Biden Surrenders on Covid - Can We End Federal Mandates Now?
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President Biden told US governors this week that there is no federal solution to the ongoing covid "crisis." "It's up to all of you," he essentially told them. While it's good news for people living in mostly free states like Florida and Texas, governors in New York and other authoritarian states and localities may use this as permission to crack down harder. But one thing is clear: with no more federal in the war on covid, there should be no more federal mandates in the war on covid. Done! Also today: Fauci suggests, then retreats from, a position that a vaccine pass should be required for domestic travel. Is Fauci's "sell-by" date expired? Watch today's Liberty Report: Biden Surrenders on Covid - Can We End Federal Mandates Now? Click on the headline to read the full story from
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In early December Hillary Clinton appeared on the Today show to read aloud her never-used victory speech from 2016. The scene was bizarre, Clinton tearing up as she read in first-person, present tense about becoming the first woman president, something which in real life did not happen. She then layered on another alternate reality, one in which President Hillary travels back in time to tell her dead mother “your daughter will grow up and become the president of the United States.” She glowed; she was hearing applause that never happened. The unreality of it all was leavened somewhat by the reveal Hillary is selling a video “masterclass” on resilience and the speech is somehow an example of that. While this may be just another example of a Clinton grift, like selling a Bill and Hillary Bass-o-Matic, the thing that stands out is never before has a Democrat loser been reanimated from the grave like Hillary. Al Gore and Michael Dukakis are two of those people you Google to see if they are still alive, and even an attention hound like John Kerry pretends his own presidential wipe out never even happened. A good political rule of thumb is to usher your losers off stage (or make them ambassadors.) Instead, Hillary was on the flagship Today show, not a late night infomercial where garbage like “masterclasses” in resilience usually is peddled. But Hillary’s delusional take is not hers alone. After a second White Claw the faithful will insist Hillary did win the popular vote, which counts as actually winning in Clinton Math. They’ll quickly tell you Hillary only lost because Trump cheated or the Russians helped. The Dems and the media so believed that Trump did not actually win-win that they spent his entire term in office trying (unsuccessfully) to negate him, impeach him, prosecute him, or just magically wish him away with a fan-fiction interpretation of the 25th Amendment which presupposed Mike Pence was more evil then they were. The high point of the delusion was Russiagate, a saga entirely made-to-order by the Clinton team and fluffed by the media. It’s one thing to self-righteously say “Not my president” (some MSM pundits would add an asterisk to the word president* when referring to Trump) but it is delusional to say “and he can’t be yours, either.” With Hillary granted a pass because she is using her defeat delusion to sell merch, one would have hoped the whole thing would have gone away with the election of Joe Biden. Democrats, you won! And you got the House! You can right all wrongs! Instead, the delusions just continue, an entire party seeming in the grip of political Alzheimer’s. One delusion is Trump will be pre-defeated ahead of 2024 by a mythical… something. This has been kicking around since Trump won in 2016, the idea that he’ll soon go to jail over taxes, property valuations in New York, or one of his lady victims successfully suing him. Sure, the IRS has had Trump’s taxes for decades, there is at worst a civil penalty in property valuation tomfoolery, and all those victims only seem to end up dragging Dems deeper into the mud of hypocrisy as we’re told to believe all women except those who accuse Uncle Joe of getting a little handsy. Dems, if this is your best, your best won’t do. Nah, that stuff is just chum in the water while the Grand Illusion is tweaked. That one is a dramatic statement democracy is dying in America and only defeating Trump (again, once was not enough) will save it. It is a big ask to a weary voting block because a) it is untrue; b) the only evidence lies in a made-up retelling of the Capitol riot and c) the Democrats won in 2020 in an election, something which strongly suggests democracy did its job. The rebuttal that January 6 was just a rehearsal is fact-free, and after all, real Nazis only needed one crack at burning down the Reichstag. One can find examples of the delusion almost by throwing darts at the Internet, but a concise one is MSNBC meat puppet Brian Williams’ farewell address. Williams of course earned America’s trust as a journalist by constantly lying throughout his career, usually in ways that suggested he was studlier than the Rock. Williams said “I will wake up tomorrow in the America of the year 2021, a nation unrecognizable to those who came before us and