In the news, Friday, July 23, 2021

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JUL 22      INDEX      JUL 24

________

________

from HumanProgress.org

Education Website

Castro’s Cuba: Unfree, Unequal, and Underperforming

Mediocre development gains do not excuse human rights abuses in Cuba.

________

from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

Democracy's Road to Tyranny

Plato, in his Republic, tells us that tyranny arises, as a rule, from democracy. Historically, this process has occurred in three quite different ways. Before describing these several patterns of social change, let us state precisely what we mean by “democracy.” Pondering the question of “Who should rule,” the democrat gives his answer: “the majority of politically equal citizens, either in person or through their representatives.” In other words, equality and majority rule are the two fundamental principles of democracy. A democracy may be either liberal or illiberal. Genuine liberalism is the answer to an entirely different question: How should government be exercised? The answer it provides is: regardless of who rules, government must be carried out in such a way that each person enjoys the greatest amount of freedom, compatible with the common good. This means that an absolute monarchy could be liberal (but hardly democratic) and a democracy could be totalitarian, illiberal, and tyrannical, with a majority brutally persecuting minorities. (We are, of course, using the term “liberal” in the globally accepted version and not in the American sense, which since the New Deal has been totally perverted.)

________

from Spokane Daily Chronicle

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Chris Cargill: They work for the people, but seldom times show it in their actions

Ask any working mom, retiree or college student what’s wrong with today’s politics and there’s a good chance you’ll get the same answer: “My elected representative doesn’t listen to me or care about my opinion” or “My elected official routinely ignores the public will.” We’ve seen it here in Spokane, where city leaders have been reluctant to act on a requirement that collective bargaining talks between the city and union leaders, involving millions in public spending, be open and transparent. The voter-approved law wasn’t a suggestion – Spokane voters passed it with nearly 80% support. Yet city officials have been uneasy about following through, at one time saying they didn’t want to disrupt the “city-worker relationship.”

________

In the news, Thursday, July 22, 2021

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JUL 21      INDEX      JUL 23

________

________

from FRANCE 24 English
LEAST BIASED (slight left), HIGH, TV News Channel & Website in Paris, France

AI's human protein database a 'great leap' for research

On Thursday, researchers at Google's DeepMind and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) unveiled a database of 20,000 proteins expressed by the human genome, freely and openly available online. They also included more than 350,000 proteins from 20 organisms such as bacteria, yeast and mice that scientists rely on for research. To create the database, scientists used a state-of-the-art machine learning programme that was able to accurately predict the shape of proteins based on their amino acid sequences. Instead of spending months using multi-million dollar equipment, they trained their AlphaFold system on a database of 170,000 known protein structures. The AI then used an algorithm to make accurate predictions of the shape of 58 percent of all proteins within the human proteome.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Sue Lani Madsen: Immutable characteristics that matter

School board elections are usually sleepy events with one or two candidates, and in some districts they still are. But virtual school in 2020 put parents physically in the classroom as partners in learning and inspired some to get involved at a systemic level. This year has drawn an unusually high number of competitive races, with parents driven to action by debates over divisive curriculum and dissatisfaction with decisions delaying school re-opening.

________

In the news, Wednesday, July 21, 2021

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JUL 20      INDEX      JUL 22

________

________

from Hoover Institution
Nonprofit Organization in Stanford, California

Conflict In The Eastern Mediterranean

This is a story of the sea. It comes from the place where sea stories began, the Mediterranean realm of Homer’s Odyssey and of the naval battles of Salamis and Actium. It’s a story of pluck and ingenuity but also of the dramatic changes that technology is bringing to war, from the skies above to the seas below. The protagonists are Greece and Turkey. The time is the summer of 2020 to the present, although the conflict has roots in earlier events. The diverse and complex dynamics of the region offer many causes for crises. But in this case, the catalyst was fossil-fuel exploration rights in the Eastern Mediterranean, both off the coast of Cyprus and elsewhere.

________

from Media Research Center (MRC)
(& CNSNews.com & NewsBusters)  RIGHT BIAS, MIXED
nonprofit media watchdog for politically conservative content analysis based in Reston, Virginia

Wikipedia Co-Founder: Site Is 'Propaganda' – It’s 'Commitment To Neutrality Long Gone'

If you’ve been frustrated by the overall leftist tilt of Wikipedia entries on subjects of political importance (which includes philosophical, moral, economic, religious, cultural, or historical matters, since politics sucks in everything it can), you’re not alone. On July 14 co-founder Larry Sanger reiterated to LockdownTV host Freddy Sayers that Wikipedia – noted as the world’s fifth largest website, with over six billion visits per MONTH – cannot be trusted to give you truthful information.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

In the news, Tuesday, July 20, 2021

________

JUL 19      INDEX      JUL 21

________

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

from UPI News Agency (United Press International)

Media/News Company

Textron, General Dynamics picked for Marines' light armored vehicle prototype

Textron Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems each will design a prototype model of a light armored carrier ordered by the U.S. Marine Corps, the branch announced. The two defense contractors will have 22 months to build competing versions of the Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle, the Corps said in a Friday press release. The Marines are looking for 500 of the ARV vehicles to replace its current light armor fleet of 600 LAV-25s. The LAV-25 is noted for its instability as it is involved in more accidents than any other type of Marine vehicle, according to the Government Accountability Office. The cost of the five-year program is estimated to be between $1.8 and $6.8 billion, Defense News reported.

