvaccinated: 'Your Time Is Up!'

Andrew Napolitano: Liability Shield for Experimental Coronavirus Vaccine Companies is ‘Morally Wrong’ and ‘Corporatism’

Government has been paying for purchasing, promoting, and distributing experimental coronavirus “vaccines” to Americans. Government has even been mandating many people take the shots in order to continue working at their jobs, while also pressuring these and other people to take the shots by imposing vaccine passport requirements that bar from ordinary activities people who have not taken the shots. Yet, at the same time, government is saying that if individuals who succumb to the marketing...

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from Peace and Prosperity http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2021/december/23/andrew-napolitano-liability-shield-for-experimental-coronavirus-vaccine-companies-is-morally-wrong-and-corporatism/

The Fickle ‘Science’ of Lockdowns

‘Follow the science” has been the battle cry of lockdown supporters since the Covid-19 pandemic began. Yet before March 2020, the mainstream scientific community, including the World Health Organization, strongly opposed lockdowns and similar measures against infectious disease. That judgment came from historical analysis of pandemics and an awareness that societywide restrictions have severe socioeconomic costs and almost entirely speculative benefits. Our pandemic response, premised on...

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from The Fickle ‘Science’ of Lockdowns

When Your Government Ends A War But Increases The Military Budget, You're Being Scammed

The US Senate has passed its National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) military spending bill for the fiscal year of 2022, setting the budget at an astronomical $778 billion by a vote of 89 to 10. The bill has already been passed by the House, now requiring only the president's signature. An amendment to cease facilitating Saudi Arabia's atrocities in Yemen was stripped from the bill. "The most controversial parts of the 2,100-page military spending bill were negotiated behind closed doors...

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from When Your Government Ends A War But Increases The Military Budget, You're Being Scammed

Some Sanity in a Covid Con World

Here’s a timely story of freedom winning out over Covid tyranny. I was scheduled to have a dental cleaning and called the dentist’s office to let them know I could not wear a face mask safely so would that be a problem? Oh no I was told, simply wait in your car and the hygienist will come get you when it’s your turn. A couple of days later when I got to the dentist’s office I noticed the waiting room was closed and everybody was waiting in their car to be escorted into the office one by...

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from Peace and Prosperity http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2021/december/22/some-sanity-in-a-covid-con-world/

Is The Omicron Explosion A Pandemic...Or A 'Test-demic'?

Headlines are screaming about the rapid increase in the omicron variant. It's taking over! We are told it is much more easily spread than previous strains of the virus...but what role is testing playing in driving up the numbers? Also today - the US military is screening out extremists - but who are the real extremists? Finally: omicron outbreak in the triple-vaxxed White House? Is it possible? Watch today's Liberty Report:

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from Is The Omicron Explosion A Pandemic...Or A 'Test-demic'?

America’s Foreign Policy Dilemma

American foreign policy, wrapped up in hubris inside American exceptionalism, is incapable of recognizing a dangerous situation. And a dangerous situation is what we have. The Russian deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov speaking for the Kremlin has made it clear that Russia will tolerate no further movement of NATO toward Russia’s borders. Russia has ruled out any possibility of the former Russian provinces of Ukraine and Georgia becoming NATO members. If this red line is ignored, the...

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from America’s Foreign Policy Dilemma

Busted! The Great Fauci/NIH Anti-Science Conspiracy!

Busted by their own emails! Fauci and his boss, NIH Director Francis Collins, engaged in a conspiracy to defame and destroy the work of three prominent scientists from Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford, which challenged the Fauci/Collins lockdown strategy to address last year's virus outbreak. Thanks to a Freedom of Information request we see how Anthony "I'm the science" Fauci really operates behind the scenes. Also today, Fauci says force your fully-vaxxed family members to take a covid test...

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from Busted! The Great Fauci/NIH Anti-Science Conspiracy!

Omicron: The Lockdowners’ Last Stand

Just as President Biden’s unconstitutional vaccination mandates were being ripped up by the courts, authoritarian politicians, public health bureaucrats, and the mainstream media, announced a new Covid variant to justify another round of lockdowns and restrictions. The things that didn’t work last time would be a good idea to do again this time, they claim. For these authoritarians, the timing of omicron’s emergence was perfect. The variant was first discovered in South Africa, with the US...

