The CNN Index invites a simple question. “What emotion is driving the market now?”
If you ever find yourself on the business section of CNN’s website, you’ll notice a peculiar thing on the top of your screen. There you’ll find a small ticker labeled “Fear and Greed Index.”
The ticker invites a simple question. “What emotion is driving the market now?”
As an economist, I was very interested in the underlying theory and methodology CNN business was using to determine what was driving the market. Presumably, anyone who understands what drives the stock market better than anyone else is making a lot of money on it. So I looked into the details.
On the index explanation page, a detailed explanation is given.
“The Fear & Greed Index is a way to gauge stock market movements and whether stocks are fairly priced. The theory is based on the logic that excessive fear tends to drive down share prices, and too much greed tends to have the opposite effect.”
So we have the theory now. What about the application? Well, the site says, “the Fear & Greed Index is a compilation of seven different indicators” and “tracks how much these individual indicators deviate from their averages compared to how much they normally diverge.”
Unfortunately, armed with this information, it’s clear that the Fear and Greed Index isn’t any good for understanding markets at all. There are fundamental problems with both the underlying theory and the measurement of the index.
Theory: Animal Spirits Reanimated
The theory behind the CNN Fear & Greed Index is not new. In fact, it’s just a new way to talk about one of the most discussed ideas in macroeconomics—animal spirits.
The idea of “animal spirits” working in investment was created by mathematician John Maynard Keynes. Keynes was convinced that irrational waves of optimism and pessimism seized control of investors and drove them to make poor investment decisions. He referred to these forces as “animal spirits.”
Have you heard of bear and bull markets? These are Keynes’ “animal spirits.”
Keynes’ thinking on this topic has so permeated culture, that most of my students come into my macro class as default Keynesians without even knowing who Keynes is. I like to start my first-day macro class with a quiz that asks students what they think causes recessions. Some variation of “fear” always tops the list.
In Keynes’ own words,
“There is the instability due to the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than mathematical expectations, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, of our decisions … can only be taken as the result of animal spirits—a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction”.
So what’s wrong with the animal spirits idea? Well, there are many issues. I’ll discuss four.
First, and most importantly, the explanation isn’t an explanation at all. It’s more of a label.
Consider that instead of saying waves of optimism and pessimism seize investors randomly, we could say that the universe generates good vibes and bad vibes that seize investors randomly. Or perhaps real spirits randomly control investors. How does this change the Keynesian animal spirits story?
It doesn’t. And that’s the problem with the idea. Keynes’ animal spirits explanation is essentially saying that something random (in the mathematical sense of the word) and beyond further explanation grabs hold of people and makes them do things. In other words, the explanation is something unexplainable. Fear and greed. Bear and bull. Unicorns and gargoyles.
Second, the animal spirits explanation displaces other explanations about what drives investment behavior. Before Keynes, the economics profession had a strong explanation for changing investment behaviors.
The idea is simple, and it follows the logic that undergirds all of microeconomics. As it becomes more expensive to borrow money over time, investors will borrow less money and take on more short-term projects. When it becomes less expensive, investors borrow more and take on more long-term projects.
The price of borrowing is called the interest rate, and interest rates are affected by savings. If people save more and increase the supply of funds available to borrow, that drives interest rates down making borrowing cheaper. Businesses make long-term expensive projects while consumers save for them.
Although Keynes was unclear about his belief about saving and investment (in some places he says savings equals investment and in other places he says it does not) the effect of animal spirits was to break the theoretical linkage between the two among economists. Basic economics was out and animal spirits were in. “Macroeconomics” was born.
Third, Keynes’ theory of random fear and greed leads to an underdeveloped view of how expectations are formed. In the quote above, Keynes argues investors won’t be “mathematical” about expectations. In other words, they aren’t acting in an internally consistent way given different probabilities and uncertainties.
This may sound reasonable at first. Economists who believe people do not consistently make the same mistake over and over (sometimes called rational expectations) are often derided because some think it implies people make their decisions by doing mathematical equations.
But this is a straw man. These economists do not believe people actually run sets of equations in their head. They believe that human behavior happens in a way that looks like they do.
For example, I don’t believe mountain goats calculate their jumps down to determine if the distance is fatal or not. But I do believe they act like they do that. Mountain goats who consistently misjudge jumps will literally die out. Similar channels operate in investment.
This under-developed expectations theory led to problems for Keynesian economists in the 1970s. These Keynesians wrongly believed they could consistently lower unemployment by printing money and tricking workers into taking jobs that seemed to be high paying. However, when inflation hit, workers’ expectations changed and unemployment soared. This was the first instance of “stagflation”—a situation involving high inflation and slow or negative economic growth—in US history.
So what is a good theory of expectations in place of Keynes? My position on this is with economist Ludwig von Mises who quotes Lincoln’s law (which may not have been said by Lincoln) in saying, “you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
Fourth, Keynes applied his theory of animal spirits inconsistently. In investment markets, irrational pessimism and optimism reigned, but, as economist Murray Rothbard points out, Keynes excluded the possibility of animal spirits for the class of politicians and technocrats. As Rothbard highlights,
“this class, this deus ex machina external to the market, is of course the state apparatus, as headed by its natural ruling elite and guided by the modern, scientific version of Platonic philosopher kings. In short, government leaders, guided firmly and wisely by Keynesian economists and social scientists (naturally headed by the great man himself), would save the day.”
While this asymmetry in Keynes’ work does not undermine the explanation of animal spirits like the above three arguments do, it does undermine any application of the idea to policy-making unless a good reason for the asymmetry can be explained.
Measurement: The Past is Not the Present
I’ve done my best to provide a list of fundamental issues with the theory of animal spirits. But, CNN’s Fear and Greed Index suffers from application too.
Even if Keynes was completely right about animal spirits, the index would still not be much good.
Remember the methodology. The index tracks today’s deviations in asset values and compares them to historical averages of past deviations. But there is a fundamental problem here. Historical averages have nothing to do with modern valuations, and historical deviations tell us nothing about what modern deviations should be.
Imagine you built your house in 1970 and put in shag carpets. Now you’re selling the house and buyers tell you the shag carpets is something that takes away from the value of the house. You reply, “but I spent $300 on this carpeting!”
Alas, it doesn’t matter what shag carpets were worth in the 70s. It matters what people value them today. The same hold for deviations of value. If hardwood floors are still popular in 2050, the shag carpet seller can’t argue that shag carpets shouldn’t deviate in value since hardwood floors didn’t. It simply does not follow.
There are plenty of good reasons why modern assets should deviate further below average than usual. For example, natural disasters and weather patterns could cause assets to fall below their average more than usual. Also, even if investors don’t systemically error, they can still error. Bad policies could drive investors to make bad investments which, when realized, cause the value of assets to fall further from average than usual.
In other words, an asset falling further in value than usual does not imply the market is responding to “fear.” These assets could be responding to real changes or discovered facts about the economy.
To use an extreme example, imagine an earthquake destroyed the headquarters of most major companies in the US and they all temporarily suspended operations. This would certainly take stocks to historic lows.
The CNN Fear and Greed Index would measure this drop and say that fear is driving the market. But it’s obvious that fear isn’t the cause of this drop—the earthquake is. The fact that people may feel afraid is irrelevant to the cause.
Perhaps not coincidentally, this measurement of “fear and greed” makes the same fundamental mistake of the animal spirits. The index observes when asset prices are further down than usual and simply names the phenomena “fear.”
But labeling a market change “fear” does not mean fear is driving the market. It means you named something.
The index simply assumes what has yet to be proved. A bust by any other name is just as sour. And calling the bust fear doesn’t make us any more informed about it.
*****
This article was published by FEE, Foundation for Economic Education and is reproduced with permission.
TAKE ACTION
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-05 04:00:002022-07-05 04:00:00The Boom-Bust Cycle is Not a Greed-Fear Cycle
It may have been the worst Super Bowl commercial ever. Chelsea Handler and Sarah Silverman are competing with one another, trying to use their cell phones in preposterous places. Silverman, still talking to Handler, is delivering a baby in an underground bunker. Handing the baby to the mother, she glances down and sees the sex. “Sorry!” she tells the parents. “It’s a boy.”
I flinched. I’ve never heard these words in the delivery room, but the sentiment is familiar. I’ve made the “it’s a boy” announcement five times; some people just can’t resist offering their condolences. This poor woman! Will she ever “get her girl”? They probably had a mental picture of me buried in fire trucks and plastic soldiers, while baseballs crashed through my windows.
That’s not really so far wrong, but I don’t mind. Little girls are delightful, but I love my band of brothers. I am very conscious of the tremendous honor and obligation of being, at least for the present, the defining female presence in the lives of six males. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. My eldest sons are just reaching their teens. Already our conversations are vastly more interesting than most of the classroom discussions I remember from my days as a college professor. All five of them were born within nine years, so they’re truly growing up together, and their schoolteachers comment on what a tight-knit bunch they are. Some days, when I’m writing or working on dinner, I’ll break off for a few minutes, and step out on the back deck. The boys might be throwing a football, or fishing off our dock. They might just be sitting around laughing at one another’s dumb jokes. Who could witness that, and feel sorry? Life doesn’t get much richer.
I regret nothing, but I do fear. Young men as a group are struggling mightily in our day and age. Silverman’s tasteless joke has a frighteningly clear underlying logic. Parents who want their kids to make them proud—and who doesn’t?—are statistically better off having daughters. A daughter is likelier to become her school’s valedictorian. A son is likelier to drop out of school or get arrested. She is likelier to get into and through a good college, to find decent employment, and to live a stable life. He’s likelier to become addicted to drugs or alcohol, and six times likelier to commit suicide. I feel indignant when I read how adoption agencies are struggling to place boys, even in infancy. But I understand it. Boys may break your heart. And I have five.
This is why I read the “boy books”: literature discussing the struggles of boys. I need to understand this as fully as possible. I have a lot of “boy lit” on my shelf, but here I will discuss five significant figures in this conversation: Warren Farrell, Leonard Sax, Anthony Esolen, Jordan Peterson, and Brad Miner. Among these, only Peterson has not written an entire book specifically on the subject of manhood. I will mention him nevertheless, because his influence with young men is particularly noteworthy.
I disagree with all of these writers at certain points, and in some cases the disagreements are serious. Nevertheless, I look on them all with a certain gratitude. They care. To me, they all feel like allies in what has become my primary life’s work: the task of raising boys into good men.
Farrell and Sax Raise the Alarm
For a quick read on the boy problem, Warren Farrell and Leonard Sax make a great pairing. Sax is a psychologist and family physician, who has written three books on gender and youth development. Boys Adrift is his latest. Farrell is harder to classify. In broad terms, it may be most helpful to describe him as a true-believing second-wave feminist (once deeply involved with the National Organization for Women) who ended up developing a masculinist counterpart to his 1970s feminism. He isn’t any sort of traditionalist; indeed, he clearly wants to dismantle traditional masculine ideals in at least some key ways. Still, he has been thinking about boys and men for several decades now, and I find his arguments helpfully challenging, even when I think he’s wrong. The Boy Crisis applies some of his long-developed thoughts on manhood to developmental issues for boys.
Sax and Farrell are interesting both for their similarities and for their differences. As social scientists, they both present a lot of data, giving rise to shared concern about boys’ mediocre performances in school. Worldwide, boys are falling behind girls, especially in reading. Their test scores are lower, and they are less likely to enroll in universities. The structure of modern schools seems uncongenial to boys’ developmental needs.
Sax and Farrell agree as well that fatherlessness is a huge problem in our time, in general, but especially for boys.The statistics on this subject are harrowing. Fatherless boys fare worse in virtually every measurable way. Of course, when that cycle of family breakdown is perpetuated, that means another generation of at-risk kids, as well as stressed-out single moms, and lower social productivity.
Finally, both Sax and Farrell have many interesting things to say about the masculine loss of purpose. They understand that many men today are suffering from a kind of existential crisis. Men aren’t sure what role they are meant to play within society at large. Once, able-bodied men were genuinely necessary to keep their families and communities alive. Today, robots do much of our heavy lifting, and our meat mostly comes from factories, not forests. We do still need strong men to do a number of jobs, some of which are desperately seeking eligible workers. If a man wants employment, it’s still very possible to leverage bulging biceps, in more ways than one. Physical strength is no longer essential to the family’s survival though, nor does it command tremendous earning power. In market terms, manly muscle has lost its edge.
From here, Sax and Farrell diverge. Sax focuses on cultural phenomena that undermine discipline for boys: video games, pornography, and over-indulgent parenting. His book feels like the adolescent prequel to Nicolas Eberstadt’s Men Without Work, and recommends, stricter rules, fewer indulgences, and less coddling. Farrell’s focus is quite different. In broad terms, he thinks that boys’ social and emotional development has been stunted by maladaptive masculine norms, which send boys charging off on quixotic manhood quests while the girls are becoming prudent, socially savvy, and self-aware. Farrell is deeply suspicious of cultural messaging that teaches boys to aspire to heroic self-sacrifice. In his view, this understanding of manhood makes it hard for boys to navigate the complexities of interpersonal relationships, and the nuances of our complex workforce. They are incentivized to do dangerous and self-destructive things, instead of developing the workaday healthy habits that so often make the difference between success and failure in modern life. Farrell’s book is full of “conversation starters” for parents; he wants us to plumb the depths of our sons’ social and emotional lives. His larger goal is to give men the same range of options and possibilities in life that feminists have (in his view, rightly) demanded for women, moving them towards self-actualization and a comfortable life.
It can be hard for parents to make sense of seemingly contradictory advice, but in fact both men make some good points. Sax is certainly right to call our attention to distractions and cultural trends that undermine discipline, although I myself haven’t always had success with the authoritarian disciplinary approaches that Sax recommends. Sometimes a fruitful conversation is worth a thousand rules. Here, Farrell’s insights can actually be genuinely helpful, especially because we do live in a world in which social polish, emotional self-awareness, and prudent life skills are critically important for adults. If a young man is too socially inept to be presentable in a job interview, or too emotionally closed to cultivate intimacy with a wife, then he may end up bankrupt and alone.
Having said that, I think Farrell underestimates the extent to which boys are naturally attracted to heroism, honorable self-sacrifice, and the stiff upper lip. I don’t think it’s wise to jettison these chivalric impulses. If young men are indeed suffering from a loss of purpose, financial planners and radio shrinks may not be the ministers they need.
Anthony Esolen Waxes Nostalgic
Anthony Esolen would agree with this point. His newest book, No Apologies: How Civilization Depends on the Strength of Men seeks “to return to men a sense of their worth as men, and to give to boys the noble aim of manliness, which is their due by right.”
Esolen wants to return men to their traditional role, as society’s protectors, providers, and citizens. He doesn’t see technology, market forces, or women’s education as significant factors in men’s changing social roles. Rather, he thinks men have been sabotaged by resentful feminists and equality-obsessed social planners.
Esolen proposes two remedies. First, we should renew our appreciation of men’s unique potentialities. Second, we should embrace the natural complementarity between men and women. The first will keep the lights on in society at large; the second will keep romance sweet and domestic life stable.
Esolen’s ode to manhood is stirring, and at times quite beautiful. Is it credible, though? An economist would have some quibbles, and the historical narratives are a bit rose-tinted at points. But the biggest problem with No Apologies is its dependence on a false and degraded view of womanhood. Esolen loves the idea that men and women complement one another, but in his division of the sexes, virtue is mainly for the vir.
He obviously anticipates objections on this point, because he warns readers in his introduction that even if he appears to be disparaging women, in reality he is “doing nothing of the sort.” “Every strength in one respect,” he tells us, “is a shortcoming in another respect.”
I want my sons to be man enough to handle real womanly excellences as they find them, with grace and gratitude. I would like them to aspire as well to friendship with women, and especially their future wives.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-05 03:50:002022-07-05 03:50:00Recovering the Path to Manhood
Editors’ Note: The following essay by The Prickly Pear’s Journalism Intern was written shortly before the historic Supreme Court decision on June 23rd in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that 6–3 ruling, the high court invalidated New York state’s tough concealed-carry gun permitting system with profound effects for the Second Amendment across the United States. Along with several other historic decisions announced over the past 10 days, SCOTUS has breathed life back into the U.S. Constitution for several of our fundamental rights as citizens, i.e., the First and Second Amendments, the guiding light of states’ rights (overturning Roe v. Wade) and limiting the always expanding regulatory overreach of the administrative (executive branch) state, i.e., the EPA, et al. There is much to be thankful for on this July 4th Day of Independence. Celebrate our precious liberty but resolve that as citizens of this Republic, ‘We the People’ will work to maintain it for all generations to follow.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
All the amendments are unquestionably valuable but the Second Amendment is arguably the most important. Without the Second Amendment, we would not be able to protect any of the other rights stated in the Constitution.
Many on the left claim the Second Amendment is obsolete because we no longer have militias. They are correct in saying we no longer have state or local militias. Rather, we have local, state and federal protection agencies such as police officers, National Guard, and the military. Why, then, would we need an amendment the left claims is no longer relevant in the 21st Century?
