No Free Market: Government Intevention in American Medicine
Excellent historical overview of Government Intevention in American Medicine By Amesh Adalja MD, FACP, FACEP, FIDSA.
Bezos: Washington Post Will Change Course To Defend Free-Markets
From Jeff Bezos on X: “I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning:”
I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.
We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.
There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.
I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.
I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction.
I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.
Jeff
Justin Amash on Birthright Citizenship: Only an Article V Amendment Can Change It
Justin Amash points to the problems with President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order on X:
The Fourteenth Amendment reads, in relevant part:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Trump’s odd claim is that a child born in the United States without at least one parent who is a lawful permanent resident or citizen is not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.
But this is simply false.
Set aside that Trump’s EO would affect children whose parents are lawfully but not permanently here. Let’s look at the “harder” case: the children of illegal immigrants.
It should be obvious that even individuals who are unlawfully present in the United States are “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” “Jurisdiction” is just the applicability of legal authority to them and the potential exercise of state power against them.
People who are unlawfully present in the country can, of course, be charged with crimes, arrested, etc., just like almost anyone else in the United States.
There is not a person who doubts this, least of all someone in the Trump administration.
I include the word “almost” before “anyone else” two paragraphs above because the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” does exclude certain children: mainly the children of foreign diplomats, who, in fact, are generally not subject to U.S. laws. They have immunity that may or may not be waived by their home country. [1]
Now, you may not like the fact that the Constitution broadly grants birthright citizenship to the children of parents who are simply, perhaps even temporarily, present in the United States, but that is the law absent a constitutional amendment.
We are a nation founded on the Rule of Law. The president cannot amend the Constitution (or laws) via executive order. Any unilateral effort by a president to change the Constitution is void. Only an Article V amendment can change it.
Notes:
[1] Senator Howard was making my point. He says: “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the government of the United States, but will include every other class of person.” He is describing one class of persons. This is evident from the phrasing. “Aliens” is being used as a further descriptor for “foreigners,” and he’s specifically referring to aliens who are foreign diplomats. That’s why the word “who” immediately follows the modifier “aliens.”
Second January 6, 2021 Report
WASHINGTON – [On December 17th, 2024], Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Barry Loudermilk (GA-11) released an interim report on his findings on the events surrounding January 6, 2021, as well as his investigation into the politicization of the January 6th Select Committee.
This report outlines criminal recommendations against former Representative Liz Cheney. Download report.
TOP FINDINGS:
2. Former Representative Liz Cheney should be investigated for potential criminal witness tampering based on the new information about her communication.
3. Cassidy Hutchinson’s most outrageous claims lacked any evidence, and the Select Committee had knowledge that her claims were false when they publicly promoted her.
- President Trump did not attack his Secret Service Detail at any time on January 6.
- President Trump did not have intelligence indicating violence on the morning of January 6.
- Cassidy Hutchinson falsely claimed to have drafted a handwritten note for President Trump on January 6.
- Representative Cheney and Cassidy Hutchinson baselessly attempted to disbar Hutchinson’s former attorney.
4. Former Representative Liz Cheney used the January 6 Select Committee as a tool to attack President Trump, at the cost of investigative integrity and Capitol security.
5. The January 6 Select Committee was improperly constituted and lacked authority.
6. The January 6 Select Committee neglected or withheld evidence from its Final Report and deleted voluminous records it should have preserved.
7. The Department of Defense scapegoated the Washington D.C. National Guard to distract blame from senior leadership.
- Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller dismissed President Trump’s order prior to January 6 to use “any and all” military assets to keep the demonstrations safe.
- Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy intentionally delayed the D.C. National Guard’s response to the Capitol on January 6, despite authorization.
- The Department of Defense Inspector General published a flawed report containing fabrications and ignored relevant information.
- The Department of Defense and the Department of Defense Inspector General knowingly and inaccurately placed blame on D.C. National Guard leadership for the delayed response on January 6.