________

In the news, Monday, July 19, 2021

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JUL 18      INDEX      JUL 20

________

________

from Daily Wire

RIGHT BIAS, MIXED, American news and opinion website

NPR Accuses Daily Wire Of Tricking Readers Because We’re Conservative. That’s A Lie. But NPR Is Lying To Its Own Readers.

In a hit-piece published Monday, publicly-funded NPR accused The Daily Wire of tricking Americans who engage with our news stories, asserting that readers or those who engage with our content might not know we’re conservative, even though, as NPR admits in the piece, Daily Wire openly discloses bias on its “About” page. The claim by NPR is, of course, intentionally misleading, not to mention glaringly ironic.

__________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

In the news, Sunday, July 18, 2021

________

JUL 17      INDEX      JUL 19

________

________

from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)

RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

Jobs From California to Florida—Here’s Why

One of the great things about America’s 50-state federal system is that people can vote with their feet in response to different policies. In that sense, California just lost yet another foot-vote referendum. “The Walt Disney Company is the latest business to plan to move some operations out of California in favor of a lower-taxed state,” Fox Business reports. “Disney will move about 2,000 jobs from its California headquarters to a new campus in Florida.” ... When given the option, people overwhelmingly choose economic freedom over big-government stagnation.

________

from Intellectual Takeout

Nonprofit Organization in Bloomington, Minnesota

Is Russia Part of Western Civilization?

A recent tweet by conservative columnist and vlogger Dennis Prager about the news media posing a greater threat to “Western civilization” than Russia has prompted a fierce backlash on online media. It has also indirectly given voice to an age-old question about Russia: is she Western, or not? Are Russia and America bound by the same ties that unite us with Europe? Or is Russia something other, a stranger to the international order crafted by the ascendancy of European culture?

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

In the news, Saturday, July 17, 2021

________

JUL 16      INDEX      JUL 18

________

________

from Intellectual Takeout

Nonprofit Organization in Bloomington, Minnesota

How Junk Studies Are Used to Show Racism

Scientific studies “confirming” America to be a racist country have become the modern equivalent of the cold fusion experiment. A research psychologist can attain fame and lavish funding if she can publish a study demonstrating an urgent need for government intervention to correct the epidemic of systematic racism. Most calls for drastic social change rely on platitudes and, “we know”-type statements. Asking for evidence or support for charges like these can be risky and might invite retaliatory criticism. But if one is patient and drills through the links, one can uncover the allegedly scientific studies said to support these assumptions about a racist America. 

________

from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

The ECB's New Inflation Plan Is Like the Old Plan. But Worse.

Old, absurd, and unfit for purpose; how else to describe the “new” monetary framework for euro monetary policy presented by ECB Chief Lagarde amidst much fanfare on Thursday, July 8? Why old? The “new” framework is remarkably similar to that unveiled in May 2003. Why absurd?  The main rationale put forward for the framework is to work around a problem of the “zero bound”.  That problem, however, is of the ECB’s own making. Why unfit for purpose?  Chief Christine Lagarde tells us that the review has been undertaken to make sure that “our monetary policy strategy is fit for purpose both today and in the future”.  But she considers no critique of that strategy and advances no rebuttal of any.  She does not explain why she expects better results from a plan that so similar to the strategy that's been pursued during the past quarter century. What Is New in the Plan? The ECB has upped its inflation target. 

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from National Review  RIGHT BIAS

The Latest ‘Stolen Election’ Stunt’s Lesson: Move On from Trump — or Lose

If Republicans are going to have any chance of stopping the ruinous Democratic reign by winning in 2022 and 2024, they must stop relitigating the lost presidential election of 2020. Trump will never let that go, but Republicans have to. Keep in mind: across the nation, down-ballot conservative Republicans significantly outperformed Trump — whereas in Georgia, Trump single-handedly cost Republicans the Senate seats they needed to stop Biden’s demolition of the economy and conveyor-belt appointment of woke-progressive judges and bureaucrats. Donald Trump cannot win the presidency again. He is popular in a number of places, but poison in most others. The former president will never again have what he’d need to win a national election: the reluctant support of doubters who, for the sake of stopping Democrats, were willing to take a chance on his flawed character. Had it not been for Trump’s bizarre post-election performance, culminating in the disgraceful Capitol riot, congressional Republicans would be in a position to stop Democrats right now — we wouldn’t be looking at another three to six trillion dollars down the drain (along with a stealth amnesty plan, a potential federal takeover of elections, and anything else on the progressive wish-list that they can manage to slam past the Senate parliamentarian). The reasons for Trump’s political rise and the many positive aspects of his presidency hold important lessons for Republicans. But those positive aspects mainly involved enabling conservative advisers and subordinates to implement policy — often against his instincts, which are not conservative. The future of the party has to be conservative. If the future is Trump, it will no longer be the conservative party, and it will be in the wilderness for a very long time.