We need the Second Amendment because it was not only about a ‘well-regulated Militia’, but more essentially about ‘We the People’. The Second Amendment has two parts, dealing with two separate issues, both related to firearms.
America won the Revolutionary War in no small part because of Minute Men who were armed citizens. Minute Men were valuable because, as their name states, they were ready to fight in mere minutes. They didn’t have to ask the Continental Army for arms; they had their own. The Founders knew how valuable these men, together with the Continental Army, were to our fight. Without citizens owning guns, this fight would have been nearly impossible. The militiamen who fought and won our independence were armed citizens.
Each of the amendments were passed in the U.S. Senate and approved by the states before being added to the Bill of Rights. A proposal for the wording of the Second Amendment to the Senate could have inserted either “the common defense” or “for their common good” after “the right to keep and bear arms”. The Senate purposely rejected both of these proposals, with author and lawyer Stephen Halbrook noting “Rejection of both expressed an intent that keeping and bearing arms and assembly include private, as well as public, lawful purpose, and that the citizens, not the government, have the freedom to choose which arms to keep and for what purpose to assemble”. The Senate consciously did not limit the use of arms to defense, a common good, or the Militia. They wanted the people to make educated decisions for themselves, and the Senate knew Americans were capable of making those decisions.
The point is, the militia and the people are two different, yet related, statements within one amendment. The Founders knew the people needed guns just as much, if not more than the Militia – or today’s local, state and federal protection agencies. American citizens have the right to own firearms not to instigate violence, but to ensure peace, freedom, and safety.
How do you stop a bad guy with a gun committing a crime endangering a person or oneself? This is a question Second Amendment supporters regularly ask of gun-confiscation supporters. As Will Witt points out in a Man on the Street video, the only way to protect citizens and promote safety is to have good, law-abiding citizens with guns. This does not mean police officers, but armed citizens looking out for their families and the community.
As I learned at a Hillsdale College lecture, in a republic, the citizens are the state. Similarly, in a republic, bearing arms is a civic duty. The government is not separate from the people, the people are the government. We know how, and have the means to, protect ourselves from both domestic and foreign dangers and threats.
The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, killing a total of 2,403 Americans, occurred on December 7, 1941. Only 68 of those deaths were citizen deaths. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese could have landed their forces to take the citizens of Hawaii hostage. They did not land because they knew American citizens had the right to bear arms, and many of them owned guns. They knew the gun-owning Americans could use their guns well and would fight for their families. Just the threat of an armed citizenry kept the residents of Hawaii safe.
An overwhelming majority of mass shootings transpire in gun-free zones. The only outcome of gun-free zones is the disarming of law-abiding citizens. Criminals carry out shootings in gun-free zones because, as written above, they know there will be no armed law-abiding citizens in those zones. Essentially, everyone in a gun-free zone is a sitting duck.
Yes, guns can injure and kill, but most importantly, guns protect. The gun doesn’t pull the trigger, a human does. The gun does not choose whom to kill, a human does. The naïve believe that denying law abiding citizens their constitutional right to own and possess firearms will somehow eliminate the criminal behavior and violence seen every day in our most highly gun-regulated cities and this will somehow magically fix these tragic and recurring problems. We should rather teach citizens from an early age why the Second Amendment is a fundamental right along with knowledge of gun safety and responsibility.
*****
Ellie Fromm is currently serving at The Prickly Pear as a Journalism Intern. Ms. Fromm is entering her senior year of high school and has been home schooled since preschool.
TAKE ACTION
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-04 04:15:002022-07-04 04:15:00The Second Amendment is About the People, Not Only a Militia
I’ll admit that I often look at national holidays as simply being an opportunity to spend more time with my family and forget to reflect on the reasons for the day off. With the American experiment frequently feeling like it is on the verge of collapse, we should spend some time between the 4th of July fireworks and the now way-too-expensive hotdogs to reflect on why our republic was designed the way it is and how it was supposed to function.
Though individually flawed and with many faults (as is true of all humans), the founders of this great republic collectively designed and implemented a truly brilliant form of government with separations of powers and checks and balances that strived to protect individuals from suffering under a distant despotic government.
What makes us Americans is not our race, religion, or a single defining culture but instead a shared belief in the cry for freedom put to pen 246 years ago and the resulting republican form of government secured by our constitution.
Of course, even before the dawn of our country on this continent, there have been truly horrific abuses of power and injustices born by individuals at the hands of those placed in positions of power. The most egregious stain on our country being slavery. Though some see these collective failings as reasons to blow up the institutions of our republic, they should instead serve as examples of why additional safeguards are needed to help fulfill the promise of the American experiment.
Some may believe that political expediency should guide our decisions using an ‘ends justify the means’ matrix, but the process of policy development and adherence to transparent and accountable governance is more important if we want policies to be lasting with strong public support and engagement.
It has probably been years since we read the documents that formed the basis of our governance. Though you probably don’t want homework during your 4th of July holiday, I encourage you to take some time to review these truly brilliant documents:
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-04 04:10:002022-07-04 04:10:00Celebrate Our Independence By Reflecting On The Promise Of Our Republic
Governments, corporations, and elites have always been fearful of the power of a free press, because it is capable of exposing their lies, destroying their carefully crafted images, and undermining their authority. In recent years, alternative journalism has been growing and more people are relying on social media platforms as sources of news and information. In response, the corporate state, digital conglomerates, and the mainstream media have been increasingly supportive of the silencing and censoring of alternative media outlets and voices that challenge the official narrative on most issues.
At the recent World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, “Australian eSafety commissioner” Julie Inman Grant stated that “freedom of speech is not the same thing as a free for all,” and that “we are going to need a recalibration of a whole range of human rights that are playing out online—from freedom of speech … to be free from online violence.” Meanwhile, the Canadian government is seeking to restrict independent media and the freedom of expression via the implementation of Bill C-11, which would allow it to regulate all online audiovisual platforms on the internet, including content on Spotify, Tik Tok, YouTube, and podcast clients.
Similarly, the UK is seeking to introduce an Online Safety Bill, the US “paused” the establishment of a Disinformation Governance Board following backlash, and the European Union approved its own Digital Services Act, all of which aim to limit the freedom of speech. Attempts by elites and politicians to silence dissenters and critical thinkers is not something new. In fact, history is full of examples of “the persecution of men of science, the burning of scientific books, and the systematic eradication of the intelligentsia of the subjected people.”
However, these current efforts to curtail freedom of speech and press by supposedly liberal governments are still somewhat ironic, given that even “the most intolerant of churches, the Roman Catholic Church, even at the canonization of a saint, admits, and listens patiently to, a ‘devil’s advocate.’ The holiest of men, it appears, cannot be admitted to posthumous honors, until all that the devil could say against him is known and weighed.”
The corporate state, digital conglomerates, and the mainstream media want to ensure that they have the exclusive authority to dictate people’s opinions, wants, and choices through their sophisticated propaganda techniques. To do so, they have even resorted to transforming falsehoods into truth. In fact, the word truth has already had its original meaning altered, as those who speak the truth on certain subjects are now regularly accused of spreading hate speech, misinformation, and disinformation.
Presently, truth is no “longer something to be found, with the individual conscience as the sole arbiter of whether in any particular instance the evidence (or the standing of those proclaiming it) warrants a belief; it becomes something to be laid down by authority, something which has to be believed in the interest of the unity of the organized effort, and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it.”
However, modifying the definition of truth comes with the potential for great peril, as truth-seeking often contributes to human progress in that it leads to discoveries that ultimately benefit society at large. It should be noted that truth is by no means the only word whose meaning has been changed recently in order for it to serve as an instrument of propaganda; others include freedom, justice, law, right, equality, diversity, woman, pandemic, vaccine, etc. This is highly concerning, because such attempts at the “perversion of language, the change of meaning of the words by which the ideals” of the ruling class are expressed is a consistent feature of totalitarian regimes.
As a number of liberal-democratic governments increasingly move toward totalitarianism, they want people to forget that there is “the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.” According to them, “public criticism or even expressions of doubt must be suppressed because they tend to weaken public support.”
In fact, they believe that all views and opinions that might cast doubt or create hesitation need to be restricted in all disciplines and on all platforms. This is because “the disinterested search for truth cannot be allowed” when “the vindication of the official views becomes the sole object” of the ruling class. In other words, the control of information is practiced and the uniformity of views is enforced in all fields under totalitarian rule.
The suppression of freedom of the press, speech, expression, and thought means that current and future generations will be “deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” They are also at risk of becoming ignorant of the fact that the only way in which a person can know “the whole of a subject” is by “hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind.” That is to say, current and future generations will be unaware that “the steady habit of correcting and completing” one’s own “opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the only stable foundation for a just reliance on it.”
At present, it is likely that the masses do not regard freedom of the press, speech, expression, and thought as being particularly important, because “the great majority are rarely capable of thinking independently, that on most questions they accept views which they find ready-made, and that they will be equally content if born or coaxed into one set of beliefs or another.” Nevertheless, no one should have the power and authority to “select those to whom” freedom of thought, enlightenment and expression is to be “reserved.”
In fact, John Stuart Mill went so far as to claim that “if all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” He further added that silencing the expression of an opinion is essentially an act of “robbing the human race,” which applies to both current and future generations. Even though the suppressors can deny the truth to people at a particular point in time, “history shows that every age having held many opinions which subsequent ages have deemed not only false but absurd; and it is as certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present.”
If current efforts to suppress freedom of the press, speech, expression, and thought to succeed, then the search for truth will eventually be abandoned and totalitarian authorities will decide what “doctrines ought to be taught and published.” There will be no limits to who can be silenced, as the control of opinions will be extended to all people in all fields. Accordingly, contemporary authoritarian policymakers need to be reminded about the crucial importance of freedom of speech, expression, and thought, which the US Supreme Court recognized in the 1957 case Sweezy v. New Hampshire when it ruled that
to impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation. No field of education is so thoroughly comprehended by man that new discoveries cannot yet be made…. Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise, our civilization will stagnate and die…. Our form of government is built on the premise that every citizen shall have the right to engage in political expression and association. This right was enshrined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Exercise of these basic freedoms in America has traditionally been through the media of political associations…. History has amply proved the virtue of political activity by minority, dissident groups, who innumerable times have been in the vanguard of democratic thought and whose programs were ultimately accepted. Mere unorthodoxy or dissent from the prevailing mores is not to be condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness in our society.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-04 04:00:002022-07-04 04:00:00The Great Reset in Action: Ending Freedom of the Press, Speech, and Expression
The California Department of Justice broke its silence Wednesday after the names, driver’s license numbers, addresses, and other private information of thousands of gun owners in the state were leaked from a gun database.
The state Department of Justice is providing credit monitoring services for gun owners whose private information was exposed by the leak.
The leak exposed the private information of all gun owners who applied for a concealed carry permit between the years 2011 and 2021. The information exposed included the names, date of birth, gender, race, driver’s license number, addresses, and criminal history of the gun owners.
Thousands of civilians, including 244 judges and 420 reserve officers were exposed to the leak.
Information was compromised from the contents of five other gun registries, including the Assault Weapon Registry, Handguns Certified for Sale, Dealer Record of Sale, Firearm Certificate Safety, and Gun Violence Restraining Order.
“DOJ is investigating the extent to which any personally identifiable information could have been exposed from those dashboards and will report additional information as soon as confirmed,” the statement said.
The social security numbers of those on the list were not leaked, according to the DOJ.
“This unauthorized release of personal information is unacceptable and falls far short of my expectations for this department,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said. “I immediately launched an investigation into how this occurred at the California Department of Justice and will take strong corrective measures where necessary.
“I am deeply disturbed and angered,” Bonta said.
Those in possession of or using the private information leaked from the registry are guilty of a crime, the DOJ said, referring to California penal code 530.5. The code stipulates that “Every person who willfully obtains personal identifying information … shall be punished by a fine, by imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed one year, or by both a fine and imprisonment.”
Aidan Johnson, director of Federal Affairs at Gun Owners of America, told the Daily Caller the leak represented a serious lack of regard for the privacy of California gun owners.
“This ‘mistake’ by anti-gun Californian bureaucrats demonstrates either serious negligence or blatant disregard for the privacy of citizens who wish to defend themselves with a firearm in public,” Johnson said. “Gun owner registries, especially of those licensed to carry firearms in public, are a dangerous infringement on the Second Amendment.”
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-03 04:00:002022-07-03 04:00:00California DOJ Breaks Silence After Massive Leak Of Gun Owners’ Private Info
With a recession looming over the average American, the group to blame is pretty obvious, this group being the central bankers at the Federal Reserve, who inflate the supply of currency in the system, that currency being the dollar. This is what inflation is, the expansion of the money supply either through the printing press or adding zeros to a computer screen. It has gotten so bad that in the last twenty-two months, 80 percent of all US dollars in existence have been printed, from $4 trillion in January 2020, to $20 trillion in October 2021.
This is always how recessions start: the expansion of easy money, the creation of bubbles, and heightened prices caused by the devaluation of the currency supply. But recessions occurred long before the Fed’s establishment in 1913.
Were these market failures, as many are taught to believe, or were they still the fault of a central bank or government policy? How bad were pre-Fed recessions? Did they rival the Great Depression or 2008?
The Continental Dollar
During the days of the American Revolution, the Continental Congress convened to figure out how to finance the Revolution. In June 1775, Congress issued six million paper currency notes known as continental dollars in order to pay for the new army and the supplies needed to fight a war. Those who supported the Revolution would jump in line to support this new fiat currency, as it was the patriotic thing to do.
By 1780, the number of continentals in circulation had reached 241 million, and the continental had done its damage. The patriots who bought into the fiat dollar suffered the most, while people like David Hall, who by order of Congress was permitted to print out fiat bills, and the Loyalists, who kept their gold and silver specie were able to stay financially afloat.
The continental was turned back en masse, as it now held no value. Those who trusted the continental over gold were left with nothing. Certain Founding Fathers, after witnessing people’s livelihoods ruined by fiat paper money, decided to make provisions to make sure this mistake would not happen again.
Article 1 Section 10 of the US Constitution states:
No state shall make any thing but gold and silver coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.
This section would be violated throughout US history, from the Civil War to 1933, when President Franklin Roosevelt confiscated US citizens’ gold and prevented them from exchanging the dollar into gold.
It’s clear what caused the failure of the continental: Congress and printing presses. This, however, would not be the last economic problem that would face America, the next major downturn came in 1819.
The Recession of 1819
After the War of 1812, state-chartered banks and the Second Bank of the United States (SBUS), which was established in 1816, expanded the money supply. Murray Rothbard’s book The Panic of 1819 notes how these state banks expanded the amount of banknotes from $46 million to $68 million in 1815. The problem was that banks printed more paper notes than there was gold specie to back them.
In fact, from 1817 to 1818, the SBUS expanded credit by 57 percent, outdoing the credit expansion in 1815–17, when it expanded credit by 25 percent. This credit expansion caused prices to rise in certain areas of the economy, such as agriculture and shipbuilding. All of these markets received the biggest loans that were granted by SBUS branches and state banks.
Eighteen eighteen spelled trouble for both the state banks and the SBUS: the money supply fell by 10 percent and there was a credit contraction of 41 percent. Foreigners and other citizens started to trade in their banknotes for specie, and many state banks refused to convert paper to gold as their gold reserves ran dry, as did the SBUS reserves.
Thomas Jefferson, who warned against central banking, gave his thoughts in a letter to John Taylor in 1816. Jefferson states:
And I sincerely believe with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; & that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
His suspicion was confirmed when in 1819 a recession ignited by the inflationary policy and agriculture and turnpike workers’ wages fell 60–80 percent.
Despite this bank failure, markets were allowed to handle the recession, or the readjustment period. Because of this, the economy bounced back quite quickly. At the start of the recession, gross domestic product per capita only fell 1.1 percent, but from the latter half of 1819 until 1824, GDP per capita grew 1.5 percent. This was before urbanization, so many still lived on farms. Even though wages fell, the recession was still nowhere as bad post-Fed recessions like the one in 1929.
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 put a 55 percent tax on all foreign imports, this practically eliminated all exports. Agriculture suffered the most. Tens of thousands of farms were closed and sold for as low as $50. At the beginning of 1920, there were 28,885 banks, and by 1933, roughly fifteen thousand remained, the Federal Reserve Board of 1937 noted that two-thirds of these banks were in towns with less than twenty-five hundred people and that the majority failed.
Wages may have dropped in 1819, but the economy bounced back. It did not drag for sixteen years, nor did thousands of farms and banks fail.
Isn’t Gold Supposed to Prevent This?
Another reason why recessions during the “gold standard” days happened is that nations rejected using the simple units of measurements for weighing gold and inflated paper notes using small amounts of gold. For example, one pound of gold is sixteen ounces, sixteen ounces is 453 grams, etc.
