Recent articles
1. There’s a lot of debate about whether Trump is delusional or evil. (Why not both?) This WaPo story leans toward the evil interpretation:
Former president Donald Trump’s communications director recounted popping into the Oval Office roughly a week after the 2020 election to find a morose Trump watching TV: “Can you believe I lost to this f—ing guy?” Trump lamented, referring to then-President-elect Joe Biden.
A young aide to Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows recalled Meadows telling her, “A lot of times he’ll tell me that he lost but he wants to keep fighting it.” . . .
“Please recognize that President Donald Trump was in a unique position, better informed about the absence of widespread election fraud than almost any other American president,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said. “Trump’s own campaign experts told him that there was no evidence to support his claims. His own Justice Department appointees investigated the election fraud claims and told him — point blank — they were false. In mid-December 2020, President Trump’s senior advisers told him the time had come to concede the election. Donald Trump knew the courts had ruled against him.”
“He had all of this information,” Cheney continued, “but still, he made the conscious choice to claim fraudulently that the election was stolen.”
2. Back in the early 1990s, I recall people saying that racism used to be a problem before the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but was no longer a problem. Check out this graph.
In the 1980s, I recall one politically liberal woman telling me she opposed interracial marriage. I was shocked, as at the time one of my cousins was married to a black guy, as was a second cousin. Another cousin was married to a guy from India. My sister was married to a Hispanic. It was at that point that I realized I’d grown up in a liberal bubble (Madison, WI.) When I got married in 1994, most Americans opposed my marriage.
3. Ben Southwood has a good essay on why low fertility rates are not likely to persist in the long run:
A simplistic little model I built suggests that if one percent of the fertile UK population had a fertility rate 1.2 above the 1.8 norm, it would take over 200 years for the population to beat its current level, assuming zero immigration and everything staying static.
But I still think the story is true and important: humans are like bacteria, and we are evolving bacterial resistance to the antibiotic of low fertility.
4. The Hudson Bay Company was quite large:
Right after buying Alaska, we came close to buying the HBC. Had we done so, we would have eventually absorbed British Colombia and Canada’a far northern islands. The US would then be almost twice it’s current size:
In 1869, the United States offered the Company $10,000,000 for its land. If it had gone through, it would have meant that the USA would today control the vast majority of what instead became Canada. Under political pressure from Britain, this very generous offer was rejected and the Company agreed to cease to be a geographical entity, transferring all of its land to the British Government.
4. Reason magazine’s Matt Welch has a good article on immigration and jobs:
Policy analysts who favor reduced immigration to the United States have always had one plausibly compelling argument: If you cut off the supply of cheaper labor, they maintained, employers would be forced to raise wages for lower-skilled, native-born workers, who would then demonstrate the fiction behind the contention that there were some jobs “Americans just won’t do.”
Well, we have just conducted a fascinating real-world test of that hypothesis. Beginning with the restrictionist presidency of Donald Trump in 2017, and then supercharging through the effective 2020–21 border-closure triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. took in about 1.7 million fewer working-age immigrants than would have come at the prior intake rate, according to a recent analysis by Giovanni Peri, economics professor at University of California at Davis.
Alas, those not in the labor force Americans never showed up:
This should have been the moment when the startlingly high number of prime-aged Americans classified as Not in the Labor Force (“NILFs,” no really) got off the sidelines and back into the job market.
And yet: “That did not increase work rates or labor force participation of Americans who are already here,” says American Enterprise Institute economist Nicholas Eberstadt, author of the freshly revised (with post-pandemic intro) 2016 book Men Without Work. “We’ve now got this incredible peacetime labor shortage, and we also have a drop in the number of people in the workforce, by at least a ballpark of 3 million lower than we would have expected on trend before COVID. And that’s leaving out immigration, so it’s actually lower.”
5. File this story under “politics is a helluva drug“:
For more than a decade, few places in the nation were associated with anti-vaccine movements as much as Marin County, the bluff-lined peninsula of coastal redwoods and stunning views just north of San Francisco. . . .
Now, Marin County’s Covid vaccination rate among all residents is 91 percent, compared with 68 percent nationwide.
The county has also shed its reputation as an anti-vaccine haven in part because of how much vocal resistance has taken root elsewhere. Marin County was once faulted for having a childhood vaccination rate of 78 percent. Now, almost every county in America has a lower Covid vaccination rate among children.
The anti-vaccine movement used to be a place where the left met the right, but increased polarization during the pandemic has made such a combination difficult to sustain, said Jennifer Reich, sociology professor at the University of Colorado Denver and the author of “Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines.”
6. On the same note, study after study shows that Republicans are more likely to die of Covid:
Last month, though, the National Bureau of Economic Research published an important study from researchers affiliated with Yale University. They took 577,659 death records from Ohio and Florida between January 2018 and December 2021 and matched the decedents to a 2017 voter file. In other words, they were able to identify the partisanship not only of the places those people lived but of the people themselves.
What they found is that the rate of excess death — that is, deaths above the expected toll relative to the pre-pandemic baseline — was higher for Republicans, particularly after vaccines were rolled out.
“Registered Republicans in Florida and Ohio had higher excess death rates than registered Democrats, driven by a large mortality gap in the period after all adults were eligible for vaccines,” the researchers write. “These results adjust for county-by-age differences in excess deaths during the pandemic, suggesting that there were within-age-by-county differences in excess death associated with political party affiliation.”
It turns out that watching Tucker Carlson is bad for your health:
COVID-19 vaccines have reduced infections and hospitalizations across the globe, yet resistance to vaccination remains strong. This paper investigates the role of cable television news in vaccine hesitancy and associated local vaccination rates in the United States. We find that, in the earlier stages of the vaccine roll-out (starting May 2021), higher local viewership of Fox News Channel has been associated with lower local vaccination rates. We can verify that this association is causal using exogenous geographical variation in the channel lineup. The effect is driven by younger individuals (under 65 years of age), for whom COVID-19 has a low mortality risk. Consistent with changes in beliefs about the effectiveness of the vaccine as a mechanism, we find that Fox News increased reported vaccine hesitancy in local survey responses. We can rule out that the effect is due to differences in partisanship, to local health policies, or to local COVID-19 infections or death rates. The other two major television networks, CNN and MSNBC, have no effect. That, in turn, indicates that more differentiated characteristics, like the networks’ messaging or tendency for controversy, matter and that the effect of Fox News on COVID-19 vaccine uptake is not due to the general consumption of cable news. We also show that there is no historical effect of Fox News on flu vaccination rates, suggesting that the effect is COVID-19-specific and not driven by general skepticism toward vaccines.
7. Liz Truss came into office with bold plans to boost growth. Now it all seems to be falling apart:
A former Cabinet minister who supports the PM’s agenda also cast heavy doubts on her having the time to enact any of it.
“Who could argue with focusing on growth? But this takes time and there is a lot of uncertainty attached to it. It’s not like we haven’t been trying to encourage economically inactive people into work since 2010, for example. And some it will probably get dinged [scrapped] anyway, like the planning reforms.”
One Tory veteran of previous parliamentary battles adds: “There is no way they are getting planning through. They are just going to be stuck.”
Planning reforms means zoning reforms in American lingo. The supply side tax cuts are also gone.
8. Remember when it was the GOP that opposed strict zoning rules? Here’s Bloomberg:
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration is urging the city of Gainesville to abandon its zoning reforms after it became the first in the state to vote to eliminate single-family zoning citywide this summer. In an unprecedented move for the agency, Florida’s Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) sent a letter to Gainesville Mayor Lauren Poe objecting to the city’s zoning plan last month. Gainesville’s City Commission is poised to vote to move forward with the changes anyway on Oct. 17.
The action raises the specter of Republican-controlled state governments stepping in to stop cities from passing progressive housing reforms — and mystifies some conservatives who support deregulation in the housing market.
I’m not “mystified”. The GOP abandoned free markets long ago.
9. California just legalized jaywalking.
A new law signed on Friday will allow Californians to legally jaywalk without being ticketed.
Now it’s time to legalize drugs and prostitution.
10. Philipp Markolin has a very good essay on why it is so hard to push back against conspiracy theories. One issue is politics:
The conspiracy myth playbook
The best predictor of believing in a conspiracy theory? Already believing in others
Has anybody noticed something weird going on in the US?
January 6th and Trump’s election steal myth, anti-vaccine conspiracy fantasies, lableak and biosafety fearmongering, QAnon, white genocide, moral panics about immigrant caravans or LGBTQ minorities; many of the most hateful and conspiratorial narratives seem to aggregate around a political movement, leader, and ideology. Prima facie, it is odd to see such a diverse set of conspiratorial ideas neatly align with a large segment of the population that happens to vote for the same political party under the whip of an autocratic leader. Even before the weird cult-like and parasocial worshiping of its demagogue, the MAGA movement is primarily animated by conspiracy myths, and this is dangerous.
It is also a strategy.
Political leaders and movements can use conspiracy myths to gain power, and this is not unique to the US by any means, we could also talk about Poland, Italy, and Hungary, or Myanmar, Nigeria, the Philippines or Brazil, and many other nations currently in democratic decline. Making use of conspiracy myths is one of the oldest tricks in the book that authoritarian leaders and movements use to attack opponents, galvanize followers, shift blame or responsibility, and undermine institutions that threaten their power.
