In the past three weeks, policymakers had their worlds rocked by generative artificial intelligence. The problem is that they don’t know it – yet.
First, a team of researchers demonstrated that Open AI’s Chat GPT3 can pass the stringent United States Medical Licensing Exam. Days later, Chat GPT 3 passed a bar exam. Finally, Chat GPT3 passed the prestigious Wharton Business School’s rigorous core examination.
The Wharton researcher writes, “OpenAI’s Chat GPT3 has shown a remarkable ability to automate some of the skills of highly compensated knowledge workers in general and specifically the knowledge workers in the jobs held by MBA graduates including analysts, managers, and consultants.”
Lawyers, doctors, administrators, managers, and consultants are some of the most highly compensated professionals in the United States. Generative artificial intelligence is banishing them to obsolescence.
With only 375 employees, the unprofitable Chat GPT3 was acquired by behemoth Microsoft at a valuation reportedly northward of $30 billion. For perspective, with over 42,000 highly educated healthcare employees, AmerisourceBergen is the largest company by revenue headquartered in Pennsylvania. Its valuation is $33.25 billion. So, with 99% fewer employees, the unprofitable Chat GPT3 is already worth nearly the same as the largest company in the Commonwealth.
Microsoft has already pledged $10 billion to optimize Chat GPT3 toward profitability. Tens of billions more dollars are coming.
The last time policymakers were presented with displacement on this scale was the globalization that decimated the American working class. The solution for Pennsylvania policymakers was to pivot the state’s economy to “Eds and Meds,” which now constitute 44% of total employment.
Those industries were chosen because spending is generated predominantly by the government, which is historically stable. To quote Ronald Reagan, “Government programs, once launched, never disappear.” Pennsylvania policymakers knew that they were making safe bets as those markets would almost always exist.
The pivot worked, with Pennsylvania stabilizing its population decline. Communities able to make the pivot, particularly in the suburbs, saw prosperity.
Once reliably Republican, the suburban voters employed by “Eds and Meds” now constitute the Democratic Party’s base. The rise of conservative populism, which pointed the finger at college-educated elites for the decline of the working class, accelerated the trend.
The reticence of suburban elites to choose Republican candidates is understandable, considering some in the GOP’s working-class base label them the enemy. For many in the working class, the contempt is personal, as they perceive the college-educated as having enriched themselves at their expense, via globalization.
But generative artificial intelligence is poised to inflict the same level of economic devastation on suburban elites as suffered by the working class through globalization. Some elites will undoubtedly find sure footing in the pending economy created by generative artificial intelligence. But many others will not.
The Rust Belt’s decline took decades to manifest. Its slow pace helped shield policymakers from criticism because gradual change enabled some Americans to find solutions on their own.
In contrast to globalization’s slow deindustrialization, however, technological adoption moves at lightning speed and is only getting faster. “Eds and Meds” suburbanites are unlikely to gain a reprieve through gradual transition. Profitable generative artificial intelligence business models may surface within a year. Suburban prosperity could be severely undermined before the next Winter Olympics. Policymakers need immediate solutions.
Political polarization rises during economic decline. A 20-point gap persists between the political affiliations of college-educated and non-college-educated Americans. It is one of the most pronounced cleavages in American politics.
The displacement potentially caused by generative artificial intelligence could put college-educated voters back into electoral play for Republicans, presuming the GOP can deliver something for them.
The path to help these Pennsylvanians, one that would be exclusive to Republicans, is rapid reindustrialization. The prerequisites for rapid reindustrialization are affordable, abundant energy and school choice. Both are fundamental tenets of the GOP platform.
Pennsylvania is blessed with abundant natural resources and is a net exporter of energy. It has educational entrepreneurs pleading for the opportunity to create the most industrially skilled workforce on the planet. Products made in Pennsylvania can reach most of the continental United States or international waters within 24 hours. Among the 50 states, this “iron triangle” of energy-workforce-logistics may be unique to Pennsylvania.
Rapid reindustrialization is the path that unites all educational backgrounds to produce real, sustainable wealth. Instead of pitting the educational classes against one another, it makes them partners in success.
Pennsylvania Republican policymakers have the opportunity before them to accomplish what Ron DeSantis has achieved in Florida: a generational political realignment of a state.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s Republican Party leaders have proposed spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a 2022 midterm post-mortem. That’s fine. But the lesson of the 2022 midterm is that voters do not reward looking backwards.