Each nation had its own sovereign money, such as the dollar, the mark, and the franc, and while each was tied to gold, each had different exchange rates for gold. This allowed nations to go off the gold standard and inflate the currency supply.
In his book What has the Government Done to our Money? (p. 14), Murray Rothbard states:
The dollar was defined as 1/20 of an ounce of gold. It was therefore misleading to talk about exchange rates of one country to another. The pound sterling did not really exchange for five dollars. The dollar was defined as 1/20 of a gold ounce and the pound sterling was, at that time, defined as the name for 1/4 of a gold ounce, simply traded for 5/20 of a gold ounce.
Rothbard later explains how in a pure free market, gold would be exchanged directly, in grams, grains, or ounces.
Panic of 1873
Just before the American Civil War, there was around $200 million in banknotes issued by fifteen hundred state banks. In 1861 after the outbreak of the war, there was much debate on how to finance it. All options were on the table, and it seems President Abraham Lincoln chose them all.
In 1861, the Revenue Act imposed a 3 percent tax rate on incomes between $600 and $5,000. Greenbacks were introduced, and these were not backed by gold but printed on paper. Secretary of the US Treasury Salmon Chase asked Congress to approve the printing of 150 million notes, and in 1862, he got the order to do it.
Secretary Chase got two similar orders in 1863 and 1864, both equating to $150 million. By 1865, there were $835 million in both national and state banknotes, but the banks did not stop until 1873, when there was around $1.964 billion in circulation.
One of the founders of the bond system was Jay Cooke. The House of Cooke distributed Treasury bonds during and after the Civil War. Cooke also became head of the government-subsidized Northern Pacific Railroad. Cooke was fervently antigold and considered it a hard coin of a “bygone age.” The previous inflationary policies of the banks caused the House of Cooke bond system and the Northern Pacific railroad to fail, which sparked the Panic of 1873.
But even though a government-subsidized company crumbled under its own weight, the country did not fall into a long depression. In fact, the years from 1873 onward would be a very prosperous time, Rothbard notes:
The decade from 1869 to 1879 saw a 3-percent per-annum increase in money national product, an outstanding real national product growth of 6.8 percent per year in this period, and a phenomenal rise of 4.5 percent per year in real product per capita.
This was not a depression. In fact, most recessions or panics up until 1921 were over quickly because neither the government nor a central bank got involved. But in cases like the Great Recession of 2008, the Fed and government got involved.
The housing boom and bust of 2006 began because the Fed kept interest rates lower than they should have been. This contributed to the demand for housing, since lower interest rates mean lower mortgage payments. Eventually, the Fed kicked interest rates back up, which caused those who had bought houses they normally wouldn’t be able to afford to pay higher mortgages.
All the financial institutions that financed the housing boom, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, took massive losses and had to be bailed out by the US government. In the end, six million people had their homes foreclosed on, unemployment reached 10 percent, and GDP fell by 4.3 percent.
Panic of 1893
While previous examples showed the expansion of paper money outpacing the amount of specie American banks had in store, the Panic of 1893 was sparked by an expansion of silver and silver paper certificates. Hans Sennholz writes that “from 1878 on to 1893 there had been an expansion of money based on silver.”
This recession was not a matter of printing notes beyond the amount of gold banks had, but instead one of congressional meddling. In 1878, the Bland-Allison Act allowed for the Treasury to mint silver coins and issue silver certificates. In 1890, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act decreed that the government would buy 4.5 million ounces of silver every month. This expansion of silver caused the gold supply to drop because of heightened prices and the easy money legislation.
Eventually, President Grover Cleveland called a special session in Congress, pleading for the repeal of the previous silver acts to stop the drain on US gold reserves. They were repealed, which stopped the inflation of silver and allowed for a recession to readjust the market.
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-03 04:00:002022-07-03 04:00:00How Bad Were Recessions before the Fed? Not as Bad as They Are Now
The radical left is in disarray after the Supreme Court decided [last] Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, ruling that there was no constitutional right to an abortion.
The radical left reminds us daily that women aren’t the only people who can get pregnant. Biological women who say they’re “men” can get pregnant, they say, as can those who say they’re “nonbinary.”
But as Roe fell, the sea of protest signs outside the court referred not to “birthing people” or “people who menstruate,” but instead to women, losing their rights, or politicians trying to control women’s bodies.
Gone were the endless lectures about the dozens of genders the left makes up. Instead, biological reality set in.
That would be the same biological reality that had, up until recently, been ignored by those situated in the left’s highest echelons.
Earlier in June, before Roe was overturned, Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, said she had a responsibility to all “menstruating people in Michigan” during a Zoom event.
In May 2021, Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., tweeted, “Every day, black birthing people and our babies die because our doctors don’t believe our pain,” alongside a video of her testimony, in which she repeated the phrase “birthing person.”
And infamously, during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing to become a Supreme Court justice, federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson declined to define what a woman is. “I’m not a biologist,” she insisted, in response to a question from Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.
Women get pregnant, give birth, and tragically, get abortions. And the overturning of Roe represented a very real change in how women could deal with pregnancies.
That’s not to say there weren’t true believers trying to spread the gospel of gender ideology around the court. But many protesters recognize that women alone have the capacity to get pregnant. And they’ve adapted their messaging to reflect that truth.
That leads to an obvious question: Why did it take Roe getting overturned for the left to acknowledge the obvious reality that women and men are different?
The answer is that it didn’t. The left didn’t suddenly wake up and realize they had been living a lie. They’ve known the whole time and cynically used gender ideology as a tool to club their political opposition and to virtue-signal.
While there are those far-out ideologues who think there is legitimately zero difference between a Lia Thomas-type “woman” and a real woman, far more likely is that these types of people are a disproportionally powerful minority that drives the narrative for the rest of the radical left.
Whether through fear or empathy, those left of center felt obligated to play into the “trans women are women” fantasy. But now that the stakes have been raised so sharply, the polite veneer of tolerance for this nonsense has faded away.
The left knows that men and women are different, and realizes the average American is aware of that fact, too. How can the left fight for women’s rights if they can’t even define what a woman is?
The demise of Roe also provides a vantage point to strike a coup de graceagainst gender ideology.
While conservatives must continue to cultivate a culture of life across the country, it’s also worth using some of our resources to buttress the reality that only women can get pregnant.
It’s a tough needle to thread, and we can’t give the left too much leeway to say abortion is exclusively a women’s issue.
The fathers whose children are slaughtered at Planned Parenthood clinics and lose out on their sons who are never born mean that, yes, men are affected by abortion, too.
But obviously, abortion impacts women more than men. And that’s why this is such a terrific opportunity. The left is stuck both ways.
Conservatives can point to the left’s inability to accurately define what a woman is as proof they’re out of touch with the American people—not just on abortion, but on reality as well.
By forcing the left to acknowledge there are fundamental differences between the sexes on the issue of abortion, the stranglehold gender ideology has on America in other spheres also grows weaker.
Conservatives can follow up our monumental victory for life with a one-two punch on the weird gender stuff.
The left is losing ground every day. With each loss, they hopefully will be forced to move back toward normalcy.
If we must keep fighting the left, I’d rather fight a left that at least knows what a woman is.
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-03 03:50:002022-07-03 03:50:00Post-Roe, Left Suddenly Remembers What a Woman Is
COVID-19 triggered lockdowns around the world never before seen. It isn’t the worst pandemic the world has seen, so why were government interventions so swift? There are really two reasons. One, broadband and laptops. Had there not been ways to continue working for the governments and remote learning to bridge education, we’d have not seen lockdowns beyond May 2020.
The second reason, tied to the first reason, is the media. The majority of the media coverage shamed any lockdown dissent and even drove it. Those that stood up to that, select states and even countries faced immense pressure from national and global media.
Within the United States, the role of the media within government policy is to critically analyze, to keep them honest. With COVID-19, open debate about risks and government interventions was shut down. For the first sixteen months of the pandemic, not only was the origination of COVID-19 not up for debate, it was suppressed and censored by major platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
As of June 2022 it’s considered more likely than not to have originated from the Wuhan lab, something even the WHO is now investigating. Reopen schools in 2020? The media put so much pressure to keep them closed that few politicians thought critically and acted to keep them open. Even with that, remote options were available and employed, fracturing education for a year and a half. In some states schools were closed for seventeen months.
A string of recent examples involve Dr. Deborah Birx. Along with Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx architected and drove the lockdowns in 2020. In 2022 Dr. Birx was on her book promotion media tour and repeatedly said we lost hundreds of thousands of lives due to poor federal actions (of which she was a part). How many interviewers pressed her for the math behind that? Zero.
After 24 months into the pandemic, fifteen months of that with vaccines and 14/24 months under President Biden, the daily COVID-19 death counts were materially identical between both administrations.
Below is an excerpt from the book COVID-19:The Science vs. The Lockdowns on how the media drove the lockdowns, gaining plenty of voter support to where politicians faced better polling by continuing lockdowns rather than opening up.
Social media has become the primary news source for more Americans than any other medium. Imagine if COVID-19 struck in the 1980s before cable television. Primary news sources were 1) network news, 2) major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post and 3) local newspapers.
Those mediums covered COVID-19 in 2020 as if it were a category five pandemic and drove opinion that schools and restaurants should be closed and everyone should be masked, perhaps even at home and in the car. They constantly reported that hospitals were lined up over capacity with sick, dying patients. However, we’d be looking around our communities not seeing much activity. We’d know it was out there, but we’d see hospitals were empty and few we knew were getting sick.
Remember, other than the four to six weeks when a community got hit, you wouldn’t know COVID-19 was a pandemic. Outside those surge periods, doctors would have assumed it was a weird or strong flu or something. The symptoms were similar to the flu, just worse if you were vulnerable enough to be hospitalized. If COVID-19 struck communities it was like a few-week hurricane, and it left a vacuum of emptiness in hospitals.
In my home town of Dallas, some well-intentioned college kids visited Parkland Hospital downtown to take care packages to frontline workers when we were in tight lockdown in April 2020. The nurse at receiving thanked them and laughed. She told them that they had no COVID-19 activity and with non-COVID-19 patients kept away, it was empty [Parkland did get a large wave in late 2020]. She walked them down darkened halls free of patients, nurses and doctors. Their voices echoed as they talked in the silence.
Nearly all major media outlets were absent any COVID-19 information suggesting the risk didn’t support the lockdowns. Fox News’ primetime shows often reported on it. Newsmax and One America News did too, but their viewership was relatively low, less than a half million viewers combined. That left 99% of America without a view from the mainstream media that maybe the lockdowns were not the best path.
Nearly all data to counter lockdowns originated with Twitter users. It largely began with Alex Berenson’s constant pouring of data to counter the models that triggered the lockdowns. Berenson began appearing on Fox News weekly in April 2020. Other Twitter users like The Ethical Skeptic (don’t laugh, he stays anonymous but the guy is a genius) and contributors to Rational Ground provided nearly all hardcore data.
If Twitter did not exist, it’s hard to imagine where data to support stopping lockdowns would have come from. Hold your thoughts on the mention of Fox News if you’re not a conservative. We need open thought and debate on something as huge as worldwide lockdowns. It was a sad state of journalism that Fox News was the only major media company to offer this, though by summer 2020 the Wall Street Journal did some quality analysis on the lockdowns. Most media outlets were very selective on their reporting on the lockdowns.
Where We Get The News
ABC’s World News Tonight leads network news with about nine million viewers nightly, followed by NBC Nightly News’s seven million viewers and CBS Evening News’s five million. Fox News typically gets about three million viewers, followed by MSNBC’s 1.5 million and CNN’s one million viewers. It’s very fair to say that—and there may be some overlap—23 million television news watchers were getting pro-lockdown, closed school, and face mask support from all programming except Fox News primetime. Online news and media sites touch hundreds of millions viewers. Below is Statista’s breakdown of the most frequented online news sources based on unique monthly visitors:
News Source
Monthly Visitors
Yahoo News
175 million
Google News
150 million
Huffington Post
110 million
CNN
95 million
The New York Times
70 million
Fox News
65 million
NBC News
63 million
The Washington Post
47 million
The Guardian
42 million
The Wall Street Journal
40 million
ABC News
36 million
USA Today
34 million
LA Times
33 million
The Atlantic self-reported that they received ninety million unique online visitors in March 2020.
There is obvious overlap of the same unique visitors to many of these news outlets. Within this breakdown, for a solid year into the pandemic, the only major news sources that were offering coverage against the lockdowns were Fox News and the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. The Guardian ran a few pieces on lockdown damage, mostly harm from school closings, as did the New York Times. While the Times pushed many lockdown measures, they did some excellent reporting on school closings. In general, there’s a ratio of 845 million to 105 million, or better than 88% coverage driving continued lockdowns, school closings, and face mask mandates.
Social Media
An enormous and growing source of news Americans receive is through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Pew Research identified that 36% of U.S. adults get their news from Facebook; ninety million people of the 170 million Facebook users. About sixty million adults get news from YouTube and fifty million from Twitter. Now, most of the news on these social media platforms often originates from the news sources above. However, just like large news organizations demonstrated bias in what they reported, the social media platforms demonstrated bias in what they allowed to circulate.
Facebook
Facebook has become a primary news resource for hundreds of millions of Americans and others worldwide. They did some good too. Facebook created a vaccine finder tool used by millions to help them secure vaccines more efficiently. They also became the arbiter of COVID-19 news and what they called misinformation. Facebook removed sixteen million pieces of information that they deemed inappropriate even if they did not violate their rules, like comments and articles discouraging wearing masks or getting vaccines. They removed the Great Barrington Declaration page. Do a quick search and find the GBD and read through it – it’s short. It condemns the one-size-fits-all lockdown measures like closing schools and businesses, and rather stresses the importance of those measurably at risk to be protected, whether in a long-term care facility or at home.
Are those crazy concepts that should not be open for discussion? Kang-Xing Jin was a college friend of Mark Zuckerberg and took the lead on COVID-19 information and misinformation for Facebook. KX has no medical background, but then neither do I; that’s no showstopper to analyze data, risk, and consequence. The stickiness comes in when the giant tech companies that shape our lives can’t draw the line between misinformation and healthy debate and discussion.
Facebook pages, messages, and posted articles that promoted that kids had zero COVID-19 risk, that discouraged masks, and argued that no requirement should be made to wear masks were all at risk of censorship. They banned “misinformation” related to theories ranging from saying SARS-CoV-2 was man made to posting that it’s safer to get the disease rather than the vaccine.
As for the latter, based on VAERS (vaccine adverse event reporting system), that may have been true for those under thirty years old and was definitely true for kids eighteen and under. At a minimum, debating the risk and benefit of an emergency use authorization vaccine is legitimate. Another banned opinion is that COVID-19 is no more dangerous than the flu. As discussed, for those older it was markedly more dangerous. For babies, to at least college age it wasn’t more dangerous than the flu.
Facebook also banned anything stating that the vaccines kill or harm people. Based on the VAERS reporting, Facebook was flat-out wrong. Vaccines did, in very small but measurable cases, cause death. They caused more side effects than all other vaccines over the past couple of decades combined. They absolutely made millions sick. The J&J vaccine I took made me very sick for two days. Having said that, if you were fifty or over or at risk, taking it could make sense. For kids, the encouragement when they were at no risk was also a no-brainer; the vaccines should not have been pushed in 2021 or today. The data doesn’t support the vaccines for healthy kids under five, as the FDA is recommending approval.
YouTube
Very early on, YouTube took down videos that were critical of lockdowns or face mask mandates. YouTube took down a video interview with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya in the spring of 2020, as well as many others that discussed overcounting of COVID-19 deaths or lockdown harms. In March 2021 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis hosted a roundtable discussion with Dr. Scott Atlas and the Great Barrington Declaration doctors Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Sunetra Gupta. The triggering comment made was their condemnation of masking children. YouTube took down the video. Bhattacharya, who really is a gentleman, kindly made a comment that he’d love to debate the 24-year-old YouTube employee making that decision. YouTube responded to taking down the roundtable discussion with the following statement:
“We removed this video because it included content that contradicts the consensus of local and global health authorities regarding the efficacy of masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. We allow videos that otherwise violate our policies to remain on the platform if they contain sufficient educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic context. Our policies apply to everyone, and focus on content regardless of the speaker or channel.”
The problem was the consensus of local and global health authorities were not following the science. These were not public health officials, they were zero-COVID-19 officials.
Twitter
Nearly all original content and data in challenging school closings, hospital capacity, face mask efficacy, closed restaurants and the rest of lockdown measures can be traced back to Twitter. Organized media, a good 90% of it, was driving fear through on-screen graphics and reporting. Very rarely did media outlets contextualize that: 1) the models were wrong, 2) kids were at ~0 risk, 3) mask efficacy was very iffy based on pre-COVID-19 science and the data in the U.S., 4) closing businesses didn’t do anything measurable and 5) not fully reopening schools in the fall of 2020 was insane. The data and critical thinking on these topics originated on Twitter.