- The Department of Defense Inspector General was not responsive to the Subcommittee’s requests and even obstructed the Subcommittee’s investigation.
- The Subcommittee detected an inappropriately close relationship between the Department of Defense and its watchdog Inspector General.
8. The FBI and Capitol Police both failed to investigate the individuals responsible for building fake gallows on Capitol grounds on January 6.
9. The Subcommittee published more than 44,000 hours of CCTV footage from the Capitol.
10. The Subcommittee conducted an extensive review of the investigation into the two pipe bombs on January 5 and 6, and that report is set to be released within the next few days.
BACKGROUND:
This interim report reveals that there was not just one single cause for what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6; but it was a series of intelligence, security, and leadership failures at several levels and numerous entities.
Over the course of the 118th Congress, this Subcommittee has interviewed hundreds of witnesses, scoured over millions of pages of documents, analyzed thousands of hours of surveillance videos, listened to hundreds of hours of radio communications, and conducted hearings.
Chairman Loudermilk released his first January 6, 2021 report, “Initial Findings Report” on March 11, 2024 which focused on identifying and reviewing the numerous security failures on and leading up to, January 6, 2021, and reviewed the creation, operation, and claims made by Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Select Committee to investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Click here to view the Initial Findings Report. | Local copy.
Leonard Peikoff: Anti-Trumpites for Trump
In response to what he calls “TDS” or “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Leonard Peikoff has written an excellent article on Trump’s view of Americanism in comparison to that of Kamala Harris and the Democrats.
The Rheins Act
Congressman Mike Lee has an important post on the Rhein’s act:
“How,” you might ask, “are federal bureaucrats allowed to make federal law when only Congress has that authority?”
Congress has long delegated “rulemaking” power to federal agencies. And although the Supreme Court has long recognized that Congress’s lawmaking power can’t be delegated, it’s long been unwilling to enforce that in the context of federal regulations—even though they’re laws.
These federal regulations come at a steep cost to hardworking Americans. By virtue of the way federal regulations operate, most Americans remain largely unaware of how costly they are. While it’s difficult to assess with precision the cost to the American economy of compliance with federal regulations, most estimates are measured in the trillions of dollars—with some people putting it as high as $4 trillion.
It’s easy for people to assume that those compliance costs are borne by big corporations and a few wealthy individuals. That simply isn’t true. But it can be easy to assume that because most people don’t see how much more they pay for everything due to federal regulations. That’s what makes lawmaking by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats so dangerous.
Most Americans don’t know how much more difficult, inconvenient, and (especially) expensive life is because of federal regulations. Even when Americans become aware of how much they’re being harmed by federal regulations, their ability to fix it is limited by the unholy alliance between Congress and federal bureaucrats.
It was with good reason that the Constitution entrusted the lawmaking power only to Congress. The lawmaking power is the most dangers of the powers wielded by each branch of the U.S. government. The Constitution assigned the lawmaking power to the legislative branch because it’s the branch that stands most accountable to voters, and at the most regular intervals. All U.S. representatives can be fired by their voters every two years. One-third of U.S. senators can be fired by their voters every two years. Essentially no one can fire a federal bureaucrat.
So why does Congress give up so much lawmaking power—handing it over to unelected, unaccountable “experts” who can’t be fired—knowing of the harm it causes to the American people? Short answer: it makes the job of Congress easier and gives members of Congress deniability.
This arrangement between Congress and federal bureaucrats—making life easier for members of Congress and making bureaucrats more powerful—can last only as long as the American people remain unaware of the arrangement’s existence and cost, economically and in terms of liberty.
From how much you pay for almost everything you buy to how much you’re paid to the number of federal crimes on the books (at least 300,000), federal regulations have a far deeper impact on Americans than most realize. Do you miss real light bulbs? Do you miss dishwashers, washing machines, and dryers that got the job done consistently—like they used to? Shower heads and toilets that weren’t so stingy with water? Those too have been lost to actions taken by federal bureaucrats.