________

from Newsweek

LEFT-CENTER BIAS,  HIGH,  American weekly news magazine

Naomi Osaka Faced Race Backlash After Choosing Japan: 'Your Black Card Is Revoked'

Professional tennis player Naomi Osaka has said she faced a backlash for choosing to compete for Japan rather than the U.S. and that some criticism focused on her race. Osaka discussed her decision to play for Japan in her new Netflix docuseries. She was born in Chūō-ku in Osaka and her mother was Japanese, while her father was from Haiti. She was raised in the U.S.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

In the news, Friday, July 16, 2021

________

JUL 15      INDEX      JUL 17

________

________

from Competitive Enterprise Institute

Biden Re-Regulation of Household Showerheads Portrayed by Green Groups as Solution to Existential Threat

The Biden administration today announced it’s reversing the Trump administration’s efforts to deregulate consumer showerheads. The Department of Energy formally started the process by publishing a notice saying the agency would revise a Trump rule that allowed for better-performing showerheads – a consumer-friendly rule CEI supported.

________

from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)

RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

Meet the Only Monarch in History Nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize—and See the 'Death' Path He Opened a Century Ago

Caminito del Rey, also known as ‘the walkway of death,’ was opened in 1921 to the public by Spain’s King Alfonso XIII, an uncommonly impressive monarch.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

In the news, Thursday, July 15, 2021

________

JUL 14      INDEX      JUL 16

________

________

from Competitive Enterprise Institute

Green Protectionism on the Rise?

The $3.5 trillion budget proposal that the Democratic leadership in Congress is putting together will reportedly include the world’s first carbon tariffs, which are added to goods coming from countries that do not meet certain environmental regulatory standards. The only difference from Trump-era trade policy is the green packaging. It is far from a sure thing that the carbon tariffs will be enacted; proposed budgets never get enacted in their original form, and it is still early in the process. As The New York Times reports, “Democrats released no details about their tax proposal on Wednesday. Calling it simply a ‘polluter import fee,’ the framework does not explain what would be taxed, at what rate or how much revenue it would expect to generate.” Given how the vagueness of the proposal at this point, it is possible that it was leaked in part to gauge public reaction. That reaction should be negative.

________

from HumanProgress.org

Education Website

Rising food prices: how bad is it?

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Eating is getting costlier for Americans as the food industry faces the steepest inflation in a decade.” However, keep in mind that we don’t know if the rise in food prices is a short-term or a long-term development. Also, our sense of rising food prices may be exaggerated by the fact that some of the pandemic saw an actual food price deflation. Moreover, rising food prices are already being mitigated by wage increases, which are necessitated by the tight labor market. Finally, price rises over a short period of time, say one or two years, do not negate the long-term trends. Over the last century, food has become dramatically more affordable in the United States.

________

from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

Forced Vaccinations in France Bring Both Repression and Protest

In a speech to the nation just ahead of Bastille Day on July 14 celebrating the French Revolution, President Emmanuel Macron delivered a paradoxical blow to the Republic’s famous slogan: Liberté, égalité, fraternité. He announced a series of measures to speed up the pace of covid-19 vaccinations which undermine individual liberties and threaten a strong political and economic backlash. Already during the covid-19 pandemic, the French had to cope with some of the most severe lockdowns in the world, which curtailed both economic freedom and important civil liberties. ... Although Macron claims that vaccination is not compulsory for the general public for now, he is de facto obliging everyone who wants to live a normal life to take the shot.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Sue Lane Madsen: Starting a conversation or picking cherries?

Making accusations of cherry picking while serving carefully picked cherries of your own is a clear sign of bias. But while a journalist has an obligation to present all sides, a columnist can choose to either highlight issues for debate or just preach to a personal choir. Todd Myers, director of the Center for the Environment of the Washington Policy Center, recently found himself the target of a choirmaster after an op-ed he wrote pointing out how past environmental predictions don’t track with current data.

________

In the news, Wednesday, July 14, 2021

________

JUL 13      INDEX      JUL 15

________

________

from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

Canadian Healthcare: A Half Century of Broken Promises

“People primordially fear illness and death, and physicians, from shaman to modern scientists, have always been perceived as holding a near-talismanic power over both. With the rise of modern wealth came the potential for enormous tax harvesting, and politicians were quick to see that this power over life and death could generate deep feelings of gratitude and loyalty. Could they take this power unto themselves?” – William D. Gairdner, The Trouble with Canada . . . Still! A Citizen Speaks Out. Yes, they could, and in 1966, Canadian politicians took that power unto themselves, then promptly reneged on their promise to provide universally accessible healthcare for everyone.

Will the Feds Try Price Controls to "Fix" Price Inflation?

As it began rapidly expanding the money supply early in 2020, the Fed confidently assured the public there would be no unanticipated or serious rise in inflation. Now that their projections have failed to materialize (in fact, their forecasts were off by almost 40 percent), they assure us that this will be but a temporary spike. But for the sake of argument, let us imagine they are wrong—something that considering their track record is not difficult to do: What then? As policymakers continue to mine the twentieth century for mistakes to repeat—from protectionism to higher taxes, to trying to start a second Cold War technology and arms race—it seems only logical to ask how long it will be before popular discontent over the rising consumer prices generated by their mismanagement of the money supply leads them to resurrect one of the most serious and notable policy failures of the last hundred years: price controls. After all, prices are rising rapidly, right?