A crisis has begun. The GOP will respond either by providing tomorrow’s leaders or being condemned by history for failing to rise to the challenge.
That is what proponents of California’s high speed rail project say when asked about the whys and wherefores of the system. In other words, if it works somewhere else it will work here.
That argument, though, falls in the face of a rather basic fact: California and Japan are different.
It is true that Japan’s high speed rail system, first begun in 1964, actually makes money – a lot, in fact. The iconic first line, Shinkansen Tokaido, alone carries 90 million people a year and has an operating profit of about $4.4 billion dollars. That does not include capital costs, but teasing that number out after 60 years of operation and the privatization of the route in the late 1980s is extremely difficult – suffice to say the deal has “worked” for the owners.
There are multiple other Shinkansen lines in Japan, most of which also realize an operating profit (the latest expansion to Hokkaido – the very large island north of the Japanese mainland – has proven to be problematic, though.)
Focusing on the Tokaido line – the line typically referred to for comparison – shows a few similarities but many glaring differences. It’s distance is 320 miles, not terribly different from the 390 miles from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Also, it takes two and half hours – again not too dissimilar – and, in a downtown to downtown comparison, is faster and more convenient than flying (though not cheaper – it’s about $100 to fly and about $160 to take the Shinkansen) just like California’s project is supposed to be.
But that’s about it.
First, there is the issue of population. The Tokaido line (with its “Nozomi” train only stopping in the largest cities and hence the fastest) runs from Tokyo to Osaka, which alone have combined populations of 17 million, compared to 11 million for LA (including the county) and San Francisco.
In the cities along the Tokaido route there are 9 million more people; in the space between LA and SF, there are less than 3 million. For comparison, the smallest city on the Tokaido is Shinagawa at 400,000 people; the smallest city on the California system is Gilroy, at 58,000. All told, the average “stop population” between LA and SF is about 250,000 – on the Tokaido/Nozomi is 2,250,000.
It is these concentrations and the economies of scale they allow that drive the success of the Tokaido line – California’s system is simply not in the same league.
The Nozomi train operates 32 1,300-seat trains each way every day; pretty much on the half-hour with fewer overnight, while the two other slower (but still high speed) trains on the same system operate much more frequently and make many more stops.
Note on the following information– when dealing with California High Speed Rail (CHSR) Authority numbers – time or money – it is a good idea to remind oneself that they have never been right before, so really really big grain – meet salt.
The CHSR system will – in its “horizon year” of 2040, operate 105 southbound and 103 northbound trains per day over the system. Southbound, 64 trains will start in San Francisco, 20 in San Jose, and 21 in Merced. Northbound, 42 trains will start in Anaheim, 44 in Los Angeles, and 17 will start in Merced (note – that means 86 trains will pass through LA northbound every day.)
The system will operate 18 hours per day, with six hours designated “peak;” about half of the trains will operate during those six hours, the other half during the 12 “off peak” hours.
That means LA’s Union Station will – during the morning commute – see a train going north about every eight minutes, every day.
At 1,200 (could be a bit lower, could be a bit higher as the final design is not yet set) seats per train, about 10,000 people could leave LA between 7 and 8 a.m. For the system to hit its ridership (and therefore revenue) goals, about 5,000 have to.
Six trains will run non-stop from LA to SF and 10 will run with only stops at San Jose and Burbank – the non-stops are expected to meet the 2 hour and 40 minute time limit set by original bond; the other trains will not.
Like the Tokaido, California’s system will charge different fares for different distances traveled … sort of.
The 2020 ridership estimate report shows a ticket price (one way) of $100 from San Francisco to Bakersfield. The cost to travel to LA or even Anaheim? Also $100. It appears planners simply worked – in accordance with the original bond measure – backwards from a typical Southwest fare to set the cap.
For those traveling to/from smaller cities, the fares are obviously less. For example, San Francisco to San Jose is $26, SF to Merced is $66, Los Angeles to Anaheim is $34, etc..
While the high-speed rail has been touted as a way to make lower cost Central Valley housing more accessible, the fare rates could significantly impact that desire as it would cost about $30,000 a year to commute from Merced into the city (admittedly, it can most likely be assumed there will be some sort of farepass/frequent user program will cut that price.)