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from Omicron: The Lockdowners’ Last Stand

Fauci’s War on Science: The Smoking Gun

Those weeks following the release of the Great Barrington Declaration did feel odd.  On the good side, medical doctors, scientists, public health workers, and citizens all over the world were thrilled that three top scholars in fields of public health and epidemiology had spoken out against lockdowns and for a reasoned approach to Covid. They eagerly signed the document.  Yes, there were some attempts to sabotage it too, with fake names and so on, which should have been a clue about what...

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from Fauci’s War on Science: The Smoking Gun

'Public Health Experts' in government & academia have exposed themselves as clueless charlatans

There’s one thing that the “public health expert” class is certain about these days. They claim to have the “the tools” to stop this coronavirus. .@GStephanopoulos on COVID fatigue: “You must be exhausted yourself. What signs of hope can you point to in this holiday season?” Dr. Fauci: “We have the tools to protect ourselves, and that's the thing we keep saying over and over again.” https://t.co/QThiAol6tu pic.twitter.com/o8NYiS3cbZ — ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) December 12,...

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from 'Public Health Experts' in government & academia have exposed themselves as clueless charlatans

Using Assange to Send a Three-Part Message

When Julian Assange and Wikileaks disclosed evidence of dark-side activity, including war crimes, on the part of the US national-security establishment, US officials felt they had no choice but to use Assange to send a three-part message.  The first message is to people within the national-security establishment who might be tempted, out of a crisis of conscience, to reveal dark-side activities of the national-security establishment. By doing everything they could to destroy Assange’s life...

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from Using Assange to Send a Three-Part Message

The Year of the New Normal Fascist

And so, as 2021 goose-steps toward its fanatical finish, it is time for my traditional year-end wrap-up. It’s “The Year of the Ox” in the Chinese zodiac, but I’m christening it “The Year of the New Normal Fascist.” And what a phenomenally fascist year it has been! I’m not talking amateur fascism. I am talking professional Class-A fascism. Government and corporate sanctified fascism. Bug-eyed, spittle-flecked, hate-drunk fascism. I’m talking mobs of New Normal fascists shrieking hatred and...

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from The Year of the New Normal Fascist

Schoolchildren's lives have been destroyed. Any lessons learned?

It is now an incontrovertible fact that closing or opening schools had zero bearing on the course of the pandemic or the safety of children who were never at an elevated risk from this pandemic. It’s clear from schools reopening during the worst Delta wave with no extra repercussions that all of the academic, mental health, physical health, and behavior development problems we foisted upon the children were absolutely senseless. This, despite the fact that so many of us knew this for months on...

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from Schoolchildren's lives have been destroyed. Any lessons learned?

Blues for Jimmy Duncan

Were Pulitzer Prize-winning “author” John F. Kennedy — I mean Ted Sorensen — to write Profiles in Courage today, taking his subjects from the contemporary political world, his pickings would be mighty slim. I suppose he might produce one of those comically brief novelty books, à la Steve Miller’s Higher Poetics or Hot Stuff by Mamie Eisenhower. For my part, I can’t think of a sharper modern political profile in courage than that cut by Tennessee Republican John J.“Jimmy” Duncan, Jr., who...

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from Blues for Jimmy Duncan

Omicron 'Shocker': It's Mostly Hitting The Vaxxed

A couple of weeks into the Omicron hysteria - where Europe has gone full totalitarian out of fear - some uncomfortable (for the lockdowners) truths are emerging: early data shows that Omicron is infecting those who are "fully vaccinated" at a much higher rate than the unvaccinated. "Experts" say that a third shot of the same stuff will do the trick, but amid the ongoing collapse of Biden's vax mandates in the US, the uptake is understandably anemic. Also today: Segregation in Denver, Amtrak ditches vax mandate, and NY counties tell the vax-mandating governor to take a hike. Watch today's Liberty Report:



from Omicron 'Shocker': It's Mostly Hitting The Vaxxed

Elon Musk, Person of the Year, Radicalized by Lockdowns

It’s a good call for Time Magazine: it made Elon Musk the person of the year. It’s actually even a remarkable call, and a great omen. Musk is arguably the most prominent opponent of lockdowns and vaccine mandates in the US. In his official interview, he refused to take back his last-year denunciation of stay-at-home orders as “fascist.” 

