Trump's Taking Hydroxychloroquine. Good Idea? Bad Idea? With Guest Robin Armstrong, M.D.
Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
The media elites and their cheering section in the medical community are apoplectic over President Trump's announcement that he is taking a common anti-malaria drug as a protection against Covid-19. While many doctors have experienced successes in trials with the drug, including guest Dr. Armstrong, President Trump is being raked over the coals for his decision. Are politics taking precedent over "the science" when it comes to this (and other aspects of the "pandemic")? Dr. Armstrong was recently featured on the Laura Ingraham Show on Fox discussing the positive results of his testing hydroxychloroquine in a Texas senior care facility. Don't miss today's Liberty Report: Trump's Taking Hydroxychloroquine. Good Idea? Bad Idea? With Guest Robin Armstrong, M.D. Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
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The audacious corruption of the FBI and the US Department of Justice (sic) is demonstrated by their frame-up of the three-star general, former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and National Security Adviser to President Donald Trump. US Department of Justice (DOJ) documents that the department was forced to turn over to General Michael Flynn’s attorney reveal that the FBI found no wrongdoing by Flynn in its investigation of him and recommended the investigation be closed. Corrupt FBI official Peter Strzok, a leader of the anti-Trumb cabal in the FBI, intervened. Strzok convinced the official managing the investigation not to close the case as it was the wishes of the “7th floor” (top FBI officials) to keep the case open. In the absence of evidence against Flynn, released FBI documents prove that the FBI leadership decided to frame General Flynn. The documents reveal that the FBI’s plan is “to get him (Flynn) to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired. . . . we should try to frame them in a way we want.” General Flynn was forced to incriminate himself with a guilty plea. Otherwise, the corrupt DOJ prosecutors threatened to indict Flynn’s son. When this proof of egregious government misconduct came to light, the DOJ had no choice but to drop the case against General Flynn. Otherwise it would be clear that law in the US is a weapon in the hands of government. This would mean that control of government would be a life and death matter for the two political parties as it is in Ecuador and Bolivia where incoming presidents arrest or attempt to arrest outgoing presidents. But we didn’t hear a word about the frame-up of General Flynn from the corrupt presstitutes. On May 7 the editorial board of the New York Times published the largest and most egregious collection of lies in the entire history of the disreputable organization. The editorial— “Don’t Forget, Michael Flynn Pleaded Guillty. Twice.” —claimed the lies coerced from Flynn proved Flynn’s guilt, and that Attorney General William Barr is a “personal fixer for the president” and used the Department of Justice to protect friends and to go after political enemies. The New York Times has it backwards. Going after political enemies is precisely what the Obama Regime’s concocted case against General Flynn (and Trump) was all about. Remember, it was General Flynn who said on television that it was a “willful decision” of the Obama Regime to send the mercenary jihadists to attack Syria, a decision Obama made in the face of contrary advice by General Flynn, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. When Flynn revealed this, it blew up the fake news story spread by the Obama Regime and the presstitutes that the Obama-supported invasion of Syria by CIA mercenaries was an uprising by Syrian moderates fighting for democracy. Flynn’s blood is blood that the corrupt Obama Regime wanted very badly. Obama’s role in the frame-up of Flynn and the orchestration of the Russiagate hoax is now coming to light, making the former president nervous. On May 10 the Wall Street Journal editorial board asked if Obama’s nerves are getting in the way of his judgment: Barack Obama is a lawyer, so it was stunning to read that he ventured into the Michael Flynn case in a way that misstated the supposed crime and ignored the history of his own Administration in targeting Mr. Flynn. Since the former President chose to offer his legal views when he didn’t need to, we wonder what he’s really worried about.The Democrats’ frame-up of General Flynn and their two attempted frame-ups of President Trump show an extraordinary audacity and a corruptly compliant FBI and DOJ. They thought that they could get away with it, and, of course, they had all the help possible from the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, and the rest of the presstitute scum for whom lies are the currency of their fake news realm. The presstitutes have made clear that the US media is devoid of integrity. After high officials such as James Clapper, Susan Rice, Samatha Power, and others repeatedly claimed evidence of Trump and Flynn’s guilt, when under oath their story changed 180 degrees. Here is Director of National Intelligence James Clapper: I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election.Susan Rice, Obama’s incompetent National Security Adviser, and Samatha Power, Obama’s Russia-baiting ambassador to the UN, along with the rest of the disreputable Obama cabal, have admitted that they saw no specific evidence of any collusion between Trump and Russia. The entire thing was an orchestrated hoax that proves beyond all doubt that the Democrat Party and the US media are corrupt