But at numbers in the thousands per month, the incentive to move out of more expensive cities becomes far less – why spend the money on train fare rather than on a more expensive, more central home if it’s going to be a wash, unless you were going to move anyway to raise a family and mow the lawn?
As to overall finances, the most the CHSR says the LA to SF system will cost is $113 billion and it will be done in 2033, four years after the Central Valley “starter kit” is done.
Exactly where the money will come from remains a bit of a puzzle, but the CHSR is hoping the Cap and Trade money it gets will be extended to 2050 (an extra $10-20 billion,) that they will find more federal funds including non-transportation grants for things such as renewable energy and “social equity.”
As to a private investor, the CHSR admits they are not quite ready for that but that once the system is running and turning an operational profit businesses will come knocking to invest.
Speaking of operational profit, the CHSR projects there is a “99.4%” likelihood it make an operational profit by 2040. It should be noted “operational profit” is just that – how much more money you bring in than you have to spend every day and is not related to the capital cost.
If – IF – the system makes $1.4 billion it expects to in 2040, that would give it a return on capital investment of 1.4% percent. That’s not terribly good and may make private companies think again and again and again about investing.
In other words, if (not accounting for inflation) the CHSR simply saved its money to build the rest of the system – the San Diego, Sacramento extensions – it would take about 40 years of “profit” to cover the cost
And those revenues figures are based on having about 1 million riders a week, about 140,000 a day, about 6,000 an hour, 100 a minute.
For proper context: Currently about 2.5 million people fly each year between LA and the Bay Area. And about 700,000 currently take Amtrak to/from Bakersfield to Oakland and/or Sacramento. That’s 3.2 million – total.
Note – assuming the new system attracts a few more riders in the Central Valley alone, that means the “south from Bakersfield” and the “Merced to San Francisco” and the “long haul” trips will have to attract about 50 million riders alone
Obviously, a whole bunch of other people drive to and from and in between, but I don’t think it is unreasonable to wonder if the 51 million annual riders the HSR estimates will use the system may be just a tad bit on the optimistic side
All this to be able to get from Fresno to Bakersfield for $63 six years from now.
Four of the highest ranking U.S. health officials—including Dr. Anthony Fauci—met in secret to discuss whether or not naturally immune people should be exempt from getting COVID-19 vaccines, The Epoch Times can reveal.
The officials brought in four outside experts to discuss whether the protection gained after recovering from COVID-19—known as natural immunity—should count as one or more vaccine doses.
“There was interest in several people in the administration in hearing basically the opinions of four immunologists in terms of what we thought about … natural infection as contributing to protection against moderate to severe disease, and to what extent that should influence dosing,” Dr. Paul Offit, one of the experts, told The Epoch Times.
Offit and another expert took the position that the naturally immune need fewer doses. The other two experts argued natural immunity shouldn’t count as anything.
The discussion did not lead to a change in U.S. vaccination policy, which has never acknowledged post-infection protection. Fauci and the other U.S. officials who heard from the experts have repeatedly downplayed that protection, claiming that it is inferior to vaccine-bestowed immunity. Most studies on the subject indicate the opposite.
The meeting, held in October 2021, was briefly discussed before on a podcast. The Epoch Times has independently confirmed the meeting took place, identified all of the participants, and uncovered other key details.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University who did not participate in the meeting, criticized how such a consequential discussion took place behind closed doors with only a few people present.
“It was a really impactful decision that they made in private with a very small number of people involved. And they reached the wrong decision,” Bhattacharya told The Epoch Times.
Fauci, the head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden until the end of 2022
Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the head of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Dr. Francis Collins, head of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which includes the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, until December 2021
Dr. Bechara Choucair, the White House vaccine coordinator until November 2021
From outside the government:
Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an adviser to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on vaccines
Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and a former member of Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board
Akiko Iwasaki, professor of immunobiology and molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at Yale University
Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and dean of the Baylor College of Medicine’s School of Tropical Medicine
Fauci and Murthy decided to hold the meeting, according to emails The Epoch Times obtained.
“Would you be available tonight from 9-9:30 for a call with a few other scientific colleagues on infection-induced immunity? Tony and I just discussed and were hoping to do this sooner rather than later if possible,” Murthy wrote in one missive to Fauci, Walensky, and Collins.
All three quickly said they could make it.
Walensky asked who would be there.