Twitter began censoring like crazy after the November 2020 election. Thousands of accounts were blocked, as were millions of tweets questioning mask efficacy, vaccine safety, and anything else not aligned with the CDC. Here’s what this means. The CDC director could tweet out something like “Hospitals are overflowing in California. Please do not leave your house except when necessary.” Someone could reply with “Hospitals are not overflowing; ICUs are only at capacity at 30% of hospitals and half the hospitals don’t have 20% COVID-19 occupancy.” Bam! That tweet could be flagged or cause an account to be suspended.
Let’s suppose you think the social media companies should have suppressed lockdown criticisms. Go back to 2003. After the U.S. sent troops to Afghanistan, the U.S. decided to invade Iraq. The two justifications were an affiliation to al-Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction residing in Iraq. There was a near-unanimous consensus within Washington D.C. that it was the right move. “Experts” said it was the right move.
In that moment my dad and I sat around watching the news and shaking our heads. At his salty near-80 years of age and a veteran of Korea, he said, “Those bastards are going to send these kids to war and they’ll get killed and for what? Iraq is no threat to America and there’s no proof they were involved in 9-11.” He never again considered himself a Republican and never looked back.
The Iraq War was a huge event in American history. Nearly every politician supported it and there was universal media support. Sound a little like the lockdowns? A huge public policy based on sketchy risk and consequence data. Now imagine if media companies banned criticism of the war – eliminating any healthy debate on something history proved to be a disaster. History will not remember the lockdowns as a proportionate response. This isn’t about freedom of speech. It’s about healthy debate on policies that have enormous consequences.
Puzzle Pieces Connected
This is why the media bias supporting mask mandates, school closings, closed restaurants and the rest of the interventions was so devastating.
COVID-19 was unlike other controversial political issues like gun control or climate change. Everyone had the same starting point, and information was on a level playing field. In this one instance more than any other, we saw how enormous the power of the media is in influencing people’s opinions and the effect that had on policy. Media coverage out of the gate condemned any thinking that closed schools were a bad idea, that open schools were not a risk. The idea that face masks did not work was condemned, and even things like criticizing the closing of indoor dining. There was no open debate.
Media Coverage
It’s still hard to understand why most media outlets were so motivated to drive panic. Many said it was over the November 2020 election. If they could convince voters President Trump did a poor job handling the pandemic, they might vote for a change. There was something to that and it probably worked, but it continued far beyond the election. Two months after the election the CDC was promoting double masking. The first media break in the dike was a shift in February toward opening schools, and in-person learning did go up significantly in the spring of 2021, too little too late for the school year.
While Yahoo News and Google News were the largest online media sources, they were not material originators of content. You can trace media influences to the large outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, and to a lesser degree the Atlantic, Fox News, Huffington Post, The Guardian, and others. Their content then cascaded to larger mediums on Yahoo, Google, Facebook and Twitter.
The New York Times
The Times’ writers published thousands of articles on COVID-19 beginning in early 2020. The Times, and The Washington Post, set the narrative for news. They are foundational media sources because their writings cascade into other analyses from other writers, podcasts, and of course posts on Twitter. The Times drove enormous panic porn in 2020, energizing lockdown policies. Below are some examples.
Tom Friedman
Tom Friedman is a writer for the New York Times; he’s an A-lister. In 1989, Friedman wrote a very comprehensive and terrific book called From Beirut to Jerusalem. I read it as a college student and loved it, you should check it out even now. Friedman had nothing but disdain for President Trump.
As an opinion writer, it’s fine, healthy, and fair to offer his point of view. During the discussions of reopening the country, he made some reckless commentary about the president and the associated risks of reopening. In an April 18, 2020 column in the New York Times, the headline read “Trump Is Asking Us to Play Russian Roulette With Our Lives.”
In the piece, Friedman wrote:
‘LIBERATE MINNESOTA!’ ‘LIBERATE MICHIGAN!’ ‘LIBERATE VIRGINIA.’ With these three short tweets last week, President Trump attempted to kick off the post-lockdown phase of America’s coronavirus crisis. It should be called: ‘American Russian roulette: The Covid-19 version.’’ What Trump was saying with those tweets was: Everybody just go back to work. From now on, each of us individually, and our society collectively, is going to play Russian roulette. We’re going to bet that we can spin through our daily lives — work, shopping, school, travel — without the coronavirus landing on us. And if it does, we’ll also bet that it won’t kill us.
The flaws in Friedman’s argument are numerous. Russian roulette, strictly speaking, is when you load one bullet in a revolver, spin the chamber and pull the trigger, with a fully equal one in six chance of dying. There is a haunting scene depicting this in the classic film The Deer Hunter. Russian roulette gives everyone an equal probability of dying.
COVID-19 did not give everyone an equal probability of getting sick, much less dying. With the economy on fire, hospitalizations and deaths declining and knowing who was at risk, requiring vast testing and tracing was not a reasonable requirement for opening up the country. Washington Governor Jay Inslee required just that (on May 18, 2020) to open up Washington. Apoorva Mandavilli is a medical and science journalist for the New York Times. She was one of two primary writers for the Times on the pandemic. Mandavilli wrote hundreds of articles and opinion pieces for the Times and participated in many interviews on COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021. Her reporting erred on the side of pandemic pessimism and maintaining lockdowns throughout. Headlines of articles she wrote included:
“Six Months of Coronavirus: Here’s Some of What We’ve Learned” on June 18, 2020. In this commentary, Mandavilli asserted two things that science and data wasn’t showing: that masks work and that natural infection does not result in achieving herd immunity. Herd immunity became a toxic thing to talk about in 2020, never mind that it is exactly how every historic pandemic ended. In June she also wrote that airborne transmission (versus through large droplets) isn’t a significant thing, something common sense showed couldn’t possibly be true knowing what we knew a few months into the pandemic.
“Older Children Spread the Coronavirus Just as Much as Adults, Large Study Finds; The study of nearly 65,000 people in South Korea suggests that school reopenings will trigger more outbreaks” on July 18, 2020. Headlines like this drove media, politicians and parents alike to resist reopening schools. The assertion was patently false. By the time this was written, data showed older kids were not equal spreaders, and very few had become seriously ill from COVID-19. Summer camp data showed this as discussed earlier.
“Children may carry high levels of the coronavirus, up to 100 times as much as adults, new Lurie Children’s Hospital study finds” on July 31, 2020. Not even sure what to say about this one, other than this was never happening.
“C.D.C. Calls on Schools to Reopen, Downplaying Health Risks” on July 24, 2020 with Mandavilli contributing. The analysis suggested CDC Director Robert Redfield should not have said schools should reopen fully in the fall. The writers criticized President Trump for driving home that schools should reopen and said this line of thinking was putting kids and teachers at risk. That was false; data in the moment made this obvious.
“A Parent’s Toughest Call: In-Person Schooling or Not?” on September 1, 2020. The takeaway was to not send kids back to school without elaborate precautions and interventions. The focus was on cases rather than illnesses to kids and teachers that could be at-risk. Illnesses would have been statistically zero for kids and over half the teachers.
“The Price for Not Wearing Masks: Perhaps 130,000 Lives. The pandemic death toll could be lowered by next spring if more Americans wear masks, a new analysis finds” on October 23, 2020. The journalist took a shot at Dr. Scott Atlas, as well as the president, for saying masks don’t work. You saw earlier the data comparing heavily masked areas and less masked areas. That data was obvious by summer, and suggesting masks could have such an impact was taking the lead from “experts” without any independent analysis. The data showed otherwise.
There were many more articles like these that Mandavilli wrote. There were also many articles that she wrote that were fair to the data at hand with a balanced outlook. With a trickle of panic-inducing articles resisting herd immunity and keeping kids masked and out of school, it rippled into other media and policy makers. Mandavilli displayed many times on Twitter that she preferred the lockdown culture.
Why on earth so many politicians and media figures in influential roles feel the need to vent on Twitter is a bigger mystery than COVID-19 ever was. On Saturday, March 20, 2021, Madavilli, who lives in Brooklyn, tweeted this: “We were out of house today for six hours, probably half of them in the car, and I am utterly spent. Reentry is going to be brutal.” Perhaps there’s a different perspective of what “utterly spent” means to someone that lost their job and had to bridge a learning gap with their kids that were cratering behind. Elites that kept their jobs, had resources and got to work from home embraced the lockdowns.
Jeffrey Tucker leads the Brownstone Institute and wrote Liberty or Lockdown in the summer of 2020. He observed the media playbook that was true for over a year:
Attribute economic fallout not to the lockdowns but to the virus
Deliberately confuse readers about the difference between tests, cases and deaths
Never focus on the incredibly obvious demographics of COVID-19 deaths
Dismiss any alternative to lockdown as crazy, unscientific or cruel, while acting as if Dr. Fauci speaks for the entire scientific community
Above all, promote panic over calm
The Atlantic
The Atlantic is a left-leaning print and online publication that has been around since 1857. The online COVID Tracking Project (CTP) was run by the Atlantic and provided excellent data on COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. It became the single best resource to get state-by-state data, and much of the data cited here is from there. The CTP did some excellent work. It would be easy to cite anti-lockdown reporting by the Hill or the Blaze, but we’re looking at what was impacting the thoughts of a wider group of Americans and politicians. The Atlantic did their share of reporting that supported lockdown mentality, but they also published some quality commentary on the damage of the lockdowns. If you’re a centrist or right-leaning and can get past the often-political commentaries, the Atlantic often produces some thoughtful work.
The Bad
The Atlantic published pieces with high politicization, such as “How Trump Closed the Schools,” suggesting the president’s mishandling resulted in the pandemic getting out of control, thus rendering schools unsafe to reopen. It was a major hit piece blasting the president when so many countries did worse than the U.S. with huge societal damage. Another one was “Why Republicans are Ignoring the Coronavirus.” Were they ignoring it or balancing risk and consequence policy? You can decide, but Republican-led states were less restricted, kept more kids in class and did no worse than Democrat-led states. That’s not as much fun to write about if you’re left-leaning though.
“Teachers Know Schools Aren’t Safe to Reopen” came out in August 2020. Maybe teachers all over the rest of the world were clueless compared to American teachers, but they fared no worse than those staying at home.
The Good
In August 2020 the dike broke and this strong opinion piece came out written by Chavi Karkowsky, a doctor and mom from New York, called “What We’ve Stolen From Our Kids. School provides so much more than an education.” It was a powerful and needed insight into the cost of closed schools. Seeing a major publication offer up a point of view like this felt like a real step forward. That same month the Atlantic published “We Flattened the Curve. Our Kids Belong in School.” The curve was destined to spike up seasonally in the fall, but they were right on kids belonging in school.
Other similar articles were sprinkled in throughout the rest of 2020. In January 2021 they published “The Truth About Kids, School and COVID-19.” Where the Atlantic gets some credit is that for being left-leaning, where for some reason liberals were mostly against reopening schools, the Atlantic not only demonstrated some actual journalism, they also influenced other liberal media.
Emily Oster is an economist and professor at Brown University. She is also a writer and contributor of several op-eds to the Atlantic. She wrote ““Schools aren’t Super-Spreaders: Fears from the summer appear to have been overblown,” “Parents Can’t Wait Around Forever, “The ‘Just Stay Home’ Message Will Backfire,” and the big controversial one: “Yes, You Can Vacation With Your Unvaccinated Kids.” Oster is not a conservative, embraced face masks, ran a school/COVID-19 database and is pretty darn level-headed. Check out some interviews with her on YouTube.
Her point was that unvaccinated kids are at about the same risk of getting sick or spreading COVID-19 as vaccinated adults, and that parents should get their kids out and normalize. She was right. Then she got blasted by people who knew much less than she does about the science and data. Good for her for moving us forward, and for the Atlantic for publishing good content in support of open schools that went against the liberal dogma.
The Great
Finally, the Atlantic published a very powerful piece that should be required reading for every person still embracing lockdowns and closed schools in 2021. Emma Green wrote “The Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown. Progressive communities have been home to some of the fiercest battles over COVID-19 policies, and some liberal policy makers have left scientific evidence behind.” This was one of the strongest analyses in the first half of 2021, because it came from a left-leaning publication. Opinions that deviate from a traditional ideology carry more weight. Highlights from Green’s masterpiece:
“For many progressives, extreme vigilance was in part about opposing Donald Trump. Some of this reaction was born of deeply felt frustration with how he handled the pandemic. It could also be knee-jerk. “If he said, ‘Keep schools open,’ then, well, we’re going to do everything in our power to keep schools closed,” Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco, told me.”
“Even as scientific knowledge of COVID-19 has increased, some progressives have continued to embrace policies and behaviors that aren’t supported by evidence, such as banning access to playgrounds, closing beaches, and refusing to reopen schools for in-person learning.”
“In Somerville [MA], a local leader appeared to describe parents who wanted a faster return to in-person instruction as “white parents” in a virtual public meeting; a community member accused the group of mothers advocating for schools to reopen of being motivated by white supremacy. “I spent four years fighting Trump because he was so anti-science,” Daniele Lantagne, a Somerville mom and engineering professor. “I spent the last year fighting people who I normally would agree with … desperately trying to inject science into school reopening, and completely failed.” [might be worth mentioning as a percentage, the kids of “white parents” were less affected by closed schools than those of black or Hispanic kids]
To support Green’s observation, even after the CDC stopped recommending face masks for those vaccinated on May 13, 2021, A-list media figures could not let go. MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski said, “If you want to follow the science,” you should follow my lead and “still wear the mask” despite being vaccinated when you’re around possibly unvaccinated people. It’s not clear what science she was referencing.
Rachel Maddow is MSNBC’s highest-rated anchor and was reluctant to embrace the CDC recommendation. Her initial comment to CDC Director Walensky was “How sure are you because this was a really big change?” No such comment came from Maddow when kids were prevented from going to school in 2020. Maddow then shared, “I feel like I’m going to have to rewire myself so that when I see someone out in the world who’s not wearing a mask, I don’t instantly think, ‘You are a threat, or you are selfish or you are a COVID denier and you definitely haven’t been vaccinated. I mean, we’re going to have to rewire the way that we look at each other.”
The View host Whoopi Goldberg said on air, “What is it going to take you think for people to get comfortable following not just the science, but their [the CDC] own science, what is comfortable for them?” CNN’s chief political correspondent Dana Bash called the decision “very scary.” Time magazine said it was a “baffling, whiplash-inducing decision.” Politico called it “a bitter disappointment to unions and other safety advocates.” Newsweek warned of “deadly new variants” under the cover headline of “WINTER IS COMING.” CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, criticized the recommendation as well, saying the CDC “made a critical error here in surprising basically everyone with a very significant change. [Masking] is so effective and it’s not that hard to do in most situations — just to put a mask on.”
The COVID-19 Media in Summary
Were many of the pieces above cherry-picked? Was there actual balanced coverage by the networks? Did I selectively choose to pick on the Times, Post, Atlantic, Twitter, and Facebook? And you may wonder why it matters, that the press has the freedom to write whatever they choose. They do have that freedom, and that should always be supported. Most people lack critical thinking, either in natural ability or laziness preventing exploration of thought and ideas. The media knows this and catered to it. It’s no different than advertising. If you advertise something enough, you will reach critical mass awareness and eventually adoption.
Why the media so unanimously covered the pandemic like Dirty Laundry is still a mystery. Much of it was political, to keep viewers and readers addicted to [fear] porn, and because the media knew so little about what was actually happening they reported what everyone else reported. In March 2020, Bruce Sacerdote, Ranjan Sehgal and Molly Cook authored “Why Is All COVID-19 News Bad News?” Sacerdote is an economics professor at Dartmouth College, and Sehgal (Dartmouth) and Cook (Brown University) are students. What a great experience for these two students to participate in such a groundbreaking study. They uncovered what we all knew anecdotally: media coverage in COVID-19 was heavily biased promoting depression, fear and polling that resulted in maintaining lockdown measures much longer than needed.
At a time when the data showed kids were at practically no risk from COVID-19 and school reopenings were no riskier to kids and teachers than remote learning and circulating in their off time, 86% of the American media reported negative news on school reopening. 54% of the media in other English-speaking countries reported negatively on schools reopening. When looking at all COVID-19 stories since the pandemic broke, the fifteen major media players were 25% more likely than their international counterparts to disseminate negative information. This shows the majority of the media worldwide did not understand what was going on, or chose to ignore it, though much worse in the United States.
The researchers analyzed 43,000 articles associated with “vaccines, increases and decreases in case counts, and reopenings (of businesses, schools, parks, restaurants, government facilities, etc.).” Below are trends they uncovered:
“Among the U.S. major media, 15,000 stories mention increases in caseloads while only 2,500 mention decreases, or a 6 to 1 ratio. During the period when caseloads were falling nationally (April 24-June 27, 2020), this ratio remained a relatively high 5.3 to 1.” [the period of analysis for their study was 2020; anecdotally their findings certainly continued through May 2021]
No bias or negative-outlook correlation between traditional “conservative” or “liberal” media.
