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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization
The money in your bank account or under your mattress is worth less now.
The most widely-used metric for price inflation hit a 12-year high in mid-May, showing that prices had risen 4.2 percent over a year. But some argued this was just a one-off outlier, not indicative of a broader trend or serious problem stemming from runaway government spending and money-printing. Their case just got a lot weaker. New figures released today by the Commerce Department offer even more corroboration that prices are seriously on the rise. Another key inflation metric, the core personal consumption expenditures index, exceeded expectations and came in showing a 3.1 percent year-over-year increase in prices. If you factor in energy and food prices, the inflation figure rises to a whopping 3.6 percent. It's also worth noting that this index and others like it notoriously underestimate inflation.
“Ghost guns” are the modern manifestation of an American tradition of liberty that stretches back to Lexington and Concord.
Earlier this month, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) and Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) introduced the Untraceable Firearms Act, a bill that targets “ghost guns,” or unregistered firearms without serial numbers. Also called “kit guns” or “80% guns,” most are built at home from manufacturer-produced gun kits. Improvised weapons, also known as “pipe guns,” are another variation, and they’re constructed using 3D-printed parts or salvaged and repurposed materials.
For most of the COVID-19 pandemic, wearing a mask, especially indoors, was the official guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But, on May 13, the CDC announced that vaccinated people — whether they be indoors or outdoors — no longer have to wear masks except under special circumstances. While this was cause for celebration in most parts of the country, Democratic politicians in various states and cities have decided to leave their mask mandates unchanged — even for those who have been vaccinated. Reason reported that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, and California Gov. Gavin Newsome are among those who made that decision.
Is using humanity’s limited resources to explore desolate planets as worthless as it sounds?
On May 5, SpaceX successfully launched and landed its reusable rocketship, Starship SN15. This was a landmark achievement for the craft built to become humankind’s first fully reusable human-occupied interplanetary spacecraft. But the public conversation about SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has been a mixed bag, with many celebrities and intellectuals criticizing Musk’s wealth and his aspiration of going to Mars and eventually colonizing space. While hosting Saturday Night Live just three days after the successful Starship landing, Musk rolled out his usual ambitious rhetoric: “I believe that humanity must become a multiplanetary space-faring civilization,” he declared during his opening monologue.
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from Hoover Institution
Nonprofit Organization in Stanford, California
Drift
When does a powerful nation lose its spirit? And after a country’s sense of self goes adrift, can it be recovered? In the twentieth century, the gold standard of drift followed by recovery was Great Britain. More than 700,000 British soldiers were killed during WWI, roughly ten percent of all who served. Following the Treaty of Versailles, the British thought they had put war behind them. Certainly, when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement in 1938, it seemed to signify that Great Britain has lost its grit. Far from it, as Winston Churchill firmly demonstrated. The government was in disarray when he became the prime minister in 1940. Yet such was the underlying spirit of the people that there was scant fuss when over thirty million gas masks were distributed to protect against an expected barrage of poison gas bombs, as had happened in the trenches a scant two decades earlier. Churchill’s rhetoric reflected his determined spirit: “We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire.” The English people responded with like grit. During the German air blitz of 1941, 29,000 citizens of London were killed. The historian Erik Larson referred to “the ambient courage of London” that Londoners showed during that carnage.
And what of the ambient courage of Washington? In 2001, speaking about the invasion of Afghanistan, President George W. Bush promised: “The battle is now joined on many fronts. We will not waver; we will not tire; we will not falter; and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail.” In 2011, President Obama said, “Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies.” In April of 2021, President Biden announced he was by September pulling out all U.S. troops. Despite President Bush’s rhetoric, we did falter and we did fail. In his address to Congress, President Biden said, “the most lethal terrorist threat to the homeland today is from white supremacist terrorism.” Hmm. Every day our Special Forces kill terrorists in far-flung countries. Yet while “the most lethal terrorist threat” is here at home, somehow the FBI is not arresting or shooting it out daily with those terrorists and the mainstream press is not reporting daily about their lethal terrorist acts. President Biden went on to say. “[W]e have to come together…to root out systemic racism that plagues America…” Systemic means ingrained into our institutions— the police, the Department of Justice, the armed services, the schools, the corporations, the fabric of society. If the American system qua system is infected by the plague of racism, then there is no way out. All efforts over tens of decades to enshrine in the fabric of our society the moral and Christian injunction that all men are created equal, were a chimera and a web of deceits and lies. We all should strive to avoid rhetorical hyperbole. President Biden offered no proof that America is plagued by systemic racism, and the CDC Director cited no data to support her feeling of “impending doom.” In citing the resolve of Londoners in 1941, I am not suggesting we are at war. Instead, I am reprising William James in his call for “the moral equivalent of war,” a shared sense of national unity and purpose during a time of peace and prosperity. Our country’s sense of self has gone adrift.
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from HumanProgress.org
Education Website
Berlin played a central role in the fall of communism and the triumph of liberalism. When the wall that had divided Berlin was abruptly and joyfully torn down in 1989, the city changed human history. Today, Berlin is the most populous city in the whole European Union, with around 3.8 million residents. Famed for its history, art, music, and graffiti, Berlin attracts millions of tourists each year, as well as many business travelers. The city’s economy revolves around the high-tech and service industries, and the metropolis is a major transportation hub.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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