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

from Washington Policy Center

Educational Research Center in Seattle, Washington

Lies, dam lies, and manipulated statistics: an autopsy of a Shawn Vestal column

Across the Pacific Northwest, salmon populations are struggling and need more resources and attention to help restore healthy numbers. Despite that reality, virtually all of the political attention is focused on the Snake River and proposals to lavish tens of billions of dollars to destroy four dams, even as salmon recovery efforts in other ecosystems are underfunded. That emphasis on destroying dams is counterproductive myopia. Newspaper columnist Shawn Vestal is not happy that I have highlighted the repeated errors of those who advocate destroying the Snake River dams, pointing out that salmon returns have begun to rebound after a downturn. In his recent column he accused me of making “dishonest, disingenuous, and unscientific arguments about salmon returns.” He makes several errors, including the most basic – failing to understand my argument – in part due to his botched and half-hearted attempt to contact me, which resulted in a retraction of part of his column.

________

In the news, Tuesday, July 13, 2021

________

JUL 12      INDEX      JUL 14

________

________

from ABC News (& affiliates)

TV Network in New York, New York

Wife fears for American snatched from Moscow and taken to Belarus

The American lawyer vanished in April after getting lunch in Moscow.

Alena Denisavets said she had been looking for her husband for more than a day when she got a text message from a lawyer who she believed was working for Belarus’ feared security services, still known today as the KGB. Her husband Youras Ziankovich had vanished while on a trip to Moscow in April. She said she learned from the hotel where he was staying that unknown men had taken him. Now, she was hearing from the place she had never wanted him to be.

________

from HumanProgress.org

Education Website

Study Finds Economic Prosperity is Associated With a Cleaner Environment

The climate activist and Time Magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year Greta Thunberg made the following remark at the 2019 U.N. Climate Action Summit, "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet, I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!" Thunberg’s remarks are riddled with generalizations and exaggerations, but the main thrust of her argument is the most troubling one because it is fundamentally false. According to the activist, there is a negative relationship between economic growth and environmental protection. That assertion has little basis in reality. On the contrary, economic progress enhances our ability to be good stewards of our planet. Higher living standards and ecological responsibility are two interrelated byproducts of human progress.

________

from Legal Insurrection

I’m A Middle School Teacher And See How Critical Race Curriculum Is Creating Racial Hostility In School

I have been a public school teacher for the past 22 years, with the past seven in Providence, Rhode Island.  I have had the honor of serving public school children and their families as an English teacher first at the high school level, and currently at the middle school level. ... I love being a teacher and I care a great deal about my students, almost all of whom are non-white.  This past 2020/21 school year was a sad and worrisome turning point for me as an educator. Providence K-8 teachers were introduced to one of the most racially divisive, hateful, and in large part, historically inaccurate curriculums I have ever seen in my teaching career. Yes, I am speaking about the controversial critical race theory that has infiltrated our public schools here in Rhode Island under the umbrella of Cuturally Responsive learning and teaching, which includes a focus on identities. You won’t see the words “critical race theory” on the materials, but those are the concepts taught. The new, racialized curriculum and materials focuses almost exclusively on an oppressor-oppressed narrative, and have created racial tensions among students and staff where none existed before.

________

from Mises Institute

RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

The Problem of Security: Historicity of the State and "European Realism"

Libertarianism has proved to be a force in almost every field of contemporary social debate. The doyens of social science can no longer dismiss the arguments produced by the leading scholars—dead and alive—of this intellectual tradition. Much of what is being discussed in this volume, being a specific libertarian contribution to the problem of “security,” is part of a broader dispute on crime, punishment, and the State that belongs also to orthodox (i.e., statist) social science.

As Inflation Rises, the Fed Is Losing the Narrative

Another week, another economic report far worse than expectations. As Vladimir Zernov notes: "U.S. has just released Inflation Rate and Core Inflation Rate reports for June. Inflation Rate grew by 0.9% month-over-month in June compared to analyst consensus which called for growth of just 0.5%. On a year-over-year basis, Inflation Rate increased by 5.4% compared to analyst consensus of 4.9%. Core Inflation also exceeded analyst expectations, increasing by 4.5% year-over-year compared to analyst estimate of 4%." Just as important as the official numbers is the growing drumbeat of Fed skepticism outside of its usual critics. This week prior to the new Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, the Wall Street Journal published the results of a survey of economists forecasting inflation higher than the Fed’s projections.

The Fed Says It Stabilizes the Economy. I'm Skeptical.

Before, during, and after the 2007–09 financial crisis, the masthead of the Federal Reserve Board’s main webpage included the following assertion right below its name at the top of the page: The Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, provides the nation with a safe, flexible and stable monetary and financial system. This statement is still there today. Can we all breathe easier now? Maybe not, if we endured one of the worst financial crises ever while the Fed was championing itself as a source of stability.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

In the news, Monday, July 12, 2021

________

JUL 11      INDEX      JUL 13

________

________

from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)

RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

Exclusive: Cuban Activist Explains What’s Really Motivating the Cuban People’s Uprising

An uprising in Cuba has captured international headlines after pro-freedom demonstrations broke out late Sunday and quickly went viral. Thousands of Cubans took to the street to call for freedom and protest against the Communist regime that controls the country’s population and economy with an iron fist. “Thousands of Cubans marched on Havana’s Malecon promenade and elsewhere on the island Sunday to protest food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus crisis, in one of biggest anti-government demonstrations in memory,” MarketWatch reports. ... No matter what media spin suggests, Marcell Felipe insists that the protests are a rejection of socialism and communism.