beyond redemption. When the case against Flynn was dropped as a result of the damning evidence of egregious government misconduct in framing a senior official of the US government, the corrupt prosecutors who had prosecuted the innocent Flynn all resigned in a huff, pretending that it was Barr, not them, who used the Department of Justice for self-interested political purpose. Two Georgetown University law professors, Kean K. Katyal and Joshua A. Geltzer, totally discredited themselves and the Obama contingent in the DOJ, by alleging in the New York Times that the dropped charge against Flynn has resulted in the “utter demoralization” of “the law enforcement community.” In other words, for these law professors and “the law enforcement community” for which they claim to speak, dropping a case consisting entirely of an orchestrated frame-up, a contrived perjury trap, and threats against family members is demoralizing. The professors are so thoroughly dishonest that they use the lies coerced from Flynn—the price of his “cooperation with the investigation” in order that his son would not also be framed-up—as “evidence” of Flynn’s guilt and proof of the political use of the Justice Department by Trump and Barr in dropping the contrived case. The frame-up of Flynn is not acknowledged by the law professors as political use of the Justice Department. Instead the law professors describe the vindication of an innocent man on the basis of undeniable evidence as political use of the Justice Department. If this is the kind of law Georgetown University teaches, the law school should be promptly shut down. The question that demands an answer is how do people as corrupt and devoid of integrity as Comey, Mueller, and Strzok get into top FBI positions? Reprinted with permission from PaulCraigRoberts.org. The Case of General Michael Flynn: The Use of Law as a Political Weapon Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute As in the rest of the country, life in Pennsylvania has been greatly disturbed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the chaos that has resulted from the state government’s attempts to handle the situation. On March 16, Governor Wolf ordered that all “nonessential” businesses be closed for at least two weeks. They are still closed today, and as a result, 1.8 million Pennsylvanians have filed for unemployment. At the end of December of last year, the state estimated that there were roughly 6 million employed persons in Pennsylvania. If we set aside all the workers whose incomes have been reduced through pay cuts or reduced hours, or who for various reasons have not filed for unemployment, still nearly a third of people who were working in December are now out of work. Such an astounding figure is truly hard to comprehend, and its consequences likely haven’t been fully understood. It is therefore very understandable that Pennsylvanians around the commonwealth are eager to return to work and salvage the situation as much as possible before we are all left destitute. However, Governor Wolf, having assumed emergency powers, seems loathe to let that happen on anything other than his administration’s opaque and poorly understood timetable. Under the current plan, all counties are currently categorized as either red, yellow, or green, with red counties having the strictest restrictions and green ones allowing all businesses to reopen. By May 15, thirty-seven of Pennsylvania’s sixty-seven counties will officially become yellow zones. These counties will include nearly all of western and north-central Pennsylvania. From the beginning, the entire shutdown process has been wracked with confusion over which businesses are essential and which ones need to apply for waivers to keep running. The waiver process has not been very transparent, and it is little wonder that the granting of a waiver to Wolf Home Products, the furniture manufacturer formerly owned by the governor, caused an uproar. As of May 10, the state had only processed 70 percent of the unemployment claims it had received. There is not only confusion regarding the economic shutdown rules, but also over the public health approach as more and more data becomes available. On May 6, it was revealed to lawmakers during a phone briefing that of the roughly 3,100 virus deaths by that date, 68 percent had occurred in nursing homes and similar care facilities, that the average age of those who had passed was 79 (in a state where the average life expectancy is 78.5 years), and that 84.4 percent of the victims suffered from one to four comorbidities. These shocking figures are even more tragic in light of the fact that the state’s aggressive plan for protecting nursing homes was never fully implemented. The state government’s incompetence is even more egregious considering the fact that the state health department issued a memo on March 18 stating that "Nursing care facilities must continue to accept new admissions and receive readmissions for current residents who have been discharged from the hospital who are stable….This may include stable patients who have had the COVID-19 virus." Although the administration apparently lacked the ability to enact their own plan for protecting nursing homes, Wolf did have the time to make sure to include radical progressive demands in his state recovery plan, such as an increase of the minimum wage to $12 which would be set to grow to $15 and an expansion of mandatory paid leave policies. With such chaos, confusion, and incompetence in the background, it is little wonder that there is a growing sense of rebellion among both the inhabitants and local government officials throughout the state. All of southwestern Pennsylvania