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Friday, May 22, 2020
Friday, May 8, 2020
Townhall: Federalism doesn’t pause during a pandemic
Federalism doesn’t pause during a pandemic
As the COVID-19 lockdowns continues to grind on in most states, President Trump has signaled an intense desire for state governors to reopen their respective states. This pressure has ranged from the subtle to the overt. In one particularly alarming development, the president even went so far as to declare that the decision to lift the current stay at home orders is his to make, not state governors.
“The authority of the president of the United States” over reopening state economies “is total,” according to President Trump. “I have the ultimate authority.”
While the president’s remarks are no doubt intended to offset the already sizeable damage done to a large portion of the electorate’s economic prospects, any action taken by the federal government must account for the separation of powers built into our system of federalism.
Under the American system of federalism, the primary power to combat COVID-19 rests with the states, not the federal government or the president.
Monday, May 4, 2020
America Is a Technocracy, Not a Democracy
America Is a Technocracy, Not a Democracy
05/01/2020 |
Perhaps never before in American history have the unelected technocrats played such an enormous role in shaping public policy in America.
In recent weeks, members of Congress have been missing in action. Late last month, the House of Representatives passed the biggest spending bill in history while most members were absent. Member votes were not recorded and the legislation was passed with a voice vote, which required only a tiny handful of members.
Weeks later, the Senate refuses to even meet, and may finally get around to debating some legislative matters in May. As with the House, a handful of members assembled earlier to approve another enormous stimulus bill. Many Senators stayed home. This is "representative government" in modern America.
But if you thought this lack of congressional action means not much is happening in Washington in terms of policymaking, you would be very wrong. It's just that the democratically elected institutions have now become a largely irrelevant sideshow. The real policymaking takes place among unelected experts, who decide for themselves—with minimal oversight or control from actual elected officials—what will happen in terms of public policy. The people who really run the country are these experts and bureaucrats at the central banks, at public health agencies, spy agencies, and an expanding network of boards and commissions.
Read the rest: The Rise of the Technocracy...
Thursday, April 23, 2020
The True Purpose of the Coronavirus Wargame | Glenn TV
The True Purpose of the Coronavirus Wargame | Glenn TV
The coronavirus led to a devastating shutdown of our economy and our way of life. It's everything socialists all over the world have ever dreamed of — opportunity born out of crisis. But who drafted the agenda for our response to the pandemic? Glenn reveals how a group of global elites prepared for a future coronavirus pandemic just months before China reported its first case. Rosa Koire, author of "Behind the Green Mask: UN Agenda 21," joins to discuss how we've actually been fighting a global agenda for decades and details the frightening endgame global socialists have for America. Plus, Glenn asks: How did the World Health Organization become the gatekeeper for pandemic information? Was there a wargame for that too?
WALTER E. WILLIAMS: Benefits vs. costs and COVID-19
WALTER E. WILLIAMS: Benefits vs. costs and COVID-19
April 22, 2020
One of the first lessons in an economics class is everything has a cost. That’s in stark contrast to lessons in the political arena where politicians talk about free stuff.
In our personal lives, decision-making involves weighing costs against benefits. Businessmen make the same calculation if they want to stay in business. It’s an entirely different story for politicians running the government where any benefit, however minuscule, is often deemed to be worth any cost, however large.
Related to decision-making is the issue of being overly safe versus not safe enough. Sometimes, being as safe as one can be is worthless. A minor example: How many of us before driving our cars inspect the hydraulic brake system for damage? We’d be safer if we did, but most of us just assume everything is OK and get into our car and drive away.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 40,000 Americans lose their lives each year because of highway fatalities. Virtually all those lives could be saved with a mandated 5 mph speed limit. Fortunately, we consider costs and rightfully conclude that saving those 40,000 lives aren’t worth the costs and inconvenience of a 5 mph mandate.
With the costs and benefits in mind, we might examine our government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first thing to keep in mind about any crisis, be it war, natural disasters or pandemics, is we should keep markets open and private incentives strong.
Markets solve problems because they provide the right incentives to use resources effectively. Federal, state and local governments have ordered an unprecedented and disastrous shutdown of much of the U.S. economy in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
There’s a strictly health-related downside to the shutdown of the U.S. economy ignored by our leadership that has been argued by epidemiologist Dr. Knut Wittkowski, formerly the head of the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design at Rockefeller University in New York City.
Wittkowski argues that the lockdown prolongs the development of the “herd immunity,” which is our only weapon in “exterminating” the novel coronavirus — outside of a vaccine that’s going to optimistically take 18 months or more to produce.