Murthy listed the participants. “I think you know all of them right?” he said.
Walensky said she knew all but one person. “Sounds like a good crew,” she added.
During the meeting, Offit put forth his position—that natural immunity should count as two doses.
At the time, the CDC recommended three shots—a two-dose primary series and a booster—for many Americans 18 and older, soon expanding that advice to all adults, even though trials of the boosters only analyzed immunogenicity and efficacy among those without evidence of prior infection.
Osterholm sided with Offit, but thought that having recovered from COVID-19 should only count as a single dose.
“I added my voice at the meeting to count an infection as equivalent to a dose of vaccine! I’ve always believed hybrid immunity likely provides the most protection,” Osterholm told The Epoch Times via email.
Hybrid immunity refers to getting a vaccine after recovering from COVID-19.
Some papers havefound vaccination after recovery boosts antibodies, which are believed to be a correlate of protection. Other research hasshown that the naturally immune have a higher risk of side effects than those who haven’t recovered from infection. Some experts believe the risk is worth the benefit but others do not.
Hotez and Iwasaki, meanwhile, made the case that natural immunity should not count as any dose—as has been the case in virtually the entire United States since the COVID-19 vaccines were first rolled out.
Iwasaki referred to a British preprint study, soon after published in Nature, that concluded, based on survey data, that the protection from the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines was heightened among people with evidence of prior infection. She also noted a study she worked on that found the naturally immune had higher antibody titers than the vaccinated, but that the vaccinated “reached comparable levels of neutralization responses to the ancestral strain after the second vaccine dose.” The researchers also discovered T cells—thought to protect against severe illness—were boosted by vaccination.
There’s a “clear benefit” to boosting regardless of prior infection, Iwasaki, who has since received more than $2 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), told participants after the meeting in an email obtained by The Epoch Times. Hotez received $789,000 in grants from the NIH in fiscal year 2020, and has received other grants totaling millions in previous years. Offit, who co-invented the rotavirus vaccine, received $3.5 million in NIH grants from 1985 through 2004.
Hotez declined interview requests through a spokesperson. Iwasaki did not respond to requests for comment.
No participants represented experts like Bhattacharya who say that the naturally immune generally don’t need any doses at all.
In public, Hotez repeatedly portrayed natural immunity as worse than vaccination, including citing the widely criticized CDC paper, which drew from just two months of testing in a single state.
In one post on Twitter on Oct. 29, 2021, he referred to another CDC study, which concluded that the naturally immune were five times as likely to test positive compared to vaccinated people with no prior infection, and stated: “Still more evidence, this time from @CDCMMWR showing that vaccine-induced immunity is way better than infection and recovery, what some call weirdly ‘natural immunity’. The antivaccine and far right groups go ballistic, but it’s the reality.”
That same day, the CDC issued a “science brief” that detailed the agency’s position on natural immunity versus the protection from vaccines. The brief, which has never been updated, says that available evidence shows both the vaccinated and naturally immune “have a low risk of subsequent infection for at least 6 months” but that “the body of evidence for infection-induced immunity is more limited than that for vaccine-induced immunity.”
Evidence shows that vaccination after infection, or hybrid immunity, “significantly enhances protection and further reduces risk of reinfection” and is the foundation of the CDC’s recommendations, the agency said.
Several months later, the CDC acknowledged that natural immunity was superior to vaccination against the Delta variant, which was displaced in late 2021 by Omicron. The CDC, which has made misleading representations before on the evidence supporting vaccination of the naturally immune, did not respond to a request for comment regarding whether the agency will ever update the brief.
Iwasaki had initially been open to curbing the number of doses for the naturally immune—”I think this supports the idea of just giving one dose to people who had covid19,” she said in response to one Twitter post in early 2021, which is restricted from view—but later came to argue that each person who is infected has a different immune response, and that the natural immunity, even if strong initially, wanes over time.
Osterholm has knocked people who claim natural immunity is weak or non-existent, but has also claimed that vaccine-bestowed immunity is better. Osterholm also changed the stance he took in the meeting just several months later, saying in February 2022 that “we’ve got to make three doses the actual standard” while also “trying to understand what kind of immunity we get from a previous infection.”