U.S. media was 3-8 times more likely to promote social distancing or wearing face masks than their international counterparts.
U.S. counties that relied less on national news were more likely to reopen schools in 2020. This follows some logic because higher in-person learning occurred in less urban communities.
They concluded “that there is little evidence that the negativity of the national news media causes a reduction in school reopenings.” That seems hard to believe logically. If the media were pounding on 1) the psychological impact and learning deficiency associated with remote learning, and 2) the data from what we’ve previously reviewed on kids and COVID-19 risk, polling would have driven more reopening support, politicians would have yielded to the polls and teachers unions would’ve buckled.
“The U.S. Federal Communication Commission eliminated its fairness doctrine regulation in 1987. This regulation required broadcasters to provide adequate coverage of public issues and to fairly represent opposing views. In contrast, the U.K. and Canada still maintain such regulations. On the surface, the fairness doctrine would appear most relevant to partisan bias as opposed to negativity. It may be that profit-maximizing U.S. news providers realized that they should provide not only partisan news to serve their consumers’ tastes but also negative news which is in high demand.” That’s probably true. It’s definitely a sad state of journalism.
For the context of the media serving Dirty Laundry, consider this. There were a total of 2.6 million articles scrubbed. Of those, look at the weighting of some of the reporting in the first seven months of 2020:
88,659 articles included a comment about “Trump and Masks,” “Trump and Hydroxychloroquine” or “Hydroxychloroquine”
87,550 articles mentioned “Decreases” for the whole study period
33,000 articles mentioned “Decreases” between April 24 – June 27, 2020
325,550 articles mentioned “Increases” for the whole study period
More media articles chose to comment on President Trump and his COVID-19 comments versus the very positive news when COVID-19 cases/hospitalizations/deaths were decreasing. Four times more articles were written about COVID-19 activity increasing versus decreasing.
Within their study period, between March 15 and July 31, 2020, there were 138 days of measurable pandemic case and hospitalization data. Of those 138 days, 61 had decreasing hospitalization days. Four times more articles citing increases over decreases were published while 44% of the days had a decrease. Case and death trend data was far too loose to include in this daily breakdown for two reasons. One, cases were in large part a product of testing, particularly with rapidly growing seroprevalence in the country. Two, deaths began to include probables and up to half the deaths reported any given day were backdated. By the second quarter of 2021 well over half of the reported deaths were backdated as far as summer 2020.
The Polls
Politicians are driven by three things: their party; their ideology; polls. What people think is largely driven by their experiences, their beliefs and the knowledge they acquire. It’s not likely a plethora of articles for or against abortion will change a lot of minds; they’re much more likely to reinforce beliefs. If there were 300,000 articles in a given year for gun control, it’s still very unlikely that gun owners and Second Amendment supporters would change their minds. The issues have been too ingrained for too long. COVID-19 was very different. Everyone in the world started off on the same block in 2020. In this one instance more than any other for anyone alive during the pandemic, the media had the power to shape thought. Before the pandemic, Americans’ trust in the media was only 41%. That was lower than President Trump’s approval rating. In March 2020, this was the approval rating for several stakeholders during the pandemic:
Stakeholders
Approve
Disapprove
Your hospital
88%
10%
Your state government
82%
17%
Government Health Agencies
80%
17%
President Trump
60%
38%
Congress
59%
37%
The Media
44%
55%
In the summer of 2020, 1,000 citizens from several countries were polled on the pandemic. Below is the mean percentage that the sampling showed people thought the COVID-19 death tallies were after three months of the pandemic:
Country
Population Percent that died from COVID-19
That Absolute Population Number
Actual Number of COVID-19 deaths at the time
United States
9%
29,700,000
132,000
United Kingdom
7%
4,830,000
48,000
Sweden
6%
600,000
6,000
France
5%
3,300,000
33,000
Denmark
3%
174,000
580
Now, do an online search with date parameters of July 20 – August 30, 2020 and see how many news articles featured this polling result. It’s fewer than the number of your fingers. Mean percentages of respondents thought that 9% of Americans had died of COVID-19 in three months. That’s equivalent to everyone in Texas. Isn’t that alarming? Even if the polling result was 1%, that’s over three million COVID-19 deaths, about the number of people that die in the United States each year from all causes. That’s also 50% more pandemic lives lost than the Spanish Flu caused, adjusted for population.
If we had a virus that killed 9% (or even ½ %) of the population in three months, the lockdowns would not be like what we saw. Everyone would embrace the quarantining we saw in the movies Outbreak or Contagion. This type of general understanding of the pandemic, or lack of, is why we did not see protests throughout 2020 and 2021. One, liberals are more likely to protest than conservatives and liberals were generally much more supportive of lockdowns than conservatives. Two, most people regardless of politics don’t study data beyond headlines and don’t understand the context of the COVID-19 risk.
Franklin Templeton Poll
In July 2020, Franklin Templeton published polling that showed the sad and disastrous perception Americans had of COVID-19 risk. As you view the following charts, consider there was very little coverage in the media from the CDC, and from state health agencies to level-set understanding of the pandemic. Ask yourself: if the media was giving a proper explanation of what was happening, if the CDC communicated factually what was happening, how could results like this occur?
Respondents clearly did not know the extent how age-stratified COVID-19 deaths were skewed to the elderly. They surely would not have known that a third of all excess deaths were not caused by COVID-19 but rather the lockdowns.
This poll result closely connects to what we saw earlier: the highest stress was associated with younger age groups. They were about as stressed with ~0 risk as older Americans that were at very measurable risk. Franklin Templeton commented on their findings, calling it “stunning.” Americans believed that people over 55 were about half the death victims, while it was actually 92%. They thought people under 45 years old were almost 30% of all deaths; they were less than 3%. They overestimated the risk to those under 24 by a factor of fifty.
It’s not far off from the earlier poll where respondents on average thought 9% of Americans had died from COVID-19 after three months. Poll results like this should have driven Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, and Dr. Redfield and the CDC to shout from the rooftops to educate Americans on what was happening. It should have caused responsible journalists to do special fact-based segments on COVID-19 risk and the data we had. What we heard was the sound of silence.
Gallup Polls
Gallup conducted weekly polls on sentiment around the pandemic from the beginning in March 2020 well into 2021. Never fewer than 65% of respondents felt staying home was the appropriate thing to do from the beginning and for thirteen straight months.
Dates
Better to Stay Home
Live Normal Life
What Was Happening
Mar 23-29, 2020
91%
9%
COVID-19 first hit, Imperial College projection of 2.2 million lives lost
Jun 1-7, 2020
65%
35%
Southern states were reopening, cases were decreasing
Jul 13-19, 2020
73%
27%
Sunbelt states were peaking in COVID-19 activity
Sep 14-27, 2020
64%
36%
Summer swell was over, low COVID-19 activity, most schools still closed
Dec 15, 2020 – Jan 3, 2021
69%
31%
Peak COVID-19 hospitalizations; vaccines were rolling ou
Apr 19-25, 2021
55%
45%
COVID-19 cases/hospitalizations/deaths had all hit one-year lows; vaccine supply outpaced demand
A majority of Americans did not support returning to normal life at any time since the pandemic began and into the spring of 2021. Polling after the CDC lifted indoor mask recommendations on May 14, 2021, for those vaccinated finally began to tilt the scale. COVID-19 hospitalizations began cratering in January 2021, and the pandemic by definition as we knew it was over by February. Had the media reported that, Americans would have felt more comfortable getting back to normal.
There was a potentially great segment on MSNBC in March 2021 where Chuck Todd was asking “experts” why Florida, with very few restrictions, had near-identical results to strictly locked down California. It was going great until they introduced an analysis by the LA Times that said had Florida locked down hard they would have saved 3,000 lives, and had California relaxed its restrictions they would have had 6,000 more deaths. The analysis was practically made up with no reasonable science and data behind it. Reporting like this was why America was not yet ready to move on.
On April 25,2021, with the pandemic virtually over, the respondents were asked, “How long do you think the level of disruption occurring to travel, school, work and public events in the U.S. will continue?” 95% answered with either “a few more months,” “through 2021,” or “longer than that.” That did drop from 98% in February 2021. In April 2021 a majority of remote workers and a plurality of the rest of the workers said their preference was to work remotely, not because of fear of COVID-19 but because of preference. Read: many loved lockdowns if they had a job.
MIT Student Studies
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the premier math, science and engineering universities in the world. In 2021 they released two studies around social media and “COVID-19 Skeptics.” Students from MIT and Wellesley College reported on many people I know and followed. How they viewed analytical points of view that condemned strict lockdowns were emblematic of how the media failed to report balanced context and why Americans were reluctant to return to normal life.
The first study was called “Viral Visualizations: How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online” (January 2021), and the second was “The Data Visualizations Behind COVID-19 Skepticism” (March 1, 2021). The first study looked at a half million tweets that used visualization of data to support removing nonpharmaceutical interventions governments around the world had instituted for over a year.
The students enveloped people on Twitter that they perceived as viewing the pandemic as exaggerated and believed schools should be reopened (which the CDC maintained as far back as August 2020) as “anti-maskers.” You should really check out the study from undoubtedly very bright students from one of the most elite universities in the world. The lack of impartial thought, the lack of a quest to learn and be open-minded, and mostly, the inability to analyze data without predisposition is disappointing. It’s indicative of prevailing college thought all over the country, but this one hit home.
As the study classified those using charts to illustrate their cases, they broke out the following categories:
American politics and media
American politics and right-wing media
British news media
Anti-mask network of Twitter users
New York Times centric network
WHO and health-related news organizations
The two classes of media are “media” and “right-wing media.” Does that mean there’s “impartial journalistic media” and then “conspiratorial right-wing media?” The bias is that there is normal media and crazy right-wing media and then anti-maskers tweeting about the harm of lockdown interventions. This is how over 80% of the media, the CDC, and most state health agencies portrayed the environment, which made it an Everest-climb to reach an open debate.
The Twitter anti-mask network was led by Alex Berenson, the Ethical Skeptic, and Rational Ground founder Justin Hart. This is consistent with my premise that nearly all original thought condemning lockdowns as an unscientific approach were sourced on Twitter. They asserted that “anti-maskers value unmediated access to information and privilege personal research and direct reading over ‘expert’ interpretations.”
Everyone should support unmediated access to information even if they disagree with “anti-maskers” on this one. You never know when you’ll be on the other side (see Iraq War).
They grouped the anti-maskers as representing that COVID-19 was no worse than the flu. Knowing most of the high-profile Twitter users mentioned, that is flat-out false. There is a gulf between thinking COVID-19 was no worse than the flu (it was much worse for those over 50 years old) and believing lockdowns didn’t work and were unscientific. It may be that students at elite universities and those in the elite media were too detached from middle to lower class Americans and were out of touch with the consequences of the lockdowns. It may also be that they saw it as a power grab. It may mean they just weren’t that bright.
Critics of “anti-maskers” feel that processing data around excess deaths was conspiratorial. Many excess deaths were from the lockdowns. They then batched the anti-maskers as politically conservative. The face of lockdown criticism was Alex Berenson, and Berenson spent more of his life left-leaning than right-leaning. David Zweig, who wrote dozens of pieces supporting open schools, is no right-winger.
The students then wrote that “anti-maskers” argued there was an outsized emphasis on deaths rather than cases. It was quite the opposite. Everyone following this knew that the case data was fantastically overreported, that there were many times more cases, as well as hundreds of thousands of false positives, and backdated dumping. In short, the margin of error of cases on any given day had a solid 50% margin of error, though it was directionally useful. Deaths too were unreliable for reasons discussed. The “anti-maskers” usually found COVID-19 hospitalizations as the best data point to measure what was happening, and that was the most reliable metric, not cases or deaths.
The Best Ad Campaign in History
The prolific critics of the lockdowns were apolitical before COVID-19. They were as critical of Republican leaders as Democrat leaders if they supported closed schools, closed restaurants or masks outdoors (probably masks indoors too). You have to give it to the media though. They ran the most effective advertising campaign in history. They accomplished something extraordinary and it should be studied in every advertising class forever.
The media was able to convince over 50% of the people under thirty that they were at serious risk of getting sick or dying from COVID-19.
They were able to trigger more anxiety in young people than any other age group.
They were able to convince people that putting face masks on two-year old’s made sense.
They convinced parents that keeping their kids out of school for a year and a half was a good thing.
They convinced people they should wear a face mask when alone in their car, walking their dog, or hiking up a mountain.
They convinced enough of the world that they could control the spread of the virus like a dam.
If you’re sick, you should listen to your doctor. If you climb a mountain you should listen to your guide. If you need to defend your country, you listen to your generals. But if a policy is suggested that has a balance of risk and consequence, something that happens consequentially by following one direction, stop and give it thought and research.
It’s healthy to question the media, politicians, healthcare experts, or military experts. They are people like you and me, no smarter. In some cases, more informed on their specialty, but that breeds myopia. Sometimes they can get so close to something that they can’t see it clearly. Sometimes they can see it but don’t want to.
Sometimes they have an agenda. History needs to remember the lockdowns as the most harmful, ineffective public policy America and the world had ever seen. Study the data for yourself next time and reconcile any one opinion you hear with another that gives an opposing view. And anytime we get passionate about a policy, we all need to be open-minded to the consequences of a policy, as if it may be a zero-sum game.
Michael Betrus is the author of COVID-19: Lockdowns on Trial and the upcoming COVID-19: The Science vs. The Lockdowns.
TAKE ACTION
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-02 04:00:002022-07-02 04:00:00Weekend Read: How the Media Fueled the Lockdowns
The vast majority of Americans are cutting back on their spending because of rising inflation, according to new survey data.
Provident Bank based in New Jersey released the report, which found that roughly 83% of those surveyed have cut back on personal spending due to inflation, with about 23% saying they have made “drastic changes” to their spending.
The poll found that 10.5% of those surveyed reported “eliminating all non-essential purchases” and 71.7% reported they have “made at least some changes to personal travel habits.”
Many Americans are struggling to purchase basic necessities as gas prices hit record highs earlier this month. According to AAA, prices topped $5 per gallon before dipping down slightly in recent days.
“When asked which price increases on regularly purchased products or services have hurt consumers the most, gasoline, groceries, and clothing were among the most frequently mentioned items,” the group said. “More than 50% (53.33%) said they now spend between $101-$500 more per month on groceries. According to the survey results, 32% of drivers are now spending between $101-$250 more per month on gasoline, with 13.5% reporting a monthly increase in fuel costs between $251-$500.
“In addition to gasoline, groceries, and clothing, respondents named baby products, meat, utilities, household goods, milk, and alcohol as adding the most to their monthly bills,” the group added.
The cutback in spending comes as consumer prices have risen at the fastest pace in four decades and the producer price index saw a 10.8% increase in the past year.
“While some consumers have cut back on some non-essential spending, like dining out and unnecessary travel, others reported much more drastic changes such as skipping meals, conserving water, and eliminating meat from their diets,” the group said. “People are feeling an immense amount of financial pressure right now.”
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-02 03:55:002022-07-02 03:55:0083% of Americans Cutting Back on Personal Spending Due to Inflation
Editors’ Note: The farce called the January 6 hearings continues. As the article below explains, much of the “bombshell testimony” immediately unraveled. One of the fundamental problems is Speaker Pelosi would not let Republicans select their defense team, and instead, Pelosi appointed Trump-hating Liz Cheney. Therefore, in actual fact, the Republicans have no one to rebut arguments, cross-examine witnesses, or bring in outside evidence. It is a trial without a functioning defense. As such, it is not a trial at all but a star chamber proceeding. That Cheney would lend herself to this endeavor, spearhead it as it were, is the reason Arizonans and others should support Harriet Hageman to defeat Cheney in the coming Wyoming primary. One need not support Trump in all matters to see how biased and unfair these proceedings have become. Irony may be too soft of a word when the Chairman Bennie Thompson of this committee in fact publicly acted to reject the 2004 election as being stolen, and the Democrat Party and officials publically supported hundreds of violent riots throughout the country in the summer of 2020.
Blockbuster testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson collapsed hours after Tuesday’s show trial hearing.
House Democrats ginned up another round of blockbuster anticipation Monday night when the Select Committee on Jan. 6 announced a last-minute hearing with a surprise witness.
On Tuesday, the nine-member panel brought forward a key aide to former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson, who supposedly possessed intimate knowledge of the administration’s conduct on Jan. 6. The topic of the afternoon hearing remained under seal until Hutchinson took the stand to offer new bombshell evidence allegedly incriminating the former Republican president.
“Up until now, our hearings have each been organized to address specific elements of President Trump’s plan to overturn the 2020 election,” Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said at the onset of the panel’s latest show trial. “Today we are departing somewhat from that model because Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony touches on several important and cross-cutting topics, topics that are relevant to each of our future hearings.”
According to Cheney, Hutchinson “handled a vast number of sensitive issues” working “steps down the hall from the Oval Office” and “worked on a daily basis with members of the Secret Service who were posted in the White House.”