Yes, this is a longstanding, expensive, difficult, and complicated problem. Fortunately, we have access to a simple solution.
There’s a bill called the REINS Act that would require all “major rule” federal regulations to be enacted into law *by Congress* before taking effect. This is a simple, elegant solution to a nasty problem.
In essence, the REINS Act requires Congress to comply with what the Constitution already requires. If you think Congress should pass the REINS Act, please find out where your members of (or candidates for) Congress stand on it.
If they say they support it, ask them what they are willing to do to help move it forward. With all that’s at stake, there should be no higher legislative priority for Congress than passing the REINS Act.
🧵 Under the Constitution, only Congress may make federal law.
1/— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) July 31, 2024
The Woke Comprachicos
Megan Kelley on Bill Maher’s show educates a stunned audience on the psychological gender-bending, chemical castration & surgical mutilation of children.
Biden Harris administration calls this the “gender- affirming care” of children.
I call its practitioners the “woke Comprachicos,” after the child mutilators in Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs.
Must watch.
THE WOKE COMPRACHICOS@megynkelly on @billmaher's show educates a stunned audience on the psychological gender-bending, chemical castration & surgical mutilation of children.
Biden Harris calls this the "gender- affirming care" of children.
I call its practitioners the "woke… pic.twitter.com/5FxRfx641d
— VOICE OF REASON (@voicereason05) October 27, 2024
J6 | Transcripts Show President Trump’s Directives to Pentagon Leadership to “Keep January 6 Safe” Were Deliberately Ignored
WASHINGTON – Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Barry Loudermilk (GA-11) revealed [on September 20, 2024] that days before January 6, 2021, President Trump met with senior Pentagon leaders urging them to do their jobs to protect lives and property. The transcripts released show Trump gave senior Pentagon leadership directives to keep January 6 peaceful – including using the National Guard – which the Pentagon leaders ignored. This revelation directly contradicts the conclusions drawn in the flawed DoD IG reporton January 6, 2021.
In response to these revelations, Chairman Loudermilk released the following statement:
“Pentagon leadership prioritized concerns of optics over their duty to protect lives,” said Chairman Loudermilk. “President Trump met with senior Pentagon leaders and directed them to make sure any events on January 6, 2021 were safe. It is very concerning that these Senior Pentagon officials ignored President Trump’s guidance AND misled Congressional Leaders to believe they were doing their job, when they were not. The DoD IG’s report is fundamentally flawed. It does not draw conclusions from the interviews they conducted, but pushes a narrative to keep their hands clean. We have many questions for them, and we will continue to dig until we are satisfied the American people know the truth.”
Click here or the image below to see the key excerpts from these transcripts.
Click here to read the transcripts in full.
See below for a full breakdown of the Pentagon leaders’ choices to ignore President Trump’s directives.
Days before January 6, 2021, President Trump met with senior Pentagon leaders urging them to do their jobs to protect lives and property. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, recalls a conversation between the Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, and President Trump:
Milley: “The President just says, ‘Hey, look at this. There’s going to be a large amount of protestors here on the 6th, make sure that you have sufficient National Guard or Soldiers to make sure it’s a safe event.’… [POTUS said] I don’t care if you use Guard, or Soldiers, active duty Soldiers, do whatever you have to do. Just make sure it’s safe.’ [SecDef] Miller responds by saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got a plan, and we’ve got it covered.’”
On January 5, the Secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, placed unprecedented restrictions on DCNG Commander Major General William Walker to prevent any movement to the Capitol without Secretary McCarthy’s explicit permission on January 6 and 7.
On January 6, 2021, the outer perimeter on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol was breached by rioters at 12:53pm. The DCNG arrived five hours later. Click here to view the timeline.
These transcripts prove President Trump’s senior Pentagon leaders were focused on OPTICS, instead of doing their job, as the Capitol was breached:
Miller: “There was absolutely – there is absolutely no way I was putting U.S. military forces at the Capitol, period.”