fought to protect it, which is what you must do now. They’ve decided to burn it all down with us inside… But the darkness on the edge of town has spread to the main roads and highways and neighborhoods… Grown men and women who swore an oath to our Constitution, elected by their constituents, possessing the kinds of college degrees I could only dream of, have decided to join the mob.” First of course, an acknowledgement Williams plagiarized the phrase, “darkness on the edge of town,” from Bruce Springsteen, himself given over to the delusion because even as he pals around with Barack Obama all the characters from his songs now vote Republican. If you haven’t guessed it, Williams is referring to the delusion that the Capitol riot was the seminal event of American democracy. Williams, like others, believes Hillary won in 2016, that the Trump years saw America held prisoner, and that Trump spun up a mob on January 6 to overturn the election and remain in the White House as dictator. That none of that happened, and in fact could never have happened, matters not if you believe in it hard enough. Williams is far from alone. “Democracy will be on trial in 2024,” the Atlantic’s Barton Gellman writes. “American democracy is tottering,” warns Vox. “Can American democracy escape the doom loop?” says one Salon piece. “If America really surrenders to fascism, then what?” asks another. “If Merrick Garland Doesn’t Charge Trump and His Coup Plotters, Our Democracy Is Toast,” says the Daily Beast. “Are we doomed?” writes the once sentient George Packer. Packer actually imagines “A blue militia sacks Trump National Golf Club Bedminster; a red militia storms Oberlin College. The new president takes power in a state of siege.” Google up as many examples as you want, they are as common as anti-anxiety meds should be on Brian Williams’ night stand. Even Hillary has weighed in, warning “[2024] is a make-or-break point. Are we going to give in to all these lies and this disinformation and this organized effort to undermine our rule of law and our institutions, or are we going to stand up to it?” Charles Blow in the NYT seems to take the prize, in an article headlined “We’re Edging Closer to Civil War.” Blow claims “this war won’t be only about the subjugation of black people but also about the subjugation of all who challenge the white racist patriarchy. It will seek to push back against all the ‘others’: black people, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ people and, yes, women, particularly liberal ones.” So looking ahead to the democracy dies in the darkness delusion which appears to be the centerpiece of the Democratic campaign of 2024, Americans must be tutored to believe the Capitol riot was part of a massive conspiracy involving Trump, hoping to end democracy in the United States by overturning the 2020 election results via some means no one is able to articulate. All that could have happened was Congress delayed its largely ceremonial blessing of the electoral college results for a day, assuming they just did not convene the afternoon of January 6 somewhere else besides the chaotic Capitol. There is no realistic scenario that could have changed anything that mattered, and no evidence of any national-scale conspiracy underlaying the riot. It was just a bunch of angry people who got out of control for a couple of hours then went home to wait on being arrested months later. None of the rioters has been charged with treason or terrorism, mostly just trespassing. None of the arrested claimed they acted under any organized structure set in place by Trump or anyone else. In their trials each basically said the same, things got out of hand. After selling voters that something that did not happen happened, the Democrats must then explain how after four years in power they have not really done much to bulk up democracy except whine about stuff that’s unfair, such as Republican gerrymandering (but not Democratic gerrymandering) and Republican poll watchers (but not Democratic poll watchers) and Republicans not accepting election results (but not Democrats like Stacey Adams not accepting election results.) Never mind out-and-out garbage like the same court system is racist when it acquits one shooter and on-the-mark when it finds another guilty based on the races of shooter and victim. Voters will also have to buy in to the Democratic delusion all the bad stuff they said Trump was gonna do but did not do — LGBT concentration camps, war with Iran, fascism — will for certain happen the next time. Elect us to save democracy, say the delusional Democrats, ignoring the reality that democracy is bumbling along pretty much as it was intended to do. The Dem line would all make more sense if Trump had appeared bare chested at the Biden inauguration atop an M1 tank or something, but that is the nature of delusion. Reprinted with permission from WeMeantWell.com. Alternate Reality Traps Democrats in World of Dumb Click on the headline to read the full story from The latest two states to legalize recreational cannabis are New York and New Jersey. However, if one believes governors and legislators in those states have finally adopted a more libertarian view of the topic, one