“In short, Ms. Hutchinson was in a position to know a great deal about the happenings in the Trump White House,” Cheney said.
The ensuing testimony was “devastating,” according to National Review’s resident Cheney-cheerleader Andrew McCarthy in a post published even after the committee’s new narrative fell apart.
In her more than two-hours of uncorroborated commentary, just about all of which was based on hearsay, Hutchinson depicted an image of an unhinged president who was not only complicit in his supporters ransacking the Capitol but was eager to attend the spectacle.
“I don’t know what he personally wanted to do when he went up to the Capitol that day,” she said in a portion of a taped interview played at the hearing. “I know that there were discussions about him having another speech outside of the Capitol before going in. I know that there was a conversation about him going into the House chamber at one point.”
Testifying in public, Hutchinson went further, explaining to lawmakers in the clip below that Trump threw a violent tantrum when the Secret Service refused to allow the president go to the Capitol as supporters swarmed the complex.
“The president said something to the effect of, ‘I’m the f’ing president, take me up to the Capitol now,’” Hutchinson said, citing a conversation with then-White House Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Ornato, who apparently described a scene in the Beast between Trump and Secret Service Special Agent Bobby Engel. “The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, ‘Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel, we’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol.’”
“Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel,” Hutchinson continued. “And Mr. — when Mr. Ornato had recounted this story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles.”
Moments after the Hutchinson’s testimony, NBC’s Chief White House Correspondent Peter Alexander reported “a source close to the Secret Service tells me both Bobby Engel, the lead agent, and the presidential limousine/SUV driver are prepared to testify under oath that neither man was assaulted and that Mr. Trump never lunged for the steering wheel.”
CBS News followed up with “confirmation” of the agency’s categorical denial, likely from the same sources.
Hours later, another pillar of Hutchinson’s testimony fell apart when a spokesman for Former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann told ABC News a handwritten note for which Hutchinson claimed authorship was actually written by Herschmann.
The note, displayed by Cheney as an exhibit, included a statement for the president to read as the riot unfolded on Capitol Hill.
“The handwritten note that Cassidy Hutchinson testified was written by her was in fact written by Eric Herschmann on January 6, 2021,” a spokesperson for Herschmann told ABC News Tuesday night. “All sources with direct knowledge and law enforcement have and will confirm that it was written by Mr. Herschmann.”
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-02 03:50:002022-07-02 03:50:00New J6 Narrative About Trump And Secret Service Collapses Hours After Tuesday Hearing
The White House is refusing to share details about its coordinated efforts to engage in a federal takeover of election administration.
President Biden really does not want the public to know about his federal takeover of election administration. Dozens of members of Congress have repeatedly asked for details, to no avail. Good government groups, members of the media, and private citizens have filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act. Not a single one has been responded to. All signs indicate a concerted effort to keep the public in the dark until at least after the November midterm elections. The lack of transparency and responsiveness is so bad that the Department of Justice and some of its agencies have been repeatedly sued for the information.
When President Biden ordered all 600 federal agencies to “expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process” on March 7, 2021, Republican politicians, Constitutional scholars, and election integrity specialists began to worry exactly what was up his sleeve.
They had good reason. The 2020 election had suffered from widespread and coordinated efforts by Democrat activists and donors to run “Get Out The Vote” operations from inside state and local government election offices, predominantly in the Democrat-leaning areas of swing states. Independent researchers have shown the effect of this takeover of government election offices was extremely partisan and favored Democrats overwhelmingly.
At the time the order was issued, Democrats were also hoping to pass H.R. 1, a continuation of the effort to destabilize elections throughout the country via a federalized takeover of state election administrations.
Biden gave each agency 200 days to file their plans for approval by none other than Susan Rice, his hyperpartisan domestic policy advisor. Yet fully nine months after those plans were due, they are all being hidden from the public, even as evidence is emerging that the election operation is in full swing.
Mobilizing Voters Is Always A Political Act
There are several major problems with Biden’s secret plan, critics say. It’s unethical to tie federal benefits to election activity. It’s unconstitutional to have the federal government take authority that belongs to the states and which Congress has not granted. And, given that all 50 states have different laws and processes governing election administration, it’s a recipe for chaos, confusion, and fraud at a time when election security concerns are particularly fraught.
Mobilizing voters is always a political act. Choosing which groups to target for Get Out The Vote efforts is one of the most important activities done by political campaigns. Federal agencies that interact with the public by doling out benefits can easily pressure recipients to vote for particular candidates and positions. Congress passed the Hatch Act in 1939, which bans bureaucrats and bureaucracies from being involved in election activities after Democrats used Works Progress Administration programs and personnel for partisan political advantage.
Executive Order 14019 ignores that the Constitution does not give the executive branch authority over elections. That power is reserved for the states, with a smaller role for Congress. With H.R. 1 and other Democrat Party efforts to grab more control over elections have thus far failed, Congress hasn’t authorized such an expansion.
As with previous efforts to destabilize elections, the chaos and confusion that would occur are part of the plan. The Executive Order copied much of a white paper put out by left-wing dark money group Demos, which advocates for left-wing changes to the country and which brags on its website that it moves “bold progressive ideas from cutting-edge concept to practical reality.” Not coincidentally, Biden put former Demos President K. Sabeel Rahman and former Demos Legal Strategies Director Chiraag Bains in key White House posts to oversee election-related initiatives.
Rahman serves as senior counsel at the White House office that oversees regulatory changes, meaning he approves every federal agency’s regulations and provides legal review of executive orders before they’re released. If you were looking to rush out constitutionally and ethically questionable orders, this post would be key to fill. Bains had been Demos’ director of legal strategies, helping write the paper that was turned into an executive order. He reports directly to Susan Rice, the hyperpartisan head of the Domestic Policy Council.
Rice has served in political positions in Democrat White Houses and the scandal-ridden Brookings Institution. She played a role in the spying-on-Trump scandal, blatantly lying about the same, lying about the Benghazi terrorist attack, and lying about Bowe Bergdahl’s military record.
Conservatives may be in the dark, but left-wing activist groups are fully involved in the plot. The left-wing dark money group Demos put out press releases immediately after the executive order was issued, saying it would be happy to work with federal agencies on the project.
And then the group admitted publicly that it “organized agency-based working groups and met with the staff in these agencies to provide technical expertise as they developed their initial voter registration plans, to ensure those plans reflect the knowledge and priorities of various agency stakeholders.” It also admits it “developed research and resources to assist and advance agency efforts to implement robust voter registration opportunities, including a slide deck explainer of the agencies’ potential for impact, best practices for conducting voter registration at federal agencies, and recommendations for modernizing and improving the accessibility of Vote.gov.”
All of that information should be available to oversight authorities in Congress and the American taxpayers paying for its implementation, not just the left-wing groups that produced it. Yet as of this publication date, none of it has been shared.
Biden’s plan “raises serious ethical, legal, and constitutional concerns,” wrote Rep. Ted Budd, R-N.C., along with three dozen Republican members of Congress on January 19, in a letter to the head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), demanding more information by February 28 about the secret plot. It went unanswered.
The top Republican members of nine House committees and subcommittees likewise demanded information from Rice and the head of OMB in a letter they sent on March 29. They noted that election activity goes well beyond “the scope of each agency’s authorizing statute and mission.”
One of the concerns shared by the members was that Biden was directing agencies to work with third-party organizations. Nobody knows which third-party organizations have been approved by Rice for her political efforts, nor which are being used. They also asked how much money is being spent on the effort, which statutory authorities justify the election activities, and what steps are being taken to avoid Hatch Act violations. They received no response.
The Foundation for Government Accountability filed a lawsuit on April 20th to compel the Department of Justice to respond to the FOIA request for information. And the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) filed suit on June 16 to compel Justice to comply. Those suits are ongoing.
What We Know
While the White House and agencies are steadfastly refusing to share details about how they’re complying with the executive order, who they met with to develop their plans, or how they’re justifying their involvement in something Congress has not authorized them to participate in, some details are trickling out. Here are a few examples of the widespread and coordinated effort by Biden’s political appointees to meddle in the state administration of elections.
In the midst of a labor crisis, the Department of Labor boasted that it was turning 2,300 American Job Centers previously focused on helping displaced workers find jobs into hubs of political activism. These new federally funded voter registration agencies were given guidance about how to bring in organizations to conduct “voter outreach.”
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services likewise announced plans to turn community health centers into voter registration agencies, using thousands of health care facilities to focus on voter registration and turnout.
The Housing and Urban Development Department sent notice to public housing authorities that they should begin voter registration drives and participation activities. Previously, officials had been barred from electoral activities because they receive federal funding.
“It is presumed residents of public housing might disproportionately vote Democrat. … The executive order targets people receiving government benefits who might think their benefits depend on one party in power,” Stewart Whitson, legal director for the Foundation for Government Accountability, told the Daily Signal.
The Department of Education sent “dear colleague” letters to universities, telling them that Federal Work Study funds could now be used to support voter registration activities, contrary to previous guidance. The change was made without having gone through any rulemaking process to allow the change.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it’s using its child nutrition programs to push voter registration and enlisting state, local, and federally funded employees to implement voter registration drives in local schools.
The Commerce Department produced a massive, 113-page report which likely took four agency officials many hours to generate. It directs local voting board members about polling stations and poll worker training.
The tactics being used by these agencies were almost certainly contained in the plans submitted to Rice that have been withheld from investigators and overseers who had hoped to have some transparency about what the plans were. Frequently, the agencies claim the tactics are in response to the executive order, yet information about how they were developed has been withheld from the public for much of the year.
It is unclear why Biden and his political appointees are being so secretive about the work that went into their plan to engage in a federal takeover of election administration.
Whatever the case, Americans have a right to know whether these bureaucracies that are meddling in elections have experts in for each state’s election laws, what type of training is going on to ensure that state laws are being followed, whether they are allowing inspections and oversight to ensure no illegal activity, how they are determining whether a third-party group is genuinely non-partisan, whether they are allowing state investigators to approve money, and how much is being spent on this federal takeover of elections.
Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College. A Fox News contributor, she is a regular member of the Fox News All-Stars panel on “Special Report with Bret Baier.” Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post, CNN, National Review, GetReligion, Ricochet, Christianity Today, Federal Times, Radio & Records, and many other publications. Mollie was a 2004 recipient of a Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship at The Fund for American Studies and a 2014 Lincoln Fellow of the Claremont Institute. She is the co-author of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court. She is the author of “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.“
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-01 16:31:002022-07-01 16:31:00Yes, Biden Is Hiding His Plan To Rig The 2022 Midterm Elections
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-01 16:07:002022-07-01 16:07:00MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: Rigged – How the Media, Big Tech and the Democrats Seized Our Elections
FREE Shipping on orders over $25 shipped by Amazon
Great On Kindle: A high quality digital reading experience.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-01 15:36:002022-07-01 15:36:00DOUGLAS MURRAY: The War on the West
“This session, let’s expand school choice any way we can,” declared Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey in his State of the State address on Jan. 10, “Let’s think big and find more ways to get kids into the school of their parent’s choice. Send me the bills, and I’ll sign them.”
Once signed into law, Arizona will reclaim its title as the state with the “most expansive ESA” policy in the nation.
Empowerment Scholarship Accounts empower families with the freedom and flexibility to customize their child’s education. Arizona families can currently use ESAs to pay for private school tuition, tutoring, textbooks, homeschool curriculums, online courses, educational therapy, and more.
The ESAs are funded with 90% of the state portion of Arizona’s per-pupil funding, including the additional funds for students with special needs.
Currently, about a quarter of elementary and secondary students in Arizona are eligible for an ESA, including students with special needs, students assigned to low-performing district schools, the children of active-duty military personnel, and a few other categories of students.
The Arizona Senate passed HB 2853 on Friday night on a vote of 16 to 10. Earlier in the week, the Arizona House of Representatives passed it by a margin of 31 to 26.
In 2011, Arizona became the first state to enact an ESA policy. Originally, the ESAs were limited only to students with special needs, but state lawmakers have repeatedly expanded the policy over the past decade.
There are now more than 10,000 students benefiting from the ESA policy in Arizona and about 31,000 ESA students in 10 states nationwide.
Last year, West Virginia wrested the “most expansive ESA” title away from Arizona with the enactment of its Hope Scholarship policy, which provides ESAs to all students either switching out of a public school or entering kindergarten.
Once Ducey, a Republican, signs the ESA expansion into law, Arizona will regain its “most expansive ESA” distinction, because the accounts will be available to all students, regardless of what type of school they had been attending.
As a Goldwater Institute report demonstrated, the ESA policy especially benefits students from low-income families. The typical (non-special education) award of about $6,600 covers the median elementary private school tuition and about two-thirds of the median private high school tuition.
Although Arizona does not collect data about the income levels of participating families, the Goldwater Institute looked at data on the geographic distribution of participants and found that “ESA students come from school districts with above-average and below-average poverty rates at broadly equal rates and in virtually identical proportions as traditional public school students overall.”
Additionally, the report found that “the highest concentrations of ESA usage actually occur in the most severely economically disadvantaged communities in Arizona.” Eight out of the 10 districts with the highest share of ESA students statewide have higher-than-average rates of child poverty, and the top three have child poverty rates that are more than double the state average.
The ESAs are extremely popular. According to a Morning Consult survey, 66% of Arizonans and 75% of Arizona parents of K-12 students support the ESA policy.
Nevertheless, opponents of education choice claim that, recent polls notwithstanding, the voters revealed their opposition to a universal ESA policy when they voted by an almost two-to-one margin in 2018 against Prop 305, which also would have expanded Arizona’s ESAs to all students.
However, divining the will of the voters is not so simple. Unlike the current proposal, Prop 305 had a cap on the number of students who could participate. Since the state’s Voter Protection Act requires a supermajority of at least three-fourths of the legislature to make changes to a law passed by the voters on the ballot, even ESA proponents such as the American Federation for Children opposed the measure, as it would have rendered the current program—participation caps and all—essentially set in stone.
Other critics of the program have raised concerns about the quality of education that ESA children receive. “We will not know if students are using our tax dollars … to learn anything,” fretted Democratic state Rep. Kelli Butler.
Proponents of education choice counter that the accountability under the ESA policy is even higher than in traditional district schools. “Parents are the ultimate accountability, not government,” said House Majority Leader Ben Toma, a Republican, the sponsor of the ESA expansion bill. “They know what’s best for their children, and we should trust them to do the right thing.’’
Arizona lawmakers are right to trust families. Arizona has long been a pioneer in education choice—enacting nation’s first tax-credit scholarship policy in 1997, in addition to the first ESA—and the investment in education choice is paying off.
Despite doomsday predictions about the effects that education choice would have on student performance, Arizona has led the nation in gains on the National Assessment of Education Progress over the past two decades.
When families are empowered to choose the learning environment that works best for their children and that aligns with their values, everyone benefits.
Once again, Arizona is setting an example that other states should emulate.
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-01 09:23:002022-07-01 09:23:00Arizona Extends School Choice to All K-12 Students
The recent Supreme Court decision to return abortion to the political realm, to be decided by the States and elected representatives, was a victory for the law and the Constitution. But this by no means supposes that those that hold human life to be valuable have won the argument. They will have to prevail in each of the 50 states and likely will fail in some, and win in others. For the Left, this has been a bruising experience. Although they have been losing in the court of public opinion for some time, the Left championed the idea that the way to advance their agenda was by non-democratic means, especially using unelected judges. Having failed that, they are getting hysterical and in some cases, their true motive and ideas are revealing themselves.
As such, you can expect them to re-tool some of their arguments again. You know, the baby is not really alive, is not human, it is part of the mother, and therefore part of the control one wishes to have of one’s body.
But as mentioned previously, those arguments were failing for some time to convince the public and it is likely most states will place some kind of control on abortion, especially after science has indicated viability at a much younger age than previously thought.
So, not surprisingly, we will likely see some new arguments develop, that perhaps reveal more about the Left’s agenda, and their view of life generally.
A good example is the feminist writer, Sophie Lewis, writing for the reliably left-wing The Nation Magazine. We don’t read the Nation very often, but when we do, it is always a deeply disturbing experience. Here are a few choice excerpts:
“There is something infantilizing about denying the fact that embryos die when we scrape them out of the bodies of which they are a part. It sentimentalizes pregnant or potentially pregnant humans as fundamentally nonviolent creatures to imply that we can’t handle the truth about what we are up to when we opt out. And it patronizes abortion-getters to insist that we are only making a health care choice, rather than (also) extinguishing a future child. In my view, recognizing that gestating manufactures a proto-person requires acknowledging that abortion kills a proto-person. A baby is completely dependent on human care in order to stay alive, but its needs could be filled by any person—whereas a fetus, a proto-person, is ineluctably dependent on specific person.”