He says we should focus on shielding the elderly and people with comorbidities while allowing the young and healthy to associate with one another in order to build up immunities. Wittkowski says:
So, it’s very important to keep the schools open and kids mingling to spread the virus to get herd immunity as fast as possible, and then the elderly people, who should be separated, and the nursing homes should be closed during that time, can come back and meet their children and grandchildren after about 4 weeks when the virus has been exterminated.
Herd immunity, Wittkowski argues, would stop a “second wave” headed for the United States in the fall. Dr. David L. Katz, president of True Health Initiative and the founding director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, shares Wittkowski’s vision. Writing in The New York Times, he argued that our fight against COVID-19 could be worse than the virus itself.
The bottom line is that costs can be concealed but not eliminated. Moreover, if people only look at the benefits from a particular course of action, they will do just about anything, because everything has a benefit. Political hustlers and demagogues love promising benefits when the costs can easily be concealed. By the way, the best time to be wrong and persist in being wrong is when the costs of being wrong are borne by others.
The absolute worst part of the COVID-19 pandemic, and possibly its most unrecoverable damage, is the massive power that Americans have given to their federal, state and local governments to regulate our lives in the name of protecting our health. Taking back that power should be the most urgent component of our recovery efforts. It’s going to be challenging; once a politician, and his bureaucracy, gains power, he will fight tooth and nail to keep it.
Walter E. Williams
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. This content is provided courtesy of Creators Syndicate.
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
GREEN NEW DEAL IS AGENDA 21: THE GROWING DRIVE TO MAKE IT LAW
GREEN NEW DEAL IS AGENDA 21: THE GROWING DRIVE TO MAKE IT LAW
21 APR | by Tom DeWeese
For more than 30 years I’ve worn a tinfoil hat because I, and a few others were able to read between the lines of the UN’s Agenda 21. Then, last year when the global forces used a nitwit bartender to launch their Green New Deal, the Republican Party laughed, but immediately I could see exactly what was happening. It was Agenda 21 all over again, but this time on steroids.
Well, get ready because they are about to launch an all-out drive to impose the Green New Deal at every level of American government. Their inspiration for this new game plan is from the lessons they’ve learned from the Coronavirus lock-down. Fear is the key. The new urgency will be climate change using the pandemic tactics
Ironically, the policy designated to save us all from this very old, but renewed crisis is their thirty year old solution – Agenda 21, now renamed the Green New Deal.
READ this important article at AmericanPolicy.org...
TOM DEWEESE
Living and Dying in Bill Gates’ Fish Bowl
Living and Dying in Bill Gates’ Fish Bowl
As the virus takes its toll, those of us still in good health and with the ability to think clearly have the duty to explain to our fellow citizens what is really going on. We are living in a global experiment in which “health experts” such as Bill Gates, previously known for software development, have decided to treat us as specimens in a giant fish bowl for study and observation. Many of us will get sick. Many won’t survive.
Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the recipient of an academic award from Chinese communist authorities, has emerged in recent weeks as an “expert” on coronavirus when just a few months ago the media were starting to pay attention to his sleazy involvement with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Even the New York Times was on to the story, digging up photos of Gates and Epstein at his mansion. One of Epstein’s associates had been placed at the Gates Foundation.
Epstein was among a group of global elites who shared an atheist belief that scientific advances could help them live forever artificially. It’s not exactly clear what Epstein, Gates, and others were contemplating. But Gates’ relationship began after Epstein was convicted of sex crimes.
Cliff Kincaid, a veteran journalist and media critic, Cliff concentrated in journalism and communications at the University of Toledo, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Cliff has written or co-authored nine books on media and cultural affairs and foreign policy issues. One of Cliff's books, "Global Bondage: The UN Plan to Rule the World" is still available. Cliff has appeared on Hannity & Colmes, The O’Reilly Factor, Crossfire and has been published in the Washington Post, Washington Times, Chronicles, Human Events and Insight. Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. E-Mail: Kincaid@comcast.net
Sunday, April 19, 2020
The European Union is Dead but Does Not Yet Know It
The European Union is Dead but Does Not Yet Know It
- The truth is that there is no "Union".
- The coronavirus now has put the European Union and its comfort zone face-to-face with all its weaknesses, decadence and cowardice.
- Another merciless battle Italy fought with the EU was for protective face-masks. France adopted a policy of requisitioning them; Germany banned their export. Those unilateral decisions undermined a much-touted EU principle: the free movement of goods in the single market.
- As L'Express exposed, France seized four million masks belonging to a Swedish company and that had been intended, in part, for Italy and Spain.
- When Italy and Greece were overwhelmed by migrants from the Middle East and Africa, the EU countries refused to take their "share" of migrants. Lacking a policy to stop the flow of mass immigration, Europe decided to leave the southern countries to their fate.
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