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from ABC News (& affiliates)
TV Network in New York, New YorkA home in the historic Oakwood section of downtown Raleigh has been the site of elaborate Halloween displays over the years; however, the latest installation is a little different. It's a call for awareness in the surge of COVID-19 cases. "The fact (is) that we didn't take this seriously," said homeowner Jesse Jones. He put up a display warning of the dangers of COVID-19 and says his front-yard plea, featuring a giant skeleton holding a grim sign, is personal. My wife lost her mom due to COVID and she was a woman who spent her entire life looking after people -- and she died completely alone in a hospital without being able to see one relative for 14 days," said Jones. "It was a nightmare. No one should go through what my wife went through watching her mom die like that."
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RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXEDFear the Repo, ManEffective July 29, 2021, the Federal Reserve directed the New York Federal Reserve’s Trading Desk (the Desk), to: "Conduct overnight repurchase agreement operations with a minimum bid rate of 0.25 percent and with an aggregate operation limit of $500 billion; the aggregate operation limit can be temporarily increased at the discretion of the Chair." ... Domestic repos, international repos, and reverse repos; once the financial schemes are invented, they have a habit of never going away. On top of that, they continually reinvent themselves in new and interesting ways, while the dollar amounts continue to increase ever so steadily … As of this writing, no plan of winding down these facilities has been noted.
Let me begin with the definition of a state. What must an agent be able to do to qualify as a state? This agent must be able to insist that all conflicts among the inhabitants of a given territory be brought to him for ultimate decision-making or be subject to his final review. In particular, this agent must be able to insist that all conflicts involving him be adjudicated by him or his agent. And implied in the power to exclude all others from acting as ultimate judge, as the second defining characteristic of a state, is the agent’s power to tax: to unilaterally determine the price that justice seekers must pay for his services. Based on this definition of a state, it is easy to understand why a desire to control a state might exist. For whoever is a monopolist of final arbitration within a given territory can make laws. And he who can legislate can also tax. Surely, this is an enviable position. More difficult to understand is how anyone can get away with controlling a state. Why would others put up with such an institution?
Sixteen months ago, in March 2020, we argued for an end to government-imposed shutdowns of businesses, schools, churches, restaurants, and events due to the covid virus: The shutdown of the American economy by government decree should end. The lasting and far-reaching harms caused by this authoritarian precedent far outweigh those caused by the COVID-19 virus. The American people—individuals, families, businesses—must decide for themselves how and when to reopen society and return to their daily lives. ... "Public health" is undefined and undefinable, like any aggregate measure. Individuals value different things, and accordingly make different choices concerning their diet, lifestyle, and personal habits. If government and health officials really care about covid or delta risks, they should focus on obesity, exercise, diet, and sunshine to promote natural immunity. Now we are told the delta variant of the virus justifies new government action. But all viruses evolve, and new ones often present themselves during flu season. If every new virus or variation warrants shutdowns or new vaccines, we will face an unending dystopian hellscape of state intervention in our medical decisions.
No doubt, environmental advocates will claim that the deterioration of the American electric grid is temporary and that whatever up-front costs electricity users incur using “renewables” are still less than the “real” costs that accompany conventional fuels. Don’t count on it. If we know anything about economic central planning from American political authorities, it is that there always are huge hidden costs that come with policy initiatives. That they put a free market happy face on the latest policy prescription does not change the fact that the original policies regarding climate change are terribly flawed.
Ultimately, it wasn’t "fascism" or "Russia" that normalized lockdowns, mandates, and massive whirlwind profits to politically connected cronies in the West—it was the alleged defenders of "liberal democracy." The same coalition of intellectuals, corporate media, and political leaders responsible for the progressive revolutions of the twentieth century. Any rhetorical value that once came from appealing to the façade of "liberal democracy" should now be dead. The technocratic class is just another group of imposers—and those who reject their narrative become the imposed upon.
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from QuilletteMagazine in Sydney, Australia This article therefore sets out to make better philosophical sense of the concepts of “gender,” “transgender,” and “transgender rights.” Contra arguments espoused by gender ideology advocates, I argue that, by the starting premises of their own argumentation, the notions of both “gender” and “transgender” are either incoherent or vacuous and therefore cannot be the conceptual grounds by which persons derive actual positive or negative rights claims. On the contrary, such false “rights” claims actually amount to severe rights violations of the vast majority of everyday language-users and citizens and cause irreparable damage to the set of shared social and linguistic practices necessary for coordinating the basic public goods of a free, flourishing, and truth-preserving society.
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from Spokane Daily Chronicle
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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