He stepped it up even further concerning vaccine mandates. “I am against forcing people to be vaccinated, not something we should do in America.” Yes, the unvaccinated are “taking a risk, but people do risky things all the time. I believe we’ve got to watch out for the erosion of freedom in America.”

True indeed. For some reason, people have a hard time understanding how someone could be for the right to accept the vaccine but also be against imposing it by force. And yet that position is clearly the most reasonable one, the one consistent with freedom, and good public health. 

Something has dramatically changed in the heart and mind of Musk over the several years. At this point, no one can seem to be able to control his mouth. And despite his ambiguous politics of the past, he is increasingly revealing himself to be what he was raised to be: a brilliant and irascible anarchist. 

Only a few weeks ago, he told the Wall Street Journal that the whole of the Democrats’ and Biden’s $1.9 trillion spending bill on infrastructure should be scrapped. All of it. There is nothing worth anything in it. 

“Honestly, I would just can this whole bill.” Further, he said that he doesn’t want any support for his electric charging stations. He pointed out that gas stations don’t need federal subsidies. He is fully confident that Tesla can continue to grow and thrive without any federal support. 

He is certainly right about that. And there is nothing surprising in his conclusion. 

Just about everyone knows that these huge bills are pork for the rich. They balloon the debt to reward political power and the friends of political power. Nothing more. We know that. The debt will find a buyers’ market mostly thanks to the Fed, which in turn manipulates money and drives up inflation. 

What’s surprising is that someone so rich, so influential, so decisive to our present economic lives, would actually say openly what everyone knows. It’s highly unusual, especially these days. Musk is now America’s most honest plutocrat. He is beyond being controlled or contrite at this point. In that way he is a very dangerous man, in the best possible way we can use that term. He had better watch his back. 

In the same context, he presented the traditional view of the state that emerged out of the enlightenment and which, in many ways, served as a foundational principle of the American revolution: “The government is simply the biggest corporation, with a monopoly on violence and where you have no recourse.”

That’s it in a nutshell, the essential insight of traditional liberalism, the one that gave us limits on the state that unleashed human creativity for hundreds of years and built what we call civilization. 

Today, the White House spokesman routinely says that no edicts against rights and freedom are “off the table.” Anything is possible. Anything can happen. They will decide. No one says a word; the craven press believes this is just normal. It’s not. It’s dangerous. Musk’s warning about government is the antidote. 

There were a number of turning points for Musk personally. A few years back, he got fed up with the dogmatic attacks on crypto and decided to defend it. Then he trolled harder: he promoted Dogecoin and gave that market a lift. Then he said he would accept Bitcoin in selling his cars, before reversing that decision later. Still, he stepped out front of the opinion cartel and shattered the prevailing view that Bitcoin is something all of corporate America should avoid. 

The last two years have been transformative for him. He is a businessman above all else. When the government told him that he had to close his factories for a virus, he balked. He began to look at the data (he is trained in economics and statistics). He saw that the infection fatality rate was not highly unusual for this type of virus, and he was clearly aware of the harms that would come from lockdowns to his company, the country, and the world economy.

On May 11, 2020, he tweeted: “Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules, I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.” By the end of the year, he moved Tesla’s headquarters from oppressive California to emancipate Texas. Good on him. Remarkable really. 

Two years earlier, his dust up with the SEC made a mockery of the agency. He believes that he should have free speech so he tweeted what he wanted to tweet. The SEC reminded him that this is not a free country and that he cannot do that. He faced their investigatory tribunal, and then resigned briefly as CEO so that he could say what he wanted to say. In the end, he outsmarted them all. 

What’s happened to Elon is what has happened to millions of other people. He began to realize that the governing elites in this country are incredibly inept and unwilling to take responsibility for their actions. He noted the completely undemocratic methods and the unscientific rationale that were deployed to bring about lockdowns. For that reason, he has been smeared and put down as a promoter of misinformation. Anyone who has paid attention for the last two years knows exactly what that means: he is telling truths he is not supposed to tell. 

Let’s address his relationship with China, which in many respects pioneered the lockdowns he despises. He has said that despite his good relations in China, he disagrees with many policies of the government, just as he disagrees with policies in the US. This opinion gets him in trouble with both Democrats and Republicans. But we do well to pay attention. 