The ATF’s Latest Proposed Regulation Could Make 40 Million Gun Owners Felons Overnight

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has published a notice outlining their plans to update regulations on stabilizing braces. Originally developed to help those with disabilities shoot comfortably, stabilizing braces have become a popular firearm accessory used to legally adapt AR-style pistols into guns that can be shot from the shoulder, like the highly regulated short-barreled rifle. According to the ATF, stabilizing braces will now have to conform to a set of stringent guidelines to be considered legal. If they don’t meet those standards, they—and the gun to which they’re attached—will automatically become regulated as a rifle under the National Firearms Act. ... This is a conspicuous confiscation of power, and it’s precisely what America’s founding fathers strove to avoid through the establishment of checks and balances.

Why the Poor Die So Much Sooner Than Wealthier People (and What We All Can Do to Help)

The top quarter of American income earners can expect to live a decade longer than the bottom quarter, medical research shows. This health disparity seems downright cruel. Not only do those in poverty have to pay more for things like credit and insurance, they also pay more years to the Grim Reaper. ... The life expectancy gap between the rich and poor continues to increase in the US—even as the government now spends a trillion dollars a year on poverty alleviation.

________

from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

Why Europe's Highly Regulated Power Market Is So Bad for Growth

Despite an endless chain of monetary and fiscal stimuli, the eurozone consistently disappoints in growth and job creation. One of the reasons is demographics. No monetary and public spending stimulus can offset the impact on consumption and economic growth of an aging population, as Japan can also confirm. However, there is an especially important factor that tends to be overlooked: the lack of competitiveness of the eurozone industry due to rising and noncompetitive power prices.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

In the news, Sunday, July 11, 2021

________

JUL 10      INDEX      JUL 12

________

________

from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)

RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

Why so Many Homeless People Have Smartphones (And How They're Making Social Isolation Worse)

There’s been no shortage of hand-wringing the last 15 months as our nation grappled with COVID-19 and its ripple effects, many of which are not medical: the threat of a collapsed economy, government overreach, and increased seclusion along with its affiliated detriments have been concerns. At the epicenter of this worry has been the most vulnerable among us, including low-income Americans. Regarding increased seclusion, how might we mitigate the harms of isolation for those already more vulnerable? Many have advocated for increased access to technology via government subsidized Lifeline cellphones as an innovative way for the poor to remain connected. But is the antidote to isolation that simple? .... The Lifeline program is a sobering reminder of what seasoned poverty fighters know well: Good intentions don’t always yield good results.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

In the news, Saturday, July 10, 2021

________

JUL 09      INDEX      JUL 11

________

________

from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)

RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

Teachers Union Announces Campaign to Bring ‘Every Student’ Ibram X. Kendi’s Radical Teachings

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which is the second-largest teachers union in the country, recently announced their new "campaign to ‘stamp out racism.'" While that sounds innocent enough — we should all oppose racism, of course — the details are quite troubling. The centerpiece of their campaign is the release of an AFT edition of the book Stamped, by the well-known activist Ibram X. Kendi and writer Jayson Reynolds. ... But any campaign looking to promote Ibram X. Kendi’s particular brand of antiracism should be approached with extreme skepticism, especially when it is aimed at our children’s schools. After all, Kendi is a truly radical figure who openly embraces racial discrimination.

The Highlights (and Lowlights) of Biden’s New Executive Orders

It’s unfortunately par for the course in recent history for American presidents to pursue unilateral executive action instead of the more difficult, yet constitutionally preferable, business of working with Congress to pass legislation.  Intended to “establish a whole-of-government effort to promote competition in the American economy,” President Biden’s latest sweeping executive orders are just the latest example.  The vast set of orders contains 72 different initiatives involving more than a dozen different federal agencies. It starts at least from an agreeable, if vague, premise: promoting competition in the economy. Left-leaning economists and free-market economists alike would agree that, generally speaking, competition in markets fosters more innovation, lower prices, and better outcomes compared to monopolies or markets otherwise dominated by a select few industry giants.

________

from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

Government Debt Is Starting to Look Almost as Sketchy as Payday Loans

If there is one thing every honest money-saving advisor would agree on, it's that a payday loan is a bad idea. Taking a high interest loan backed by nothing but your word to pay off your current account to fuel consumption with no capital investment is just leading you on the road to ruin. However this simple message of living within one’s means does not seem to have reached the gilded ears of central banks and governments around the world. As inflation rises (who could have guessed the borrowing binge of 2021 would have resulted in higher inflation?), both the EU and American governments are now caught between a rock and … well, a rock.