will be severely disappointed. Legalization of recreational cannabis in both states is driven by the need for tax revenue—tax revenue to plug the holes in state budgets for social programs, holes in the state budget that were exasperated by the failed covid policies in both states. Politicians, clever as they are in hiding their true intentions for public policy changes, want the public to believe that legalization is mostly aimed at ending decades-long practices of racist cannabis enforcement, pointing to the disparities in drug enforcement. However, one will quickly realize that this is only a smokescreen to hide the true reason. A good starting point is Colorado. In 2002, voters in Colorado passed Amendment 64 and legalized recreational cannabis. Over the last six years, Colorado has collected over $1.6 billion in cannabis taxes and fees at the state level alone. In 2014, Colorado collected just shy of $70 million in cannabis tax revenue, and by 2020 it collected close to $390 million. The State of Washington, probably the closest example to use in estimating the size of potential cannabis tax revenue for both New Jersey and New York, depending on how each state structures the taxes and fees imposed, collected in 2015 close to $65 million in cannabis taxes. By 2020, the number had increased to $470 million, an increase of $400 million in five years. While Colorado levies a 15 percent excise tax and a 15 percent sales tax on cannabis, Washington State levies a 37 percent retail tax on cannabis (for details, see the Tax Foundation). Even in Oklahoma, which created arguably the most free-market cannabis industry in the country, with no limits on how many business licenses can be issued, after voters approved Oklahoma State Question 788 in 2018, lawmakers are very candid about being motivated by dollar signs in times when states are facing a budget crisis. From June 2020 to 2021, Oklahoma collected almost $140 million in revenue from excise and license fees. Colorado and Washington State have shown governors in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic how much potential revenue from the legalization of recreational cannabis has been slipping through their fingers. New Jersey and New York, both with projected budget shortfalls, are eager to take advantage of the new potential revenue source. The first state to act was New Jersey. In March 2021, New Jersey governor Philip D. Murphy signed into law three bills that effectively permit and regulate the use of recreational cannabis. At that point, New Jersey was the most populous state in the Northeast ahead of Massachusetts to fully legalize cannabis. While Governor Murphy and state lawmakers talk about ending disparities in drug enforcement and the problem of subsequent overcrowded prisons, behind the scenes lawmakers are already counting on a new source of revenue to continue their spending programs. The new legal cannabis industry in New Jersey is expected to generate about $126 million a year in revenue for the state. Not to be outdone by their smaller neighbor, New York state lawmakers, worried about losing out on significant tax revenue to New Jersey, in July 2021 approved a bill to legalize recreational cannabis. Facing a budget shortfall of more than $60 billion over the next four years, New York’s legalization of cannabis is estimated to generate about $300 to $400 million annually in tax revenue when the legal market is fully established. New York, by far the most populous state in the Northeast, may serve as a catalyst for the cannabis industry in the region. According to the New York Medical Cannabis Industry Association, the cannabis market in New York is estimated to be worth about $4.2 to $4.6 billion and projected to grow to about $5.8 billion in 2027. Pennsylvania, having the longest border with New York, may be forced to legalize recreational cannabis use in order to not lose out on tax revenue. Already a bipartisan bill legalizing recreational cannabis has been introduced in Pennsylvania. More and more states are realizing that legalizing recreational cannabis is the easiest new source of significant government revenue. In April, Virginia became the first state in the South to legalize recreational cannabis. What is more telling about New York’s motivation to change its attitude towards legalization is the long-standing fight between the governor’s office and the legislature on how to distribute the enormous amount of potential tax revenue that will be generated by legalizing cannabis. Governor Cuomo and Democrats in the state legislature tried several times to legalize cannabis, but each effort unraveled under disagreements over how to regulate the industry. But more telling is the disagreement on how to distribute tax dollars from cannabis sales and distribution licenses. Legal sales of cannabis are a few years away in both New Jersey and New York. In Massachusetts, it was two years from the time voters approved nonmedical cannabis to the launch of the state’s first dispensaries. Politicians and lawmakers are already injecting into the legalization effort measures that have little to do with creating a regulatory environment conducive to a growing industry. For