Musk is aware of a truth not often faced in the West: China is destined to be the world’s largest economy and easily so. The lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 meant that the West gave up any chance of stopping this trajectory. China gave us a gun and we shot ourselves in the foot. Beijing must still be laughing. Elon watched this all unfold and it was this that caused him to lose all respect in the governing leadership in the US. 

So yes, he will continue to maintain close ties to China. The US attempt somehow to decouple US and China in technology and trade was reckless, even delusional. It led to the chip shortage and supply chain breakages, and incentivized the creation of a robust trade pact that China dominates entirely, while excluding the US. Sorry to say, but this was Trump’s doing and it was a disaster, not so much for China, but for the US.

As regards all of these issues – trade, chips, crypto, spending, infrastructure, securities regulation – the single most dangerous thing that Elon has said is that the top goal of the US government now should be to get out of the way. Do nothing. That’s the best path. Laissez-faire. Leave us alone. 

This thought caused the transportation secretary to explode in a rage.

“These are things that don’t happen on their own,” said Pete Buttigieg said in response. “They require policy attention, and that’s part of our focus both in the charging network that is supported out of the infrastructure bill that the president signed, and the tax credits that will make these vehicles more affordable, that are proposed in Build Back Better.”

Musk will have none of it. “The government is simply the biggest corporation, with the monopoly on violence.” 

The person interviewing him interrupted: “Can you explain that last part?”

Apparently this is going to take a lot of explaining in the years ahead. 

For all the controversy, the hypocrisy, and the mixed messaging over the years, Elon Musk has turned into a true American, a resistor, a revolutionary. His influence in business and philosophical outlook offers a real path forward. He deserves every congratulations for refusing to go along with ruling-class ideology and instead demand that most essential thing, the freedom to trade, speak, run a business, and innovate without government interference. 

That he has been named Person of the Year portends more than Time Magazine knows. There is a new spirit of resistance alive in the land, and Musk embodies it as well or better than anyone else in his position. In that case, there are many people and institutions in this country and around the world that should be very worried. 

Reprinted with permission from Brownstone Institute.

from Elon Musk, Person of the Year, Radicalized by Lockdowns

Jussie Smollett and the 'Time of Deceit'

Below is my column in USA Today on the aftermath of the Jussie Smollett verdict and what the case says about our state of both politics and journalism. As discussed yesterday, some figures and groups are still insisting that people need to believe Smollett regardless of the evidence or the verdict. Despite media figures calling his account “beautiful” and “brave,” seventy-five percent of the public believe that he staged the racist attack. The insistence by some that he is innocent shows how our national dialogue has become decoupled from facts. It simply does not matter that Smollett was clearly and inescapably guilty. He has to be innocent to fit a narrative so he is innocent in the view of some. As the editor said in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” it is very simple: “[w]hen the legend becomes fact…print the legend.”

Here is the column:

The guilty verdict in the trial of Jussie Smollett was hardly a surprise to anyone who followed the evidence rather than the coverage of the case. Co-conspirators, videotapes and text messages all showed that his claim of a racist attack by President Donald Trump supporters was a hoax. However, the judgment of the jury was also a judgment of many in our media and our politics who immediately embraced his facially ridiculous claims as true. Once again, jurors showed that they are not taking the race bait that was snapped up by many politicians and reporters.

Let’s be clear. The guilty verdict does not simply mean that Smollett is a liar or someone who engaged in disorderly conduct. He is a race baiter. His lies were to create a false claim of a vicious racist attack where, even in the ultra-liberal city of Chicago, a Black man can be targeted by roaming MAGA-yelling, bleach-pouring white supremacists. It was meant to use our deep and painful racial divisions for personal aggrandizement or advantage.

Another rush to judgment

He was not alone. When Smollett first said that he was left beaten with a noose around his neck, many of us expressed skepticism. However, many did not wait for an investigation or supporting facts before declaring that Smollett was the latest attempted lynching of a Black man in America. Joe Biden denounced “what happened” to Smollett and declared “we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie.”

Then-Sen. Kamala Harris immediately denounced what happened as an “attempted modern-day lynching.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared a “racist, homophobic attack” and “an affront to our humanity” as a fact. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted that “the racist and homophobic attack on Jussie Smollett” was “a horrific instance of the surging hostility toward minorities around the country. We must come together to eradicate all forms of bigotry and violence.”