Director of the Army Staff, Lieutenant General Walter Piatt: “Was optics a concern for us as we prepared to use soldiers downtown in Washington D.C? Absolutely.”
As “optics” concerns were being discussed and Secretary McCarthy claims he was ‘developing a plan’, the DCNG was ready to move, less than 2 miles from the Capitol – awaiting Secretary McCarthy’s authorization.
Walker’s General Counsel, Colonel Earl Matthews: “We were seeing the Congress of the United States being overrun, and the Guard – and the Capitol Police, the MPD, they need help. We had people at the D.C. Armory who are able to help, and they’re not moving. They’re not allowed to move.”
DCNG Command Sergeant Major Michael Brooks: “They were ready to go, and they just couldn’t understand why they were still sitting there. Literally sitting on a bus, just waiting to drive to the Capitol and do the best they could do to support Capitol Police.”
At 3:04pm, Miller provided verbal approval to Secretary McCarthy for immediate deployment of the DCNG. What was Secretary McCarthy doing between receiving this approval, and 5:08pm, when the order eventually reaches the D.C. National Guard? Why didn’t he communicate this approval for a full two hours?
At 3:18pm, Secretary McCarthy told Congressional Democrat Leadership that the DC National Guard had the “green light” and “is moving”. Two hours would pass before Secretary McCarthy’s deployment order would ACTUALLY be communicated to the DCNG.
In these vital hours, the DCNG had been trying but was unable to reach Secretary McCarthy.
DCNG Adjutant General Aaron Dean: “[Walker] tried to call Secretary McCarthy three times between 2:30 and 5pm. He said, ‘I haven’t heard from him all day.’ When he tried to call his cell phone, it went straight to voicemail.”
Catching up With Leonard Peikoff
New York’s Skyline and The Sublime
“I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline. Particularly when one can’t see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window – no, I don’t feel how small I am – but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.”
–Gail Wynand from ‘The Fountainhead’ by Ayn Rand (1943)
American Right and Left on Israel: Two Sides of The Same Coin?
Objectivist and anti-Trumper Razi Ginzberg (who we mostly agree with on other issues) in a post on X claims that “On so many issues, the left and the right are two sides of the same coin. When it comes to Israel, they’re the same side of the same coin.”
Professor Adam Mossoff responds:
I'm no fan of Trumpist policies generally, but it's incorrect to say that Trump Administration was only "less bad" for Israel then Biden-Harris Administration. Since this is claim about actual policies and state actions, and not tweets or speeches, then we can compare the two.…
— Adam Mossoff (@AdamMossoff) September 2, 2024
I’m no fan of Trumpist policies generally, but it’s incorrect to say that Trump Administration was only “less bad” for Israel then Biden-Harris Administration. Since this is claim about actual policies and state actions, and not tweets or speeches, then we can compare the two.
Since Biden has been largely incapacitated mentally during his presidency, Biden’s White House staff taken from the Obama Administration and Senators Warren and Sanders offices continued the same anti-Israel policies of Obama’s presidency.
In contrast, during Trump’s presidency, the U.S. for the first time:
- recognized Jerusalem as capitol of Israel
- moved U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
- recognized Israel’s legitimate annexation of Golden Heights
- successfully guided negotiations of Abraham Accords (the most significant, major peace accord with Saudia Arabia and other Gulf States), and
- Trump visited Western Wall and visited Israel on his first international trip abroad as strong signal of support for Israel.
Since October 7, Biden-Harris Administration has increasingly betrayed and attacked Israel, including:
- imposing arms embargo (secretly at first and made public last April), dictating restrictive conditions on Israel’s fighting in Gaza War that have delayed war and emboldened Hamas to hold out,
- betrayed Israel at @UN by not vetoing anti-Israel resolution,
- officially repeated Hamas propaganda as fact (e.g., starvation in Gaza, massive civilian casualties),
- refused to investigate or prosecute terrorist connections of protestors in U.S., and
- has emboldened pro-Hamas activists in U.S. by supporting explicitly anti-semitic politicians like @AOC, @Ilhan & @RashidaTlaib in Democractic Party along with leading Democrats like @SenWarren and @SenSchumer accusing Israel of genocide and war crimes in Gaza.