11. Jordan Schneider discusses the new controls on tech exports to China:
Regardless of how narrowly Washington tries to draw the impact of these regs to allow for firms like LAM and ASML to continue working with Chinese companies on fabricating lagging edge chips, the explicit decision to try to freeze Chinese domestic manufacturing above a defined level will be perceived as a deeply provocative move, with lasting commercial, technological, and geopolitical repercussions. . . .
These export controls are even more dramatic of a “Sputnik moment” than what Trump delivered with Huawei’s foreign direct product rule. Even though the Administration may not have consciously timed the rollout of these regulations to the opening of the Party Congress, Chinese officials will certainly assume they have, in turn coloring their view of America’s intentions.
The honest way of competing with China would be to allow more Chinese engineers to immigrate here. Instead we shamefully try to sabotage their tech industry. What a disgrace.
Tags:
15. October 2022 at 16:15
No. 4 Immigration and wages. Not sure about this one due to the unusual time period selected. Also there may be lagging effects. Higher wages may have to persist for a generation or so— indeed, one may even posit that higher wages would allow the return of the single-earner family and lower labor participation rates.
A country with tight labor markets is a happy nation.
For two generations the de facto US policy has been to seek tight housing markets and loose labor markets. A reversal de facto policies would be a healthy project.
15. October 2022 at 16:23
Site owner still suffering from TDS two years into the worst most evil Presidential admin in the country’s history.
Cites proven fake news rags as sources of truth
Claims US is ‘sabotaging’ China’s tech industry, mere days after Eugene Yu, CEO of us elections systems company Konnech, was arrested for illegally transferring sensitive private elections data on poll workers and voter registrations TO THE CCP, which is engaging in tech warfare all over the world.
Not one mention of the Durham trials of D operatives who are being exposed as lying criminals trying to overturn the 2016 election.
When you trust msm, your brain is destroyed.
15. October 2022 at 17:10
Mr. Smart, You said:
“Also there may be lagging effects.”
I suspect those cut the other way. In the long run, immigration doesn’t impact wages.
15. October 2022 at 18:09
A quote from Bryan Caplan on immigration and wages:
[quote]
When asked, “Does the birth of another baby make the world better – or worse?,” I suspect that many secretly answer, “It depends on the baby.” If he grows up to be a scientist, they think the world’s better off. If he grows up to be a janitor, they think the world’s worse off. The implicit dividing line, apparently, is that people make the world a better place if and only if they raise average income.* If our average income is $50,000 a year, the birth of a future janitor supposedly impoverishes us by pulling down the average.
To modern ears, this “eugenic” perspective sounds true but cruel – like pointing out that someone is fat or ugly. But it’s usually not even true. Eugenicists mistake arithmetic for injury. A “burden on society” isn’t someone who produces less than average; it’s someone who consumes more than he produces. The birth of a future janitor is nothing to worry about as long as he’ll be self-supporting and peaceful. The vast majority of janitors are.
When Danny DeVito enters a room, he reduces its occupants’ average height. But he doesn’t cause anyone to “lose height.” Shortness isn’t contagious. Neither is low income. A janitor earns less than average, but his existence doesn’t impoverish his fellow citizens.
Does the world really need another janitor? Absolutely. If janitors weren’t useful, employers wouldn’t pay them $20,000 for a year of their time. Many think there’s no place for unskilled workers in the high-tech economy of the future, but someone has to do their jobs. When there aren’t enough unskilled workers to wash dishes and collect garbage, skilled workers pick up the slack – and their other talents go to waste. If Bill Gates spent half his time cleaning his own office, making his own meals, and watching his own kids, he’d discover far fewer new ideas to enrich us all.
[end quote]
15. October 2022 at 18:31
When did the GOP oppose strict zoning rules? Houston 70 odd years ago? Anywhere else?
15. October 2022 at 22:31
This is another weird post, which attempts to organize and enumerate incoherent thoughts.
#1 is hearsay. Again, no evidence to support that claim. Anyone can say anything about anyone, the words itself are not evidence. You do the same with Bolton. Bolton says something, and like religious gospel you repost it as evidence of wrongdoing. What if I said I met Trump in 1997, in New York, and we had sex in the bathroom. He raped me against my will.
Let me see if I can get the Washington Post to believe me, then print something that Sumner will repost later. That’s essentially what he does. It’s bad science, and its precisely why he went unpublished for most of his career: that is, until the postmodernist freaks came to power. As we know, the ultra liberal thugs don’t need evidence.
Re. ramblings about Covid: A recent study in Lancet shows that the rate of death for the vaccinated are three times higher than the nonvaccinated. The rate of blood clots is twenty five times higher. Surely, people can read these studies and then make a decision with Scott and his thugs using political coercion, in which you threaten people to take a vaccine or disparage them incessently on a poorly written blog.
The inalienable and utility are also not compatible, so please stop claiming you are liberal. You are either delusional, or you have no idea what a liberal is. You cannot support Locke AND Bentham. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You either believe in the inalienable or you don’t.
Libertarians don’t believe in coercion and intervention, and you believe in both when it suits your interest. You are a neo-democrat, utilitarian thug, and a globalist who supports large institutions and centralization of power, and there is NOTHING libertarian about that.
16. October 2022 at 02:37
Pfizer executive Janine Small told the European parlimentiary hearing that Pfizer never tested for transmission prevention. And that is not suprising, considering people who have three or four shots get the virus.
By the way I had the virus two months ago. It was so terrible, so awful and horrible that I was sick for about three hours. =/
Sumner is a wimp and a chickenhawk. Wimpy nerds like Sumner should hide in their basement, because if they did the rest of us wouldn’t have to worry about him forcing us to take the shot, and we’d also have fewer wars.
Notice how all the warhawks were once little wimps who just got old. Now they have to prove to us how tough they are.
Stay away from politics. Go to Ukraine and fight Russia. Hopefully, you don’t come back.
thank you.
16. October 2022 at 05:10
“the Maga movement is primarily animated by conspiracy myths”
But the left is animated by a no-less-bizarre and only slightly less dangerous mythology. It’s just not a conspiracy mythology. What should we call it? The “eco-utopian” mythology? It’s already playing out in the form of hundreds of thousands of unhoused people, exploding crime, wild inflation, transportation gridlock and increasing energy constraints. What do you make of it?
In 2016 I voted for Clinton, with the idea that Trump constituted an immediate and potentially irreversible threat, while Clinton constituted an immediate but reversible threat. However, by 2020, I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Biden, so I didn’t cast a vote for President. We’re seeing why right now, even though Republicans were able to block a good share of his agenda.
16. October 2022 at 05:33
Not quite clear where you get your ideas on labor.
We were doing just fine on labor before the pandemic. The market was tight but there was no great shortage. The initial effect of the pandemic was widespread unemployment, with millions of entertainment jobs being killed by lock-downs. There was a shortage of unemployment funds.
Recall the pandemic also triggered a prison release in many states and general suspension of policing and arrests, adding even more to the people labor pool.
To my recollection, the labor “shortage” didn’t emerge until the first summer of the Biden admin, after the third stimulus check and the dawn of the Inflation Regime. That’s about the time that the massive retail crime wave emerged (remember those photos of the railroad tracks in LA, littered with garbage after thieves had ransacked the containers?), unchecked by the defunded police, and lightly reported by the pro-Biden press.
There’s a lot more to the employment story than immigration. And a lot more to the immigration story than employment.
16. October 2022 at 05:59
Excellent thoughts on a variety of topical issues. Let’s hope that Sumner’s retirement isn’t really retirement.
2. I’m a little older than Sumner and I grew up in a small Southern town, a segregated town with segregated schools, stores, churches, even drinking fountains. On the other hand, being a small town, whites and Blacks had lots of interaction, much more than in places that rejected segregation.
5. The fine folks in Marin County have Trumpists to thank for realizing the stupidity of the anti-vaccine movement.
10. White Christians are Trump’s most loyal followers, fundamentalists and evangelicals competing for the prize of the most loyal, and the most likely to believe Trump’s conspiracy theories abut the 2020 election. It’s not as though these Christians otherwise believe in myths.
16. October 2022 at 07:07
Ahmed, Good quote.
Lizard, My perception when younger was that it was free market economists who touted Houston’s lack of zoning.
Kangaroo, The massive crime wave emerged during the Trump administration. I’ve sort of given up on MAGAs like you. You live in an epistemic bubble.
Rayward, You said:
“White Christians are Trump’s most loyal followers,”
Doesn’t Jesus say people should become white nationalists, and turn away the poor refugee that shows up at their door? Trump is simply carrying Jesus’s message to the masses.
16. October 2022 at 07:09
Sara,
When a person’s mind is brainwashed by fake news msm conspiracy theories, they’re conditioned to accept UNSOURCED claims as truths because accepting them aligns with their already conditioned mind that needs a perpetual stream of conspiracy theory narrative, and they’ll lash out at truths as conspiracy theories to protect and defend their own conspiracy theories.
Site owner has been tricked by so many conspiracy theories pushed by the propaganda arm of the D Party: MSM, for example the “Trump Russia Collusion” conspiracy theory.
All the ‘conspiracy theorists’ who did not get the shot, their chances of getting myocarditis, and blood clots, and sudden adult death syndrome, is massively reduced.