The Value of Taking Risks

Review: Curiosity and Its Twelve Rules for Life by F. H. Buckley

Frank Buckley, a Canadian-born lawyer who teaches at the Scalia School of Law at George Mason University, has given us in this remarkable book a philosophy of life, based on unusually wide knowledge and penetrating reflection. In what follows, I shall discuss only a few of the topics he covers, concentrating on his observations about politics and economics. In doing so, I risk conveying a wrong impression of the book, as these topics by no means exhaust it; but Buckley himself emphasizes the value of taking risks.

________

from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

In the news, Friday, July 9, 2021

________

JUL 08      INDEX      JUL 10

________

________

from ABC News (& affiliates)

TV Network in New York, New York

In hour-long call, Biden discusses ransomware with Putin after another massive attack

The president said afterward he's "optimistic," but it's unclear why.

In a nearly one-hour call, President Joe Biden discussed ransomware attacks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, saying afterward he was "optimistic" about communications between the two countries going forward. The discussion, their first since meeting in Switzerland last month for a major summit, comes days after another massive ransomware attack affected as many as 1,500 businesses around the world, according to the software vendor that was impacted. ... When asked what actions he wanted or expected Putin to take against the cyberattacks, Biden demurred. "It's not appropriate for me to say what I expect him to do now. But we'll see," The president told reporters.

________

from Competitive Enterprise Institute

CEI Experts React to President Biden’s Wide-Ranging Executive Order on Competition

President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy today, which the White House claims is aimed at enhancing competition. The wide-ranging, unilateral action included many policy areas, including freight rail, airline fees, shipping, banking, antitrust, net neutrality, and occupational licensing. CEI: “Joe Biden’s new EO on ‘Promoting Competition in the American Economy’ does the opposite. It is an effort to consolidate sweeping government power over agriculture, airlines, banking, broadband, health, and the technology sector – a list that may prove non-inclusive. With some exception, only the government/business alliances will win, not the public. The limited areas in which the EO is deregulatory (over-the-counter hearing aids) are paltry.”

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from DW News (Deutsche Welle)

Broadcasting & Media Production Company in Bonn, Germany

Lithuania starts building Belarus border anti-migrant fence

Lithuania on Friday began putting up a fence along its border with Belarus after experiencing a recent massive influx of migrants coming from its neighbor. Vilnius has accused Belarusian authorities of encouraging the flow of migrants illegally into Lithuania, an EU member state, in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Belarus by the bloc over human rights abuses and other issues. More than 1,500 people have crossed into Lithuania from Belarus in the past two months —  20 times that seen in the whole of 2020.

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from HumanProgress.org

Education Website

Humanity’s Most Ancient Enemy May Be on Its Way Out

Malaria, the most common disease spread by the mosquito, is a thing of the past in much of the developed world, but the parasite still infects some 200 million people a year – killing 400,000. Children aged under the age of five are most susceptible to malaria, accounting for a majority of the fatalities worldwide. In addition to the human suffering, malaria imposes huge economic costs on some of the poorest countries in the world – nine percent of the gross domestic product in Chad, for example. Mercifully, our most ancient enemy may have met its match. The COVID-19 pandemic sucked so much air out of the news cycle that relatively few people noted the emergence of an amazing new malaria vaccine. The injection infects people with “live Plasmodium falciparum parasites, along with drugs to kill any parasites that reached the liver or bloodstream, where they can cause malaria symptoms.” According to Nature magazine, “the vaccination protected 87.5 percent of participants who were infected after three months with the same strain of parasite that was used in the inoculation, and 77.8 percent of those who were infected with a different strain.”

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from Mises Institute

RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

Woodrow Wilson's "Second Personality"

Wherever blame for the war might lie, for the immense majority of Americans in 1914 it was just another of the European horrors from which our policy of neutrality, set forth by the Founding Fathers of the Republic, had kept us free. Pašić, Sazonov, Conrad, Poincaré, Moltke, Edward Grey, and the rest—these were the men our Fathers had warned us against. No conceivable outcome of the war could threaten an invasion of our vast and solid continental base. We should thank a merciful Providence, which gave us this blessed land and impregnable fortress, that America, at least, would not be drawn into the senseless butchery of the Old World. That was unthinkable. However, in 1914 the president of the United States was Thomas Woodrow Wilson. The term most frequently applied to Woodrow Wilson nowadays is "idealist." In contrast, the expression "power-hungry" is rarely used. Yet a scholar not unfriendly to him has written of Wilson that "he loved, craved, and in a sense glorified power." Musing on the character of the US government while he was still an academic, Wilson wrote: "I cannot imagine power as a thing negative and not positive."1 Even before he entered politics, he was fascinated by the power of the presidency and how it could be augmented by meddling in foreign affairs and dominating overseas territories. The war with Spain and the American acquisition of colonies in the Caribbean and across the Pacific were welcomed by Wilson as productive of salutary changes in our federal system. "The plunge into international politics and into the administration of distant dependencies" had already resulted in "the greatly increased power and opportunity for constructive statesmanship given the President."

This Is a Weak Jobs Recovery

The United States’s jobs recovery is extremely poor, especially if we consider the size of the monetary and fiscal stimulus and the spectacular upgrade to GDP estimates. After a massive consensus increase in GDP recovery estimates to 6.5 percent in 2021, no one should be cheering a 5.9 percent unemployment rate, 58 percent employment-to-population ratio, and, even worse, a 61.6 percent labor force participation rate that has remained stagnant for ten months. Furthermore, Bloomberg Economics shows that the United States unemployment rate would be 8.4 percent excluding the participation decline. In the European Union, the employment situation is also a cause of concern. The United States’s jobs recovery is certainly strong only when compared with an extremely weak European jobs environment.