Offit has been the leading critic on the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which advises U.S. regulators on vaccines, over their authorizations of COVID-19 boosters. Offit has said boosters are unnecessary for the young and healthy because they don’t add much to the primary series. He also criticized regulators for authorizing updated shots without consulting the committee and absent clinical data. Two of the top U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials resigned over the booster push. No FDA officials were listed on invitations to the secret meeting on natural immunity.
Fauci and Walensky Downplay Natural Immunity
Fauci and Walensky, two of the most visible U.S. health officials during the pandemic, have repeatedly downplayed natural immunity.
Fauci, who said in an email in March 2020 that he assumed there would be “substantial immunity post infection,” would say later that natural immunity was real but that the durability was uncertain. He noted the studies finding higher antibody levels from hybrid immunity.
In September 2021, months after claiming that vaccinated people “can feel safe that they are not going to get infected,” Fauci said that he did not have “a really firm answer” on whether the naturally immune should get vaccinated.
“It is conceivable that you got infected, you’re protected—but you may not be protected for an indefinite period of time,” Fauci said on CNN when pressed on the issue. “So I think that is something that we need to sit down and discuss seriously.”
After the meeting, Fauci would say that natural immunity and vaccine-bestowed immunity both wane, and that people should get vaccinated regardless of prior infection to boost their protection.
Walensky, before she became CDC director, signed a document called the John Snow Memorandum in response to the Great Barrington Declaration, which Bhattacharya coauthored. The declaration called for focused protection of the elderly and otherwise infirm, stating, “The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk.”
The memorandum, in contrast, said there was “no evidence for lasting protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection” and supported the harsh lockdown measures that had been imposed in the United States and elsewhere.
In March 2021, after becoming director, Walensky released recommendations that the naturally immune get vaccinated, noting that there was “substantial durability” of protection six months after infection but that “rare cases of reinfection” had been reported.
Walensky hyped the CDC study on natural immunity in August 2021, and the second study in October 2021. But when the third paper came out concluding natural immunity was superior, she did not issue a statement. Walensky later told a blog that the study found natural immunity provided strong protection, “perhaps even more so than those who had been vaccinated and not yet boosted.”
But, because it came before Omicron, she said, “it’s not entirely clear how that protection works in the context of Omicron and boosting.”
Walensky, Murthy, and Collins did not respond to requests for interviews. Fauci, who stepped down from his positions in late 2022, could not be reached.
Murthy and Collins also portrayed natural immunity as inferior. “From the studies about natural immunity, we are seeing more and more data that tells us that while you get some protection from natural infection, it’s not nearly as strong as what you get from the vaccine,” Murthy said on CNN about two months before the meeting. Collins, in a series of blog posts, highlighted the studies showing higher antibody levels after vaccination and urged people to get vaccinated. He also voiced support for vaccine mandates.
The company which owns the mill is Fufeng Group, an MSG and xantham gum manufacturer based in Shandong province, China, bought 370 acres of farmland in Grand Forks – along with the promise that the $700 million site would economically benefit the region.
According to GOP Sens. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer, however, the Air Force says: “the proposed project presents a significant threat to national security with both near- and long-term risks of significant impacts to our operations in the area,” though the military branch declined to state specific threats.
Thousands of residents have speculated that the corn mill might be used for spying, however.
In August of last year, at least 5,000 residents signed a petition aimed at preventing the mill’s construction.
Mayor Brandon Bochenski, while initially supportive of the mill, came out on Tuesday saying that it should be stopped.
“The federal government has requested the city’s help in stopping the project as geo-political tensions have greatly increased since the initial announcement of the project,” he said, adding that he would block construction by denying building permits and refusing to connect city infrastructure to the site, Yahoo News reports.
Fufeng USA’s Chief Operating Officer Eric Chutorash has since denied that the mill would be used to spy on or harm the U.S.
The corn mill was proposed to be built 12 miles away from the Grand Forks Air Force Base, which is home to U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance units, including its top-secret drone technology. -Yahoo!
In a Tuesday joint press release, Cramer and Hoeven called on Grand Forks officials to “discontinue” the project, and instead “work together to find an American company to develop the agriculture project.”
As Trump and Biden focus their attention on the early primary state of South Carolina, Palmetto State voters are thinking about the future, one that focuses on public policy solutions, not “gotcha” politics and controversies of the past. Voters are expressing a willingness to move on from both the former and current president if they can’t meet the moment with real solutions to the problems facing everyday voters.
