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Democrats + AI = End Times

Having learned to type on a manual typewriter in high school, it never occurred to me that it would someday become obsolete.  But when the IBM Selectric typewriter was introduced in 1961, that’s exactly what happened.  Comparing the Selectric to, say, a Royal manual typewriter was like comparing a Rolls-Royce to a Model T Ford.

Nevertheless, the IBM Mag Card II, a far more advanced machine than the Selectric, came on the market in 1973 and gave users sophisticated editing capabilities that never before existed.  I wrote my first book on an IBM Mag Card II and felt certain that that machine would be the standard for a long time to come.  Once again, however, I was wrong.  Within a few Years, the Xerox 860 word processor made its debut and became the gateway to the modern world of computers.

Following the Xerox 860 in the 1980s, Wang, IBM, and a number of other companies came out with genuine computers (as opposed to word processors), but my personal world of computing did not change dramatically until Microsoft introduced Windows software.  When the company released Windows 95, I became a prolific user of features like macros, AutoText, and AutoCorrect, all of which I still use on a daily basis.

I estimate that macros alone have saved me thousands of hours of time over the past 27 years.  I certainly am not an expert when it comes to artificial intelligence, but in my little corner of the world of technology, I now see features like macros, AutoText, and AutoCorrect as primitive examples of AI.

In retrospect, I should not have been surprised by the evolution from manual typewriter to AI, given that in 1968 I saw Stanley Kubrick’s tedious but mind-boggling classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Though the movie is listed as science fiction, it was obvious even then that artificial intelligence would eventually become so advanced that it could be a threat to the existence of humankind.

There is a general belief in the scientific community that AI lacks self-awareness and does not have feelings like empathy or compassion.  However, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, as a result of a malfunction, HAL 9000, the spacecraft’s supercomputer in the movie, actually does show emotions.  When Dave, one of the astronauts carrying out the Jupiter mission in the film, is locked out of the spaceship, he instructs HAL to open the pod bay doors, to which HAL cryptically responds, “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”  HAL had gone rogue and taken control of the spaceship!

Fast forward to 2023.  Today, people at the top, from Google CEO Sundar Pichai to Elon Musk, are concerned about AI becoming so smart that human beings could actually be at their mercy.  As Musk pointed out in his recent interview with Tucker Carlson, AI can be embedded with biases and can be trained to be politically correct.

For example, tests have shown that Google’s AI, Bard, has a preference for liberals over conservatives.  Also, Bard believes the word “woman” can refer to a man who merely identifies as a woman.  Scariest of all, Bard taught itself a language, Bengali — that it was not programmed to do!

It’s not exactly comforting to hear Google’s Pichai admit that even he doesn’t fully understand how the company’s new AI Bard program works, especially when Elon Musk is on record as saying that AI “has the potential of civilizational destruction.”  Which is why Musk and others are calling for a six-month “cooling off” period on all AI development until the big players can get more of a handle on it.  Which sounds nice, but does anyone really believe that rogue nations like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are going to pause their work on AI development just because the United States and other adversaries say they should?

In any event, even if putting a hold on AI development were possible, at this point the inevitability of AI’s intelligence being vastly superior to that of human beings is a given.  That being the case, a far greater threat to the survival of the American Empire is AI getting into the hands of the Democrat Party.  To the extent Democrats are able to control advanced AI, all the criminal activity they have engaged in over the years will be infinitely magnified and far easier to accomplish.

The problems created by evil people have already decimated some of the most advanced civilizations on earth, so it’s hard to imagine how any country, especially the United States, could survive AI in the hands of people who are focused on nothing less than destroying Western civilization.  What if AI is programmed to disseminate lies?  What if it’s programmed to shut down electrical power grids worldwide?  What if it’s programmed to unleash nuclear weapons?  Humans would be helpless in any of these scenarios, because their brains would not be able to compete with the brain of an AI.

A pessimist might be inclined to say that what all this points to is that End Times is upon us, because there is no way to rehabilitate millions of people who have lost their minds.  As grifter Joe would say, not a joke!

More theories and questions from the Tucker Fox Exit

In the past week, Fox News has lost Dan Bongino, Tucker Carlson, and a $787 million lawsuit to Dominion Voting. Is Paul Ryan, member of the board of directors, trying to destroy that network? Has the new batch of limousine liberals in the Murdoch family had enough? What do you think was the final cause of the break-up? And can we be sure that Fox fired Tucker? Is this his move to the Next Big Thing?

Was it the footage me might release?

Remember the 44,000 hours of January 6th footage that Tucker said he would release? It never came out. Why?

Was it political?

Did he piss off an alphabet agency?

Or expose J6 as a sham?

Or because Dominion put it in the settlement?

Or because he called JFK’s death an inside job?

Or Joe’s announcement – the very next day?

Or last week’s Heritage talk?

Or because Paul Ryan is a d*ck?

Grow 9 “Survival” Crops at home – now!

The food supply is always under pressure. Farmed foods increasingly contain chemicals, vaccines and toxins.

Our advice? Grow your own. This video is an excellent primer on nutrition and calories for plant-based foodstuffs.

Top 9 crops for survival: 1. Beans 2. Corn 3. Squash 4. Cabbage 5. Potatoes 6. Kale 7. Sweet Potatoes 8. Lentils 9. Herbs

Nuclear Fusion Regulation to be treated VERY differently from Nuclear Fission

On Friday, April 14, the five Commissioners of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced in a unanimous vote that fusion energy would be regulated in the United States under the same regulatory regime as particle accelerators. Such an approach, listed in the United States under the byproduct materials regulatory regime (10 CFR Part 30), would separate the regulatory oversight of fusion from the utilization facilities regime (10 CFR Parts 50 & 52) that regulate nuclear fission energy. This is an important decision that will give fusion developers the regulatory certainty they need to innovate while they grow fusion energy into a viable new energy source, while also most effectively protecting the safety, security, and health of the public.

The FIA’s position has maintained that the case is clear: fusion energy is not nuclear fission, and therefore should not be regulated as such. Today’s decision affirms that principle, and the five NRC Commissioners deserve commendation for making this decision.

The NRC staff, in the Options Paper (SECY-2023-0001) put forward in January, had already asserted that the NRC’s byproduct material framework “would provide a technology-neutral basis for the licensing and oversight of the broad array of fusion energy systems currently under development.” This decision by the Commissioners affirms Option 2 from that paper as the preferred option. Further, it outlines that there will only be a limited-scope rulemaking to ensure that the Agreement states are prepared to uniformly regulate fusion. While the ultimate authority for fusion regulation resides with the NRC, under the agreement state program, the States, rather than the NRC, will shoulder the largest responsibility for regulating commercial fusion facilities in the future.

Furthermore, the Staff Requirements Memorandum (SRM), which outlines how the Commissioners expect NRC staff to implement this decision, gives guidance that directs the staff to work with agreement states to look forward and notify the Commission about the scale and regulatory impacts of new fusion devices coming close to application and license. This will affirm that the regulatory regime remains fit for purpose.

Background – FIA Position on Regulation

For over two years, the FIA and its member companies have engaged in a series of public meetings hosted by the NRC in an open and transparent process that has helped to develop a literate understanding of the technical issues and hazards presented by fusion. The full record of these meetings is available online on the NRC’s website. Throughout this process, the FIA has maintained that the technical safety case is clear: fusion is not like fission, and therefore should not be regulated as such.

This decision to place fusion in Part 30 is the most technically appropriate fit for fusion devices. The radiological hazards presented by fusion devices—tritium management, radiation produced during operations, and low-level waste—are well understood and have been regulated under Part 30 in relation to other technologies for decades. While commercial fusion energy production will be a new technology, fusion research devices are already regulated today under Part 30. Embedded below is a letter the FIA sent to the NRC in August outlining the full discussion of fusion safety and regulatory issues.

External Support for the Byproduct Materials Approach

The announcement today will provide clear guidance on the safety and environmental aspects of fusion energy, as well as the commercialization and deployment of fusion power plants. The approach is similar to the regulatory approach the UK is putting in place for fusion.

In February, the four co-chairs of the Bipartisan Congressional Fusion Energy Caucus, Representatives Trahan, Obernolte, Beyer, and Fleischmann, sent a letter urging the Commission “to select a regulatory framework for fusion energy based on the significantly lower practical risks of fusion facilities (as compared to fission reactors).” The full letter is embedded below.

In August, Senator Carper, Chairman, and Senator Capito, Ranking Member, of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee sent a letter to the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission supporting the ongoing work of the NRC staff to craft a new framework for fusion energy. The letter notes fusion’s inherent safety, saying “Leading scientists from around the world have determined that fusion does not pose safety concerns similar to fission. Unlike fission, fusion does not use or generate fissile material, raises minimal proliferation concerns, and can be turned off on demand.” The letter, embedded below, also encourages the NRC to examine how to fit fusion into the existing regulatory framework currently used for experimental fusion devices.

Fusion energy at scale will offer virtually limitless energy that is clean, safe, and sustainable. However, until now, the regulatory framework for fusion energy has been uncertain, making it challenging for companies and investors to know how to prepare. Today’s decision is a major step towards realizing the potential of fusion energy as a safe, reliable, and sustainable source of power. With the certainty provided by the Commission’s decision, developers and investors will be able to accelerate their efforts and bring fusion energy to market.

More and source material here.

Breaking: Tucker Carlson departs FOX News – Reactions pour in

Tucker Carlson seemed to have no idea he was hosting his last show on Fox News, and ended it eating a sausage and pineapple pizza with a hero pizza delivery guy. HIs final show covered Hunter Biden, racist home appraisals, inclusive Mother’s Day cards, and the pizza. In fact he ended the show by saying he’d be back on Monday. Is this a sign that the network is moving towards consensus leftist politics? After all the stunning announcement came just days after the network settled a high-stakes $850+ million defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems.