As we interpret this, she is being frank with her readers. Quit kidding yourself. You are not making just a “healthcare” choice, you are killing a baby, or in her words, ” a proto-person.” Further, the baby takes control of certain biological functions of the mother, and therefore, it is not really a part of the mother’s body but has a body of its own that feeds off the mother. In a sense, she disposes quickly of two arguments often repeated robotically by abortion enthusiasts that attempt to obscure what is really happening. In a strange way, we admire her candor, but then it takes a deadly turn.
“We humans do kill, when necessary: Victims of assault sometimes kill in self-defense, targets of persecution sometimes kill for justice—or just to reduce the number of their persecutors—and the colonized sometimes kill for liberation. Mothers living in unspeakable conditions (including chattel slavery) have been documented to kill their children as an act of mercy. Of course, these examples are instances of necessary violence, generated by the conditions for which we struggle to render extinct. When it comes to abortions, it seems possible that the conditions that necessitate them may never be wholly eliminated, even if vasectomies become generalized, and perfected ectogenetic technologies become universally accessible. As long as people are performing pregnancy on this earth, they must be free to change their minds about seeing it through. The adoption industry could be revolutionized and child welfare lavishly subsidized; regardless of the available supports, no one should be pregnant involuntarily. The science of medicine dictates that when foreign organisms inhabit the human body unwelcomely, we tend to eject them.”
In a way, there are passages here of considerable confusion. As long as we humans are “performing pregnancy” as opposed to just having protected sex. With the wide variety of ways to avoid pregnancy; self-control, and birth control, where is all this forced pregnancy coming from? Is a baby an invasive species, like fungus?
She seems to be suggesting that killing a baby is like killing for self-defense. It is like hand-to-hand fighting at the Chosin Reservoir. It is “kill or be killed”.
Or maybe it is like defending the home against an unwanted home intruder. In this case, killing an unwanted intruder who has hijacked her body. There is no recognition of the possible consequences of sex and that she created the intruder herself by her actions.
Moreover, she forgets that humans also kill for domination of others, to take other people’s stuff, and sometimes, just for the thrill of it. This killing instinct is not a good thing about humans and it has taken us a long time to control these primal forces. It is part of what one would hope civilized society would do. But she seems to be drifting toward the idea that killing is not such a bad thing. After all, it is done all the time for a variety of reasons. In fact, the title of her essay is “Abortion Involves Killing-and that is OK.”
What is involuntary pregnancy? Most pregnancies are not the result of rape. A woman chooses to have sex with a man, has lots of choices about drugs and devices to avoid getting sperm and egg together, and has the choice to give up the baby if all that does not work. She surely can’t believe that the abortion issue is about the very rare occasion of forced insemination. It is about women having casual sex and being angered that by the laws of nature, they carry the consequence, the child. It is not fair that they can’t walk away as a man can. So in a sense, it is “involuntary” to be bound by the rules and regulations of nature? It is a rage against either God or Nature, take your pick.
Well, for the past 50 years, women could always choose abortion to get out of pregnancy but society is changing its mind about whether that is a good thing, either for the mother and certainly the baby. However, the coldness of her argument that follows, and the choice of the verbiage of “gestator” and “gestatee” are so clinical that we lose sight of the fact it is mother and baby. All mothers, of all species, defend their babies, except it would seem animals that have come through women’s study programs.
“But what’s the point of acknowledging this now, at a time when abortion rights are so imperiled? For one thing, it would seem hard to deny that the euphemistic, apologetic, placatory “pro-choice” strategy hasn’t worked out thus far. So, why not risk coming out for what we actually want, namely, abortion—a clearly documented public good? The pending Supreme Court leak thrusts us into a situation in which we have little left to lose. Rather than cleave in desperation to the rearguard missions of defending the rights (to privacy, rather than abortion) enshrined in Roe v. Wade, we could consider this moment a chance to reset the terms on which abortion is fought.”
“What would it mean to acknowledge that a death is involved in an abortion? Above all, it would allow for a fairer fight against the proponents of forced gestating. When “pro-life” forces agitate against feticide on the basis that it is killing, pro-abortion feminists should be able to acknowledge, without shame, that yes, of course it is. When we withdraw from gestating, we stop the life of the product of our gestational labor. And it’s a good thing we do, too, for otherwise the world would sag under the weight of forced life. It is a hard pill to swallow for a misogynist society, sentimentally attached to its ideology of patriarchal motherhood, but the truth is that gestators should get to decide which bodies to give form to. This choosing is our prerogative. A desire not to be pregnant is sufficient reason in and of itself to terminate a gestatee.”
The reader is urged to read her complete article so you can satisfy yourself that we are not cherry-picking passages here. In the previous two paragraphs, she gets stronger and stronger suggesting that killing a baby is completely justified or “the world would sag under the weight of forced life.”
She says to abandon arguments that are not working like “it’s my body”, “its privacy”, or “it’s not real life.” No, say it straight up. It is killing for convenience and women should be proud of that position?
She obviously has never been a parent. She sees pregnancy as an unbearable burden. But having a baby is just the first step in a long commitment to other people. In non-academic terms, we call this having a family. Ideally, both husband and wife are joint partners in a project that continues through to grandchildren and even great-grandchildren.
Those who have experienced this know it is a commitment that has great rewards and disappointments. It is part of the human condition.
She says basically in fancy language that if the mother is inconvenienced by pregnancy, you have a right to kill the baby. She adds we should acknowledge this without sentimentality. Killing is OK. However, most laws suggest lethal force can only be used to defend your life or another person’s life. Life is not ended with pregnancy so what are you defending against: Being inconvenienced, being distraught, being confused?
What if most of the inconvenience comes after birth? Do you still have that right to kill that which is bothering you?
My wife and I have three children. Two wonderful girls who have become fabulous women. And we also have a son, profoundly autistic and developmentally challenged. Oddly, we have learned a lot about life from him, even though some would view his life as a burden.
The Left has always had a thing for eugenics. The Left has always had a thing about abortion and the destruction of the nuclear family.
The problem is that once you justify killing a baby as a defense against inconvenience or extended responsibility, what do you do with all the handicapped folks that are not inconvenient for nine months, but can be inconvenient for life?
Not surprisingly, the logical conclusion has been in some societies to kill off the elderly, and kill off the handicapped. That, however, was among primitive societies living on the edge of extinction. Have we reached a point in our highly educated and opulent society that we are ready to kill off the people that get in the way of having a life free of expense, emotional burden, and frustration? Such a stress-free life could develop a new legal doctrine: your honor, I killed him because he got in the way of my narcissism.
We can think of only one advanced and wealthy society that thought it was OK to kill to make the race better and the world more convenient. I wonder if she has any sense of how close to sounding like a Nazi she comes.
TAKE ACTION
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-01 04:05:002022-07-01 04:05:00Killing Is Not OK
“No free man shall ever be barred from using arms to guard public liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson
The gun control debate began in the 1920s in Germany’s Weimar Republic. They mandated the registration of all firearms and the authority to confiscate them “if it was necessary for the public good.” They convinced gun owners these records would be confidential for the nation’s security.
The prime minister said these records would forever be protected from militant groups. Yet in 1933, when Adolf Hitler seized power, he used these “secret gun records” to identify, disarm, attack, and imprison opponents of the regime. It also enabled Hitler to murder 6 million defenseless Jews.
Weimar’s ill-conceived gun edict showed little insight and had one major flaw. Its most loquacious oversight was that Werner Best crafted it, a suspected conspirator and future Gestapo henchman.
“How fortunate it is for governments that the people they administer don’t think.” – Adolf Hitler
In 1938, Hitler signed The Gun Control Act to deprive Jews from owning guns. Since the Jews had registered their guns they were easily disarmed. With no weapons to fight back, they were sent to death camps and burned alive. Hitler relied on gun control to cleanse Germany with his Holocaust.
When France fell to the Nazis in 1940, it was a walk in the park for Hitler since it was illegal to own a gun in France and they couldn’t fight back. In reaction to this, days before Pearl Harbor in 1941, Congress not only affirmed our 2nd Amendment rights, it also outlawed federal gun registration.
Although America’s military might defends world liberty, gun ownership has been under attack for years. Gun control advocates say the U.S. should mimic the European nations that have strict gun control laws. But it was the well-trained army of U.S. gun owners that led to the allied victory in WWII.
In Germany, to purchase a gun, you must pass a government psychiatric evaluation. In Finland, to own a gun you must prove you’re a member of an approved gun club and pass a police review. In Italy, one must prove they need a gun and pass a criminal and mental background investigation.
In France, applicants must pass a mental health exam. In the UK and Japan, it is a felony to own a handgun. In Red China, anyone caught owning gun powder will be jailed. On the other hand, 75% of all citizens in Switzerland own guns. And they have the lowest gun-related crimes in the world.
Every nation with strict gun laws has been taken over by a tyrannical rogue leader; Adolf Hitler of Germany; Benito Mussolini of Italy; and Hirohito of Japan; or they’ve been invaded by one. But in the U.S. where it is a constitutional right to own and use guns, we are the defender of world freedom.
“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”– General George Patton
In America, the colonies demanded free speech, and gun ownership was protected before ratifying the Constitution. They demanded that those two amendments be added to the Constitution.
James Madison drafted and passed the Bill of Rights during the first U.S. Congress in NY in 1789.
In 1999, Connecticut passed the first “red flag law.” Today 18 states have followed. Red flag laws allow law enforcement, with a court order, to seize guns from anyone that a person considers a danger to themselves or others. Almost anyone can file a red flag request for almost any reason.
President Joe Biden has urged Congress to pass additional gun control laws including a red flag law. With a 224 to 202 vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi passed the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order last week. This allows courts to issue extreme risk orders that ban individuals deemed dangerous from buying or owning a gun. But for this to become law, the 2nd amendment must be amended.
This is the most dangerous attack on the 2nd amendment by the federal government in history.
Within the context of red flag laws, anyone may attempt to have someone’s firearms seized with the slightest suspicion that a gun owner may pose a danger to them or to themselves. Only after proving their “innocence” before a court can a law-abiding citizen possibly retrieve their property.
A study by the RAND Corporation on states with red flag laws found that there is zero conclusive evidence that red flag laws prevent acts of gun violence. In fact, a report by CNN shows homicides across the U.S. have risen an alarming 6.2% since Biden was elected and after the George Floyd protests, riots and looting.
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” – Aldous Huxley
According to NBC, Illinois passed its red flag law in 2018, and gun crimes and homicides escalated throughout the state. In 2021, in the city of Chicago, there were 797 homicides and 3,561 shooting incidents despite Illinois’ extremely tough gun laws. Obviously, “red flag” gun control doesn’t work.
Some states allow medical professionals, school officials, and coworkers also to petition the courts. Other states only allow law enforcement and relatives to petition the courts to have guns removed from anyone they wish. In red flag states, you are guilty until proven innocent to get your guns back.
“You’re guilty until proven innocent. Perception is reality, that’s the way that it is.” – Chris Webber
The powers of the federal government are clearly defined and enumerated in the Constitution and disarming citizens is not one. In fact, the 2nd Amendment forbids the government from doing so. It specifically designates that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall never be infringed.”
James Hanstein wrote, “Our past are our lessons learned.” Our constitutional rights are not just a source of patriotic pride but the lifeblood of democracy. Our founders knew that the right of citizens to bear arms was essential to preserving their liberty. The 2nd Amendment ensures that. We need to remind our Congressmen that it was Hitler’s genocide of the Jews that led to the 2nd Great War.
The Senate has now passed the onus of “gun control” on to the states. They expand background checks, and fund school safety programs. They will also incentivize states to pass more red flag laws. Since states have almost “innumerable powers” they will pressure each state to pass stricter gun laws.
All government is local, and all liberty is too. The rubber meets the road in every state legislature. Politicians are addicted to money and easily swayed by federal gratuities. But what happens in our states ends up in DC. As states trade our gun rights for abusive “red flag laws,” citizens that do not challenge them don’t covet their freedom. They will be crying and moaning when progressives win their campaign to repeal the 2nd amendment.
“To preserve liberty, it is essential the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, how to use them.” – Richard Henry Lee
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-01 04:00:002022-07-01 04:00:00The Slippery Slope of Red Flag Gun Laws
Think tanks and universities are taking millions in foreign donations, and Biden has no interest in imposing transparency.
The University of Pennsylvania received more than $15 million in anonymous donations from China in 2018, the same year it announced the founding of its Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. This is just one high-profile example of a question that has been bubbling behind the scenes in think tanks and universities for several years: How has new, massive, unreported foreign funding flowing into America’s intellectual infrastructure shaped the country’s approach to governing, national security, and even cultural affairs?
Following on the heels of a 2020 Trump administration report excoriating universities—including Harvard and Stanford—for failing to report $6.5 billion in foreign funding, two new pieces of legislation have been introduced since Biden’s election that would address the influence of foreign spending in the academic, nonprofit, and think tank sectors.
Welcome to an age of heightened concerns over foreign money flowing into America’s institutions, both private and nonprofit. It has led to debates over donor transparency, intellectual and academic theft, lobbying and election integrity, and the proper role of charity in American civic and political life.
Conservatives tend to like the idea of donor privacy, especially in this era of cancel culture. But the calculus changes a bit when you consider how foreign entities might be using U.S. nonprofits to influence public policy, notes Michael E. Hartmann, a senior fellow of the Capital Research Center and co-editor of The Giving Review.
“The legal structure of American tax-exempt nonprofitdom has always wrestled with how to manage what are often the competing desires for transparency and donor privacy,” Hartmann says. “Historically, there hasn’t seemed to have been as much tension between transparency and foreign funding of nonprofits—that is, non-American funding of American nonprofits—[but] the whole set of underlying considerations with which to wrestle…is just so appreciably different than the regular old domestic ones.”
Republican legislators seem to agree that the question of transparency becomes a bit more fraught when foreign interests are involved and national security concerns are raised. Particularly if the disclosure rules are being outright flouted, as was the case with the 12 universities mentioned in the 2020 Trump administration report.
On the Senate side, one attempt to address the problem is to strengthen the Higher Education Act of 1965, specifically Section 117 dealing with disclosure requirements of foreign gifts and contracts. Republican Senators Tom Cotton, Bill Hagerty, Marsha Blackburn, and Tim Scott are all attached to the legislation they are calling the “Foreign Funding Accountability Act,” which, according to a joint release, will attempt to “combat malign foreign influence in American colleges and universities.”
Senator Cotton, who in 2021 released a report on “decoupling” from China, said the reason for the legislation is simple: If China wants to win a new economic Cold War, they will need to harness the “traditionally open research” on U.S. college campuses to give them a “competitive advantage in all innovative fields,” including semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and quantum research.
“The CCP has patiently cultivated its de facto allies on college campuses across the country, offering prestigious fellowships, in-kind gifts, and donations to lure professors and universities into sharing information,” Cotton said.
“Just like every other member of the ‘China Lobby,’ from multinational corporations and Hollywood executives to NBA stars and large banks, colleges and universities have lined their pockets with Chinese cash for years and don’t want to stop any time soon,” he explained. “The China Lobby opposes anything that might hurt their bottom line. And they know that transparency about their Chinese cash binge will bring tough questions from Congress and a real effort to stop the inflow of Chinese money.”
Cotton said he doubts universities are in the dark about what these foreign gifts are intended to inspire.
“I find it hard to believe that they’re ignorant of what the CCP wants from them,” he said. “For example, MIT, Princeton, [and] Yale have all accepted millions from a Chinese tech billionaire, Ma Huateng, the founder of Tencent. His company actively censors the internet in China and is at the forefront of China’s efforts to dominate A.I. It doesn’t take a college education to suspect something is up.”
As a solution, Cotton’s legislation attempts to impose reporting requirements, which the Trump administration had established for a short period following their 2020 report. But, as Cotton noted, the American Council on Education wrote a letter to President Biden begging them to halt the reporting requirement on foreign gifts.
“And of course, the Biden administration has caved to this,” Cotton said.
Over on the House side, Republicans are also proposing a disclosure system for nonprofit think tanks (often attached to academic institutions) similar to the ones universities had before Biden caved.
Rep. Lance Gooden of Texas introduced the “Think Tank and Nonprofit Foreign Influence Disclosure Act” in March, which he said is an important first step in getting a handle on the “undeniably rampant corruption in the non-profit sector that must be addressed.”
“Americans and Congress deserve to know if the radical climate groups advocating to shut down the Keystone pipeline are funded by Russia or Russian-backed entities,” Gooden said. “Russia has clearly benefited from the Biden administration crippling the U.S. energy sector, and we must know if the climate groups pushing for this have been doing Russia’s bidding.”
“Foreign nations will no longer be able to hide their agenda behind the non-profits they fund,” Gooden continued. “Both our adversaries and our allies will have to be transparent about the groups they support and will have to explain why they support those groups’ agenda.”
Gooden’s bill would require the U.S. Treasury Department to make “publicly available in a searchable database information relating to such gifts and contributions received from foreign governments and political parties.” This would mimic the database created in June 2020 by the Department of Education to record gifts of $250,000 or more (Cotton’s Senate bill would lower this threshold to $25,000 or more).