was declared free to move from red- to yellow-level restrictions on May 15 except for Beaver County. This exception, the county government believes, is largely due to the county’s stats being skewed due to a particularly lethal outbreak at a nursing home in the county that killed at least seventy-one residents. As a result, they declared that as far as the county government and law enforcement were concerned the county would be moving to yellow-level restrictions along with all of its neighbors on May 15. Local officials also pointed out that many residents who work in the surrounding counties will be free to travel in and out of Beaver to work, defeating the entire purpose of keeping the county locked down. This is not an insignificant number of people given that Beaver is part of the greater Pittsburgh area. What’s more, the district attorney announced that his office would not be prosecuting any violations of the shutdown orders and had advised all local police departments to not get involved in state enforcement orders. This defiance was echoed by two other counties in the central part of the state, including Dauphin County, where the state capital of Harrisburg is located, whose officials released statements effectively saying that they would no longer participate in the enforcement of the red-level shutdown orders. The county sheriffs of two additional central counties also released statements saying that their offices would not participate in any enforcement activities. A few days later, these counties have been joined by an additional eight counties that are variously demanding that the state let them move on to the yellow phase or simply declaring that they are planning to do so. With nearly a third of the state now out of work, such rebellion is not surprising in the least. Of course, Governor Wolf did not take such defiance lightly and unleashed a torrent of threats and abuse on the recalcitrant offenders, declaring that they had "decided to surrender to the enemy" and that they were "choosing to desert in the face of the enemy, in the middle of a war." He then threatened to withhold any discretionary federal funds from any counties that rebelled, and then went even further, warning businesses that he would unleash the regulatory goons on them to make them bend the knee. Restaurants' liquor licenses would be suspended, any business that reopened in defiance would no longer have business liability insurance, and they could risk losing certificates of occupancy and health certificates. However, having already pushed thousands of businesses to the brink of extinction, it seems unlikely that Wolf’s threats have much persuasive power. The state simply doesn’t have the resources to hunt down every rebellious business owner, so at the worst, an owner is taking a gamble between going out of business for sure if the shutdown continues and facing regulatory headaches in the event that the state authorities actually manage to find out about it. Although the state department of health has set up a complaint form for people to inform on businesses, even state lawmakers have likened it to the East German secret police, and the form has reportedly been inundated with online trolls submitting bogus reports. The situation in Pennsylvania is continuing to evolve, but it seems clear that Governor Wolf’s authority is collapsing by the day. The whole affair serves as an important reminder of the lesson at the heart of Étienne de la Boétie’s short book The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude: all political authority in rulers is, in the end, derived from the ruled. When such power is withdrawn, political authority is revealed to be impotent. The governor may issue all the orders he desires, but without the cooperation of the lower levels of government and the people themselves, they are toothless. In the unlikely event that he desired to escalate the situation to enforce his emergency decrees, he would lack the resources to realistically do so, having only forty-seven hundred state police under his control who could not hope to replace the local police across the nearly forty-five thousand square miles that make up the state. Even if he tried, local district attorneys have already indicated that they will not prosecute such cases. Pennsylvania has no shortage of problems and onerous laws and regulations, but we are very fortunate that our governance structure is decentralized to the extent that it is. With the third-highest number of local governments in the country, Pennsylvania is ideally suited for the kind of recalcitrance that is currently materializing against the centralized emergency decrees from the state government. Hopefully such resistance will lead not to chaos, but to more realistic policymaking that recognizes that disemploying a third of the workforce by decree is not a sustainable solution to the COVID-19 pandemic. Reprinted with permission from Mises.org. The Shutdown May Soon Collapse in Pennsylvania Thanks to Local Resistance Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute Seldom mentioned among the motives behind the persistent drumming on alleged Russian interference was an over-arching need to help the Security State hide their tracks. The need for a scapegoat to blame for Hillary Clinton’s snatching defeat out of the jaws victory also played a role; as did the need for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT) to keep front and center in the minds of Americans the alleged multifaceted threat coming from an “aggressive” Russia. (Recall that John McCain called the, now disproven, “Russian hacking” of the DNC emails an “act of war.”) But that was then. This is now. Though