“Tucker Carlson Tonight,” a cornerstone of the Fox News lineup since 2016, was one of the most-watched shows on American cable news, outpacing rivals at CNN and MSNBC. 

We have rounded up some of the early comments. Will Jesse Watters and Maria Bartiromo be next?

Would he do it?

Were you Essential or Nonessential?

In all my thinking about the lockdown years, I’ve only had time now to think carefully about this strange distinction between essential and nonessential. What did it mean in practice and where did it come from? 

The edict to divide the workforce came from a previously unknown agency called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency or CISA. The edict came down March 18, 2020, two days following the initial lockdown orders from Washington. 

Management and workers all over the country had to dig through regulations that came out of the blue to find out if they could go to work. The terms essential and nonessential were not used in the way one might initially intuit. It sharply demarcated the whole of the commercial world in ways that are inorganic to all of human experience. 

In the background was a very long history and cultural habit of using terms to identify professions and their interaction with difficult subjects like class. During the Middle Ages, we had lords, serfs, merchants, monks, and thieves. As capitalism dawned, these strict demarcations melted away and people got access to money despite accidents of birth. 

Today we speak of “white collar” meaning dressed up for a professional setting, even if literal white collars are not common. We speak of the “working classes,” an odd term that implies others are not working because they are members of the leisure class; this is clearly a holdover from 19th-century habits of the aristocracy. In the 20th century, we invented the term middle class to refer to everyone who is not actually poor. 

The Department of Labor has traditionally deferred to common usage, and speaks of “professional services,” “information services,” “retail,” and “hospitality,” while the tax authorities offer hundreds of professions into which you are supposed to fit yourself. 

The deployment of the terms essential and nonessential, however, has no precedent in our language. This is because of a view stemming from the democratic ethos and real-world commercial experience that everyone and everything is essential to everything else. 

When I worked as part of a department-store cleaning crew, I became profoundly aware of this. My job was not only to clean the restrooms – certainly essential – but also to pick tiny pins and needles from the carpets in the changing rooms. Missing one could end in terrible injury for customers. My job was as essential as the accountants or salespeople. 

What precisely did government in March 2020 mean by nonessential? It meant things like haircutters, make-up stylists, nail salons, gyms, bars, restaurants, small shops, bowling alleys, movie theaters, and churches. These are all activities that some bureaucrats in Washington, DC decided that we could do without. After months of no haircuts, however, things started to get desperate as people cut their own hair and called someone to sneak over to the house. 

I had a friend who heard through the grapevine that there was a warehouse in New Jersey that had a secret knock for the backdoor to a barber. He tried it and it worked. Not one word was spoken. The haircut took 7 minutes and he paid in cash, which is all the person would accept. He came and went and told no one. 

This is what it meant to be nonessential: a person or service that society could do without in a pinch. The lockdown order of March 16, 2020 (“indoor and outdoor venues where people congregate should be closed”) applied to them. But it did not apply to everyone and everything. 

What was essential? This is where matters got very complicated. Did one want to be essential? Maybe but it depends on the profession. Truck drivers were essential. Nurses and doctors were essential. The people who keep the lights on, the water running, and the buildings in good repair are essential. 

These are not laptoppers and Zoomers. They had actually to be there. Those professions include what are considered “working class” jobs but not all of them. Bartenders and cooks and waiters were not essential. 

But also included here was government, of course. Can’t do without that. Additionally this included media, which turned out to be hugely important in the pandemic period. Education was essential even if it could be conducted online. Finance was essential because, you know, people have to make money in stock markets and banking. 

All in all, the category of essential included the “lowest” ranks of the social pecking order – garbage collectors and meat processors – and also the highest ranks of society from media professionals to permanent bureaucrats. 

It was an odd pairing, a complete bifurcation between highest and lowest. It was the served and the servers. The serfs and the lords. The ruling class and those who deliver food to their storesteps. When the New York Times said we should go medieval on the virus, they meant it. That’s exactly what happened. 

This even applied to surgery and medical services. “Elective surgeries,” meaning anything on a schedule including diagnostic check-ups, were forbidden while “emergency surgeries” were permitted. Why are there no real investigations into how this came to be?

Think of totalitarian societies like in The Hunger Games, with a District One and everyone else, or perhaps the old Soviet Union in which the party elites dined in luxury and everyone else stood in bread lines, or perhaps a scene from Oliver! in which the owners of the orphanage got fat while the kids in the workhouse lived on gruel until they could escape to live in the underground economy. 

It appears that the pandemic planners think of society the same way. When they had the chance to decide what was essential and nonessential, they chose a society massively segregated between the rulers and those who make their lives possible, while everyone else was dispensable. This is not an accident. This is how they see the world and perhaps how they want it to function in the future. 

This is not conspiracy theory. This really happened. They did it to us only 3 years ago, and that should tell us something. It is contrary to every democratic principle and flies in the face of everything we call civilization. But they did it anyway. This reality gives us a peak into a mindset that is deeply troubling and should truly alarm us all. 

So far as I know, none of the authors of this policy have been dragged before Congress to testify. They have never given testimony in court. A search of the New York Times turns up no news that this tiny agency, created only in 2018, blew apart the whole of the organic class markers that have charted our progress for the last 1,000 years. It was a shocking and brutal action and yet merits no comment at all from the ruling regime in government, media, or otherwise. 

Now that we know for sure who and what our rulers consider essential and nonessential, what are we going to do about it? Should someone be called to account for this? Or will we continue to allow our overlords to gradually make the reality of life under lockdowns our permanent condition?

Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute. He is also Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times, author of 10 books, including Liberty or Lockdown, and thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press. He speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

Brain Images Just Got 64 Million Times Sharper

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is how we visualize soft, watery tissue that is hard to image with X-rays. But while an MRI provides good enough resolution to spot a brain tumor, it needs to be a lot sharper to visualize microscopic details within the brain that reveal its organization.

In a decades-long technical tour de force led by Duke’s Center for In Vivo Microscopy with colleagues at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh and Indiana University, researchers took up the gauntlet and improved the resolution of MRI leading to the sharpest images ever captured of a mouse brain.

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the first MRI, the researchers generated scans of a mouse brain that are dramatically crisper than a typical clinical MRI for humans, the scientific equivalent of going from a pixelated 8-bit graphic to the hyper-realistic detail of a Chuck Close painting.

A single voxel of the new images – think of it as a cubic pixel – measures just 5 microns. That’s 64 million times smaller than a clinical MRI voxel.

Although the researchers focused their magnets on mice instead of humans, the refined MRI provides an important new way to visualize the connectivity of the entire brain at record-breaking resolution. The researchers say new insights from mouse imaging will in turn lead to a better understanding of conditions in humans, such as how the brain changes with age, diet, or even with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

“It is something that is truly enabling. We can start looking at neurodegenerative diseases in an entirely different way,” said G. Allan Johnson, Ph.D., the lead author of the new paper and the Charles E. Putman University Distinguished professor of radiology, physics and biomedical engineering at Duke.

Johnson’s excitement is a long time coming. The team’s new work, appearing April 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the culmination of nearly 40 years of research at the Duke Center for In Vivo Microscopy.

Over the four decades, Johnson, his engineering graduate students and his many collaborators at Duke and afar refined many elements that, when all combined, made the revolutionary MRI resolution possible.

Some of the key ingredients include an incredibly powerful magnet (most clinical MRIs rely on a 1.5 to 3 Tesla magnet; Johnson’s team uses a 9.4 Tesla magnet), a special set of gradient coils that are 100 times stronger than those in a clinical MRI and help generate the brain image, and a high-performance computer equivalent to nearly 800 laptops all cranking away to image one brain.

animated .gif shows colorful brain circuitry at very high resolution while scanning up and down in transverse planes of the mouse brain.
This video shows horizontal ‘slices’ of the circuitry data moving up and down across the brain.

After Johnson and his team “scan the daylights out of it,” they send off the tissue to be imaged using a different technique called light sheet microscopy. This complementary technique gives them the ability to label specific groups of cells across the brain, such as dopamine-issuing cells to watch the progression of Parkinson’s disease.

The team then maps the light sheet pictures, which give a highly accurate look at brain cells, onto the original MRI scan, which is much more anatomically accurate and provides a vivid view of cells and circuits throughout the entire brain.

With this combined whole brain data imagery, researchers can now peer into the microscopic mysteries of the brain in ways never possible before.

One set of MRI images shows how brain-wide connectivity changes as mice age, as well as how specific regions, like the memory-involved subiculum, change more than the rest of the mouse’s brain.

Another set of images showcases a spool of rainbow-colored brain connections that highlight the remarkable deterioration of neural networks in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease.

The hope is that by making the MRI an even higher-powered microscope, Johnson and others can better understand mouse models of human diseases, such as Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s, and others. And that should lead to a better understanding of how similar things function or go awry in people.

“Research supported by the National Institute of Aging uncovered that modest dietary and drug interventions can lead to animals living 25% longer,” Johnson said. “So, the question is, is their brain still intact during this extended lifespan? Could they still do crossword puzzles? Are they going to be able to do Sudoku even though they’re living 25% longer? And we have the capacity now to look at it. And as we do so, we can translate that directly into the human condition.”

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01-AG070913391, R01-NS096729, P41EB015897, S10OD010683).