16. October 2022 at 07:23
‘Conspiracy theorists’ are just people capable of pattern recognition.
Site owner is unable or unwilling to conduct pattern recognition because to do so requires independent thinking, which is incompatible with the approach of trusting unsourced articles from radical left activists posing as media pundits.
Happily legacy media is COLLAPSING. The sources the site owner is using are now distrusted by the majority of the people. The majority of the population now accept that cheating likely determined the 2020 election outcome, which MSM retardedly calls ‘election denial’ (as if people believe an election didn’t take place?).
Special Counsel Durham has exposed within the FBI a coordinated scheme to overturn the 2016 election.
The corruption is so deep that “51 former intelligence officials”, including former central intelligence agency directors, LIED and published a letter calling the Hunter Laptop ‘Russian Disinformation’.
After YEARS of lying to the public calling it Russian Disinformation, not one MSM outlet has apologized to their consumers.
Site owner STILL TRUSTS the liars.
16. October 2022 at 07:32
https://thepostmillennial.com/virginia-democrat-launches-bill-to-prosecute-parents-who-do-not-affirm-childrens-gender-identity
The Democrat Party has been overrun by pedophile perverts sexualizing infants and children.
This is the hill that the D Party will die on.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/10/15/critical-race-theory-touted-in-biden-administration-national-security-strategy/
The Democrat Party has also been overrun by RACISTS.
16. October 2022 at 07:59
“The massive crime wave emerged during the Trump administration. ”
OK, yes, the murder and rioting part of it did. 🙂 The organized ransacking of retail establishments and shipping – the new form of criminal employment – seems like it emerged later (ransacking shipping has been going on at lower level for a long time in LA). This emerged primarily in response to defund the police.
The ready availability of lodgings on sidewalks and freeway interchanges seems a likely reason at least some people can avoid the regular labor market. Why struggle with a job and rent payments when you can make enough dope money doing smash-n-grab and live free under a pallet and some tarps?
Where did all the homeless people come from Scott? Why weren’t they there 30 years ago?
16. October 2022 at 08:40
Scott, I wonder if you would comment on the Russell Napier article Tyler Cowen featured on his blog yesterday? If I understand correctly, Napier thinks the high debt-to-GDP ratios are leading governments to deflate the debt and to undermine the central banks’ ability to offset fiscal spending. Is he right?
Link here:
https://themarket.ch/interview/russell-napier-the-world-will-experience-a-capex-boom-ld.7606
16. October 2022 at 08:41
https://i.imgur.com/8UD75Js.png
DOJ continues to fight the appointment of a special master. They really, really, really do not want anyone, including Trump’s attorneys, to see what DOJ claims are classified documents. Now they want the appointment of a special master overturned.
In its newest filing, DOJ admits they have misled the court and media about the number of records stolen from Trump. This should make bombshell headlines, but of course, it’s not.
16. October 2022 at 08:45
Leave it to the lying radical left media to blame the insurgency left wing Antifa and BLM violence during Trump admin as Trump’s fault.
The Democrat Party is the party of crime.
Even Jen ‘circle back’ Psaki said that crime is a huge vulnerability for the Democrats going into the midterms.
16. October 2022 at 08:49
“It turns out that watching Tucker Carlson is bad for your health . . . .” But correlation is not causation.
16. October 2022 at 08:53
David, I hope not. Time will tell.
Philo, Did you even read it? They test for causality.
16. October 2022 at 10:24
The vaccines are bad for your health. They not only do not stop infection of covid-19, they not only do not stop the transmission of covid-19, they are themselves causing health problems, myocarditis, blood clots, and all around the world there is a sudden increase in cancer for people under 50.
VAERS database has MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of adverse effects, and that site only reports around 5% of all instances.
Turns out watching and trusting radical left controlled media is bad for your health.
————-
https://www.scribd.com/document/600723760/Eugene-Yu-Complaint-101322
Here is the court filing against Eugene Yu, CEO of Konnech.
THIS IS CCP INFILTRATION OF US ELECTION SYSTEMS.
Site owner = SILENT.
Why?
16. October 2022 at 10:27
“Woke” hospitals are chemically castrating and mutilating CHILDREN.
https://dailycaller.com/2022/10/13/child-transgender-agenda-uncovered-medical-establishment-childrens-hospitals-cover/
Site owner = SILENT.
Why?
16. October 2022 at 14:07
This proves it: You are a better aggregator of interesting links than Tyler
16. October 2022 at 16:06
on pt 6, 1 corinthians 15 55
16. October 2022 at 17:52
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/15/business/economy/rent-tenant-activism.html
Well, maybe this is just another NYT headline. To be ignored.
But for decades the de facto policy goals in the US have been to obtain tighter housing markets and looser labor markets. Not a recipe for success.
Now, tenants stop paying the rent? Or widening rent controls?
In theory, rent control is a bad idea. On the other hand, if higher rents do not (or even cannot) engender more supply….
Kevin Erdmann says property owners in supply-constrained cities extract all income gains from tenants.
Of course, the real solution is an end to all property zoning.
But, there are no progressives or libertarians when neighborhood property zoning is under review….
16. October 2022 at 18:09
https://technofog.substack.com/p/igor-danchenko-trial-revelations
Turns out the entire purpose of the Mueller Investigation was to ITSELF BE AN IMPLEMENTATION OF OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE.
LOL
16. October 2022 at 18:20
Mr. Smart, You said: “In theory, rent control is a bad idea.”
Also, in practice.
16. October 2022 at 18:31
https://www.truethevote.org/true-the-vote-responds-to-open-letter-of-arizona-attorney-generals-office/
AZ AG office is leaking and trying to foment a narrative to counter its own failings.
When True the Vote put out the most successful conservative documentary in history showing *videos* of dropbox ballot stuffing by mules in AZ, he didn’t go after the mules, he went after True the Vote!
We are dealing with true evil at all levels of our government.
Psychological projections accusing others of what they themselves are doing.
Dialectic Faith operating system.
16. October 2022 at 19:09
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109181362098769081
LOL
16. October 2022 at 19:44
https://truthsocial.com/@harmeet/posts/109181512583516534
They lied about the efficacy of the vaccines.
17. October 2022 at 00:56
Sure, rent control is a bad idea.
The US should get rid of rent control totally…about 10 years after it eliminates all property zoning (and other unreasonable restrictions on new supply).
17. October 2022 at 03:51
Labels are often unreliable guides to content. Liz Truss’s growth plan did not necessarily promote growth. The beliefs of American Christians often bear little relation to the beliefs of Jesus or the bible.
17. October 2022 at 04:49
https://justthenews.com/accountability/whistleblowers/fbi-whistleblower-says-bureau-using-excessive-tactics-ensure-process
DC gulag
17. October 2022 at 05:14
What the site owner projects and ‘sees’ wrong in Trump, the majority of the country sees in Biden and the Democrats.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/boomerang-public-turned-biden-admin-targeting-political-opponents-polling
17. October 2022 at 07:18
Mr. Smart, Get rid of it right now.
Foosion, She had some good supply-side ideas, it’s her fiscal policy that was a disaster.
17. October 2022 at 07:38
https://justthenews.com/nation/crime/child-sex-crime-epidemic-k-12-one-arrest-day-so-far-year-report
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/government-corruption/report-finds-un-employs-3300-pedophiles-responsible-60000-rapes-worldwide
If you want more of the latter as occurring in the former, vote Democrat this November.
17. October 2022 at 08:09
Scott, out of curiosity, what were her good supply-side ideas?
17. October 2022 at 08:35
Durham trial has revealed the FBI framed Trump for Russia collusion that Hillary Clinton and her coconspirators actually engaged in (Igor Danchenko is a Russian National).
https://thegreggjarrett.com/in-danchenko-trial-durham-exposes-how-corrupt-fbi-framed-trump/
17. October 2022 at 08:47
I read Schneider’s tweet on the sanctions last week and was stunned to learn about the effect of what we are doing. It’s hard to come to any conclusion other than that it’s an act of economic warfare. And yet the President is doing it without any check by Congress, the WTO or any institution.
17. October 2022 at 09:02
@Carl:
Heck yes it’s an act of economic warfare, in response to many acts of actual warfare warfare.
17. October 2022 at 09:33
Interestingly, shortly after the Hudson Bay Company lost their land, the British military commanders figured it was just a matter of time until Canada became part of the US. Should have taken the larger payout!
17. October 2022 at 09:40
I remember Sumner writing here last year that people who get vaccinated can’t die from Covid. That didn’t work out so well. He also way underestimated the shots. Two studies from the U.K. and Germany have shown mRNA vaccines have hospitalized and/or killed 1 in 500 and 1 in 2,000.
Norway discourages people under 65 from taking a booster and forbids those under 50 taking a booster unless the person can show a high risk from dying of Covid. Denmark also forbids those under 50 from getting a booster with the same exception.
17. October 2022 at 10:23
foosion, You really ought to look at the plan. There are lots of good proposals in very important areas:
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/09/the-truss-economic-plan.html
Carl, I agree.
And I see more shameless lies from Todd. How do you sleep at night, after lying day after day after day about what I said. You are a disgrace to the human race.