the corporate media is trying to bury it, the Russiagate narrative has in the past few weeks finally collapsed with the revelation that CrowdStrike had no evidence Russia took anything from the DNC servers and that the FBI set a perjury trap for Gen. Michael Flynn. There was already the previous government finding that there was no collusion between Trump and Russia and the indictment of a Russian troll farm that supposedly was destroying American democracy with $100,000 in Facebook ads was dropped after the St. Petersburg defendants sought discovery. All that’s left is to discover how this all happened. Attorney General William Barr, and US Attorney John Durham, whom Barr commissioned to investigate this whole sordid mess seem intent on getting to the bottom of it. The possibility that Trump will not chicken out this time, and rather will challenge the Security State, looms large since he felt personally under attack. Writing on the Wall Given the diffident attitude the Security State plotters adopted regarding hiding their tracks, Durham’s challenge, with subpoena power, is not as formidable as were he, for example, investigating a Mafia family. Plus, former NSA Director Adm. Michael S. Rogers reportedly is cooperating. The handwriting is on the wall. It remains to be seen what kind of role in the scandal Barack Obama may have played. But former directors James Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan, captains of Obama’s Security State, can take little solace from Barr’s remarks Monday to a reporter who asked about Trump’s recent claims that top officials of the Obama administration, including the former president had committed crimes. Barr replied: As to President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement, based on the information I have today, I don’t expect Mr. Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man. Our concerns over potential criminality is focused on others.In a more ominous vein, Barr gratuitously added that law enforcement and intelligence officials were involved in “a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against the president. It was a grave injustice, and it was unprecedented in American history.” Meanwhile, the corporate media have all been singing from the same sheet since Trump had the audacity a week ago to coin yet another “-gate” — this time “Obamagate.” Leading the apoplectic reaction in corporate media, Saturday’s Washington Post offered a pot-calling-the-kettle-black pronouncement by its editorial board entitled “The absurd cynicism of ‘Obamagate'”? The outrage voiced by the Post called to mind disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok’s indignant response to criticism of the FBI by candidate Trump, in a Oct. 20, 2016 text exchange with FBI attorney Lisa Page:
Strzok: I am riled up. Trump is a f***ing idiot, is unable to provide a coherent answer.
Strzok – I CAN’T PULL AWAY, WHAT THE F**K HAPPENED TO OUR COUNTRY …
Page – I don’t know. But we’ll get it back. We’re America. We rock.
Strzok – Donald just said “bad hombres”
Strzok – Trump just said what the FBI did is disgraceful.
Less vitriolic, but incisive commentary came from widely respected author and lawyer Glenn Greenwald on May 14, four days after Trump coined “Obamagate”: ( See “System Update with Glenn Greenwald – The Sham Prosecution of Michael Flynn”). For a shorter, equally instructive video of Greenwald on the broader issue of Russia-gate, see this clip from a March 2019 Democracy Now!-sponsored debate he had with David Cay Johnston titled, “As Mueller Finds No Collusion, Did Press Overhype Russiagate? Glenn Greenwald vs. David Cay Johnston”: Turn Out the Lights, Russiagate is Over Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute So you are curious whether you have coronavirus? You could take a coronavirus test to find out. Well, not really find out, since the test results are not reliable. Nonetheless, you can take a test to obtain at least a Magic 8 Ball level answer of if you are or are not infected with coronavirus. Here is some information likely unknown to many people when they are tested: The names and addresses of people who test positive are often handed over to police departments that can input or tag those names and addresses in police databases. Kimberlee Kruesi provides the details in a Tuesday Associated Press article. She starts off her article with the following revelation: More than 11 million people have been tested in the U.S. for COVID-19, all with the assurance that their private medical information would remain protected and undisclosed.Kinda makes those coronavirus tests that many government officials and people in the media have been promoting seem less warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? Continue reading Kruesi’s article here. Test Positive for Coronavirus, End Up in a Police Database Click on the headline to read the full story from Peace and Prosperity