I keep hearing Objectivists saying that Trump is the same as Biden-Harris or maybe just slightly less bad. So, I’d be interested in hearing how or why someone thinks the above facts about the *policies* and *actions* of the Trump and Biden-Harris Admissions are either wrong or incomplete, because I’ve yet to hear this.
From observing how “How The GOP Became A ‘Pro-Israel’ Party“:
Whatever GOP constituency pressed for the move the most, what matters in the end is that they succeeded. Though Democratic and Republican presidential candidates alike have long promised to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. Embassy there, none who won the office ever did so — until Trump.
Even the Washington Post notes:
“All of these Republican presidents and diplomats were pro-Israel, but they also sought to preserve some balance. They understood that Israelis were not 100 percent right and Palestinians 100 percent wrong. All that changed with Donald Trump’s presidency. He moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the conquered Golan Heights, cut off aid to the Palestinians, and even unveiled a peace plan with no Palestinian input. This recklessly one-sided approach was the culmination of a long-term shift in the GOP driven by White evangelicals who are more hawkish on Israel than American Jews.”
Trump says that Israel needs to “finish the job” in Gaza and expresses concern that people have forgotten about October 7th, equating them to Holocaust deniers.
Trump then complains that Israel has lost its influence in Congress, and pledges to restore it if elected.
Follow:… pic.twitter.com/0dUfiOFPOX
— AF Post (@AFpost) June 6, 2024
Trump GOP is”more hawkish on Israel than American Jews” according to the Washington Post. That’s why a Trump critic like Professor Mossoff is voting for Trump, despite all of his misgivings and the weakness in Trump’s character.
For further reading Catherine Glick documents how the U.S. policy towards Israel was “fundamentally transformed” under the Obama administration.
If by Rudyard Kipling – Read by Sir Michael Caine
Mark Zuckerberg Finally Admits His Complicity With Government Censors
Too many years too late.
The Honorable Jim Jordan
Chairman
Committee on the Judiciary
United States House of Representatives
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515Chairman Jordan:
I appreciate the Committee’s interest in content moderation on online platforms. As you are aware, Meta has produced thousands of documents as part of your investigation and made a dozen employees available for transcribed interviews. Further to our cooperation with your investigation, I welcome the opportunity to share what I’ve taken away from this process.
There’s a lot of talk right now around how the U.S. government interacts with companies like Meta, and I want to be clear about our position. Our platforms are for everyone – we’re about promoting speech and helping people connect in a safe and secure way. As part of this, we regularly hear from governments around the world and others with various concerns around public discourse and public safety.
In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree. Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure. I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today. Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction – and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.
In a separate situation, the FBI warned us about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma in the lead up to the 2020 election. That fall, when we saw a New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s family, we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply. It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story. We’ve changed our policies and processes to make sure this doesn’t happen again — for instance, we no longer temporarily demote things in the U.S. while waiting for fact-checkers.
Apart from content moderation, I want to address the contributions I made during the last presidential cycle to support electoral infrastructure. The idea here was to make sure local election jurisdictions across the country had the resources they needed to help people vote safely during a global pandemic. I made these contributions through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. They were designed to be non-partisan — spread across urban, rural, and suburban communities. Still, despite the analyses I’ve seen showing otherwise, I know that some people believe this work benefited one party over the other. My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another – or to even appear to be playing a role. So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.
Respectfully,
/s/ Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Founder, Chairman & CEO
Meta Platforms, Inc.
Update:
Comments professor Jonathan Turley, in Zuckerberg’s Censorship Admission is More Contrived than Contrite: that Zuckerberg’s mea culpa only came after he was forced to release documents he was sitting on for years:
For those of us who have criticized Facebook for years for its role in the massive censorship system, Zuckerberg’s belated contrition was more insulting than inspiring. It had all of the genuine regret of a stalker found hiding under the bed of a victim.