Find where I said no one vaccinated can die from Covid, or I’ll ban you tomorrow. The clock is running. Good luck.
17. October 2022 at 10:33
@msgkings
Which acts of actual warfare warfare by China against the US are you referring to?
17. October 2022 at 13:24
Wow – Scott goes off the rails! I’m not going to search all of your posts from last year. Where have I ever lied? You’ll ban me because you can’t admit where you are wrong.
17. October 2022 at 13:27
Oh, you might have said it is very unlikely to die from Covid after being but that was still way off.
For liars, look at the CDC and Fauci.
17. October 2022 at 13:36
Todd, OK, then give me a formal apology for lying about my views on Covid vaccines. You know damn well I’d never say there was zero risk. If you apologize, I won’t ban you.
17. October 2022 at 13:44
That post was a long time ago was clear that you either thought the risk was essentially zero or very low but that hasn’t happened at all. I certainly didn’t lie nor lie “day after day” and should have hedged with “very low or essentially zero.” That was around the time the CDC announced vaccines would prevent the spread of Covid, which they then said wasn’t the case.” I’d add: “at all”.
17. October 2022 at 13:51
Not good enough. Nothing I said about vaccines was inaccurate. The death rate for vaccinated is an order of magnitude lower than for the unvaccinated of the same age group.
Find something I said that was inaccurate.
17. October 2022 at 13:59
“The death rate for vaccinated is an order of magnitude lower than for the unvaccinated of the same age group.”
That is not what you said on the post I’m referring to.
17. October 2022 at 14:14
Todd K:
There is no historical post I could locate that says site owner literally wrote “if you get vaccinated you can’t die of covid”.
Having said that I could not locate any post of mine where I wrote anything about ‘Qanon’, but that didn’t stop the site owner from doing what you did, false attribution of ‘Qanon follower’ to me. I see that kind of inconsistency a lot so I’m used to it now.
More importantly though, what I couldn’t locate is any acknowledgment of understanding the truth of the RISKS of taking the vaccines. There are zero posts encouraging people to think for themselves and make as informed a decision as possible based on their research, including if applicable with their doctor, on whether the vaccine makes sense for their particular situation. I see zero favorable citations of any source questioning the vaccines.
Every post is predicated on a logic of (paraphrased)
“More vaccines will lead to fewer deaths, all else equal, if you dissent from that narrative, if you do not take the vaccine, and/or if you actively seek to reduce their implementations in the public, you are causing more people to die whether you know it or not.”
I think that is a fair and accurate summary based on my reviews.
Site owner was definitely part of the shaming people group, as I did locate a TON of posts that contain smears of ‘anti-vaxxers’, and a number of posts reporting (and trusting) statistics purporting to show that there are more deaths from covid the less there are vaccinations.
The general stance is you must either be pro vax or else you are whether you know it or not effectively causing more human deaths. Pretty much the fear porn playbook of the radical left psychopath media.
Now that we know the vaccines are literally KILLING HEALTHY PEOPLE, and as Pfizer recently admitted, they never even tested them for ability to stop transmission, all the while the people were intimidated, coerced, lied to, and shamed into taking them, I think we can make some additional honest informed conclusions.
Now that we know the truth that the vaccines neither stop infection nor prevent transmission, meaning if you’re vaccinated you stand no better chance of NOT contracting or infecting others with covid, the way I HONESTLY interpret all of the site owner’s posts on covid and the vaccines, is similar to how the site owner wrote about the political opposition to the Democrats and anti-vaxxers as responsible for human deaths.
Since we know now the vaccines do not stop covid, AND since we also now know the vaccines positively harm and kill a concerningly large ‘abnormal’ number of people, the site owner is by his own communicated logic in how the political opposition to the Democrats were smeared as responsible for human deaths, the narrative the site owner pushed has caused human deaths, whether he knows it or not whether he wants to admit it or not.
I would not go so far as to use wording like ‘disgrace to the human race’, but I will correctly point out that anyone who took the site owner’s advise, they were not only never protected from covid, they also either died from the vaccine, or have health problems because of the vaccine, or have not yet felt any symptoms, or don’t have any but caught covid anyway.
Whatever the outcome, trusting the site owner’s writings INCREASES your risk of health problems and death.
17. October 2022 at 14:17
“The death rate for vaccinated is an order of magnitude lower than for the unvaccinated of the same age group.”
This is incorrect. The death rate for vaccinated is multiple magnitudes higher than unvaccinated for all age groups, because the vaccines do not stop covid and they themselves cause deaths.
The data you’re relying on is corrupt.
17. October 2022 at 15:03
Scott, if whatever is left of the UK proposals were really that good, I would have expected the UK markets to be happier than they are, even given that it’s hard to draw firm conclusions from short-term movements that may well be the results of other factors (such as hangover from the initial market reaction to the now-reversed policies).
17. October 2022 at 15:34
foosion,
Yes, I don’t think the recent market reactions to the Truss policies had much to do with concerns over fiscal sustainability. I suspect they had more to do with expected widening of the current account deficit due to the need to import more energy given the announcement about energy subsidies. Truss backed off the energy subsidy promise some, but I doubt markets find her very credible.
17. October 2022 at 16:30
“I was shocked, as at the time one of my cousins was married to a black guy, as was a second cousin. Another cousin was married to a guy from India. My sister was married to a Hispanic. It was at that point that I realized I’d grown up in a liberal bubble (Madison, WI.) When I got married in 1994, most Americans opposed my marriage.”
There were lots of anti-miscegnation laws that prohibited marriages between whites & blacks, understandably because the latter were the largest racial minority in proximity to whites. There were not as many applied to Hispanics, partly because Hispanic is an ethnicity rather than a race and thus their racial categorization has long been more ambiguous. You may have come across rather sarcastic pieces like Eugene Volokh’s “How the Asians Became White” mocking the media for lumping them in with whites, but that different treatment does reflect real differences in the histories & experiences of different groups. The western states which more often prohibited interracial marriages with Asians also tended to repeal such laws earlier than the southeastern states that were most likely to prohibit marriages with blacks (the most Asian state, Hawaii, never had such laws). So one can’t be sure that a majority of people would have been opposed to your specific marriage, though that also could have been possible.
17. October 2022 at 18:17
“There is no historical post I could locate that says site owner literally wrote “if you get vaccinated you can’t die of covid”.”
I corrected that as he clearly said it was either a zero or very very low chance. How am I supposed to remember an exact quote from around 18 months ago? Also, what Scott said was likely in the comments as a response to me.
In ScottWorld, I have said lie after lie even though he can’t name one, and I am a “disgrace to the human race” – you know like he calls Hitler and Trump.
Scott said he thought economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabbarock great sources of information on Covid where they were at best at 10% and 20%.
17. October 2022 at 18:48
Even for Mr Smart, China is a topic too large to understand. What to do? Cite your favorite pundit….
But….
Blinken Says China Wants to Seize Taiwan on ‘Much Faster Timeline’—-Bloomberg
Xi’s Fiery Taiwan Rhetoric Raises Risk of War in His Third Term
—Yahoo News
—30—
Xi could end up making Putin look like Peter Pan.
I do not favor bellicosity…but decoupling the US economy from mainland China might be on the table….
17. October 2022 at 18:50
@Carl:
I must have completely misread that, I thought you were talking about Russia, not China. My bad.
@Todd: see above that’s how you apologize. Now you can tell another blog how the whole world becomes a technoutopia in 15 years. You won’t be missed.
17. October 2022 at 19:27
Apologize for what? Because Scott once again went into temper tantrum mode and writing: And I see more shameless lies from Todd. How do you sleep at night, after lying day after day after day about what I said.”
As for techno-utopia in 15 years, take it up with geneticist George Church at Harvard who told 60 Minutes in 2019 that he expects age reversal around 2030 based on how the trial of dogs is going.
That is 7 years, not 15.
17. October 2022 at 20:48
@msgkings
No problem.
17. October 2022 at 23:13
Xi Jinping lays out vision of fortress China against tense rivalry with the U.S.
POLITICO
Xi Jinping expected to affirm grip on power at China’s Community Party Congress
CBS News
Panic as Russia Drags Another Neighbor to the Brink of War
The Daily Beast
Ukraine looks anxiously towards its northern border, and a fresh influx of Russian troops into Belarus
CNN
—30—
Putin and Xi appear to be best pals. Peas in a pod?
US macroeconomists advocate “free trade.” But is sending huge sums of money to these two dictatorships really advisable?
Surely a discussion of a sustained, calculated decoupling of economies is worthy.
18. October 2022 at 04:23
White House (via press sec) was asked when and how the “Inflation Reduction Act” will actually lower inflation.
WH STUMPED AND COULD NOT ANSWER.
https://justthenews.com/nation/economy/when-will-inflation-reduction-act-start-reducing-inflation-dont-hold-your-breath
Of this were the Trump WH, site owner would be all over this throwing a ‘temper tantrum’ at how stupid and destructive the Trump admin is, calling for impeachment etc etc.
But when it’s Democrats in charge?
Crickets.
Shameful.
18. October 2022 at 04:28
This is totally not concerning or dangerous or stupid or evil at all.
Boston University announces they ‘DEVELOPED’ a covid strain with a 80% lethality rate, dubbing it Omicron-S.