South Carolinians are looking for concrete proposals to address inflation. 78% of SC voters are concerned with their family’s ability to pay their bills due to inflation, with nearly half (48.4%) saying they are very concerned, according to a new poll from the South Carolina Policy Council. Less than four in ten SC voters believe America on the right track, with 58% saying it is on the wrong track.
Voters across the board still believe that lower taxes help spur economic growth.
Nearly four in five (79%) likely SC voters said further tax reductions are important for creating new jobs and attracting business, with 54% saying they are very important.
85% of GOP voters said further tax cuts are important for economic growth, as did 68% of Democrat voters and 81% of independent voters.
South Carolina voters are also demanding more government transparency. 83% agreed that government bodies should be required to livestream their public meetings on the internet for greater transparency and accountability.
Critically, the survey data shows voters are highly interested in moving on from both Biden and Trump.
In fact, 54% of likely 2024 SC voters agreed that “the country would be better off if neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump is elected President in 2024.” Only 30% said they disagree.
Other important takeaways include:
A majority (51%) of likely voters viewed Trump unfavorably, compared with 46% who viewed him favorably.
Biden is viewed unfavorably by 54% of likely voters, while only 45% viewed him favorably.
Of Republican primary voters, only 37% said the GOP should nominate Trump in 2024, while 47% said the GOP should nominate someone else.
In a head-to-head matchup, a majority of likely Republican voters favored Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (52%) over former President Donald Trump (33%) by a whopping 19%.
Nearly half (46%) of Republican primary voters that viewed Trump very favorably said the GOP should nominate someone else.
Of the SC voters who viewed Biden very favorably, 38% still said America would be better off if neither Biden nor Trump were elected in 2024.
Of SC Democratic primary voters, only 43% said their party should nominate Joe Biden for re-election in 2024, while 38% answered someone else.
A full 20% of Democrats were unsure of whom the party should nominate. Overall, more than half (58%) of likely Democrat voters indicated they are not sold on Biden in 2024.
While South Carolina is a reliable GOP state in the general election, data just to the north in purple North Carolina is shockingly similar, according to new polling conducted by Differentiator Data.
The results show that Trump is viewed favorably by just 38% of North Carolina’s likely voters. Only 42% of NC voters viewed President Biden favorably. Republican voters favored Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (47%) over Trump (35%) by 12 points in a six person GOP field. Nearly half of GOP voters that viewed Trump favorably would still pick DeSantis or another candidate.
For Trump and Biden to win back the voters they have lost, they will have to turn the page on the past and deliver an optimistic, forward-looking agenda for the future – a herculean task for two men who have been on the earth for eight decades. Another nasty personal fight between the two of them might produce an electoral winner, but not one who can capture the hearts and minds of Americans and successfully lead the country.
South Carolinians will be key in deciding which Republican and which Democrat will become their party’s nominee. North Carolina, decided by just 1.75% in 2020, will be a key swing state in the 2024 general election.
Yet across the Carolinas, voters are already sending signals. Voters are hungry for fresh, new policy ideas. They want competent leadership that can deliver real policy solutions to address real world problems.
The question is, can either party and its candidates deliver?
Dallas Woodhouse is the Executive Director of the South Carolina Policy Council.
Turkey Can Forget About Getting F-16s If Sweden, Finland NATO Bids Blocked: Senators
The United States is now threatening Turkey with holding more American-made fighter jets captive, this time over the Erdogan government’s refusal to allow Sweden into NATO.
Turkey starting in 2021 issued a formal request purchase 40 F-16 jets and about 80 modernization kits from the US, but a group of over two dozen US senators has said they are ready to block the sale if Turkey doesn’t ratify Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession protocols.
“Congress cannot consider future support for Türkiye, including the sale of F-16 fighter jets, until Türkiye completes ratification of the accession protocols,” the senators, led by Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), wrote in a letter to the president Thursday.
“Failure to ratify the protocols or present a timeline for ratification threatens the Alliance’s unity at a key moment in history, as Russia continues its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” the lawmakers stressed.
The White House appears favorable to the Congressional members’ stance regarding getting tougher on Turkey while Ankara blocks Sweden’s NATO membership:
“We have made the same point to our Turkish allies … that we need this Congress’s support moving forward for the security enhancements that we think that they need, as allies, F16s, some of them are old, but that this Congress is likely to look far more favorably on that after ratification,” [Victoria] Nuland said, urging senators to “keep making your points and we will too.”