On Jan. 29, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) tweeted “the vicious attack on actor Jussie Smollett was an attempted modern-day lynching. I’m glad he’s safe.” He then used the alleged attack to criticize those “who don’t feel the urgency to pass our Anti-Lynching bill designating lynching as a federal hate crime – I urge you to pay attention.”

Celebrities also rushed to use the alleged attack to attack others. Director Rob Reiner decried the attack while using it to attack Trump, saying in a now-deleted tweet: “The horrific attack on Jussie Smollett has no place in a decent human loving society. Homophobia existed before Trump, but there is no question that since he has injected his hatred into the American bloodstream, we are less decent, less human, & less loving. No intolerance! No DT!”

Inadequate, naïve advocacy journalism

While politicians and celebrities can be dismissed as transparently opportunistic or shallow figures, one would hope that the media would “pay attention” to the actual facts. In today’s “advocacy journalism,” that was equally naïve.

ABC’s Robin Roberts gave Smollett an interview that was breathtaking in its lack of substantive questions or even curiosity about glaring red flags in his account. Roberts described Smollett as “bruised but not broken” and nodded as he described his narrow escape from being lynched in America. She concluded the interview with “Beautiful, thank you, Jussie.”

The account was immediately embraced as true by many while any questions raised about the account were denounced as racist in itself. ABC’s “The Talk” host Sara Gilbert was irate: “I find so personally offensive that a gay Black man is targeted and then suddenly he becomes the victim of people’s disbelief.”

If Smollett is a race baiter, what are those who did not wait for the evidence and promulgated his sensational lies?

Our jurors have shown more responsibility from their leaders. In the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, a jury of 11 white jurors and one racial minority rejected wildly inaccurate accounts and voted for acquittal – a result viewed by many legal experts as correct under Wisconsin law. In the trial over the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a jury of 11 white jurors and one Black juror convicted all three defendants. Now a jury of six men and six women (including an African American) voted to convict Smollett on all but one count.

They showed the integrity missing in state’s attorney Kim Foxx whose office suddenly decided to drop all charges against him in exchange for Smollett performing community service. It was a move that not only protected Smollett but many Democratic leaders from the embarrassment of any conviction. Foxx would later recuse herself due to conflicts of interest but was later accused of pressuring subordinates to go easy on Smollett.

The jury followed the law without any political or personal inducement. Unlike Foxx (who was later reelected), they did it because it was their job. The question is why 12 people selected at random can show such integrity when our leaders, including our president and vice president, cannot muster the same sense of responsibility.

As for Smollett, by repeating his bizarre tale on the stand, he will lose any advantage on sentencing due to remorse or acceptance of responsibility. Given the gravity of his conduct and his failure to accept such responsibility, he should be given jail time. He faces up to three years if the counts (as expected) run concurrently.

The Smollett case shows how the jury is still a revolutionary institution capable of standing up to both privilege and power. As George Orwell is often quoted, “in a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Reprinted with permission from JonathanTurley.org.

from Jussie Smollett and the 'Time of Deceit'

Raiding the World Bank: Exposing a Fondness for Dictators

I have always had a bad attitude toward official secrets regardless of who is keeping them. That prejudice and John Kenneth Galbraith are to blame for an unauthorized withdrawal I made from the World Bank. 

When I lived in Boston in the late 1970s, I paid $25 to attend a series of lectures by Galbraith on foreign aid and other topics. The louder Galbraith praised foreign aid, the warier I became. His hokum spurred my reading and led me to recognize that foreign aid is one of the worst afflictions that poor nations suffer. As one critic quipped, foreign aid is money from governments, to governments, for governments.

After I moved to Washington, foreign aid became one of my favorite targets as an investigative journalist. When I talked to the chief of the US Agency for International Development (AID), Peter McPherson, in 1985, my blunt questions had him literally screaming at me within four minutes of the start of the interview. McPherson probably screamed even louder when he saw the article I wrote thrashing AID.

Foreign aid was revered by the Washington establishment, and the World Bank epitomized the arrogance of the financial masters of the universe (at least in their own minds and press releases). The World Bank, heavily subsidized by US taxpayers, profited from every debacle it spawned. The more loans the bank made, the more prestige and influence it acquired. After a profusion of bad loans to Third World governments helped ignite a debt crisis, I warned in a 1985 Wall Street Journal piece that expanding the World Bank’s role “would be akin to appointing Mrs. O'Leary's cow as chief of the Chicago Fire Department.”