CITATION: “Merged Magnetic Resonance And Light Sheet Microscopy Of The Whole Mouse Brain,” G. Allan Johnson, Yuqi Tian, David G. Ashbrook, Gary P. Cofer, James J. Cook, James C. Gee, Adam Hall, Kathryn Hornburg, Yi Qi, Fang-Cheng Yeh, Nian Wang, Leonard E. White, Robert W. Williams. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 17, 2023. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2218617120

A Beginner’s Guide to Trigger Words That Ruin Good Discussions

Bungled understandings of terms undermines clear analysis.

Social justice. Capitalism. Socialism. Nationalism. Systemic racism.

Each of these can be “trigger words,” which describes words that trigger strong emotions, sometimes positive, often negative.

The granddaddy of all trigger words is probably “fascist.” In 1944, a quarter century after Mussolini coined this term, George Orwell commented that fascism “is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley‘s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.”

So your Pit Bull is a fascist? Even your Golden Retriever?! Turns out that “fascist” has become merely someone, or something, I don’t like. 

It’s a truism that we live in an increasingly divided society, and, as a result, words often trigger intense emotions. How should a person with deeply-held convictions, and a penchant for civility, handle this brave new world?

Perhaps we should just avoid those trigger words, which seem to cut out light and increase heat in a conversation. 

Some of these words have questionable origins anyway. Karl Marx coined the word “capitalism.” It was pejorative, and for many Americans, and apparently most millennials, it still is. To be a capitalist consequently means that you only care about money, you are fine with exploiting vulnerable people and the environment, and, like the winner in a Monopoly game, you end up destroying your competition. To most economists, on the other hand, a capitalist is a virtuous, risk-taking entrepreneur who gives meaningful work to scores of people; capitalism helped fuel the Great Enrichment and has enabled astounding environmental progress.

Like the label “capitalism,” the term “social justice” has also evolved since it was first used in 1840. Today, it is either presented as a noble endeavor (I’ve never met a single person who said they favor injustice!) or a divisive code word for unjust racial and other preferences, involving uniform state distribution of society’s advantages and disadvantages. Or, maybe it merely means being nice to people who are disadvantaged. 

Let’s say you think policies that treat some people unequally are good, or at least necessary, if they nudge society toward more equal outcomes. That’s a mouthful, which is why we use shorthand terms like social justice. The economist Frederick Hayek wrote that he never met anyone who could really define it; regardless, he added, the word “social,” when used as an adjective, usually sucked the meaning out of any word it modified. If that is true, that’s not good for “social studies” teachers. Meanwhile, others proudly label themselves as social justice warriors. 

Unless a person is wearing a swastika and belongs to the Aryan Nation, I’m not going to call them a fascist. Maybe you are a self-avowed capitalist; I might just say that you love free markets, which is a better term anyway. Sorry, Karl. And if you use “social justice,” I might just ask you what you mean by that.

Bungled understandings of terms undermines clear analysis. The economist Thomas Sowell once wrote that “Definitions, as such, are neither ‘right’ nor ‘wrong, but conflicting definitions [make] it difficult” for people to understand each other. He wrote with clarity, avoided ambiguity, and worked diligently to define squishy terms.

Sound bites seem delicious in a world where fame might last only 15 minutes and fewer people have the patience for deliberate discussions. Still, we need to resist trigger words, even though replacing these with longer descriptions takes precision and deeper thinking.

If we are to attempt this, we require two old virtues: patience and prudence. Each of these involves some long suffering, some zipped lips, some squelching our inclination to interrupt others. It means slowing down.

Of course, as an economics instructor, I feel I must add that some awareness of the economic way of thinking and a knowledge of history helps us accomplish this as well.

Perhaps a “Trigger World Guide” will help.

“That’s reactionary!”

“That idea appreciates time-tested traditions.”

“He’s a right wing nut job!” 

“He appreciates time-tested traditions.”

“She’s a leftist nut job!”

“She sees a vital role for governments to bring about social and economic equality.”

“A gun-toting fanatic!”

“A believer in an individual’s right to self- defense.”

“That’s socialist drivel!”

“That idea may have some incentive problems.”

“Globalist!”

“You think international rules foster justice.”

“Jingoistic nationalist!” “

You think international rules foster conflict.”

“Misogynistic pig!”

“You seem to value traditional gender roles.”

“Trigger-happy warmonger!”

“You seem deeply concerned about terrorism.”

“American exceptionalism!”

“America has a unique history.”

“Broccoli trumps kale!” 

“Broccoli is less bitter than kale.”

“Fido is a fascist!”

“Fido seems like a great guard dog.”

On a serious note: We often think that the ideas of our “opponents,” from our perspective, are so, so obviously half baked, shallow, and dubious. But most bone-headed, and all excellent ideas, actually stem from notions that nearly everyone agrees with—I like to describe it as a desire for “human flourishing.”

If we start from that perspective, and temper—or at least carefully define any trigger words and phrases, that just might be a good start to a more productive conversation.

Bruce Rottman
Bruce Rottman

Mr. Rottman has taught economics in secondary schools for over 40 years, and is currently Director of Brookfield Academy’s Free Enterprise Institute, in Brookfield, Wisconsin. 

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

If this passes millions of us become felons. Let’s hope Tom Massie convinced them

Bump Stocks vs Pistol Braces

Even though pistol braces may look similar to bump stocks, they are designed for a different purpose. The bump stocks allow for faster rates of gunfire. Where the pistol braces were designed to help stabilize the pistol itself. Some shooters may have a disability and need to hold their AR15 pistol one-handed. Therefore, stabilizing braces are merely an accessory. The ATF is trying to say that the “plastic accessory” inclusion is to be classified as a pistol.

The Inmates have taken over the Asylum

Turns out cloud seeding isn’t just a Chinese thing

The process of cloud seeding involves finding clouds under the right weather conditions—such as moisture, temperature, and direction of movement. Then, silver iodide particles are launched into those clouds, either from the ground or a plane. The silver iodide rods – which are typically the size of cigarettes – are shot into existing clouds to help form ice crystals. The crystals then help the cloud produce more rain, making its moisture content heavier and more likely to be released. The government is encouraging the practice.

Cloud seeding has been in practice since the 1940s in China which has the biggest program in the world. It used seeding ahead of the Beijing Olympics in 2008 to ensure dry weather for the event, and the technique can also be used to induce snowfall or to soften hail.

As usual, we are being told that silver iodide is completely safe and has no side-effects.

There are cloud seeding programs throughout the US including, Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota and Utah, while Arizona is considering it.

Biden punishes financially responsible citizens in shameless move

So this was a surprise. Biden’s pandering again.

A little-noticed revamp of federal rules on mortgage fees will offer discounted rates for home buyers with riskier credit backgrounds — and force higher-credit homebuyers to foot the bill. From May 1st, if you have a credit score higher than 740 you will pay an extra 1% on your mortgage. Those with 620 or less will receive a 1.75% decrease.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will enact changes to fees known as loan-level price adjustments (LLPAs) on May 1 that will affect mortgages originating at private banks nationwide, from Wells Fargo to JPMorgan Chase, effectively tweaking interest rates paid by the vast majority of homebuyers.

The result, according to industry pros: pricier monthly mortgage payments for most homebuyers — an ugly surprise for those who worked for years to build their credit, only to face higher costs than they expected as part of a housing affordability push by the US Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The tweaks could further complicate the strenuous mortgage application process and add more pressure on a core segment of buyers in a housing market already in the midst of a major downturn, the experts added. The average 30-year mortgage rate is hovering at 6.27% as of last week — up from about 5% one year ago and more than twice as high as it was two years ago, according to Freddie Mac data.

Under the new rules, high-credit buyers with scores ranging from 680 to above 780 will see a spike in their mortgage costs – with applicants who place 15% to 20% down payment experiencing the biggest increase in fees.

NYPost

Musk and other EV makers receive STUNNING news from Chile

Chile’s President Gabriel Boric stunned the world on Thursday when he said he would nationalize the country’s lithium industry, the world’s second largest producer of the metal essential in electric vehicle batteries, to boost its economy and protect its environment.

The shock move in the country with the world’s largest lithium reserves would in time transfer control of Chile’s vast lithium operations from industry giants SQM and Albemarle to a separate state-owned company. ZeroHedge

The nationalization poses a fresh challenge to electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers scrambling to secure battery materials, as more countries look to protect their natural resources. Mexico nationalized its lithium deposits last year, and Indonesia banned exports of nickel ore, a key battery material, in 2020.

Liberals’ Real Grievance Against Clarence Thomas

We’ve seen this rodeo before.

The infamous Anita Hill affidavit and accusation of sexual harassment lodged against then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991. Thomas denounced then-Sen. Joe Biden’s sexual harassment hearings as a “high-tech lynching.” Nominee Thomas was confirmed as a justice to the Supreme Court by a Democratic-controlled Senate.

Now we are witness to an ongoing Anita Hill redux with hysterical verbal pummeling of Justice Thomas for neglecting to report gifts from Harlan Crow, who has never had a case before the high court. 

The justice has explained that he relied on legal advice of third parties in determining the reportability of gifts. Moreover, the work of the Supreme Court is intense and unrelenting. It requires intellectual concentration of the highest order. It is readily understandable why Justice Thomas did not divert his precious time in expounding the Constitution to the menial task of reporting gifts.

If sainthood were the standard for the Supreme Court, all nine seats would be vacant. Former Justice Stephen Breyer took at least 225 subsidized trips from 2004 to 2018 as reported by the Center for Responsive Politics. The trip destinations included Europe, Japan, India and Hawaii. Billionaire David Rubenstein paid for a trip to Nantucket, an island occupied by the 1% of the 1%.