Thanks to trillions in "bailout money" passed by Congress, thousands of "contact tracers" will soon descend on the country demanding to test people for the coronavirus, to track down those they've been in contact with, and potentially to impose involuntary quarantine. Are we OK with the government tracking our every movement under the guise of fighting a virus that appears to have nearly run its course in the US? Also - Oregon fights back against dictatorial governor and several US states revise massively inflated Covid death numbers. Today on the Liberty Report: Coronavirus 'Contact Tracers' - The Tools Of Dictatorship Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute Major League Baseball is apparently going to replace "Take me out to the ballgame" with "Watch us cower before empty stands from the safety of your television". MLB has put together a draft health-and-safety manual in the wake of the COVID-19 panic, reports Yahoo Sports. Think of it as the cower manual. In many ways, it is dumber than the draconian measures implemented by power freak state and local government officials. MLB is a private organization so as far as I am concerned they can do what they want but there should be no problem in calling them out for nonsense, politically correct, over-the-top, asinine "safety" regulations. What would Babe Ruth think? He not only played during the period of the 1918 Spanish flu but actually caught the virus. From War Fever: Boston, Baseball, and America in the Shadow of the Great War by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith: On May 19, 1918, the first warm day of the year, Ruth took his wife, Helen, to Revere Beach for an afternoon outing. Located just north of the city, it was the nation’s first public beach, a working-class “people’s beach” that featured amusement rides, a boardwalk, and an elaborate pier. Babe spent the day in the sun, eating a picnic basket full of sandwiches and drinking warm beer, swimming on a full stomach, and enjoying his own celebrity by playing a game of baseball in the sand with some locals. He couldn’t have been happier.First, it should be stated, and it is remarkable that this has to be stated, COVID-19 is a serious risk mostly to the elderly who already have serious illnesses. This is not exactly the profile of your average major league baseball player--or the average stadium attending fan. The 1918 flu was much more dangerous to ballplayers and fans than COVID-19, but the players played on without a cower manual and the fans cheered them on from the stands. Sadly, major league sports have been regular promoters of government propaganda. This regulation from the cower manual should make that clear: Players will be required to stay 6 feet apart during the playing of the national anthem.Note well: They are still going to play the damn national anthem, a propaganda piece in itself,---while they stand six feet apart. But that is only the beginning. They apparently will take steroid-like juiced-up absurd measures to fall in line with government instigated fear in addition to banning fans at the game. MLB simply belongs to the greater herd group crowd or, worse, full well knows they are promoting propaganda. There is plenty of commentary from medical scientists at top universities who have spoken out against the measures ordered by government officials, including top scientists at Stanford University and the University of Pittsburgh. They have made clear they see no benefit from the lockdowns and other measures placed on the general public to "battle" COVID-19. The following regulations, for the players, are for individuals so far from a risk category that it is laughable. Some even don't make sense for a 90-year old man with one leg. According to the manual, spitting would be prohibited (including of sunflower seed shells). This one is certainly unhealthy: Batting practice pitchers are to wear masks. And this, managers and coaches must wear masks while in the dugouts. There are plenty of scientists who will tell you wearing a mask is counterproductive. It reintroduces the carbon dioxide you produce back into your system. How is that healthy? Please tell us MLB. Players may not touch their faces to give signs, says the cower manual. Fielders are ''encouraged to retreat several steps away from the baserunner'' between pitches. First and third base coaches are not to approach baserunners or umpires, and players should not socialize with opponents. Players and other team personnel not participating in the game should sit in the stands, separated by at least 6 feet. The pregame ritual of the exchange of lineup cards would be prohibited. Each member of a traveling party of a visiting team -- including players -- must wear personal protective equipment while on buses and flights. Restaurants are off limits on the road, including the ones in hotels, as are hotel fitness centers. A ball will be thrown away after it is touched by multiple players. (Hey, maybe in the middle of a play--you can't be too safe. Will double plays be banned if they require two throws of the ball?) Players will also be discouraged from throwing the ball around the infield between plays. Perhaps MLB can tweak, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" this way: Keep me away from the ball game, Keep me away from the empty stands Make the players social distance So that Dr. Fauci and government power freaks can cheer at the lack of resistance I don't care if I ever get back, I won't be root, root, root, rooting for the home cowering team, I am more fearless than that I'd rather play ball with my cat Reprinted with permission from Target Liberty. The Wimps of Major League Baseball Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute Politicians and government health officials’ justification for decreeing shutdowns of vast swaths of American life has been deterring the spread of COVID-19. According to Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, almost 40 percent of households earning less than $40,000 per year have a member who has lost their job in recent months. Depression, drug abuse, and suicide are spiking as a result of the lockdowns and “shelter-in-place” commands. Infection rates and deaths have soared despite severe restrictions on daily life. However, politicians and government health officials continue to claim victory because otherwise more people would have been infected by COVID-19. Most of the media coverage applauds