FUNDED BY THE NIH.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/health/boston-university-says-its-developed-deadlier-covid-strain
18. October 2022 at 04:58
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/17/chinese-hackers-are-scanning-state-political-party-headquarters-fbi-says/
All of a sudden WaPo and the FBI care about Chinese government hackers threatening our elections.
Konnech was giving ‘super administrator’ access privilege’s to the Chinese contractors in China they were deliberately hiding from their US and Australian and Canadian EMS clients.
These contractors in China were literally writing the code for Konnech’s EMS platforms and apps such as Poll Chief and Field Force Manager.
That kind of access means the code writers can literally do whatever they want. Any digital information passing over such EMS systems can be stolen, altered, or as we now know, downloaded to China (CCP claims ownership over ALL data that flows in/out of China).
HOW do we know Konnech drew the line at only stealing and storing US pollworker’s PII in China?
What would have prevented them from stealing or altering voter registration information, voter rolls, ballot images, drop box locations, or anything else that was transmitted over these compromised platforms and apps?
Where is the site owner talking about any of this?
Why the total and complete silence on China’s election interference into US election SYSTEMS?
Is Trump stupid and evil, or…
18. October 2022 at 05:07
https://slaynews.com/news/charity-giving-hurricane-ian-donations-democrat-candidates/
Democrat Party = Party of CRIME
18. October 2022 at 06:29
The real President Trump is right now retruthing caught on camera BALLOT BOX STUFFING mules.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump
Twitter and Fakebook would have censored this.
This is why TruthSocial was created.
CCP hacked our 2020 election, and MULES CAUGHT ON CAMERA.
Awake yet?
18. October 2022 at 07:46
Scott, if you haven’t read up on the original MMR vaccine scare, you really should. Not because it’s related to covid vaccine hysteria, it’s apparently not, but just for sheer storytelling. The background of what was happening and how the lies about MMR were spread is absolutely amazing, in a morbid, terrible way. Brian Deer, a British journalist who uncovered most of the details, has written a lot about his findings. Highly recommended.
18. October 2022 at 08:06
“Covid vaccine hysteria” 🤦♂️
https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/826327/fmed-09-826327-HTML/image_m/fmed-09-826327-t001.jpg
Note: Only 2-5% of all adverse events are reported to VAERS, so multiply these numbers by 20-50 times to get the full total estimates.
Oblivious brainwashed msm NPCs.
18. October 2022 at 08:11
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/exclusive-andrew-weissmann-part-viii-weissmann-mueller-gang-accidentally-wiped-31-phones-clean-doj-ig-requested-phones/
“Accidentally wiped” = knowing OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE.
18. October 2022 at 08:12
foosion, You said:
“Scott, if whatever is left of the UK proposals were really that good, I would have expected the UK markets to be happier than they are,”
Please don’t mix up the utility of the ideas with the probability of their being implemented.
Todd, You said:
“I corrected that as he clearly said it was either a zero or very very low chance.”
Nope. Never said that. I merely described the truth–vaccines greatly reduce risk of dying of Covid. Do you have a problem with truth?
I knew you would refuse to apologize, even after being caught in a bald-faced lie. It’s your character.
Thanks Andrew.
18. October 2022 at 08:57
“Vaccines greatly reduce the risk of dying from covid”
That’s false. The vaccines neither stop infection nor transmission of covid-19. And, they are positively killing people. This is already open source information. Why do you hate the truth?
————–
Did you know the CCP had source code control over election systems used during the 2020 election? Of course, because I posted about this.
https://kanekoa.substack.com/p/konnechs-shocking-back-door-access
Still silence. Why do you hate the truth?
18. October 2022 at 09:16
@Scott and Everyone I guess:
Would love to see commentary/ feedback on the following article:
https://www.commonsense.news/p/scheduled-to-die-the-rise-of-canadas
This seems to be a far cry from the Euthanasia people typically think of…
18. October 2022 at 09:25
Tom, I saw that, but I’d like to see a more objective look at the policy. In general, I’m a big fan of right-to-die laws.
18. October 2022 at 09:36
I am as well, but something about a lot of these examples seems unethical/off to me.
I think it’s got to do w/ the fact that many of these people struggling with mental health disorders can essentially choose at will the option to die, and now they want to extend that to include minors.
There is a HUGE difference to me between end-of-life type right to die laws and the government essentially facilitating eugenics type policies (and touting that it will save them money).
18. October 2022 at 09:49
You may be right, but I have a general policy of not forming an opinion without reading some more objective articles on the subject. Not sure I trust that one.
18. October 2022 at 10:11
I would trust Bari Weiss over almost any main stream outlet at this point… She is a journalist, not an entertainer, and she got crushed for it.
Also, the article is just pointing to things that have actually happened – there is not a lot of conjecture here. That’s why I enjoyed it.
18. October 2022 at 10:18
Oct 3:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/technology/konnech-election-conspiracy-theories.html
Oct 4:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/04/technology/election-software-arrested.html
The CCP infiltrated our elections systems.
Site owner = silent. Why?
Some people have a general policy of forming prejudicial opinions informed by trusting proven liars at radical left controlled legacy media sources who cover up criminal activity and push lie after lie, and then calling that the definition of being ‘objective’.
Which is by the way a strange word to favorably use in a sentence for any believer of Rorty’s irrational garbage, lol.
18. October 2022 at 10:29
Tom, I found this article to be a bit more useful, although I still don’t know enough to have an informed opinion:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/18/world/canada/medically-assisted-death.html
18. October 2022 at 10:38
https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/forgiving-student-loans-bidens-family-got-interest-free-forgivable
Biden’s family got ‘interest-free,’ ‘forgivable’ loan from China, new evidence reveals.
Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski told the FBI that some of work that Hunter Biden did for China was left “intentionally uncompensated” until Joe Biden left office and millions started flowing in 2017.
Remember kids, they impeached Trump for merely ASKING about reports circulating of the Biden family’s dealings in the Ukraine, in a telephone call with President Zelensky (and then shamelessly lying about what was said in Congress).
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/25/trump-ukraine-phone-call-transcript-text-pdf-1510770
18. October 2022 at 11:30
Prosecutor: US voting leak to Chinese workers “PROBABLY THE LARGEST DATA BREACH IN US HISTORY”
https://justthenews.com/government/security/prosecutor-says-us-voting-leak-chinese-workers-probably-largest-data-breach-us
18. October 2022 at 12:35
George:
When you hit 29 comments without a response you might want to revisit your posting strategy. Maybe posting a link to every random web page you’ve visited in the last three days is sub-optimal.
18. October 2022 at 15:22
Carl,
I interpret the lack of ‘likes’ not as a flaw in anything I am posting or in my approach.
I am just ahead of the curve relative to you and most others here who rely on fake news msm for your source information.
The information I am posting I can appreciate are ‘uncomfortable truths’ for the posters here who trust the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.
The CCP infiltration of our elections systems is a truth that, far from being impacted by how many ‘likes’ it gets here, in fact reveals the character of those who do read it but dare not respond out of FEAR.
19. October 2022 at 01:47
Scott,
Re: vaccinations, political affiliation and mortality. This is the same flawed argument you keep posting.
No one disagrees that a) vaccinations reduce mortality and b) that Republicans are less likely to be vaccinated.
What this and every other article you have cited in the past fail to show is any causality between political affiliation and vaccination rates.
More Republicans live in rural areas, and people in rural areas are less likely to get vaccinations regardless of political affiliation. One could just as easily claim that tractor ownership causes increased mortality from Covid.
19. October 2022 at 06:51
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/arizona-mails-thousand-incorrect-ballots-hobbs-election-security-defender
Computer ‘glitches’ lol, always the excuse of the corrupt.
19. October 2022 at 08:00
Carl, George is just getting warmed up. He’s preparing his explanations for the Durham witch hunt going down in flames.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/18/us/politics/igor-danchenko-russia-acquittal-trump.html?smid=tw-share
dtoh, You said:
“What this and every other article you have cited in the past fail to show is any causality between political affiliation and vaccination rates.”
You ought to actually read the article before saying that, as they did test for causality.
19. October 2022 at 09:00
“Durham witch hunt”
LOL, Hillary Clinton’s campaign advisor, Robby Mook, already admitted in court she personally approved sharing the Russia collusion narrative against Trump in fall 2016 even though her campaign wasn’t sure it was true.
The indictments against Danchenko I always knew were small potatoes. All 4 indictments are about his testimony to the FBI of whether he did or not speak with Sergei Millian on 4 separate dates. Durham wasn’t really putting Danchenko on trial, he was putting the FBI on trial. And he found information that the FBI refused to disclose under Congressional subpoena, you know, those things where Democrats want people to go to prison if they don’t cooperate with their subpoenas?
Here is what came out of the trial:
The FBI offered Christopher Steele a whopping $1 million if he could prove the sensational allegations in his dossier, but he didn’t, FBI witnesses testified.
The FBI included allegations from the Steele dossier in its FISA application to spy on the Trump campaign even though it hadn’t verified a single element of the dossier, an FBI analyst testified.
Danchenko was hired as a confidential human source and recommended for hundreds of thousands of dollars even though the FBI had concerns he was tied to Russian intelligence and had lied to the bureau.
A Clinton-friendly PR executive, Charles Dolan, testified he lied to Danchenko, who then passed that lie on to Steele’s dossier and then lied about Dolan being a source of the allegation.