My Case against Minimum-Wage Laws

Minimum-wage laws are again in the news, as Joe Biden and his political allies in Congress seek to push the national minimum from its current level of $7.25 per hour up to $15 per hour. Some politicians, Sen. Bernie Sanders for one, declare that people can barely survive even on $15 per hour. If the law takes the minimum up to $15, we can expect pressure to raise it still further in the future. After all, why shouldn’t the government be compassionate and improve the lives of millions of low-wage workers? Many Americans think that’s one of the reasons for democracy—so that the government can respond to people’s needs.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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In the news, Thursday, July 8, 2021

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JUL 07      INDEX      JUL 09

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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)

RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

As Gas Prices Surge, We Need to Have a Conversation … about Cartels

Oil prices hit a 6-year high this week as talks between OPEC and its allies (collectively known as OPEC+) broke down. The intergovernmental organization was expected to establish higher output targets among its member nations to meet the increasing global demand for oil, but talks were abandoned after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates failed to resolve a dispute over oil production levels. Though oil is always a tricky market, it has been especially difficult to navigate during the pandemic. “OPEC+ took historic measures in April 2020 and removed nearly 10 million barrels per day of production in an effort to support prices as demand for petroleum-products plummeted,” CNBC reports. “Since then, the group has been slowly returning barrels to the market, while meeting on a near monthly basis to discuss output policy.” ... If it seems odd that OPEC has so much power over the oil industry, well, it should.

What Is the Great Resignation of 2021? (If You Don't Know, You’ll Want to Read This)

If you don’t spend your days on TikTok or Reddit, you may be blissfully unaware of a growing movement urging people to quit their jobs en masse this fall. It’s called “The Great Resignation of 2021,” and for businesses already struggling to attract workers back to the office it could spell very bad news. The social media trend coincides with broader disruptions in the labor market. Monster, a global employment website, recently reported 95 percent of employees are considering changing jobs. This is on top of the 4 million people who already followed through and resigned in April. The country’s labor market is in a precarious position. The policies of the pandemic spurred the sharpest economic contraction in US history, millions lost their jobs and are still out of work, and yet businesses have been unable to fill their open positions. ... Central planners were warned that these kinds of problems would result from their policies, and yet they persisted anyway. As a result, it is likely we will all continue to see supply shortages and an increase in the price of goods and services.

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from HumanProgress.org

Education Website

The Canadian Child-Deaths Would Not Have Shocked Our Ancestors

Revelations of graveyards containing the bodies of some 4,000 children from the First Nations in Canada have shocked the world. The dead were some of the 150,000 indigenous children sent or forcibly taken to residential schools meant to divorce the former from their birth culture. The graves represent the injustice and misery of the past, but our reaction to them is proof of our advancement. In pre-industrial times, child deaths were so common that those graves wouldn’t have shocked anyone. In fact, a death rate of some three percent of children is low by historical standards. It was only in the past 50 or 60 years that the child mortality rate fell below 3 percent – even in rich countries. The usual estimation is that half of all children died before adulthood in archaic societies, one quarter before their first birthday and another quarter before the age of 15, which is the end of puberty and our reasonable definition of becoming an adult. That seems to hold over all societies examined, including the Roman Empire, 18th century Britain, and all other groups of humans over time. (It is also, roughly speaking, true of the other Great Apes.)

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from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

The Electoral College as a Restraint on American Democracy: Its Evolution from Washington to Jackson
The growth of political parties and interest group politics, and the promotion of democracy as a fundamental principle of American government, all came as a result of the move to popular voting for president.

The Phillips Curve Myth

According to a popular way of thinking, the central bank can influence the rate of economic expansion by means of monetary policy. It is also held that this influence carries a price, which manifests itself in terms of inflation. Those analysts that insist on following the Phillips curve in order to ascertain the future course of the momentum of prices of goods are deceiving themselves.

Can the Dollar Survive Both Cryptocurrencies and China?

In his book Denationalisation of Money, F.A. Hayek argued that governments have never devoted their power to providing proper money over time. They “have refrained from grossly abusing it only when they were under such a discipline as the gold standard imposed.”1 The gold backing of the US dollar as the global reserve currency was lifted in the early 1970s, and paper currencies, so-called fiat currencies, have since become the norm. Following this decision, the paper currencies have dramatically lost value against gold (figure 1). Since the turn of the millennium, this process has substantially accelerated.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Sue Lani Madsen: Divorce is not an option

There may not be five political love languages but there are at least two: more government and less government. Blue political love is expressed and received through new federal and state initiatives, believing in both the responsibility and power of government to fix people problems. Red political love focuses on individual responsibility and is skeptical of the government’s ability to act effectively, as expressed by the punchline “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” The result is Democrats accusing Republicans of not caring about an issue when they oppose a bill with an attractive title because they don’t think it will work, and Republicans accusing Democrats of not caring about whether it works or not as long as it sounds good. America needs relationship counseling.