example, lawmakers are talking about reserving sizable portions of business licenses for minority business owners, disabled veterans, and distressed farmers. If the Paycheck Protection Program and the Restaurant Revitalization Fund are any indication of the success of such initiative, more money will be wasted on social engineering programs that have nothing to do with supporting small businesses. It is very clear that states’ legalization of recreational and medical cannabis is motivated by a need to tap into a new large revenue stream to balance budgets in addition to ending racist cannabis enforcement. Reprinted with permission from Mises.org. The Real Reason Politicians Want Legal Cannabis Is Tax Money Click on the headline to read the full story from 'Thousands Died Because Fauci Ignored Natural Immunity' - With Special Guest Sen. Rand Paul12/27/2021
Exclusive! Senator Rand Paul joins the Liberty Report to discuss the massive errors - driven by arrogance - committed by White House coronavirus advisor Anthony Fauci. Dr. Fauci's insistence on ignoring natural immunity and his refusal to consider theraputics have cost thousands and thousands of lives! And here's a bombshell you'll only here in today's Liberty Report: Sen. Paul's shocking explanation of why the coming mid-term elections will be Fauci's worst nightmare! Don't miss today's very special Liberty Report: 'Thousands Died Because Fauci Ignored Natural Immunity' - With Special Guest Sen. Rand Paul Click on the headline to read the full story from
Rough Rider Teddy must be rolling in his grave as he looks down upon these poseurs gathered in the Roosevelt room. For crying out loud, every one of them is double vaxxed and totally boosted. And they have issued orders to force the same upon more than 130 million of their countrymen—allegedly to prevent the latter from becoming walking vectors of disease and killers of their neighbors. Yet if the Vaxx is actually a spread stopper, why do they sit there in their masks? What’s the need to... Read the rest of the story by clicking on the Title link, below... Patriotic Duty My Eye Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
Bloomberg News recently solicited advice from Argentinians who lived through that country’s high inflation on how Americans should cope with rising inflation. The Argentinians suggested Americans spend their paychecks as fast as possible to avoid future price increases. They also suggested taking out loans that can be paid back later in devalued currency. These strategies may make sense for individuals. However, encouraging debt and discouraging savings is disastrous for the country. Relying... Read the rest of the story by clicking on the Title link, below... Is the Crack-up Boom Here? Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
At the heart of the Christmas story rests some important lessons concerning free enterprise, government, and the role of wealth in society. Let’s begin with one of the most famous phrases: “There’s no room at the inn.” This phrase is often invoked as if it were a cruel and heartless dismissal of the tired travelers Joseph and Mary. Many renditions of the story conjure up images of the couple going from inn to inn only to have the owner barking at them to go away and slamming the door. In... Read the rest of the story by clicking on the Title link, below... The Businessman and the Holy Family Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
Today's Liberty Report is something completely different! Senator Rand Paul's wife Kelley joins Carol Paul to share Paul family Christmas memories. You will not want to miss this wonderful program! Don't miss this special Liberty Report! Read the rest of the story by clicking on the Title link, below... A Paul Family Christmas With Carol And Kelley Paul Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
We need to constantly remind ourselves about the US media. During the Cold War, there was the saying that the difference between the New York Times and the Soviet Pravda was that Pravda readers knew they were being lied to. Unfortunately, current coverage by the US media about the movement of Russian troops demonstrates the applicability of that saying today. Lies by Omission For example, the US public is continually being told that the movement of a large number of Russian troops is a... Read the rest of the story by clicking on the Title link, below... Failure of US Media on Ukraine Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
In its infinite Scientific™ wisdom, the city of Boston, Massachusetts just announced a new “vaccine passport” system set to take effect next month. This was one of the first major actions of the recently-elected mayor, Michelle Wu, who’d been hailed by many as a paradigm-shifter for her inspiring Progressive potential. Wu’s passport system is endearingly called “B Together,” because there’s nothing more emblematic of heartwarming communal “togetherness” than compulsory monitoring of medical... Read the rest of the story by clicking on the Title link, below... Emergency Powers Deployed to Impose Vaccine Passports Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute |
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