But Turkey has never been easily pressured by Washington – and this is perhaps given the Turkish military remains the second largest in NATO, and the fact that Turkey plays host to American military bases.
With the F-16 hold-up now having dragged on a couple of years, Turkey has long flirted with the idea of acquiring Russian-made Su-35s and Su-57 fighter jets, causing alarm among NATO allies. Turkey has argued it’s a problem of Washington’s own making, given the 2019 decision to boot Turkey from the Lockheed F-35 program.
Lately, Erdogan has said Turkey looks favorably on Finland joining the alliance, while at the same time suspending accession talks with Swedish officials, especially after last month’s Quran-burning incident in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.
A new report compiled by the Center for Biological Diversity has revealed that the number of households having their electricity disconnected by power companies as a result of not being able to pay soared between 2021 and 2022.
Leading the way among states who report such data is Illinois, whose main electricity providers shut down power for nearly 300,000 households between January and October 2022, a massive increase over the previous year.
According to the report, disconnects in Illinois rose 26 percent from 2021 to 284,720 in the first ten months of 2022. The state’s two largest electricity providers, Exelon’s Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) and Amaren, accounted for the vast majority of shut-offs.
Both companies are investor-owned and have been criticized for increasing executives’ salaries while working to make electricity more expensive for customers.
As the report states, ComEd imposed a 26 percent rate hike in October 2021, and gained permission from regulators in November 2022 to raise prices yet again by $199 million. All the while, customers were having their lights turned off for non-payment.
During this time, ComEd was also embroiled in a corruption scandal, in which it was accused of “using ratepayer funds as part of a bribery scheme” to secure the passage of 2011 legislation that implemented a “formula rate” system. The system subjected customers to hundreds of millions of dollars in rate hikes over the last decade, but ComEd benefited to the tune of nearly $4.7 billion.
At the onset of Covid-19, a moratorium on shutoffs due to nonpayment was imposed across the nation, however, Illinois was one of the states that ended the policy as soon as it possibly could. By late 2021, no such forgiveness was offered.
“The preventable practice of disconnections keeps millions of Americans in poverty and narrows their avenues of escape,” the report lamented. “By giving utility companies the power to penalize poverty, we license them to perpetuate it.”
From U.S. v. Rahimi, decided today by the Fifth Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Cory Wilson, joined by Judges Edith Jones and James Ho:
The question presented in this case is not whether prohibiting the possession of firearms by someone subject to a domestic violence restraining order is a laudable policy goal. The question is whether 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), a specific statute that does so, is constitutional under the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. In the light of N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen (2022), it is not.
The court rejected the view that, under Heller and Bruen, legislatures can disarm anyone who isn’t a “law-abiding, responsible citizen[]”:
There is some debate on this issue. Compare Kanter v. Barr (7th Cir. 2019) (Barrett, J. dissenting), abrogated by Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111, with Binderup v. Att’y Gen. (3d Cir. 2016) (en banc) (Hardiman, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgments). As summarized by now-Justice Barrett, “one [approach] uses history and tradition to identify the scope of the right, and the other uses that same body of evidence to identify the scope of the legislature’s power to take it away.” The Government’s argument that Rahimi falls outside the community covered by the Second Amendment rests on the first approach. But it runs headlong into Heller and Bruen, which we read to espouse the second one.
Unpacking the issue, the Government’s argument fails because (1) it is inconsistent with Heller, Bruen, and the text of the Second Amendment, (2) it inexplicably treats Second Amendment rights differently than other individually held rights, and (3) it has no limiting principles….
Heller explained that the words “the people” in the Second Amendment have been interpreted throughout the Constitution to “unambiguously refer[] to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset.” Further, “the people” “refer[] to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.” … Heller‘s exposition of “the people” strongly indicates that Rahimi is included in “the people” and thus within the Second Amendment’s scope.