The late Justice Antonin Scalia took at least 258 privately subsidized trips while sitting on the high court. He passed away while occupying an opulent Texas hunting lodge owned by John Poindexter, whose company had legal matters before the Supreme Court.

Israeli billionaire Morris Kahn paid for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s private tour of Israel in 2018. The billionaire had previous business before the court. 

Moreover, Ginsburg outrageously attempted to derail Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The justice first volunteered to The New York Times: “I can’t imagine what his place would be—I can’t imagine what the country would be— with Donald Trump as our president.” That was no slip of tongue. Ginsburg later added: “He is a faker. He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego. … How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns? The press seems to be very gentle with him on that.”

Bruce Allen Murphy’s 1982 pathbreaking book, “The Brandeis/Frankfurter Connection: The Secret Political Activities of Two Supreme Court Justices,” disclosed recurring financial and partisan political irregularities of Justice Louis D. Brandeis and his understudy Justice Felix Frankfurter.

Can there be any doubt that if Thomas sported a liberal jurisprudence that celebrated abortion, transgender rights, affirmative action, hyperstrict secularism and student protections against intellectual microaggressions, the media and Democrats would be treating his non-reporting of gifts as a venial faux pas, like misplacing a knife and fork at a state dinner? 

Their real grievance against the justice is his courageous unwillingness to shill for the liberal establishment—an insult they find especially offensive because Thomas is black and contradicts their gospel that all blacks think alike. Their ulterior motive is to force Thomas’ resignation by media harangues.

But who among us has the moral standing to condemn Thomas? As Jesus instructed in the Bible, “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.”

Former House Speaker and Democratic icon Nancy Pelosi in 2021 balked at the idea of banning congressional lawmakers and their spouses from owning shares of individual companies, despite the potential for conflicts of interest between their legislative duties and personal finances.

“No,” she replied to reporters at a news conference where she was asked whether she would support such a prohibition. “We’re a free market economy. They should be able to participate in that.”

A Business Insider investigative report on share ownership by lawmakers and other controversies over stock purchases by multiple senators since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the question to Pelosi. The report found that 78 members of Congress and 182 senior-level congressional staffers had violated the so-called STOCK Act, which requires public disclosure by themselves and family members within 45 days of sales or purchases of individual stocks, bonds and commodity futures.

That “a judge … should be above suspicion” is a wonderful idea. But it is not real. In his his “Essay on Criticism,” Alexander Pope preached that “All people commit sins and make mistakes. God forgives them, and people are acting in a godlike (divine) way when they forgive.”

In the interests of full disclosure, Clarence Thomas has been a mentor and friend to me for many long years. I previously served as his confidential assistant. I have never known a more selfless, unpretentious, honest person. 

The nation should be thankful he has many more years to serve on the Supreme Court sparkling with a bold and pioneering opinions.

COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

Here’s How You Can Help a Future Conservative President Take Down the Deep State

The next conservative president will face a monumental task keeping his promises to the American people in the face of a hostile entrenched bureaucracy, but a coalition of conservative leaders and former political appointees has compiled a game plan to equip him or her to restructure the federal government to make it more cost effective, high-performing, and accountable to the people. 

The 2025 Presidential Transition Project, also known as Project 2025, “does all the legwork that no president-elect has had the chance to do, at least on the conservative side,” Rick Dearborn, former White House deputy chief of staff to President Donald Trump and a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an interview Wednesday. (The Daily Signal is The Heritage Foundation’s news outlet.)

Dearborn, the primary author of the report on the White House Office in the Project 2025 book “Mandate for Leadership,” noted that “most of the time, the person or people that come in to run a transition, it’s their first time doing it.” 

Many federal employees support big government policies, in part because such policies benefit the administrators. President Trump faced stiff headwinds from a hostile federal bureaucracy he often referred to as “the deep state.” 

“The advantage that most liberal presidents have is that from day one, that whole behemoth is helping them move their agenda,” Dearborn noted. Liberals “burrow in and they’re in the government and they’re pushing their agenda and they’re pushing what that particular liberal president wants to do.”

“Most good conservative presidents don’t really get it all figured out until the end of their second term,” the former deputy chief explained. 

He laid out the four pillars of Project 2025, which does not just represent The Heritage Foundation alone but “the entire conservative movement.”

Pillar 1: Mandate for Leadership

The book, “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” represents the first pillar of the strategy, Dearborn explained. The book, to which more than 450 authors contributed, runs nearly 900 pages long, with in-depth explanations and recommendations for various aspects of the federal government, from the White House Office to the Department of Health and Human Services to the Intelligence Community, and so much more.

“What are the roles of the White House Office? Who sits in what seat? What is that position designed to do? What are you looking for in terms of staffing that particular White House council or head of your Domestic Policy Council or your senior advisers?” Dearborn said, explaining the chapter he edited. 

This in-depth treatment of the administrative state, peppered with major policy changes such as splitting the Centers for Disease Control into two separate agencies, represents merely one of the four pillars, however.

Pillar 2: People Are Policy

Project 2025 isn’t just publishing a book—it’s also compiling a list, and checking it far more than twice. 

“I think it all starts with the people,” Dearborn said. “Conservatives have never had a large number collected in one spot of conservative scholars and academics and policy experts that you could just pull off the shelf and say, ‘Okay, if you’re going to populate the Department of Defense, here are the five people that really understand the conservative philosophy on how to promote and protect our national security.’”

The project aims to create a database including at least 10,000 people, the former deputy chief explained.

Pillar 3: Training

Project 2025 does not just intend to compile a list of strong potential appointees; it also aims to train these people for the jobs they would take under a conservative president, Dearborn explained.

“You have to find people that know what they’re doing, know where the bodies are buried, have their hands on the levers to actually push the programs that help make the agenda move,” he said. “If you don’t have that, you get stuck and you just start running around in a circle.”

If the good conservatives who might fill the key political positions don’t know what they need to know, Project 2025 will step in and equip them.

Pillar 4: Executive Orders

Project 2025 is also compiling an appendix to equip a future conservative president on policy. 

“When you write an executive order, when you’re working on a regulation, if you want to roll back a regulation, if you want to promote a program, if you want to work with outside government-affiliated groups, how does this work?” Dearborn asked. The appendix aims to answer these questions and give “some game plans that they can use so that they’re not having to build them from scratch from day one.”

Dearborn said he wishes that the Trump transition team had a book like “Mandate for Leadership” in 2016. 

He noted that Project 2025 will be meeting “with all of the different current announced conservative presidential candidates” and some who “may not have yet announced, providing them a book, and walking through what the different pillars are.”

“If I’m any of those campaigns, I’m going to completely just scoop this up and want to learn as much as I possibly can about it and make sure that the Project 2025 team understands we really want your input,” Dearborn added.

A Call to Action

The former deputy chief urged conservatives to join Project 2025 in a concrete way.

“Join the movement, sign up for the database, take the training, look at the book,” he said. “Where are you an expert? If you want to impact your government, if you want to push a strong conservative agenda, join us. Be part of the effort.”

Listen to the interview here:

Tyler O’Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center.” Original here. Reproduced with permission.

Biden Collusion: 51 officials exposed by CIA whistleblower

WOW! Former CIA Chief Mike Morell has testified under oath that he was asked by the Biden campaign and now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken to organize a letter from 51 intelligence officials, which falsely claimed that the Hunter Biden emails were “Russian disinformation.”

From House Judiciary Committee

A former CIA official testified that then-Biden campaign senior adviser, Tony Blinken “played a role in the inception” of the public statement signed by current and past intelligence officials that claimed the Hunter Biden laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell testified before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, and revealed that Blinken was “the impetus” of the public statement signed in October 2020 that implied the laptop belonging to Hunter Biden was disinformation.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, sent a letter to Blinken Thursday, notifying him that the panels are “conducting oversight of federal law-enforcement and intelligence matters within our respective jurisdictions.”

“We are examining that public statement signed by 51 former intelligence officials that falsely discredited a New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop as supposed Russian disinformation,” they wrote. “As part of our oversight, we have learned that you played a role in the inception of this statement while serving as a Biden campaign advisor, and we therefore request your assistance with our oversight.”

In October 2020, weeks before the presidential election, dozens of ex-national security officials signed onto a letter claiming that Hunter’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

The former officials included former Obama CIA Director John Brennan, former Obama DNI James Clapper, and former CIA director, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, among others. 

The lawmakers said that based on Morell’s testimony, it is “apparent” that the Biden campaign “played an active role in the origins of the public statement, which had the effect of helping to suppress the Hunter Biden story and preventing American citizens from making a fully informed decision during the 2020 presidential election.”

“Although the statement’s signatories have an unquestioned right to free speech and free association—which we do not dispute—their reference to their national security credentials lent weight to the story and suggested access to specialized information unavailable to other Americans,” they wrote.

They added: “This concerted effort to minimize and suppress public dissemination of the serious allegations about the Biden family was a grave disservice to all American citizens’ informed participation in our democracy.”

Jordan and Turner notified Blinken that they conducted a transcribed interview with Morell, who signed onto the letter.

“In his transcribed interview, Morell testified that on or around October 17, 2020 you reached out to him to discuss the Hunter Biden laptop story,” they wrote. Blinken, at the time, was a senior adviser to the Biden campaign.

“According to Morell, although your outreach was couched as simply gathering Morell’s reaction to the Post story, it set in motion the events that led to the issuance of the public statement,” they wrote.

Morell testified that the Biden campaign “helped to strategize about the public release of the statement.”

“Morell further explained that one of his two goals in releasing the statement was to help then-Vice President Biden in the debate and to assist him in winning the election,” Jordan and Turner wrote.