Zuckerberg’s sudden regret only came after his company fought for years to conceal the evidence of its work with the government to censor opposing views. Zuckerberg was finally compelled to release the documents by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and the House Judiciary Committee.
Now forced to admit what many of us have long alleged, Zuckerberg is really, really sorry.
While Musk was fighting the censorship police alone, Zucerberg continued to remain on the sidelines:
I noted that Zuckerberg continued to refuse to release this information after Elon Musk exposed this system in his release of the “Twitter Files.”
Zuckerberg stayed silent as Musk was viciously attacked by anti-free speech figures in Congress and the media. He was fully aware of his own company’s similar conduct but stayed silent.
When the White House and President Joe Biden repeatedly claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, Facebook continued to withhold evidence that they too were pressured to suppress the story before the election.
When the censorship system was recently put before the Supreme Court in Murthy v. Missouri, the justices asked about evidence of coordination and pressure from the government. In Murthy, states successfully showed lower courts that there was coercion from the government in securing an injunction. The Biden administration denied such pressure and the Court rejected the standing of plaintiffs, blocked an order to stop the censorship, and sent the case back down to the lower court.
Zuckerberg still remained silent.
Milei’s Message on Censorship in England
Comments Argentinian President Javier Milei on England’s transformation into a dystopian fascist nightmare on X:
“… we are undertaking a change of paradigm, not only economic, but also social, political and cultural. And with this change we are going against the direction that in recent times many countries in the world are undertaking. While other countries propose censorship, we propose freedom of expression. Look at just what is happening in England, since the socialists came to power, they are putting people in jail for posting on social networks. Well, the journalists here would also like it because, let’s say, they don’t like that they have lost the mic, the monopoly of the microphone and to be able to use that tool to distort and dirty, slander at no cost. The social networks send them invoices and they don’t like it. Stop looking for ghosts. They are receiving the same thing they did, but nothing more than people do it organically because they realized that many of them are criminals. In turn, while others are getting closer and closer to falling into cultural and religious wars, which will eventually expel people from their countries of origin, we invite the rest of the free world to participate in a country under reconstruction.”
Argentinian President Javier Milei sounds off on England's transformation into a dystopian socialist nightmare, where people are being imprisoned for their posts on X
Milei: "… we are undertaking a change of paradigm, not only economic, but also social, political and cultural.… pic.twitter.com/QNF9jddeqC
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) August 15, 2024
Not The Free-Market: J. Tucker on the Decline in U.S. Manufacturing
On X, Jeffrey Tucker makes some interesting comments regarding the fall of manufacturing in America and a free-market response:
For decades, I dismissed, and even defended, the dramatic loss of American manufacturing as nothing but kvetching by economic revanchists and overpaid unionists. I don’t do that any more, namely because the history is deeply complicated by terrible policy mismanagement:
1. Depression then war kicked off the decline in the 20th century, along with fierce wartime rationing that devastated consumer manufacturing, e.g. US piano and clock industry, disrupting supply chains and deleting discretionary spending from the household budgets. That’s not the free market.
2. The end of the gold standard and rise of the petrodollar meant the forever export of American dollars, thus disabling the Hume/Smith/Ricardo settlements mechanisms that come with built-in limits to dramatic industrial disruption. This started the practice that eventually wiped out nearly everything from watches to textiles to steel, that is, forever US debt funded the industrial buildup globally.
3. The price-specie flow mechanism was replaced by a Fed commitment to forever inflation so that domestic prices (wholesale and retail) were never allowed to adjust toward great purchasing power as they would have under a gold standard, thus making the US inherently uncompetitive, despite all its infrastructure, knowledge, history, supply chains, and skills. The Fed just kept the printing going year after year and the debt always had a hungry market abroad.