I was astounded at how many despots the World Bank was propping up. Bankrolling tyrants was the equivalent of a Fugitive Slave Act for an entire nation, preventing a mass escape of political victims. Yet almost all the details of World Bank loans were suppressed, allowing its perfidious officials to pirouette as saviors. In 1987, I rattled the bank’s roof with a Wall Street Journal article headlined “World Bank Confidentially Damns Itself.” That article was based on a stash of confidential bank documents that I had finagled. 

Perhaps the bank’s worst offense was propping up Communist regimes, perennially bailing out their command-and-control economies. In the late 1970s, the bank helped finance a brutal Vietnamese government program to forcibly resettle millions of farmers in conquered South Vietnam. The bank poured billions of dollars into Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Romania. A confidential bank analysis in 1986 admitted the failure of its Communist lending program: “Projects have been prepared to meet Five-Year Plan objectives which could not be questioned or analyzed by the Bank.” Why were US tax dollars underwriting hostile Communist regimes?

In the 1980s, the World Bank headquarters in downtown Washington had far tighter security than most federal agencies. The media was only permitted unsupervised entry into that building during the annual meetings that occurred each September. During the 1987 meetings, I roamed far and wide inside the bank. Visiting the press office of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a World Bank branch that supposedly loaned only to private entities, I scooped up a handful of their current press releases and asked about older releases. A pert twenty-something Canadian secretary directed me to an adjacent filing room. I entered and noticed one filing cabinet had a drawer labeled “Pending Projects.” There were too many people milling about the press room to check that drawer, but my curiosity was piqued.

The following year, the World Bank was rattling its tin cup for another $14 billion commitment from the US government. Considering the bank’s dismal record in the prior decade, boosting its coffers would be throwing good money after bad.

So I returned to the scene of financial precrimes in June 1988. I needed a pretext to enter World Bank headquarters, so I scheduled a visit to its research library. After guards vigorously searching my bike courier-style shoulder bag, I was handed a large VISITOR identification badge. It was important not to lose that badge, so I stuffed it into my pants pocket. After a pit stop at the library, I dropped by the IFC press office. The secretary recognized me and we chatted about how life in Washington compared to Ottawa. World Bank employees received lavish tax-free salaries, so she wasn’t suffering too badly.

“Would you mind if I check some of your old press releases?” I asked.

“Sure—go ahead,” she said and pointed to the file room.

I ambled into the room, walked over to that filing cabinet, and grinned ear to ear when the Pending Projects drawer slid smoothly open. I skimmed the file titles and was transfixed by one labeled Poland. Why would a private sector branch of the World Bank be lending to a bankrupt Communist country? Poland owed $38 billion to the West—with zilch chance of repayment, given its floundering economy. The bank had never made a loan to Poland before. Why were they adding a new Communist regime to their welfare rolls? And why was the World Bank rushing to add its seal of approval to a military dictatorship that was tottering due to waves of heroic nationwide strikes by Solidarity?

I slipped the Polish file into my courier bag and strolled out to the main press room. I saw a secretary schlepping a stack of papers down the hall and followed her to a copy room.

I got in line and was soon bantering with the secretaries ahead and behind me about the brutal Washington summer weather and the latest subway fare increase. World Bank officials tend to be even haughtier than US senators, and perhaps my friendly demeanor was almost a novelty. 

My turn arrived and I laid that file onto the intake slot for the copier. I pushed the Copy button but the machine wouldn’t budge without a code.

I turned to one of the women I had been chatting with, smiled, and two minutes later, slipped the forty-page copy into my courier bag. 

I glided back into that file room and tucked the original document back in the drawer. If there were a bank internal investigation, that might throw them off the trail. I might have faced federal charges and prison time if I had been caught absconding with confidential financial documents from a quasi-government United Nations organization. However, if the bank suspected that one of their own employees or a US government official had leaked the document, they might hesitate to dig too deeply, since that could cause them more embarrassment than it was worth.