The FBI ignored the warnings of its own analyst that the allegations of collusion might be disinformation inserted by Russian intelligence.
These are stunning elevations that show the corruption to ‘get Trump’ by knowingly lying.
The jury probably believed they couldn’t single out and blame Danchenko for lying to the FBI about Millian when it was clear the FBI effectively wanted to be lied to in this regard as they paid Danchenko in order to hide him behind ‘sources and methods’, and kept him on their payroll.
Hard to convict a person for mistreating the FBI when the FBI is telling the jury he was on their payroll!
If you were on trial for lying to party X, and it was revealed in trial that party X was supportive of you lying to them to give them an excuse to then lie to the FISA court to spy on a political candidate opposition, I can tell you that it would be extremely challenging for me to vote guilty, because it would be hard for me to conclude party X was ‘harmed’ by your lie, given you were being paid by the FBI and protected.
I would also likely vote to acquit, but I would do so knowing that the corruption goes way deeper than what you did.
And that is what Durham proved.
I have believed since day 1 that Durham’s investigations are more about the court of public opinion, because why else focus exclusively on low level stooges like Sussman and Danchenko who hardly anybody even heard about? Why not put Comey or HRC on trial?
Because Durham is showing that the legal process itself is corrupted.
Step by step.
What Durham is doing is informing the world through the courts. If either Sussman or Danchenko were found guilty, the corruption at the FBI revealed would still be way more relevant to building cases against the senior staff. The jury foreman from the Sussman trial admitting to the public that she thought Sussman was guilty but voted to acquit anyway and her reason was ‘FBI has more important things to worry about’.
I don’t put much credibility in activist juries.
Tainted juries, liberal juries, or juries who can’t pin the blame on one guy Danchenko, far from ‘proving’ that Durham’s investigation ‘went down in flames’, is only part of the process of exposing the corruption DEEP within.
Just wait for when Durham tells congress that the AG blocked him from bringing charges to ‘higher’ conspirators.
19. October 2022 at 09:14
Gregg Jarrett explains it well:
https://thegreggjarrett.com/in-danchenko-trial-durham-exposes-how-corrupt-fbi-framed-trump/
19. October 2022 at 09:24
More from Jarrett:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/danchenko-acquitted-comey-fbi-guilty-perpetrating-russia-hoax
The Durham trial exposed TO THE PUBLIC corruption within the highest levels of the FBI. It was used as a WEAPON by the Democrats against their political opponent.
The trial proved Trump was FRAMED.
That is a conclusion that, if you were honest AND INFORMED, you would make.
Question is, can you now admit Trump was framed given the information REVEALED in the court trial that proves it?
Rather than gloat and enflame, you should do some soul searching and while it may be extremely hard to admit you were tricked, that is what in fact has happened. You were lied to.
Now just imagine the millions of people across the country who are now learning they were lied to by msm, lied to by the FBI!
The most IMPORTANT thing is for the people to be healed from the damage that op mockingbird attack on their psychology has wrought.
19. October 2022 at 10:21
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/obama-is-right-democrats-anti-trump-fixation-is-killing-them
Barack Obama: “We spend enormous amounts of time and energy and resources pointing out the latest crazy thing he said, or how rude or mean some of the Republican candidates behaved,” Obama said on a recent podcast. “That’s probably not something that, in the minds of most voters, overrides their basic interests: Can I pay the rent? What are gas prices? How am I dealing with child care?”
This is why the Democrats are going to lose both the House and Senate next month (again assuming their CAUGHT ON TAPE cheating can be sufficiently reduced, and assuming the FBI doesn’t engage in the same fascist policies targeting social media companies to contain the free flow of information, which they did 2020). The Democrats are so fixated on Trump that they lost the greater public.
It’s so bad now that even Obama is sounding the alarm.
The FBI recently tweeted out about asking the public to report election fraud.
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2022/10/17/fbi-tweet-encourages-citizens-to-report-election-shenanigans-and-then-it-gets-awkward/
They got what they asked for!
19. October 2022 at 11:03
Remember when the Democrats said requiring an ID to vote was ‘racist’?
Well, Washington, DC is now set to allow illegal aliens to vote in elections.
This was their plan all along.
19. October 2022 at 12:31
https://www.uncoverdc.com/2022/10/19/daniel-bobinski-interview-embalmer-says-blood-has-changed/
19. October 2022 at 14:56
Wow! You are really attracting the conspiracy folks. Covid vaccines do decrease risk, a lot. There is no study which shows higher rates of death if vaccinated. We arent seeing thousands of people dying from the vaccine. You must be advertising for these people Scott.
More importantly basketball season started. For now I am going with the Bucks out of the east, but only if Middleton comes back at full strength. Warriors probably take it all again but their last big year as they are getting old.
Steve
19. October 2022 at 15:01
Steve, I hope you are right. I’m a Bucks fan, but I expect the Celtics to come out of the East, and maybe win it all.
And yes, my comment section has been full of QAnon nuts in recent years.
19. October 2022 at 15:23
Celtics my second choice. Brogdon was big addition but I think Williams wont come back the same if at all.
Nice pretty comprehensive look at the effects of Covid on life expectancy.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01450-3
Steve
19. October 2022 at 18:38
“The honest way of competing with China would be to allow more Chinese engineers to immigrate here. Instead we shamefully try to sabotage their tech industry. What a disgrace.”
This is actually classic racism. Sumner clearly doesn’t believe black, white and hispanics are capable of being good engineers; hence the need to recruit millions of chinese engineers.
Our companies (white, black and hispanic owned) don’t get a fair shake in China. The CCP demands that they provide internal documents and intellectual secrets, and they also recruit and pay people within these foreign owned companies to report activity to the CCP.
There is no level playing field. That only exists in Sumner’s mind. It’s like permitting 2M engineers to come to the US during the cold war. When you are in a cold war, you don’t sabotage yourself. It’s not a disgrace at all. It’s called competition. And we are out to win the game, not to surrender.
19. October 2022 at 19:08
Why not Indian engineers?
Why not Mexican engineers?
Why not Nigerian engineers?
Why not Russian engineers?
Why is it only ethical to hire Chinese engineers?
And why do we need so many of them when we have perfectly good engineers in our country?
hmmm…..
Is it just me, or does Sumner always sound like a spokesman for the CCP. If there is one good thing about a 80B budget for the IRS, its that they’ll have time to investigate his money trail, and I suspect that might lead to something very interesting…
19. October 2022 at 19:18
Scott:
My apologies. I thought I could help but I appear to have sent George back into comment spasm.
19. October 2022 at 20:49
Scott,
“You ought to actually read the article before saying that, as they did test for causality.”
You know I read the articles and underlying studies carefully before commenting.
In this case, they tested for causality between lower vaccination rates for Republicans and higher excess mortality rates for Republicans. (Which IMHO is pretty obvious and doesn’t merit the effort of doing a study or posting on a blog.)
They did not test for causality between party affiliation and and vaccination rates.
19. October 2022 at 21:07
dtoh, They tested for causality on watching Fox News. Who do you think watches Fox News?
How many studies do you need to see?
19. October 2022 at 21:16
Steve, At least we’re doing better than Bulgaria!
20. October 2022 at 01:08
Scott,
“How many studies do you need to see?”
Just one that shows actual causality between party affiliation and vaccination rates. Conversely how many studies do I have to rebut before you stop posting these things?
I actually don’t care whether there is causality or not, but it drives me nuts to see a) “academicians” publish studies that don’t show what they purport to and instead merely restate obvious and trivial truths, b) the media misconstruing the conclusions of the studies, and c) your otherwise always excellent blog giving credence to the studies by mentioning them in your posts.
“Who do you think watches Fox News?”
I don’t know because I’ve actually never seen it (not a TV person.) The only thing I know about it is that progressives can’t seem to stop talking about it.
20. October 2022 at 01:16
Scott,
One more thing. I’m a serious NIMBY but otherwise quite conservative. I generally think that externalities are greatly exaggerated, but in the case of land use, I think the externalities can in fact have a very high cost.
But maybe this is a rationalization and I’m just being selfish?
20. October 2022 at 03:02
https://bidenlaptopreport.marcopolousa.org/
630 pages.
2,020 footnotes.
459 fully-documented crimes.
The Biden Laptop is the Rosetta Stone of political corruption.
Garrett Ziegler and his team use all the documents, emails, photographs, and text messages on Hunter’s Laptop to diligently detail the Biden Crime Family’s foreign collusion and money laundering operation with America’s greatest rivals.
The same fake news media that the site owner uses as source of truth, lied for 4 straight years that the laptop was ‘Russian Disinformation’, before finally admitting it is real.
They still have not apologized.
Site owner still uses the liars as source of truth.
20. October 2022 at 03:22
Carl,
What you call ‘comment spasm’ is actually a projection of your own experience of having spasms at seeing truths you don’t like, lol. And sorry to burst your conceited bubble but what drives my posts is me not you.
Steve,
The claim Covid vaccines (they’re not even vaccines, they’re mRNA experimental gene altering spike protein cocktails) “decrease risk, a lot” IS ITSELF THE CONSPIRACY THEORY. Just because you see ‘debunking’ from all angles from known liars it doesn’t mean that the opposite to that is the ‘conspiracy theory’. Those pushing conspiracy theories are those who still believe the falsehoods.