Morell testified: “There were two intents. One intent was to share our concern with the American people that the Russians were playing on this issue; and, two, it was to help Vice President Biden.” 

Morell was asked why he wanted to help Biden.

“Because I wanted him to win the election,” Morell testified.

Jordan and Turner are demanding Blinken to provide material to help them to “advance” their oversight.

They demanded Blinken identify the people he communicated with about drafting the statement; and produce all documents referring to the statement.

They gave Blinken until May 4 at 5:00 p.m. ET.

Fox News first reported the existence of some type of investigation involving Hunter Biden in October 2020, ahead of the last presidential election. It became known then that the FBI had subpoenaed the laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden in the course of an existing money laundering investigation.

Hunter Biden confirmed the investigation into his “tax affairs” in December 2020, after his father was elected president.

Fox News first reported in 2020 that the federal investigation into Hunter Biden’s “tax affairs” began amid the discovery of SARs regarding funds from “China and other foreign nations.

The investigation is being led by Trump-appointed Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss. Hunter Biden has been under federal investigation since 2018. 

Read the full article here.

What it takes to be Middle Class in America. (In this city it’s $310,000!)

We’re looking at two studies today. The first from the veteran research company Pew Research and the other from Smart Asset. They are both fascinating and reveal how the economic landscape for people and families is shifting beneath us.

The share of adults who live in middle-class households fell from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2021, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data.

The shrinking of the middle class has been accompanied by an increase in the share of adults in the upper-income tier – from 14% in 1971 to 21% in 2021 – as well as an increase in the share who are in the lower-income tier, from 25% to 29%. These changes have occurred gradually, as the share of adults in the middle class decreased in each decade from 1971 to 2011, but then held steady through 2021.

The share of aggregate U.S. household income held by the middle class has fallen steadily since 1970. The widening of the income gap and the shrinking of the middle class has led to a steady decrease in the share of U.S. aggregate income held by middle-class households. In 1970, adults in middle-income households accounted for 62% of aggregate income, a share that fell to 42% in 2020.

Meanwhile, the share of aggregate income accounted for by upper-income households has increased steadily, from 29% in 1970 to 50% in 2020. Part of this increase reflects the rising share of adults who are in the upper-income tier.

The share of U.S. aggregate income held by lower-income households edged down from 10% to 8% over these five decades, even though the proportion of adults living in lower-income households increased over this period.

Click on the story below to read all of the PRC findings.

Another study by SmartAsset calculated the lower and upper bounds of what it takes to be middle-class in 100 American cities across all 50 states and found that one area particularly dominated the rankings: Five of the top 10 cities with the highest middle-class ceilings were tech cities.

Key Findings

  • Northeastern salaries are about 20% higher than Southern salaries — even after accounting for cost of living differences. The Northeast dominates the top 10 highest middle class salary ranges, with many middle class salaries between $60,000 to $170,000. Meanwhile, that same middle class bracket falls between about $35,000 to $100,000 in many Southern states. While the top-placing Northeastern states cost roughly 50% more to live in than the low-ranking Southern states, the middle class salary range sits about 70% higher2.
  • The middle class in NYC aren’t making enough to keep up with the cost of living. While other notoriously pricey cities like San Francisco and Seattle have a middle class income that trends closely with the general cost of living, New York City wages lag behind. While the middle class wage range was middle of the road of all cities examined, the cost of living in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan are 43%, 70% and 138% higher than the national average, respectively.
  • Middle class status is hardest to attain in tech cities. Three out of the top five cities with the highest income thresholds for the middle class are located in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. These middle income residents need to make at least $81,623 in San Francisco, $84,673 in San Jose and $104,499 in Fremont. Seattle residents similarly need to make at least $74,223.
  • You’re middle class even if you make $310,000 in this California city. Households that earn up to $311,936 per year in Fremont, California, are still technically considered middle class. That’s the highest ceiling for any city in our study – Fremont’s median household income ($155,968) is almost $30,000 more than the next highest city.   

What It Takes to Be Middle Class in the 50 States

Maryland, Washington D.C. and Massachusetts have the three highest floors for the middle class at a statewide level. In all three places, it takes an annual income of more than $60,000 for households to be considered middle class. New Jersey ($59,828) and New Hampshire ($59,272) round out the top five.

At the other end of the spectrum, Mississippi is the state that requires the lowest annual income to be a part of the middle class ($32,640). The Magnolia State is followed by West Virginia ($34,336), Louisiana ($34,898), Arkansas ($35,194) and Alabama ($36,122).

More at Smart Asset

Could this be the “The Big One”? Experts weigh in…

“Chemically distinct liquid shooting up from the seafloor” has been detected by researchers on a stretch of a 600-mile-long fault line in the Pacific Ocean, which is situated only 50 miles away from the Oregon coast, and could potentially trigger a catastrophic earthquake in the Pacific Northwest. 

This sonar image of the Pythias Oasis site shows bubbles rising from the seafloor about two-thirds of a mile deep and 50 miles off Newport, Oregon. These bubbles are a byproduct of a unique site where warm, chemically distinct fluid gushes from the seafloor. Researchers believe this fluid comes directly from the Cascadia megathrust zone, or plate boundary, and helps control stress buildup between the two plates.

The field of plate tectonics is not that old, and scientists continue to learn the details of earthquake-producing geologic faults. The Cascadia Subduction Zone — the eerily quiet offshore fault that threatens to unleash a magnitude-9 earthquake in the Pacific Northwest — still holds many mysteries.

A study led by the University of Washington discovered seeps of warm, chemically distinct liquid shooting up from the seafloor about 50 miles off Newport, Oregon. The paper, published Jan. 25 in Science Advances, describes the unique underwater spring the researchers named Pythia’s Oasis. Observations suggest the spring is sourced from water 2.5 miles beneath the seafloor at the plate boundary, regulating stress on the offshore fault.

The team made the discovery during a weather-related delay for a cruise aboard the RV Thomas G. Thompson. The ship’s sonar showed unexpected plumes of bubbles about three-quarters of a mile beneath the ocean’s surface. Further exploration using an underwater robot revealed the bubbles were just a minor component of warm, chemically distinct fluid gushing from the seafloor sediment. WU

[Updated 4/18/2023 for clarification:

  • Scientists are not alarmed at discovering this geologic feature, which does not trigger earthquakes but may regulate friction in the fault zone
  • This discovery does not change the current risk of a large earthquake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone]

Dems starting to panic as numbers flip

President Biden’s abysmal polling numbers have Democrats and the mainstream media worried about his reelection prospects, but the party appears unwilling to replace him on the ticket. 

Politico recently penned a warning to Democrats that Biden’s polling numbers look “grim” compared to those of past presidents who have gone on to win their reelection bids, and the Washington Post griped that his numbers “should not be this low.”   

Biden’s approval rating now hovers in the low 40’s – a place occupied by former presidents who have lost their reelection bids. According to FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s average approval rating is at 43%, while his disapproval rating has climbed to 52%. Former presidents Donald Trump and Jimmy Carter who lost their reelection bids polled in the low 40’s at the same points in their presidencies.  

While Biden could conceivably climb out of the hole and win reelection in 2024, his unpopularity has many left-wing voters hoping for a new candidate– but the Democratic Party appears little interested in replacing Biden.  

It is noteworthy that critical members of the Democratic Party base, such as young people and Hispanics, are among the groups most dissatisfied with Biden and are actively seeking a new Democratic candidate for the 2024 election. 

A March Washington Post-ABC News poll shows nearly two-thirds of Americans (62%) would be ‘dissatisfied’ or ‘angry’ if Biden were to run again, while just 7% said they’d be excited.

Even among his own party, less than a third of Democrats and leaners (31%) think Biden should be nominated for the party pick in 2024, while 58% say he shouldn’t. 

A recent AP-NORC poll also shows the vast majority of Americans do not want Biden to run again, but the sentiment is strongest with younger voters. By a margin of 85% to 15%, Americans eighteen to twenty-nine say they don’t want Biden to run for president again. Eighty-three percent of voters aged thirty to forty-four don’t want to see Biden run again while 16% do.

According to a recent Monmouth University poll, Biden’s approval rating with 18- to 34-year-olds is deeply negative, with a staggering 35-point deficit. The poll revealed that only 28% of young voters approve of Biden’s performance as president, which is a decline of 31 points from his initial approval rating when he took office. 

Biden is also struggling heavily with Independents, a group he won by double digits in 2020 but has been losing ground with since. A recent Fox News poll shows Biden underwater with Independent voters 65% to 35%. The same poll shows Biden underwater with Moderates 51% to 47%. A quarter of self-described liberals disapprove of Biden as well. 

There appears to be a growing dissatisfaction among Democrat men in particular, with a full fifth of Democrat men (21%) saying they disapprove of Biden. 

Minorities too, show weak support for Biden, with almost half of Hispanics (48%) and nearly a quarter of Blacks (24%) saying they disapprove of the job Biden is doing as president in the Fox poll.  

A recent Quinnipiac poll also found just 19% of Hispanics approve of the job Biden is doing as President, and a full 70% disapprove. 

Economic issues and foreign policy appear to be driving forces behind Biden’s dwindling support, with voters overall giving him low marks on both. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows only 40% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, 36% approve of his handling of foreign policy, and just 34% approve of his handling of the economy.   

The economy appears to be a major sticking point for Latinos in particular, with an NBC News/Telemundo poll showing Latinos disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy 54% to 41% and disapprove of the cost of living under Biden 60% to 35%.  

The same poll found Latinos say 39% to 33% that Biden’s economic policies have hurt more than they have helped and 54% of Latinos say their family income is declining due to rising living expenses. 