Gooden’s bill would also require disclosure of think tank or similar nonprofit funding of over $50,000 a year from “foreign governments, foreign political parties or foreign military entities.” Gooden is particularly concerned about the foreign funding alleged to be flowing into the environmental sector, which the Capital Research Center has calculated, based on a report from The Center for International Policy, is part of over $174 million in foreign funding to major U.S. think tanks.
More transparency of foreign funding in the energy and environmental sector might almost put some environmental activist groups out of business, Gooden predicts.
“If the flow of foreign funding is cut off to radical environmental groups, they will no longer have the resources to advocate for economy-crippling green energy and Green New Deal priorities,” Gooden said.
The question of what to do about foreign funding of public policy is not reserved for the right side of the political aisle. While Republicans focus on the nonprofit sector and universities, Democrats have also begun to train a powerful eye on the corporate sector, with a focus on election interference rather than public policy.
In 2021, Democrats reintroduced a bill called “Get Foreign Money Out of U.S. Elections,” which would “block foreign-owned corporations from spending company funds to influence U.S. elections.”
The bill would “extend the federal ban on political donations from foreign nationals to multinational companies that are at least partially owned by foreign nationals,” the Hill reported in December.
While these legislative proposals are ongoing, conservatives have not forgotten the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
In early 2020, the Department of Justice issued an advisory opinion that clarified the rules regarding when a U.S. nonprofit that receives foreign government funding must register as a foreign agent. This led more than a dozen of the nation’s most well-known advocacy groups to warn that FARA registration was a potential threat to free speech and could threaten their mission.
“Being labeled as a foreign agent under FARA would put our neutrality and independence in jeopardy,” the International Foundation for Electoral Systems said in comment.
Given the problem of potentially malign influence outlined above, and the obvious truth that both sides of the political aisle recognize the potential for foreign interests to be in conflict with domestic policy, FARA reform may be the easiest—and quickest—path to change.
“Congress could certainly try to clarify that which is necessary for a foreign-funded nonprofit to have to register under FARA, as I know some are strongly urging,” Hartmann said. “It’s hard to imagine that there’d be a serious objection from donor-privacy advocates to something like this, much less that any such objection would carry the day among policymakers.”
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-07-01 03:55:002022-07-01 03:55:00Foreign Funding of Nonprofits Goes Unchecked
As a climate and energy realist, in my heart of hearts, I dream of the day when the public recognizes climate change will not bring on an end to the world as we know it, or even a long-term net decline for human civilization. That’s what the data and the best science show, despite the claims of corporate media, alarmist activists, heads of corporations, and politicians who profit in terms of money and power by spinning the climate change end-of-the-world fairy tale. Sadly, the public rarely gets to hear this truth.
A few notable instances of the very unalarming facts about climate change getting through on a large scale in the past few years are the release of several bestselling books by prominent liberals advocating what they consider to be reasonable climate policies: Michael Shellenberger’s Apocalypse Never, Steven Koonin’s Unsettled, and Bjorn Lomborg’s False Alarm. Sticking strictly to climate science, not policy, Heartland’s own Climate at a Glance for Teachers and Students has also sold well on Amazon. However, despite the success of these publications among the literati and the reading public, I’d be surprised if these books combined sold more than a million copies in the United States, which has a population of more than 330 million people, or a few million copies among the eight billion people worldwide. Sadly, I suspect more people are exposed to false climate alarm stories in the mainstream media every day in the United States than have been reached by all these books in the past two years since the first one’s release.
Still, hope springs eternal and climate realists keep on plugging away, trying to breach the nearly impregnable wall of climate change disinformation erected by powerful corporate, media, and political elites. Every so often, the realists score a direct hit, making the climate/energy realist case so powerfully that even the mainstream media and elite journals take notice. This occurred recently when TheNew York Times Magazine (NYTM) published an interview with eminent scientist Vaclav Smil, Ph.D., discussing his book How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going.” (You can’t get more mainstream and yet elitist than the NYTM.) Another direct-realist hit on the edifice of climate alarm came with the publication of the article “Russia’s War Is the End of Climate Policy as We Know It,” in the journal Foreign Affairs, by Ted Nordhaus.
Both Smil and Nordhaus have far more confidence than I that human activities are causing potentially dangerous climate change. Although I disagree to some extent with their assessment of the dangers of climate change, their “realpolitik” analyses of the infeasibility of the net-zero energy transition in the 2030-2050 timeline are powerful and accurate.
Despite continual cajoling by the NYTM interviewer, who basically framed the same question again and again and again, pleading for Smil to concede climate change is such an imminent disaster world leaders must forcibly decarbonize our energy systems nearly immediately, Smil refused to rise to the bait. His consistent answer, based on his assessment of the world’s energy needs and the material requirements necessary to meet net-zero in the short term, was that this goal is physically and politically impossible. Smil also made clear that the threat posed by climate change does not justify such a dramatic forced transition.
For Smil, the four pillars of modern civilization are cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia, each of which requires huge amounts of fossil fuels to produce. Therefore, he concludes, those calling for rapid decarbonization to combat global warming are dangerously foolish. “I’m looking at the world as it is,” Smil, told the NTYM interviewer, continuing,
The most important thing to understand is the scale. … [A]ccording to COP26, we should reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by 45 percent by 2030 as compared with 2010 levels. This is undoable because there are just eight years left, and emissions are still rising. People don’t appreciate the magnitude of the task and are setting up artificial deadlines which are unrealistic. …
What’s the point of setting goals which cannot be achieved? People call it aspirational. I call it delusional.
I’m all for goals but for strict realism in setting them.
For Smil, radical actions to cut carbon dioxide emissions steeply and immediately are neither justified by the problem—because other problems are at least as dire as climate change, and they require fossil fuels to solve—nor are they possible, even if they were justified. It’s a matter of both physics and realpolitik, the latter meaning an honest assessment of the fact that people around the world do and will continue to want to better their lives by their own understanding of what constitutes a better life.
Smil’s assessment coincides with that of Ted Nordhaus, the cofounder (with the above-mentioned Michael Shellenberger) and executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, and a co-author of An Ecomodernist Manifesto. Nordhaus’s article in Foreign Policy is a realist shot across the bow explaining how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is opening eyes to the basic energy truth that fossil fuels are still vital to the world:
[T]he headlong rush across Western Europe to replace Russian oil, gas, and coal with alternative sources of these fuels has made a mockery of the net-zero emissions pledges made by the major European economies just three months before the invasion at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. Instead, questions of energy security have returned with a vengeance as countries already struggling with energy shortages and price spikes now face a fossil fuel superpower gone rogue in Eastern Europe.
In the decades following the end of the Cold War, global stability and easy access to energy led many of us to forget the degree to which abundant energy is existential for modern societies. Growing concern about climate change and the push for renewable fuels also led many to underestimate just how dependent societies still are on fossil fuels. But access to oil, gas, and coal still determines the fate of nations. Two decades of worrying about carbon-fueled catastrophes—and trillions of dollars spent globally on transitioning to renewable power—haven’t changed that basic existential fact. …
Given the scant effect international climate efforts have had on emissions over the past three decades, a turn back toward energy realpolitik—and away from the utopian schemes that have come to define climate advocacy and policymaking worldwide—could actually accelerate the shift to a lower-carbon global economy in the coming decades. …
The capacity to adapt to rising temperatures and extreme weather events rose significantly … as evidenced by the continued decline in weather-related deaths. But this was not due to any U.N.-led efforts to fund climate adaptation, which never materialized. What made people all over the world more resilient to climate extremes was better infrastructure and safer housing—the product of economic growth powered by cheap fossil fuels.
The geopolitical, technological, and economic competition that characterized the Cold War had more success in reducing the carbon intensity of the global economy than climate policy efforts have had since.
Nordhaus goes on to explain:
The world’s renewable energy economy is deeply entangled with geopolitically problematic supply chains. Huge parts of the world’s supplies of silicon, lithium, and rare-earth minerals rely on China, where solar panels are produced by Uyghur slave labor in concentration camps. The idea that the crisis might be resolved by choosing Western dependence on Chinese solar panels and batteries over Western dependence on Russian oil and gas reveals just how unserious the environmental movement’s pretensions to justice, human rights, and democracy really are.
For Nordhaus and Smil alike, the appropriate response to climate change is to acknowledge the reality of the importance of fossil fuels to continued economic prosperity for the present, while delivering better options through the market—which responds to price signals through efficiency gains and technological innovation—far faster and more effectively than government-mandated energy shifts. Smil states,
at the same time we are constantly transitioning and innovating. We went from coal to oil to natural gas, and then as we were moving into natural gas we moved into nuclear electricity, and we started building lots of large hydro, and they do not emit any carbon dioxide directly. So we’ve been transitioning to lower-carbon sources or noncarbon sources for decades. Moreover, we’ve been making our burning of carbon much more efficient. We are constantly transitioning to more efficient, more effective and less environmentally harmful things.
Nordhaus notes the Russian war is increasingly making it clear to countries that climate change is not “the main event,” energy security is, and the latter can be achieved while improving economic conditions in the poorest countries and respecting human rights:
But climate and energy policies, especially in the West, may shift significantly from subsidizing demand (for things like solar panels and electric vehicles) to deregulating supply (of things like nuclear power plants and high-voltage transmission lines). A shift of this sort—away from subsidizing specific green technologies favored by activists and lobbyists and toward enabling the broader technological, regulatory, and infrastructural basis for the energy transition—would put clean energy policies on much firmer economic footing. And it would better align climate objectives with energy security imperatives.
People around the world face many problems. Climate change is only one among many, and as Nordhaus and Smil point out, it is probably not the most pressing.
Nordhaus and Smil provide clear-eyed assessments of the physical, economic, and political limits of the energy transition demanded by climate alarmists on the timetable they have laid out. These analysts’ acknowledgments of the benefits fossil fuels have delivered, and the inequities and harms that would result from an attempt to go net-zero by 2030 or even 2050, are a refreshing appraisal from scholars whom alarmists cannot in any way smear as “climate deniers.”
In my heart of hearts (foolish though it may be), I still hold out hope this truth can get through the daily background noise of climate alarm.
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-06-30 04:00:002022-06-30 04:00:00Climate Realism On The Rise?
A firm in China that uses slave labor has a better ESG score than an American firm that pays landowners who freely sell their mineral rights.
Expecting publicly traded companies to do more than simply return shareholder value — their fiduciary responsibility — is a fairly new development in Western capitalism. The idea that corporate leadership and shareholders should explicitly care about environmental, social, and corporate governance (known as ESG) issues beyond how they might affect the bottom line has been around for only about 30 years.
But now, ESG investing has become a big driver in steering capital to corporations deemed to be good stewards of subjective principles. By 2025, financial management firms that claim to invest with ESG principles are projected to account for $50 trillion of a total global value of $140.5 trillion — more than a third of managed investments.
But is ESG investing trustworthy? Does it really do what it claims to do?
MSCI is one of the world’s largest investment support services firms, with $2.1 billion in revenue. It offers an ESG rating service. I noticed that my Charles Schwab account recently started to display MSCI’s ESG ratings alongside that of the more traditional rating services — services focused on a company’s profitability.
Comparing U.S. and Chinese Companies’ Ratings
Curious, I looked into the rating of a firm I own some stock in Texas-based Brigham Minerals (NYSE: MNRL). Brigham looks for land that could produce oil and gas, and owns mineral and royalty interests in 7,909 oil wells and 688 natural gas wells in West Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, and North Dakota. MSCI rates Brigham Minerals as a B, the sixth lowest of seven ratings that range from AAA to CCC, labeling it a “laggard” in the industry with an overall score of 2 out of 10.
I previously wrote about ESG investing’s blind spot for China three years ago in Fox Business, pointing out that investment firms playing in the ESG space were also bullish on China — a nation with terrible air and water pollution (the “E”), horrendous human rights abuses (the “S”), rampant corruption, opaque accounting standards, and rule of law only at the forbearance of the Chinese Communist Party (the “G”).
Not expecting the financial industry to have changed for the better, I looked up three China-based energy companies and compared them to Brigham Minerals. They were Xinyi Solar Holdings (OTC: XISHY), China Resources Gas Group (OTC: CGASY), and China Coal Energy Company (OTC: CCOZF). All three beat the American energy company in their overall rating.
Buying Into CCP-controlled Enterprises
Now, it’s important for investors to understand that you really can’t own shares in a Chinese corporation. When you buy shares in a corporation based in China, you’re really buying American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) that represent shares issued by companies in the People’s Republic of China. As such, your ownership rights are more theoretical than real and are subject to the whims of the Chinese Communist Party.
Further, many Chinese firms that have ADRs traded in the United States are themselves subsidiaries of state-owned enterprises — meaning that if you buy these ADRs, you are directly investing in an entity fully controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
As an example, China Coal Energy is 58.36 percent owned by China National Coal Group, a state-owned enterprise. China Coal Energy owns 12 coal mines, 13 coal-processing plants, five coking plants, four coal mining equipment manufacturing plants, and two mine design institutes. They’re really into coal.
That makes sense, as coal is China’s largest source of energy — with the PRC having on the order of five times the size of the U.S. coal powerplant fleet in operation or in construction. MSCI rates China Coal Energy as “BB” — one step better than Brigham Minerals, with an environmental rating of 4.7 of 10 compared to Brigham’s 0.8, a social rating of 4.2 compared to Brigham’s 3.5, and a governance rating of 2.2 compared to 6.4 for the American firm. Overall, China Coal rates 3.1 out of 10 compared to 2 for Brigham.
China Resources Gas Group mostly invests in natural gas pipelines. It’s a subsidiary of China Resources Holdings Company, a state-owned company. The company got its start in Hong Kong as Liow and Company in 1938. Its purpose was to raise funds and purchase supplies for the People’s Liberation Army, then fighting the Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War — and, occasionally, the Japanese as they pressed their attacks into China.
By the 1960s, due to grain shortages caused by Maoist policies, the firm was used to import vast amounts of “capitalist grain” to stave off mass starvation. MSCI generously rates China Resources Gas as an “A” — the third-best of seven grades, with better grades than Brigham in both the environment, 7.7 to 0.8, and social, 7.6 to 3.5. Only in governance does China Resources Gas fall short, earning an “average” rating of 4.6 to Brigham’s 6.4. China Resources Gas nets an overall rating of 6.3 to Brigham’s 2.
Xinyi Solar Holdings should be problematic for MSCI — after all, China’s solar power industry, a global juggernaut, is a heavy user of materials produced by slave labor in Xinjiang, a Muslim-majority region formerly known as Turkestan where the Chinese communist government has been engaged in a grinding genocide. MSCI even has a corporate statement against “modern slavery” on its website, claiming that the firm “is committed to protecting human rights globally… Specifically, the Firm strongly opposes slavery and human trafficking and will not knowingly support or conduct business with any organization involved in such activities.”
This is at odds with MSCI’s ESG rating of Xinyi Solar — an “A” — with scores of 8.1 for environment (heavy metal pollution aside, apparently), 5.6 for social, and 2.6 for governance. Overall, Xinyi scores a 6.1 of 10 compared to 2 for the Texas firm.
That a firm in China that relies on slave labor for key portions of its supply chain has a better social score than an American firm that pays landowners who freely sell them their mineral rights betrays an upside-down ethic where freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength. Of course, that hasn’t stopped 174 institutional owners from investing in Xinyi Solar, among the largest being JP Morgan, Invesco, and Vanguard.
Counter to ESG Goals
This leads to one last, odd ESG story. Texas lawmakers, concerned about how banks and financial institutions aggressively implementing ESG investing rules were beginning to starve Texas’s energy industry of capital, passed a law in 2021 to address the problem. Senate Bill 13 prohibited Texas’s pension and investment funds (worth about $300 billion) from investing in “financial companies that boycott certain energy companies.”
But figuring out what companies those might be turned out to be a somewhat complicated process. So, the Texas state comptroller, charged with implementing the new law, turned to… MSCI. The problem was that MSCI is guilty of pushing ESG to the detriment of domestic energy produced in Texas, forcing Texas to modify its contract with MSCI to avoid violating the new law.
Ben M. “Bud” Brigham, founder and executive chairman of Brigham Minerals and other energy companies, has been an ESG skeptic for years. He tells me that “companies innovating in free markets strive to create value for their owners which benefit all the legitimate stakeholders. This is empirically validated in America, where we enjoy unprecedented levels of clean air and clean water compared to other major economies. In contrast, ESG investing — a relatively subjective exercise — often represents the influence of illegitimate stakeholders, and therefore ends up being irresponsible, destructive, and counter to its stated goals.”
So, here’s the bottom line from the self-righteous global elites: Chinese-government-owned coal, fine; Chinese slave-provisioned solar power, good; Chinese state-owned natural gas, better; American domestic natural gas and oil, terrible.
Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.
Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2022-06-30 03:58:002022-06-30 03:58:00The ‘ESG’ Scam Rates Slave-Using Chinese Firms Higher Than Clean American Energy Producers