The ‘vaccines’ do no stop the infection or transmission of covid. This is already OPEN SOURCE information.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/6000-increase-reported-vaccine-deaths-1st-quarter-2021-compared-1st-quarter-2020/5741588
20. October 2022 at 03:38
https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/deceased-covid-19-vaccine-recipient-payments-and-funeral-costs-you-can-claim-through-covid-19
Australia becomes first major country in the world to admit the vaccines are killing people, and are now offering to pay the funeral costs!
20. October 2022 at 03:53
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/18/upshot/times-siena-poll-registered-voters-crosstabs.html
Narrative backfire: ‘Mainstream media’ most widely feared threat to democracy.
The poll found that of the registered voters who say democracy is under threat, more fear the “mainstream media” is a threat than Trump, Biden, Democrats, Republicans, the Supreme Court, the Electoral College, or voting by mail.
84% of these voters — which translates to roughly 60% of all registered voters — view the media as a threat to democracy.
This attitude toward the media is bipartisan, with 95% of Republicans, 83% of independents, and 70% of Democrats calling the press a threat. However, only 38% of Democrats deem the media a “major” threat, compared to 80% of Republicans and 53% of independents.
20. October 2022 at 08:40
dtoh, You said:
“But maybe this is a rationalization and I’m just being selfish?”
If you were homeless, you might feel differently about building more homes.
“I’m a serious NIMBY but otherwise quite conservative.”
Today, being conservative in Americas means being NIMBY, opposing immigration, opposing free trade, favoring more regulation of tech companies, etc. So I’m not sure what you mean here by “otherwise”.
“I don’t know because I’ve actually never seen it (not a TV person.)”
Really? You don’t know? What’s the point of debating someone who says they know nothing about what’s actually going on in America? (Which I don’t believe, I think you do know.)
20. October 2022 at 11:53
Carl. I think they might be getting paid to do this. Very persistent. At least this one is more creative than usual with the stuff he makes up although my favorite was when they were spreading the rumor that the vaccine would magnetize you. A lot of my ICU staff were walking around with spoons taped to their scrubs. It was funny but I had to be the bad guy to tell them to stop. Even the crazies fill out satisfaction forms.
Steve
20. October 2022 at 16:43
Steve, I do this for free, FYI.
I just don’t fall for your conspiracy theories about the proven harmful mRNA NON-vaccine experimental cocktails.
Just like I didn’t fall for the conspiracy theory that the Hunter laptop was “Russian disinformation”.
https://nypost.com/2022/10/19/its-been-two-years-since-51-intelligence-agents-interfered-with-an-election-they-still-wont-apologize/
They all knew, and they STILL haven’t apologized.
20. October 2022 at 17:09
Steve, Carl, you and all the other brainwashed sheep who believe yourselves all moral and righteous for parroting what evil liars tell you, are in part responsible for the deaths caused by the ‘vaccines’ that have already been proven to neither stop infection nor stop the transmission of Covid19.
Young people dropping dead of heart attacks spiking all over the country, myocarditis, over 1.4 MILLION reports on VAERS of adverse reactions, and that site only captures 1% of all cases.
You’re both wrong and no amount of projecting your own conspiracy theories onto me is going to change my mind. Only proven facts change my mind.
20. October 2022 at 18:54
Scott,
Property owners get a lot of utility from zoning laws through aesthetics, safety, etc. If not, why would existing property owners oppose zoning relaxation as they would otherwise benefit in the form of higher property prices.
Do you think we should transfer utility from existing property owners to the homeless?
Do you think the homeless actually receive any benefit from relaxation of zoning laws.
Are you confusing housing subsidies with zoning relaxation.
Are housing subsidies the best way to increase utility for the homeless?
Assuming people are rational, then it would seem that property developers gain the most from zoning relaxation as they are ones most favoring relaxed zoning relaxation.
I think you can make a pretty plausible argument that zoning ordinances help to insure efficient asset allocation in a manner that maximizes aggregate utility when fully accounting for externalities.
20. October 2022 at 19:06
Scott,
I’m also curious if you oppose all zoning regulations or just some. For example, should you neighbors be allowed to erect billboards that obscure your view and block sunlight received on your property? How about a 30 story building 6 inches from your property line? Pig farm? Landfill? OTV racetrack?
What should be allowed and who gets to decide?
21. October 2022 at 04:13
While Steve, Carl and site owner are trusting one conspiracy theory after another, russia collusion, impeachment hoax #1, impeachment hoax #2, Mueller blockade/obstruction of justice, Dossier hoax, Raid hoax, the ‘Russia hacked our elections’ hoax, the laptop is ‘Russian disinformation’ hoax, covid not manufactured hoax, vaccines not harmful hoax, etc, etc, etc, etc…
THE CCP HAS BEEN INFILTRATING OUR ELECTION SYSTEMS.
https://kagdrogo.substack.com/p/is-konnech-conducting-ccp-backed
21. October 2022 at 05:32
If it was Russia doing what the CCP is doing, then you can bet the fake news msm, the Democrat ‘elite’, AND THEREFORE ASLEEP NPCs like Carl, Steve and site owner, would be sounding the alarm and calling for government response to Russia, likely war.
But since it’s the CCP who is hacking our elections systems, you have to ask yourselves WHY is fake news MSM, and the Democrat ‘elite’, NOT sounding the alarm over the CCP hacking our elections systems (Konnech?)?
Why hasn’t the site owner made a single sentence comment about it?
Is it because the Democrat Party is a political EXTENSION of the CCP? The court filing/indictment indicates the CCP has SUPERADMINISTRATOR access to US elections systems.
Wouldn’t that make the Democrat Party, which is RELIANT upon on communist state powers to even exist (by cheating elections), a political extension of a foreign communist force?
The source code structure reveals the REAL INFORMATION OBJECTS level ‘Chain of Command’?
While radical left fake news MSM watching NPCs get dragged from one op mockingbird conspiracy theory to the next to keep them asleep and under control, believing they are ‘fighting the real enemy’ (the political opposition to communism) meanwhile the whole political structure of the Democrat Party is getting revealed as a foreign political entity operating on US soil.
21. October 2022 at 05:43
Off topic but I’d love to hear your theory as to why the Fed is seemingly softening it’s stance. 5y inflation back up to 2.7% negating all progress since the start of 2022.
It’s getting pretty late in the game to avoid the conclusion that central banks are captured by either politics or fiscal spending or asset prices.
21. October 2022 at 07:05
Steve:
I like the spoon story.
George:
You forgot to mention that I also fell for Edward Jenner’s cowpox vaccine hoax. And, out of curiosity, why would someone need to brainwash sheep. They’re sheep.
21. October 2022 at 08:15
https://truthsocial.com/@rumble/posts/109206388767402882
Starlink + Rumble = The cult cannot censor the full truth of what has been happening while fake news msm and big tech has been censoring it.
Grab your popcorn.
21. October 2022 at 11:22
Speaking of China…
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/10/20/china-could-invade-taiwan-end-year-us-warns/
21. October 2022 at 12:05
A comment from the chief of US Naval operations that the US Navy needs to be PREPARED for all scenarios, including conflict that idiots like Pelosi are fomenting by reckless behavior unbecoming of a CONGRESSPERSON who has no jurisdiction, is absolutely not more important than the CCP hacking our elections systems, or, what’s going to come out later on, a global child trafficking network ‘connecting’ many at the highest levels of governments worldwide (think Epstein Island where Bill Clinton flew to over 20 times, they raped and killed children underground below the temple, think the IG report on ‘Clinton Foundation crimes against children’, think ‘grooming’, think chemical castration and mutilation of children, that’s already coming out)
Speaking of CCP hacking our elections systems, why did CISA lie to the people of ‘most secure election in history’?
https://truthsocial.com/@realLizUSA/posts/109207762720191113
The snowball has grown into an avalanche and there is NOTHING the enemy of the people msm fake news can do to stop it from coming to light.
21. October 2022 at 12:17
https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/20221021%20J6%20Cmte%20Subpeona%20to%20Donald%20Trump.pdf
The January 6th committee is demanding Trump give them documents four days right before the mid terms.
It is no coincidence that they waited until the exact same day that Bannon was convicted for defying the committee to announce that Trump must comply with the Jan 6th committee.
This is a ploy to distract voters into thinking they should vote Democrat in an attempt to stave off the massive red wave coming their way.
No one cares about this sham Jan 6 unselect committee but corrupt politicians, fake news msm, and the few brainwashed dems left.
The people are not falling for this.
This is desperation, lol.
21. October 2022 at 12:54
1 in 780 CHILDREN UNDER 5 in Germany require HOSPITALIZATIONS following Pfizer’s mRNA gene altering injections (they’re not ‘vaccines’).
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2797451
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/new-study-1-780-german-children-5-requires-hospitalization-due-severe-adverse-event-following-pfizers-mrna-covid-shots/
Just like communism is a ‘cure’ for capitalism that is far worse than the disease, so too are the covid shots.
Children should never be injected with this, and thankfully there are Republican Governors who have publicly promised, DeSantis, and soon to be Governor Kari Lake, that they will NEVER mandate these shots for children.