4. The rise of the hegemonic regulatory state has erecting so many barriers to enterprise in the US that only the largest and most highly capitalized and heavily lawyered companies can thrive. Any industry struggling with thin margins is made incredibly vulnerable. Only those who have tried entrepreneurship can explain this fully. It’s mind boggling.
5. High taxes and high compliance costs move industrial structures toward consolidation, and open up an easy path for any foreign exported to outcompete any enterprise in the US. Every bit of this was preventable and fixable, even under a globalized free market provided the money was sound.
Given all of this, it should not surprise anyone to see the rise of a movement dedicated to industrial policy, higher tariffs, and even autarkic protectionism, none of which will actually fix the problem.
Photo Credit: Jeffrey Tucker by Gage Skidmore
Mossoff: Anti-IP “Advancing America’s Interests Act” is Anti-American
Adam Mossoff, a patent law expert and professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, who is chair of the Forum for IP at the Hudson Institute and a visiting intellectual property fellow at the Heritage Foundation, writes in The Hill, on “Big Tech’s ‘patent troll’ attacks are a smokescreen — don’t let them fool you“:
…Big Tech companies with their legions of DC lobbyists have been on a crusade to weaken the International Trade Commission (ITC), a little-known, independent, nonpartisan federal agency tasked with protecting the United States from imports that violate U.S. laws, including U.S. patent laws. These companies are now at it again, lobbying for a bill that was recently re-introduced in Congress: the Advancing America’s Interests Act (AAIA).
The AAIA would severely restrict the ITC’s ability to block imports manufactured in China that violate U.S. patents. The bill’s title, of course, is classic Washington Orwellian double-speak —this legislation would significantly undermine American innovators and U.S. interests.
A dirty little secret about Big Tech companies is that they profit handsomely from taking the patented ideas of other American innovators. They incorporate these inventions into their products and then they refuse to pay the innovators who created them. It’s called “predatory infringement.” Two recent lawsuits by American startups, Sonos v. Google and Masimo v. Apple, highlight this practice and reveal the tip of the massive IP piracy iceberg by Big Tech companies.
[…]
If we allow patent-infringing products to be imported, we undermine the legal engine that has driven the U.S. innovation economy for over two centuries: the patent system. American inventors and the venture capitalists and investors who fund them need to know that their patents will be enforced, even when infringed by a large, powerful tech company.
In their campaign to close the doors at the ITC to American innovators, Big Tech companies and their backers have promoted arguments again and again that so-called “patent trolls” are using the ITC to hurt U.S. companies. It’s self-serving, false rhetoric that aids their predatory infringement.
In fact, there is no evidence that the ITC is over-run by “patent trolls.”
Trump Assasination Attempt Fails
“1776 represented the culmination of thousands of years of Western civilization and the triumph of not only spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy, and reason. And yet, as we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure. Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities. Many of these people have no idea why they’re doing this, but some know what they are doing. They think the American people are weak and soft and submissive, but no, the American people are strong and proud and they will not allow our country and all of its values, history, and culture to be taken from them.”
“…In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished. It’s not going to happen to us.”
“Make no mistake. This left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress.”[1]
One Should Not Have “Faith” in Any Legal System
John Bolton says that “It’s dangerous to question the integrity of our entire legal system. Our enemies in Moscow and Beijing believe that anything that undercuts America’s general faith in the Constitution weakens America. A lost faith in our Judicial Branch is a win for our enemies.”
It’s actually the opposite. One must constantly question the integrity of all branches of government to make sure they do not overstep their bounds. The American system is not based on faith but reason.
Questioning a particular judgment in the legal system, is the only way to maintain the integrity of the entire legal system.
Questioning trials is in fact what one cannot do in Moscow and Beijing.
And yes even CNN’s legal analyst says the Trump NYC Trial was a political hit job.
It's actually the opposite.
One must constantly question the integrity of all branches of government to make sure they do not overstep their bounds.
The American system is not based on faith but reason. https://t.co/gFyRaWsnRK
— Voice of Reason (@voicereason05) May 30, 2024