Making a copy was one thing, but getting out of the building was another. Those photocopies were too bulky to stash under my clothes—my favorite hiding place when I roamed the East Bloc. I considered asking the guard his prediction for the upcoming Redskins season but instead relied on the dull-eyed, working stiff motif. The guard glanced at my shoulder bag and waved me on.

After exiting bank headquarters, I paused on K Street, skimmed the first pages, and knew I had struck gold. Back in my home office, I called the gutsiest editor I knew—Tim Ferguson, the editorial features editor at the Wall Street Journal. Tim sighed audibly when I related how the copy migrated into my bag, but he was game for a story. (Some editors I later dealt with would have phoned the World Bank, apologized profusely, and offered a sworn affidavit that I should be indicted for undermining trust in a US government–backed institution.)

I whittled up the article and over the next few days spent hours on the phone with a French lady in the IFC press office, getting her official responses to the less incendiary charges in the piece. At 4 p.m. on the day before publication, during the last call locking up the final details, I nonchalantly added: “Also, I want to confirm that the World Bank is still on track to make a loan to the Hortex cooperative in Poland.”

“THAT’S SECRET INFORMATION!” she squealed, her accent flaring up like an Air France stewardess whose butt had just been grabbed.

“I need to confirm that project is moving forward.” 

After a terse pause, she said: “Yes.”

Even though this was the most important case in the article, I did not mention it to her until the last minute. I had prior experience with government agencies pulling out all the stops to kill a threatening article before it hit print.

My piece in the next day’s Wall Street Journal disclosed: “The IFC is eager to begin lending to Poland, as a March 24 confidential project analysis shows.” A memo from a top bank official touted a proposed $18 million loan to a Polish agricultural cooperative and fretted that “there is a real danger that the Polish authorities may become frustrated with the international financial institutions…. A fast, early investment by IFC would have enormous effect on IFC's standing in Poland, would demonstrate IFC to be a flexible, responsible institution and would increase the number of investment possibilities in the pipeline. IFC would achieve a great deal of good will by an early investment."

The World Bank wanted to be loved by its bankrupt Communist borrowers—and also wanted to maximize the “investment possibilities” for subsequent World Bank handouts. A confidential analysis justified the loan based on the agricultural firm’s net worth, calculated by the official exchange rate of 175 Polish zlotys to the dollar. But the black-market exchange rate at that time was thirteen hundred zlotys to the dollar. Misstating the exchange rate by 600 percent plus was the World Bank’s version of “close enough for government work.” If the same switcheroo had been made by a US banker granting a federally guaranteed loan, the banker could have been “cuffed and stuffed.”

The confidential document praised Poland for introducing a “radical version of market socialism.” It heartily approved the Polish government’s “introduction of a progressive tax aimed at containing wage increases”—a tax that crucified miserly paid workers on an altar of central planning follies (“Swedish taxes on Ethiopian wages,” according to dissidents). When the Communists held a referendum on economic reforms in late 1987, a top World Bank official urged Poles to vote for the government’s plans. The World Bank wanted to reform communism, but the Polish people wanted freedom instead. My WSJ article concluded that the World Bank was subverting real reform and “has betrayed the citizens of the Third World and East Europe.”

A retired World Bank press officer later told me that my article hit the bank like a concussion bomb, spurring emergency early morning meetings to try to contain the political damage. The World Bank launched a counterattack to pressure the Wall Street Journal to retract the story, but to no avail. Bank officials were convinced an insider gave me the confidential Polish documents on a silver platter. But being a freelancer means making your own silver platters.

Five months after my WSJ piece, and just after the US presidential election won by George H.W. Bush, the bank approved that first loan to Poland. The New York Times reported that the bank planned to give up to $250 million to Poland the following year. But the military dictatorship in Poland effectively collapsed in mid-1989, before the World Bank could open the floodgates with subsidized loans. The inflation rate in Poland rose to 5,000 percent, destroying any pretense of rational investment by the World Bank or any other entity.

Later that year, World Bank president Barber Conable bashed my work in a New York Times piece. His article was paired with an “opposing view” piece from me that concluded: “The World Bank’s ‘have money, must lend’ syndrome will continue to be a curse to the world’s oppressed citizens … Mr. Conable should retire as soon as possible.” Conable is long gone, but, unfortunately, the World Bank lives on.

Reprinted with permission from Mises.org.

from Raiding the World Bank: Exposing a Fondness for Dictators