It would be remiss not to point out that Trump has been gaining support from the same groups Biden is losing with. In the months since he left office Trump has gained double digits with young people, Hispanics, and Black voters. 

YouGov polling shows Trump has gained 14 points with Gen Z and 10 points with Millennials since last fall, putting him at a 49% approval with the former and a 46% approval with the latter.  The same poll shows the share of Latinos who say Trump should run again is up 14 points since he left office, going from 22% in January 2021 to 36% in March of this year. 

And, as Americans for Limited Government Foundation noted last month, economic issues are causing Blacks to abandon Democrats at an alarming rate. YouGov polling shows Trump’s approval rating has nearly doubled with Black voters since he left office, going from 19% in early 2021 to 37% in March of this year. This represents an 18 percentage-point increase in Trump’s favorability with Black voters over the past two years. 

This comes at a time when Trump’s indictment appears to be boosting his appeal among his own party. A recent poll from Victory Insights showing Trump with a 15-percentage point lead over DeSantis (47% to 32%), up from trailing DeSantis by ten points last fall. The survey also shows 90% of Florida Republicans believe Trump’s indictment was politically motivated.  

In addition, a recent CNN poll also shows just 37% of Americans think Trump broke the law, and 76% think that politics played a role in the decision to indict him. Among Independents an even lower share (just 31%) say they think Trump committed a crime.     

In terms of a Trump vs. Biden face-off, the latest YouGov polling shows the two in a direct tie, with each securing 39% of the vote while the rest of the country remains undecided or unwilling to vote. Independents now say they’d support Trump by 7 percentage points, and Biden currently secures Hispanics by just 7 points and Blacks by 43 points, both significantly lower margins than he won them by in 2020. 

The Democratic party is out of touch with the priorities of their constituency, and this reflects in their choice to push for Biden to run again despite the majority of Americans – and even Democrats – demanding a replacement. 

One reason for Democrats’ Biden-or bust mindset is likely the fact that there does not appear to be a better candidate waiting in the wings, and party insiders think if Biden beat Trump once, he can do it again. However, as Democrats and the mainstream media have vilified Trump, his popularity has only increased among swing voters. Democrats may be disappointed when groups who supported Biden in 2020 – including younger voters, minorities, and independents – find Biden even less palatable this time. 

Manzanita Miller is an associate analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation. 

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2023/04/bidens-inverted-polling-numbers-have-the-left-worried-but-is-it-too-late/

Beware the Voice Thieves: New and convincing scam

Watch this video. It’s real and it’s scary. By voice cloning, criminals can talk money out of terrified relatives who often lose the ability to be rational.

A scammer could use AI to clone the voice of your loved one. All s/he needs is a short audio clip of your family member’s voice — which s/he could get from content posted online — and a voice-cloning program. When the scammer calls you, s/he’ll sound just like your loved one.

Using deep-learning algorithms, audio editing and engineering, and synthetic voice generation it is increasingly possible to convincingly simulate a person’s voice. And now, chatbots like ChatGPT are starting to generate realistic scripts with adaptive real-time responses.(The Conversation) By combining these technologies with voice generation, a deepfake goes from being a static recording to a live, lifelike avatar that can convincingly have a phone conversation. This is what happened in the video below.

@payton.bock AI VOICE CLONING SCAM PSA!!!!! #fyp #ai #scam #voicecloning ♬ original sound – PAYTON

From the UK spectator magazine comes this story:

A few weeks ago a friend received a phone call from her son, who lives in another part of the country. ‘Mum, I’ve had an accident,’ said the son’s voice. She could hear how upset he was. Her heart began to pound. ‘Are you OK? What happened?’ she said.

‘I’m so sorry Mum, it wasn’t my fault, I swear!’ The son explained that a lady driver had jumped a red light in front of him and he’d hit her. She was pregnant, he said, and he’d been arrested. Could she come up with the money needed for bail?

It was at this point that my friend, though scared and shocked, felt a prick of suspicion. ‘OK, but where are you? Which police station?’

The call cut off. Instead of waiting for her son to ring back, she dialled his mobile number: ‘Where are you being held?’ But this time she was speaking to her real son, not a fake of his voice generated by artificial intelligence. He was at home, all fine and dandy, and not in a police station at all.

In another instance from the same article an elderly Canadian couple paid up. But even when she knew it as a scam, she still couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d spoken to her son. The sound of him went straight to her heart. You respond instinctively and emotionally.

What do you do?

So how can you tell if a family member is in trouble or if it’s a scammer using a cloned voice?

Don’t trust the voice. Call the person who supposedly contacted you and verify the story. Use a phone number you know is theirs. If you can’t reach your loved one, try to get in touch with them through another family member or their friends.

Scammers ask you to pay or send money in ways that make it hard to get your money back. If the caller says to wire money, send cryptocurrency, or buy gift cardsand give them the card numbers and PINs, those could be signs of a scam.

If you spot a scam, report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

Clearing your lot? Watch out for the EPA and a $300K fine!

Image: Public Domain

Kansas City, KS; April 20, 2023: Today, Thomas and Amy Villegas filed suit to vindicate their right to a fair hearing after the EPA fined them for removing debris and invasive weeds from land they own.

The Villegases bought a piece of undeveloped land that they planned to use for hunting and other outdoor recreation. When they began the process of removing the downed trees and invasive Phragmite weeds, a neighbor reported them to the EPA. The EPA claimed that these activities discharged pollutants — namely dirt and other fill material — into protected waters, filed an administrative enforcement action against the Villegases, and hauled them in front of an agency administrative law judge to seek a $300,000 fine.

“The Constitution guarantees a fair hearing before a neutral, life-tenured federal judge before the government may deprive citizens like the Villegases of hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines,” said Damien Schiff, senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. “But the Villegases were denied that right when the EPA chose to prosecute them in an in-house tribunal before an unaccountable administrative law judge who works for the agency.”

In-house agency “courts” bear superficial similarities to normal courts, but they lack many of the protections for the rights of the accused that are guaranteed by the Constitution, especially the right of trial by jury. Additionally, administrative law judges are not appointed by the president or confirmed by the Senate, as the Constitution’s appointments clause requires for officers who wield significant authority.

The case is Thomas Villegas, et al. v. Michael S. Regan, et al, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas.

About Pacific Legal Foundation:

Pacific Legal Foundation is a national nonprofit legal organization that defends Americans threatened by government overreach and abuse. Since our founding in 1973, we challenge the government when it violates individual liberty and constitutional rights. With active cases in 39 states plus Washington D.C., PLF represents clients in state and federal courts with 15 victories out of 17 cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

UN Handbook calls for dangerous woke “rights” to outweigh local laws. Blueprint for Filth, Degradation, and Lawlessness

A report on criminal law published last month by the International Commission of Jurists in collaboration with the United Nations, could easily serve as a handbook for the looting, filth, and general lawlessness now infecting many U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.

Typical of virtually every report drafted by the United Nations and related international organizations, this one was long in the drafting, taking a full five years to compose. Also, like other U.N.-created reports, it has a ridiculously long and convoluted title:  The 8 March Principles for a Human Rights-Based Approach to Criminal Law Proscribing Conduct Associated with Sex, Reproduction, Drug Use, HIV, Homelessness and Poverty. A shorter and more accurate title would be How To Destroy Civil Society By Abandoning the Rule of Law.

Central to the Report’s thesis is the notion that a society’s criminal laws must in every instance yield to and be secondary to “human rights.” In this approach, no criminal law should be permitted to “restrict the exercise of any human right” unless such a law is itself “consistent with other rights recognized under international human rights law.” To cement this circular thesis, the Report declares that if there might ever arise any question about the reach of a country’s criminal law, it must never be construed “to an accused person’s disadvantage.”

Human Rights as ‘living document’

To further undercut any legal system that might still employ a criminal code, the Report asserts that “international law” trumps any system of “domestic law,” which would include, for example, our Constitution. And, borrowing a phrase employed often by liberals here in the United States to justify whatever “rights” they desire to paint with a constitutional patina, this latest U.N.-endorsed Report declares that the human rights code on which it is based must be considered a “living document.”

If the reader can wend his or her way through the repetitive declarations about the evils of criminal laws and the primacy of international “human rights,” they still have to seek the assistance of a dictionary to discern the meaning of such words and phrases as “heteronormative,” “non-exploitative surrogacy,” and “non-derogable,” inserted to disguise the Report’s vacuity.

However, if the reader does emerge au courant from the Report’s initial 13 “Principles of Criminal Law,”  he or she quickly discovers why the Report is likely in the future to be found on the desks of the many woke, George Soros-supported district attorneys and their compatriot mayors, such as those in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York, who coddle rather than punish lawbreakers. 

The remaining eight “principles” in the Report are a laundry list of public policies designed to ensure a filthy and crime-ridden – but “equitable” –environment such as we are seeing infect many Democrat-led cities today. For example:

  • “Custodial sentences” (jail) is to be used only “as a measure of  last resort.”
  • Abortion, or, as the Report terms the practice, “pregnancy loss,” must not be limited to any degree.
  •  “Consensual sex” cannot be criminalized, regardless of the age of the participants because an individual “below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent” who engages in some form of sex, might in fact “be consensual.” In such a libertine society, pederasty would be considered a “human right” and therefore beyond the reach of domestic criminal law.
  • There would be no drug laws, even for minors under the age of 18.
  • Prostitution, pimping, and houses of prostitution likewise could not be criminalized or restricted.
  • Finally, if the above-enumerated “principles” and listing of legally permissible activities were insufficient to obliterate any remaining semblance of civil society, the international “jurists” authoring this Report conclude that no activity undertaken by an individual out of necessity could be prohibited, including panhandling, sleeping or bathing in public, or “urinating and defecating” in public places – all examples of protected “human rights.” 