politicians and officials who champion extending lockdowns regardless of the collateral damage to American life. The political response to COVID-19 is eerily similar to Civil War surgeons’ rationales. Amputation was the most common surgical practice during that war, and more than fifty thousand soldiers had limbs hacked off after battles. Amputation was a reflexive “solution,” because limbs were sometimes shattered by Minié balls and also because that was the only trick that many untrained “surgeons” knew. Surgeons were derided as butchers and were usually utterly negligent about hygiene, leading to far more unnecessary deaths. Surgeons justified fetching out their hacksaws, because otherwise many soldiers would die from their gangrened wounds. It didn’t matter how many soldiers died from unnecessary or botched amputations as long as surgeons didn’t get blamed for deaths from gangrene. Politicians in many states are justifying their COVID-19 shutdowns with rationales that resemble those surgeons’. It doesn’t matter how many individuals lose their jobs, businesses, or robust health due to the shutdowns. As long as politicians claim that things would be worse if they had not amputated much of the economy, they can pirouette as saviors. Actually, there is a closer analogy between the Civil War surgeons and contemporary politicians. Politicians have razed much of the economy purportedly to prevent anyone from getting infected at some unknown point in the future. This is like a Civil War surgeon sending his assistants to roam the countryside to seize hapless young men and saw off their arms in order to prevent them from being casualties in future battles. Here’s how New York governor Andrew Cuomo justified shutting down his state’s economy and confining almost 20 million people to their homes two months ago: “If everything we do saves just one life, I’ll be happy.” At the time of Cuomo’s decree, five or fewer people had tested positive for coronavirus in most counties in New York State. Cuomo’s formula exemplifies how politicians reap media applause for dramatic actions that have little or nothing to do with public safety. At the same time that Cuomo practically put his state under house arrest, he also ordered New York nursing homes to admit COVID patients. His disastrous dictate contributed to the more than five thousand COVID deaths in New York nursing homes. Cuomo absolves himself, because some states have a higher percentage of COVID fatalities occurring in nursing homes than does New York—but no state has anywhere near five thousand dead in nursing homes. Most of the media is still scoring Cuomo as a heroic benefactor thanks to his shutdown to save “just one life.” “We have saved lives” is also the self-exoneration trumpeted by Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer after she imposed the most punitive restrictions in the nation. Whitmer prohibited “all public and private gatherings of any size” (prohibiting people from visiting friends) and also prohibited purchasing seeds for spring planting in stores after she decreed that a “nonessential” activity. (Purchasing state lottery tickets was still an “essential” activity, though.) Many Michigan counties have less than a handful of COVID cases and have had few if any fatalities. But their economies have been obliterated by Whitmer’s statewide decrees, which have driven unemployment up to 24 percent. In the old days, politicians could always put forward some economist who had discovered a Keynesian “multiplier” to justify more boondoggle spending. Nowadays, “science” is the magic word used to justify any and every restriction on American freedom. Whitmer, for instance, exonerates herself: “We’ve got to make decisions based on where the science leads us.” Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has already seen a long series of debacles by “science.” The national response to the coronavirus threat was sabotaged, because incompetent Centers for Disease Control scientists contaminated key samples for creating a test in February and because Food and Drug Administration scientist-bureaucrats blocked innovative private testing. It is also difficult to treat scientists’ warnings and forecasts as originating on Mt. Sinai when there is fierce dispute among experts about the most prudent policies to curb the pandemic. Another parallel with Civil War surgeons is that contemporary politicians pay no price for the unnecessary damage they inflict. Many crippled Union and Confederate soldiers spent decades hobbling around after the war. It remains to be seen how many millions of Americans suffer long-term handicaps as a result of the draconian decrees now afflicting much of the nation. But it is unlikely that politicians will ever be held liable for the lives they have unnecessarily maimed. After Civil War battles, the tents where surgeons did their sawing were renowned as one of the most horrible places that many soldiers ever encountered. Even those who recovered from their wounds were often left with perpetual nightmares over the screaming they heard and the sight of the gory stacks of severed arms and legs. In contrast, the politicians and government health czars who have shut down much of the nation’s economy have not witnessed such traumatic venues. Instead, they have their meetings—perhaps on Zoom—and then issue decrees which their friends in the media are certain to applaud. Unemployment rates are rising even faster than the amputation piles of the 1860s. But the agony occurs far away from the palatial offices that governors enjoy—in quiet homes where families desperately agonize over pending rent and mortgage payments, and in the sinking businesses where owners see their life dreams dying week by week. Reprinted with permission from Mises.org. Hacksawing the Economy: How Lockdowns Are in the Tradition of Civil War Surgeons Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