21. October 2022 at 20:35
https://texasgop.org/ppvoterfraud/
Looks like Sumner’s marxist thugs are at it again.
This time the perp is planned parenthood, the racist antiliberal organization that is sending out ballots to dead people.
You’ve got to love it. It’s almost comical: that is, if it wasn’t a direct attack on our democracy.
22. October 2022 at 05:08
Sara,
D’s election interference 2016. (Clinton/Obama ILLEGAL FISA, media leak)
D’s election interference 2018. (Mueller)
D’s election interference 2020. (Impeachment)
PROJECTION. These people are sick.
The CCP infiltration of our election systems keeps going deeper:
https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/johnson-county-reports-konnech-allowed-third-party-access-to-election-worker-information
22. October 2022 at 05:10
This is how to approach the ‘woke’ left who are hunting children.
https://truthsocial.com/@PepeLivesMatter/posts/109208538444815852
22. October 2022 at 05:46
https://truthsocial.com/@TheStormHasArrived17/posts/109211886740612876
“We’re all familiar with the fact that the press has historically leaned to the left. That’s not what we’re looking at now. We’re looking at something very, very different. We’re looking at the press as being a part of the intelligence community. They are the ones who is putting these operations out there.” – Lee Smith
Those of you who still trust msm, it’s like you’re sitting in C I A headquarters plugged into a mind altering program.
22. October 2022 at 08:08
dtoh, With all due respect, you are not well informed on the zoning issue. I’d encourage you to read a book like Arbitrary Lines. It has absolutely nothing to do with externalities like pollution, billboards, etc. Yes, I oppose all residential zoning, as to many well informed urban economists on both the left and the right. If my neighbor wants to put up a 30-story condo, he should be allowed to do so.
You also seem to be mixing up externalities with “pecuniary externalities”. If I open a gas station next to another gas station, obviously I hurt their business. But that’s not an “externality” in the sense that economists use the term; it’s not a market failure.
Studies suggest that residential zoning is perhaps the biggest wealth destroying regulation in countries like the US and UK. Yes, some individual homeowners gain from zoning, but the net effect is massively negative, and it’s not even debatable.
BTW, zoning was first instituted to keep minorities out of white areas, and that’s still the hidden motive of many (not all) of its proponents.
Effem, I don’t have a good explanation–the Powell Fed seems unusually incompetent. Perhaps it’s nothing more than the lack of understanding of the need for strict rules to guide policy. Policy is too discretionary.
22. October 2022 at 10:28
Carl- Both sets of grandparents were farmers. Besides growing corn and soybeans one raised hogs, the other chickens and some dairy cattle. A neighbor next to the one raising chickens bought some sheep. Grandfather had a fit going on and on about how stupid sheep are and how he would never have any. I kept thinking we have chickens. Sheep must be really stupid if they are worse.
Steve
22. October 2022 at 18:05
Scott,
So you are saying that members of a community should not be allowed the right of self governance to enact ordinances restricting land use within the community.
How would you plan to implement that. Amendments to State Constitutions?
22. October 2022 at 19:12
https://truthsocial.com/@PepeDeluxe/posts/109213624955419139
Someone said in this thread (paraphrased) “Nobody disagrees that the vaccines “reduce risk”.
CDC Director TESTS POSITIVE FOR COVID.
R U AWAKE YET?
22. October 2022 at 19:31
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/katie-hobbs-arizona-elections/2022/10/19/id/1092607/
Katie Hobbs admitted Tuesday that her office sent out wrong ballots to voters who were incorrectly registered as “federal only” voters.
👉🏼 Federal only voters are not registered to vote in state elections, ie: governor.
So that’s Colorado, California & now Arizona that’s made the same “mistake”. Accidentally-On-Purpose is more like it.
23. October 2022 at 04:52
“There was hardly a word when she talked £160bn to cap energy bills, so why baulk at £45bn? What about furlough costs? . . .This amounted to FOURTEEN BILLION POUNDS PER MONTH! The mini-budget every three months!
A QUARTER OF A TRILLION POUNDS! Five times the mini-budget. “?
23. October 2022 at 05:22
Provocation?
“2:09 this report examines russia’s economic
2:11 political and military vulnerabilities
2:14 and anxieties
2:16 then analyzes potential policy options
2:18 to exploit them ideologically
2:21 economically geopolitically and
2:23 militarily including air space maritime
2:26 land and multi-domain options after
2:29 describing each measure this report
2:32 assesses the associated benefits costs
2:35 and risks as well as the likelihood that
2:37 the measure could be successfully
2:38 implemented would actually extend russia
2:42 most of these steps covered in this
2:44 report are in some sense escalatory and
2:47 most likely would prompt some russian
2:50 counter-escalation
2:54 uh so this is an open admission that all
2:56 of this is
2:57 to provoke
2:59 unnecessarily provoke russia
3:03 uh not to defend the united states from
3:06 any sort of perceived threat but to
3:08 deliberately and maliciously antagonize
3:11 another nation russia which is on the
3:13 other side of the atlantic and on the
3:16 other side of europe” ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqVPM0KSUpo&t=5s
23. October 2022 at 18:37
Scott,
I read Arbitrary Lines. Nothing new, and I disagree with 90% of the book. If you do a post on NIMBYism, I’ll respond in more detail.
I have some experience in this area having: served on the Board of a major publicly listed residential REIT, successfully sued one of the largest urban governments in the world to block development of a major residential project, successfully managed a $350 million dollar residential development project in the same city, consulted on two $10+ billion dollar greenfield urban development projects, read hundreds of pages of local zoning ordinances in great detail, attended planning commission meetings in small communities and major cities, and met many times with planning officials.
There’s lots of room for improvement in land use regulations, but suffice it to say most of the arguments advanced in “Arbitrary Lines” are illiberal, economically inefficient, wealth reducing, and just plain wrong…. which is not all surprising given that the author is a government planner.
24. October 2022 at 08:24
dtoh, You said:
“successfully sued one of the largest urban governments in the world to block development of a major residential project,”
Yes, it’s people like you that are making housing unaffordable for the next generation.
“it to say most of the arguments advanced in “Arbitrary Lines” are illiberal”
Zoning regulations limiting property rights are liberal? This is Orwellian use of language.
“If you do a post on NIMBYism”
I’ve already done a number of them.
“So you are saying that members of a community should not be allowed the right of self governance to enact ordinances restricting land use within the community.”
I’ve addressed this silly argument in previous posts on NIMBYism.
24. October 2022 at 17:17
Scott,
If keeping $5 million condos off the market makes housing unaffordable, then yes I made housing unaffordable.
Most zoning regulations reflect choices property owners have made freely and collectively. Prohibiting communities and neighborhoods from making free choices about what they will do with their property is hardly liberal.
And, as I noted the arguments about zoning and wealth/output are mostly fallacious.
26. October 2022 at 09:33
dtoh, I suppose you favor allowing local communities to ban interstate trade? That matches your ideology, and it protects their local businesses. How about banning free speech? Why should communities have to put up with protests they don’t want? There are “externalities”.
Your claim that telling someone else what they can do with their property is “freedom” is one of the most Orwellian statements that I’ve ever read.
“If keeping $5 million condos off the market makes housing unaffordable, then yes I made housing unaffordable.”
This is a silly argument that’s been refuted 100 times, if you’d bothered to read any of the relevant literature on the issue.
You remind me of those left wing protesters in Berkeley who insisted the best way to provide more housing to people is to ban the construction of new housing.
Here’s the bottom line. The best way to improve living standards is building more housing where people want to live. Full stop.
And BTW, most new houses should be unaffordable to the average person for the exact same reason that most new cars are unaffordable to the average person. That’s how society improves over time, we don’t stay living in log cabins forever.
26. October 2022 at 22:24
Scott,
I’m surprised you have this so backward. It’s not about protectingproperty rights, it’s about overturning market decisions which property owners have freely made, confiscating valuable assets and rights which property owners paid for and want to keep, and trying to create some dystopian modern version of the the 1920’s Soviet workers paradise where everyone lives in drab dehumanizing apartment blocks, toils dutifully and consumes minimal resources.
“The best way to improve living standards is building more housing where people want to live.”….
…..This is so wrong and so contrary to market principles. (Hat tip to Marie Antoinette.)
And why would you want to build more housing when the U.S. (because of tax policy) already way over invests in housing.
And BTW – the discussion about interstate commerce and protests is totally orthogonal to this discussion.
26. October 2022 at 22:34
Scott,
BTW – This discussion reminds of the scene in Dr. Zhivago, where Omar Sharif returns to Moscow and is protected by Alec Guinness from the apparatchik YIMBYs who have turned his home into a communal tenement.
29. October 2022 at 10:17
Yes, and freedom is slavery. Probably the most Orwellian set of comments I’ve ever read.
29. October 2022 at 17:30
Scott,
I feel the same way about your comments on this topic. It’s interesting how for certain things, we’re unable to objectively examine the conclusions (erroneous in your case) at which we have previously arrived.
Might be a sign of old age…. or maybe you’ve always been cantankerous. (For me it’s both.)
12. December 2022 at 07:12
I do not agree with point 2. People with 1 child are not doomed nor trend to have one child. And the opposite – people with 4 children – does have less than 4 grandkids. It is not hereditary.