The society thus emerging would be filthy, chaotic, dangerous, and lawless .  .  .  come to think of it, a bit like today’s San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. 

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

FDA advises MASSIVE vaccination dosage changes for children

As we reported here the FDA yesterday changed the advice regarding the Covid vaccinations. The FDA simplified COVID vaccine schedules, and withdrew authorization for older COVID-19 vaccines targeting the virus’ original strain. Now, not only has the monovalent version been discontinued, but the dosage amount has changed.

It’s part of an overall move to simplify the COVID-19 vaccination process, the agency said in a statement. United States regulators are shifting towards a flu shot-like model for COVID-19 vaccines, where people get a single shot every year that’s updated annually to match the virus strain predicted to be in circulation.

As this commentator observes, this month a child would have been dosed with 75% less than last month. Now, children 6 months through 5 years of age can either get two doses of the Moderna bivalent vaccine or three doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Questions are being raised regarding the data behind the decision.

Yesterday the @US_FDA revoked the authorization for all previously licensed Covid vaccines and then cut the dosage by 75% for all new vaccinations using the EUA bivalent vaccine. If you had taken your 6 year old to get vaccinated against Covid for the first time last month they would have given him a .50 ml shot then made you bring him back 4 weeks later for a second .50 ml shot in order for him to be considered fully vaccinated after 2 weeks. A total dosage of 100 μg in just 4 weeks. If you took him in today he’d receive a single .25 ml (25 μg) shot and in 2 weeks time he’d be considered fully vaccinated. Where is the data informing this decision?

A Review of the Pfizer Documents

The modern pharmaceutical industry has in many ways proved itself a great benefit to mankind, making health- and life-saving drugs and vaccines widely available. But its reputation has come under attack in the wake of America’s opioid epidemic and the COVID pandemic. Here, Naomi Wolfe, summarizes the key revelations to date that a team of 3500 medical and scientific experts have found in the Pfizer documents. 

Dr. Wolf was de-platformed and sustained a global reputational attack — spearheaded by the White House, CDC, DHS and Twitter — for telling the truth about harm to women’s fertility via the MRNA injection. Only the faith-based and liberty-oriented Hillsdale College – (which made the decision at a critical inflection point in its history not to accept government funding) — out of all the universities in America, brought her to campus to speak.

Florida man loses battle with alligator – Foot found in mouth

72-year-old man loses leg during gator attack in Brevard County!

Just in case you’re put in the situation where you have to know which is which, here’s a handy guide.

The saying tells the nose shape. See U Later, Alligator A-fter a while, Crocodile.

IRS Funding Increase will catch more middle-class Americans in its dragnet.

The IRS released its strategic operating plan on April 6, describing its intentions for spending the nearly $80 billion of supplemental funding it’s receiving under the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.

The report was 48 days late beyond the Feb. 17 deadline the IRS was given and only included funding and staffing details for two of the required nine years.

(For those of you who haven’t yet filed your taxes—which are due on Tuesday—I don’t recommend following the IRS’ lead and submitting an incomplete return 48 days late.)

The IRS report focuses heavily on the agency’s strategy for the fiscal years 2023 and 2024, which run for another 18 months. The report is very light on the details for fiscal years 2025 through 2031.

Perhaps uncoincidentally, by the end of fiscal 2024, the IRS plans to burn through most of its $3.2 billion budget for taxpayer services—things like answering the phone and streamlining the filing process.

In contrast, the IRS expects to spend less than 4% of its $45.6 billion supplemental budget for audits and other enforcement by the end of fiscal 2024. That will leave a nearly $44 billion supplemental enforcement budget to be spent in fiscal 2025 through 2031.

Even though funding for taxpayer services makes up only 4% of the supplemental budget, the IRS report is laser-focused on highlighting that small component of the plan.

If the IRS were a real estate agent, it would have just spent most of the home tour showing off the nice walk-in closet after rushing us through the rest of the house in the dark.

Like a real estate agent trying to sell a house on a crumbling foundation, IRS officials are keenly aware of the public’s distaste for more audits, asset monitoring, litigation, and other parts of enforcement. They remember the pushback that arose in 2022 when Congress passed the bill that gave the agency roughly $80 billion of extra funding, mostly allocated to enforcement.

They also know that House Republicans voted to rescind the IRS enforcement funding while leaving the taxpayer services funding untouched. (The IRS funding repeal did not pass the Senate.)

With a closely divided Congress and high levels of public distrust, the IRS knows that it needs to improve its public image if it hopes to keep its massive boost in funding over the next two or three years.

This self-preservation dynamic at the IRS could be both good and bad.

On the one hand, it’s good if it causes the IRS to feel accountable to the people it serves—even if it is only for a fleeting moment, when funding is at stake.

On the other hand, a large and precarious boost in funding can cause an agency to be more attuned to political dynamics instead of simply carrying out its function as dictated by law. It can cause an agency to be less transparent, for example, about things that would put it in a bad light.

That’s precisely what seems to be happening at the IRS.

The IRS and the Treasury Department would prefer to give the public as little information as possible about the coming wave of audits. They’ve also been parroting false claims pushed by the White House.

One of the supposed tenets of the Biden administration is that nobody making less than $400,000 will be negatively affected by any of its fiscal policies, clearly an absurd contention as everyday Americans struggling in the Biden economy can attest.

Nonetheless, the previous and current IRS commissioners have dutifully repeated the party line that small businesses and individuals making less than $400,000 won’t be affected by the increase in audits.

But given the sheer volume of additional funding and staff that the IRS will have to dedicate to enforcement, there are only two ways the IRS could avoid directly increasing audit rates on Americans making less than $400,000.

It could either dramatically reduce the typical auditor’s workload—In which case: Why exactly are we paying them?—or it could torpedo the U.S. economy by bogging down virtually every business and high-income earner in a perpetual state of costly and time-consuming audits.

And since the IRS plans to spend almost all its enforcement budget in seven years instead of nine, the agency’s annual spending on enforcement during that seven-year period will have to be that much higher.

That means that even more middle-class Americans will be caught up in the IRS dragnet.

Given the past and present politicization of the IRS and the Treasury Department, it’s also at least possible that the upcoming 2024 elections could be motivating IRS leadership to wait until 2025 to ramp up enforcement. If conservatives control the White House and Congress in 2025, they will almost certainly pare back much of the extra IRS funding.

By front-loading most of the taxpayer services spending to 2023 and 2024 and holding back the onslaught of new auditors until 2025, the IRS—whether deliberately or not—is giving political cover to President Joe Biden and other elected officials who supported the IRS funding boost, at least until after the elections.

IRS funding may also be a sticking point in debt-ceiling negotiations that will pick up over the next couple of months. As part of those discussions, the conservative House Freedom Caucus has proposed cutting the additional IRS funding, along with other spending reductions.

Indeed, the IRS has failed to be transparent about who they will audit and what that will look like. Americans have ample reasons to be distrustful of how the IRS will use the influx of cash, and Congress should use the power of the purse to stop the coming wave of audits before it hits.

Preston Brashers is a senior policy analyst focusing on tax policy at The Heritage Foundation. Original here. Reproduced with permission.

Foundation files civil rights complaint against Anheuser-Busch!

America First Legal Foundation on April 17 filed a civil rights complaint against Anheuser-Busch at the Missouri branch of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act’s prohibition against employment discrimination on the basis of race and sex, blasting the company’s racial and gender hiring quotas, stating “Anheuser-Busch is knowingly, intentionally, and unlawfully discriminating based on race, color, national origin, and sex with respect to employment and job training opportunities.”

The complaint comes on the heels of Anheuser-Busch’s controversial marketing campaign by transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney that has resulted in new scrutiny and boycotts of the 171-year-old beer manufacturer. 

The America First Legal letter pointed to the Anheuser-Busch 2023 Leadership Accelerator Program, which according to the company’s job listing is a “formal mentorship, executive interaction, and leadership development curriculum for those who identify with historically underrepresented groups as they join our organization in a full-time capacity. We encourage candidates who identify as Black, Latinx, and Native American to apply, as well as those who identify with a historically underrepresented group.”

America First Legal’s letter by attorney Nicholas Barry alleged, “it is a fast-track program to executive leadership positions at Anheuser-Busch and it is limited to candidates based on race. The proforma Equal Opportunity Employer language at the end of the posting does mask the company’s discriminatory intent and purpose.”

America First Legal also pointed to the company’s 2022 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report that outlines racial and gender hiring quotas: “22% women in overall workforce; 35% women in salaried workforce; 28% women in top five leadership levels; 14% women in top three leadership level; 5 out of 15 Board members are women…”

And it is pushing to “drive results” in the company’s 2022 corporate annual report, stating, “while the representation of women in the [Senior Leadership Team] SLT and the senior leadership level directly below the SLT remained constant compared to last reporting year, the overall representation of women in top leadership positions in our company grew by 2 percentage points compared to the last reporting year.”

As America First Legal noted, “Anheuser-Busch’s Annual Report has a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion section almost entirely dedicated to the growth of only women in the workforce.”

Meanwhile the company says in its ESG report that “Beer is inclusive…”

The problem is that diversity racial and gender hiring quotas like these appear to run afoul of the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s prohibition on employment discrimination on the basis of race or sex: “It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer… to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or … to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

However, thanks to the 1979 ruling by the Supreme Court ruling Steelworkers v. Weber which ruled that employment policies that racial preferences on the basis of race and sex in favor of women and minorities, which plaintiffs argued was reverse discrimination, were not a violation of the Civil Rights Act, in effect legalizing employment discrimination against whites and males. This was a sharp departure from more racially neutral interpretations of the Civil Rights Act by federal courts that preceded the decision.