Is the US military about to take out four Iranian tanker ships carrying gasoline to Venezuela? US Sanctions on both countries have drawn them together as the rest of the world has been warned off trade. But Washington's neocons are furious that the two "pariah" states are trading with each other even though there is nothing legally the US can do to stop them. RPI's Daniel McAdams joins PressTV's "The Debate" to discuss the possibility of a US attack: US Sparking Another Tanker War with Iran? Click on the headline to read the full story from Peace and Prosperity The United States of America was founded by brave men and women. People who were willing to put their very lives on the line to take a calculated risk in order to enjoy a better life of freedom, liberty and economic opportunity. They were not immune to fear but were willing to face those fears by leaving their ancestral homes. They willingly, even eagerly plunged into the wild unknown for what they hoped would be a brighter future for themselves, their families and their posterity. Many of them didn’t make it. Some died on the ships bringing them to the new world from sickness and disease. Others lost their lives in terrible storms at sea. Some were taken captive by pirates that plied the vast oceans. And once they arrived in the new world danger lurked around every corner of the vast, untamed wilderness. Savage natives roamed the forests along with wild, dangerous creatures like bears, panthers, poisonous snakes and a whole host of threatening critters. Many had no practical knowledge of farming or livestock production and were reduced to eating whatever they could find; bugs, roots, berries, even the bark on trees. Brutal Hardship They endured brutal cold, broiling heat, the thirst of extended drought and violent storms with only primitive shelter. The physical labor of clearing land, building homes and stockades for protection, digging wells and more all by hand sapped the strength and broke the health of many men. There were no guarantees, no safety net, and no backup plan “just in case”. They were on their own. So why did they do it? Why would so many risk their lives and the lives of their families to endure the hardships, depravation, constant danger and even the possibility of a grisly death? We touched on it at the very beginning of this article: They were willing to put their very lives on the line to take a calculated risk in order to enjoy a better life of freedom, liberty and economic opportunity.Two centuries after the pioneers landed at Jamestown Francis Scott Key, a lawyer from Frederick Maryland, penned the lines of what is known today as the National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. Key was inspired to see the American Flag still waving over Ft. McHenry at dawn after a brutal British naval bombardment during the night. The brave American soldiers stood their ground during this key battle of the War of 1812 and some lost their lives in the effort. Key wrote the now famous lines: The land of the free and the home of the brave!Fast forward two more centuries after Key wrote those words. Petty Tyrants Unleashed Today our alleged “leaders” passionately proclaim that safety, protection, avoidance of any risk whatsoever is paramount. Safety is supposedly so critical that they will send armed police to throw anyone who fails to obey their “stay safe” orders into prison! “Stay Safe!” “Flatten the curve!” “Shelter in Place!” “Social distance!” “Wear your mask!” What the hell is going on!? I don’t recognize this country anymore. It bears no resemblance to what I was taught growing up that we are a nation of free men bound by the rule of law. I feel like I’ve been transported into a dystopian sci-fi movie where petty totalitarian tyrants use the threat of armed police to push the people around. Of course they use the doublespeak of tyrants claiming they’re only doing this for our own good. That is utter, bullsh*t and we all know it! These psychopaths have ordered criminals be released from jail due to the “virus”. Then, they turn around and imprison men and women who simply want to work to feed their families. Their crime? Failure to obey illegal, unconstitutional orders of a petty tyrant! They are playing games with death rates and claiming virtually anyone who dies is a victim of Covid-19 when that is clearly not the case. They are quickly destroying the very fabric of this once great nation with a massive psychological operation designed to gain total power and control! Nothing New Sadly this is nothing new. The American people have faced tyrants before. King George sent his armies to this land in order to subdue it when the American colonists failed to convince him with words that they should be treated fairly. Enough people rose up in defiance of tyranny that a revolutionary war was fought for freedom and liberty. One of those founding fathers, Patrick Henry of Virginia, did not mince words. When faced with opposing the tyranny of King George or sitting meekly and “sheltering in place” Henry famously said: Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!We are faced with a stark choice. Give in to tyranny for the illusion of safety or stand up for liberty even if it costs us our lives. Personally, I’d rather die from Covid-19 than live like a sniveling coward huddling in fear. The time to choose how we will respond is now; we will not comply! Home of the Brave? 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