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In the news, Wednesday, July 7, 2021

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JUL 06      INDEX      JUL 08

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from Competitive Enterprise Institute

States’ Antitrust Suit Against Google’s App Platform Fails to Show Consumer Harm

Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia today filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google over its control over the company’s app platform for Android, Google Play. Director of CEI’s Center for Technology and Innovation Jessica Melugin said: “The state’s case against Google is about app developers, who would likely not have had the mass distribution nor the profits without the extensive distribution advantage of the Play Store, wanting to change the rules mid-stream. Not only are there already other alternatives for down loading these apps on Android devices, but consumers benefit from the security, privacy and convenience of centralized payment systems. US antitrust law should protect consumers, not renegotiate private business arrangements via government meddling.”

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from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

Classical Natural Law and Libertarian Theory

If libertarianism wishes to give up modern political categories, it has to think about law in a different way. Murray N. Rothbard, the most important exponent of the radical libertarian school, is right when he rejects the historicism and relativism of legal realism and when—for the same reasons—he criticizes Hayek and Leoni. But unfortunately, he does not really grasp the function of the evolution into classic natural law. Furthermore, his idea of building a libertarian code is completely inconsistent with his frequent references to the Greek and Christian legal heritage.

Money Supply Growth Dropped in May to a 15-Month Low

Money supply growth slowed again in May, falling for the third month in a row, and to a 15-month low. That is,  money supply growth in the US has come down from its unprecedented levels, and if the current trend continues will be returning to more "normal" levels. Yet, even with this slowdown, money-supply growth remains near some of the highest levels recorded in past cycles. During May 2021, year-over-year (YOY) growth in the money supply was at 15.3 percent. That's down from April's rate of 23.1 percent, and down from the May 2020 rate of 29.5 percent. Growth peaked in February 2021 at 39.2 percent.  

Keynes Said Inflation Fixed the Problems of Sticky Wages. He Was Wrong.

Britain’s economy had been suffering chronic unemployment for a decade prior to 1936. Economic theory as it was then understood clearly showed that the cause of a market surplus was sellers asking a price in excess of what buyers are willing to pay. If buyers and sellers simply disagree, then so be it. But if the situation is aggravated by excessive regulation or other institutional problems, then economists would advise dissolving institutional barriers that prevent the smooth functioning of the market price system. Contemporary British economists were aware that labor union contracts fixed wages above market-clearing levels and that unemployment subsidies were a factor in preventing labor markets from clearing. The revolutionary John Maynard Keynes rejected the orthodox view. In his 1936 book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, he proposed a wholly different approach. While carefully obscured in a sophisticated model, Keynes’s solution was simple: to leave nominal wages alone, but lower real wages through inflation. If business firms understood the difference, then when real wages reached an attractive level, they would begin to hire at the union pay scale.

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from New York Times
Newspaper in New York

America Needs to Break Up Its Biggest States

Guest Essay by Noah Millman: From its beginning, the United States was built to expand. Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to create states. Starting with the Vermont Republic in 1791, as America grew, the country’s roster of states expanded as well. But since the addition of Alaska and Hawaii in 1959, America hasn’t increased the number of states, and unless some future president winds up buying Greenland, the United States is unlikely to expand territorially. Nonetheless it continues to expand — demographically. Since 1960, the country has added over 150 million people through a combination of immigration and natural population increase. Yet we haven’t upped our state count. This is a problem. America needs new states not only to provide representation for those living in territories but also more urgently to provide adequate representation to those who have congressional representation but whose votes perversely carry less weight because of their state’s size. And America needs new states to improve the internal governance of the states and the country. We need new states — and the place to start is to carve them out of the largest states that already exist. Since 1980, about 40 percent of America’s population growth has accrued to only three megastates: California, Texas and Florida. California has more than eight times the population of the median U.S. state; on its own, Los Angeles County would be the 10th-largest state in the union. The four largest states by population now make up roughly one-third of the population of the entire United States — more than the smallest 34 put together.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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from U.S. Department of the Interior

FIRE RESTRICTIONS INCREASING FOR PUBLIC LANDS IN EASTERN WASHINGTON

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Spokane District will increase fire restrictions on public lands administered by the BLM and the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) in eastern Washington. The fire restrictions order has been modified to prohibit the building, maintaining, attending or using a fire, including charcoal briquette fires, even when contained within provided metal rings. The temporary ban will take effect July 8, 2021 at 12:01 a.m. in the following counties: Adams, Asotin, Benton, Chelan, Columbia, Douglas, Ferry, Franklin, Garfield, Grant, Kittitas, Klickitat, Lincoln, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Stevens, Walla Walla, Whitman, and Yakima.

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from The Wall Street Journal

NYC’s Democrats Choose a Crime Fighter for Mayor

Because lives matter, New York City Democrats have decided that Gotham’s next mayor should be a former cop. Like the residents of other U.S. locales suffering pandemic violence following the political left’s successful 2020 campaign against law enforcement, New Yorkers are voting to refund the police. The latest news follows a Republican mayoral nomination for the founder of the Guardian Angels. There is finally bipartisan agreement in New York City: The next mayor must enable police to protect the citizenry.

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