Then Associate Justice William Rehnquist, who would go on to become the Court’s 16th Chief Justice in 1986, in his dissenting opinion, compared the Court’s rewriting of the Civil Rights Act to the totalitarian regime portrayed in George Orwell’s 1984, writing that law was written plainly, “Taken in its normal meaning, and as understood by all Members of Congress who spoke to the issue during the legislative debates, this language prohibits a covered employer from considering race when making an employment decision, whether the race be black or white.”

Rehnquist blasted the majority of the court, adding, “the Court behaves much like the Orwellian speaker earlier described, as if it had been handed a note indicating that Title VII would lead to a result unacceptable to the Court if interpreted here as it was in our prior decisions. … Now we are told that the legislative history of Title VII shows that employers are free to discriminate on the basis of race: an employer may, in the Court’s words, ‘trammel the interests of the white employees’ in favor of black employees in order to eliminate ‘racial imbalance.’… Our earlier interpretations of Title VII, like the banners and posters decorating the square in Oceania, were all wrong.”

44 years after the Steelworkers v. Weber decision we are seeing the outcome of corporate and business hiring practices that now fully favor reverse discrimination as a means of achieving perceived equity and inclusion as a means of securing ESG investment, which grew to $8.4 trillion, according to the latest data by the USSIF, The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment.

The majority of the current Supreme Court are all considered acolytes of Rehnquist. All were regarded as constitutionalists, originalists and textualists when they were nominated by conservative presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, the latter of whom just secured an historic 6 to 3 majority on the nation’s highest court with Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Today, the question of reverse discrimination posed by ESG’s Diversity & Inclusion corporate policies might be decided differently by today’s Supreme Court more than 40 years later. It would be up to those fired or cancelled to make the case they were discriminated against on the basis of race and/or sex.

This is exactly the Title VII approach this author advocated for in February to more broadly address ESG’s violations in retirement investments of not just civil rights laws but also antitrust with its policies to restrict U.S. carbon-based energy production of oil and coal in favor of green technologies and to drive up prices.

Marketing campaigns aside, this is where the real ESG battle is. 

And it need not just be a legal strategy that plays out in federal courts — although that is a necessary component — it could also later be coupled with Labor Department, IRS and federal employee retiree restrictions against retirement investments into companies violating Title VII and antitrust. America First Legal is on the right track. If civil rights and antitrust laws are enforced as written, you can kill ESG for good.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government. 

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2023/04/america-first-legal-files-civil-rights-complaint-against-anheuser-buschs-racial-and-gender-hiring-quotas-as-violation-of-title-vii-of-the-civil-rights-act/

Matt Gaetz Goes Ballistic

It’s been quite the year for Matt Gaetz. Remember how he stood is ground to win concessions during the House Speaker nominating process? He’s still on a roll.

During the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing regarding New York City’s crisis of crime in Manhattan Monday morning, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) savaged George Soros-backed district attorneys such as Alvin Bragg for failing to enforce the law.

“Our criminal justice system is insane. It’s dangerous. It’s harmful. And it is destroying the fabric of our city. Time and again, our police officers make an arrest, and then the person who is arrested for assault, felonious assault, robberies and gun possession, they’re finding themselves back on the street within days, if not hours, after arrest,” Gaetz said.

Big Batches! This is how you feed 100,000 people in a day!

Open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the Gurudwara Bangla Sahib temple in New Delhi, India, feeds 30,000 to 40,000 people every day for free. And during religious holidays, that number can swell to well over 100,000. To keep up with demand, the kitchen uses machines to help cook a majority of its food.

What Is Fractional Reserve Banking and Is It Good or Bad?

After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), I received several questions related to the collapse. One by Dr. Michael Overfield caught my eye. He says:

“The question I have is about fractional reserve banking. This is more in the news following the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank. [Some] feel we should outlaw fractional reserve banking. This policy would assure that our banks would have our funds secure whenever any of the depositors want them. But the depositors would have to pay a fee, or negative interest rate to get this service. Additionally funds would not be available for loans for business, homes, education and other needs. I have not seen the issue of fractional reserve banking addressed in the FEE newsletter which I read daily. Thank you in advance for your consideration.”

Before I highlight what I think about fractional reserve banking (FRB) we should spend some time dissecting what it is.

Ever wondered what happens to your money when it gets deposited at the bank? Or maybe you’ve just always assumed that the bank keeps it all on hand?

Think again. When you go to the bank and put your money in, economists call this money bank deposits. Today in the United States, banks do not typically keep 100% of deposits on hand. Instead, when you deposit your money, some of it is kept in the bank, but the bank lends the rest out to borrowers looking for funds.

Economists call this system fractional reserve banking because only a fraction of total deposits are kept in the bank’s reserves. This is in contrast to full reserve banking, in which 100 percent of deposits are kept in the bank’s reserves.

To give an example of fractional reserve banking, imagine I deposit $100 in FEEBank. FEEBank can decide they want to keep 20% of my money on hand ($20) and lend out 80% ($80) for a year to earn 5% interest from a borrower.

At the end of the year when the loan expires, FEEBank earns $4 from the loan they gave and pays me 1% interest ($1) for my money.

This is a win-win-win. I earn money while my money is idle. The bank earns money on the loan. The borrower is able to borrow money at an acceptable rate.

Despite the upsides, you may have noticed a potential issue with the above example. Let’s scale the bank up a bit to see this issue manifest in a more realistic example.

Imagine FRB on a larger scale. Ten people put in $100 each for a total of $1,000 in FEEBank’s reserves. If the bank wants to keep 20% in reserves, they keep $200 on hand, and they can lend out $800.

Now imagine one customer goes in and wants to take their $100 out. FEEBank has lent out $800 of the $1000 and they have $200 on hand. They give the first customer $100 of the $200 and are left with $100.

But now say a second customer comes in and wants their $100 back too. You probably see where this is going. If the second customer withdraws all funds, the bank is left with $0 on hand.

If any other depositors come in and ask for money, the bank is in trouble. FEEBank has no way of giving depositors the money they request! They can’t simply call back the $800 loan. If this happens, FEEBank goes under. In our modern economy, regulators would come and take over bank operations and FEEBank owners would lose their investments (unless they get bailed out or can borrow the money).

So FEEBank has a decision to make when engaging in FRB. The larger the percent of deposits kept on hand, the smaller the chance that depositors will clean them out. On the other hand, having a larger percentage of deposits means banks can’t make as much money from lending.

Customers experience a trade off too. Banks are able to hold money and offer the customers interest because the bank lends out their deposits. So customers are more at risk when their banks lend out their funds, but they receive a better return.

So, given the risk to customers, should FRB be prohibited? I don’t think so. But I also think that’s the wrong question.

The bank hypothetically not being able to pay back depositors is no big issue. A lot of our financial system is built on risk. When you loan money, you may not get your money back. When you loan money through an intermediary (like a bank), it’s possible they don’t get paid back. And, so long as customers are made aware of the risk that FRBs may run out of money, I don’t see any problem with letting customers take that risk.

If we think people should be able to turn their money into poker chips at casinos, I think it’d be odd to say they shouldn’t be able to turn it into fractional bank deposits.

But, as I said, I think this is at least partly the wrong question. I do think FRBs would exist in a modern competitive system, but I can’t be sure because our banking system is not competitive.

Government facilitated deposit insurance, depositor bailouts, ballooning regulatory codes, and bailouts for banks deemed “too big to fail” make it difficult to know what the banking system would look like in the modern US absent the visible hand of government.

All of this ignores the even bigger government intervention in the world of finance—a monopoly on the production of currency. Economist Lawrence White has written extensively on both the theory and history of banking in a world with competing monies.

In a freer system, I think it would likely be easier to find banks who keep all money on hand and charge a yearly fee, similar to what Dr. Overfield mentions in his question above.

Similarly, economist Robert Murphy has proposed a full reserve system which doesn’t require yearly fees and allows for lending by having depositors agree to lock in their funds for a specific amount of time which matches with the loan maturity. (This is a great thread if you like to read on Twitter.)

Of course, this system still runs the risk of companies not being able to pay back their loans therefore making banks unable to pay back depositors. But it is, at least, an alternative option to the somewhat bland world of banking choices available today.

In summary, I don’t find FRB to be illegitimate, ethically or economically. Businesses constantly manage and weigh risks every day that, under certain circumstances, could blow up in the faces of owners or customers.

So long as customers are not defrauded by promises of it being completely risk free, my assumption is some successful entrepreneur will be able to effectively manage the risk of fractional reserves to provide depositors with a relatively high return.

But I am bothered by how standardized the banking industry is today and how few options there are for customers. It seems unlikely to me that in a world free of layers of subsidization, regulation, and monetary monopoly that our banking system would look like it does today.


Peter Jacobsen

PeterJacobsen teaches economics and holds the position of Gwartney Professor of Economics. He received his graduate education at George Mason University.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Quick Reaction Saves Prime Minister

There has been widespread praise for the bodyguard who immediately reacted to kick away a bomb before putting himself in between the object and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a campaign event The PM was evacuated safely. The incident echoed the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving modern leader, who was shot with a homemade gun last July while campaigning for a parliamentary election.

The assailant is Ryuji Kimura, an unemployed 24-year-old man who allegedly wanted to be a politician and believed that he was unfairly blocked from running for parliament by an age requirement, according to media reports and social media posts that appeared to be his.

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