To be sure, as the Government argues, Heller and Bruen also refer to “law-abiding, responsible citizens” in discussing the amendment’s reach (Bruen adds “ordinary, law-abiding citizens”). But read in context, the Court’s phrasing does not add an implied gloss that constricts the Second Amendment’s reach. Heller simply uses the phrase “law-abiding, responsible citizens” as shorthand in explaining that its holding (that the amendment codifies an individual right to keep and bear arms) should not “be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings ….” …
The Government’s reading of Heller and Bruen also turns the typical way of conceptualizing constitutional rights on its head. “[A] person could be in one day and out the next: the moment he was convicted of a violent crime or suffered the onset of mental illness, his rights would be stripped as a self-executing consequence of his new status.” Kanter (Barrett, J., dissenting). This is “an unusual way of thinking about rights [because i]n other contexts that involve the loss of a right, the deprivation occurs because of state action, and state action determines the scope of the loss (subject, of course, to any applicable constitutional constraints).” “Felon voting rights are a good example: a state can disenfranchise felons, but if it refrains from doing so, their voting rights remain constitutionally protected.” The Government fails to justify this disparate treatment of the Second Amendment.
Perhaps most importantly, the Government’s proffered interpretation lacks any true limiting principle. Under the Government’s reading, Congress could remove “unordinary” or “irresponsible” or “non-law abiding” people—however expediently defined—from the scope of the Second Amendment. Could speeders be stripped of their right to keep and bear arms? Political nonconformists? People who do not recycle or drive an electric vehicle? One easily gets the point: Neither Heller nor Bruen countenances such a malleable scope of the Second Amendment’s protections; to the contrary, the Supreme Court has made clear that “the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.” Rahimi, while hardly a model citizen, is nonetheless part of the political community entitled to the Second Amendment’s guarantees, all other things equal….
The court concluded that therefore, under Bruen, § 922(g)(8) could be upheld only if it were sufficiently analogous to historically accepted limitations on guns; and it held that none of the proposed analogies worked:
[W]e focus on these key features of [§ 922(g)(8): (1) forfeiture of the right to possess weapons (2) after a civil proceeding (3) in which a court enters a protective order based on a finding of a “credible threat” to another specific person, (4) in order to protect that person from “domestic gun abuse.” … To sustain § 922(g)(8)’s burden on Rahimi’s Second Amendment right, the Government bears the burden of proffering “relevantly similar” historical regulations that imposed “a comparable burden on the right of armed self-defense” that were also “comparably justified.” …
The Government offers potential historical analogues to § 922(g)(8) that fall generally into three categories: (1) English and American laws (and sundry unadopted proposals to modify the Second Amendment) providing for disarmament of “dangerous” people, (2) English and American “going armed” laws, and (3) colonial and early state surety laws. We discuss in turn why each of these historical regulations falter as “relevantly similar” precursors to § 922(g)(8)….
Under the English Militia Act of 1662, officers of the Crown could “seize all arms in the custody or possession of any person” whom they “judge[d] dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom.” Citing scholarship, the Government thus posits that “by the time of American independence, England had established a well-practiced tradition of disarming dangerous persons—violent persons and disaffected persons perceived as threatening to the crown.”
But the Militia Act’s provenance demonstrates that it is not a forerunner of our Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Under Charles I (who reigned 1625–1649), the Crown and Parliament contested for control of the militia. After the resulting civil war and Oliver Cromwell’s interregnum, the monarchy was restored in 1660 when Charles II took the throne. Charles II began using the militia to disarm his political opponents. The Militia Act of 1662 facilitated this disarmament, which escalated under the Catholic James II once he took the throne in 1685. After the Glorious Revolution, which enthroned Protestants William and Mary, the Declaration of Rights, codified as the 1689 English Bill of Rights, qualified the Militia Act by guaranteeing “[t]hat the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law.” “This right,” which restricted the Militia Act’s reach in order to prevent the kind of politically motivated disarmaments pursued by Charles II and James II, “has long been understood to be the predecessor to our Second Amendment.” This understanding, and the history behind it, defeats any utility of the Militia Act of 1662 as a historical analogue for § 922(g)(8).
The Government next points to laws in several colonies and states that disarmed classes of people considered to be dangerous, specifically including those unwilling to take an oath of allegiance, slaves, and Native Americans…. [But t]he purpose of these “dangerousness” laws was the preservation of political and social order, not the protection of an identified person from the specific threat posed by another. Therefore, laws disarming “dangerous” classes of people are not “relevantly similar” to § 922(g)(8) such that they can serve as historical analogues.
Finally, the Government offers two proposals that emerged in state ratification conventions considering the proposed Constitution. A minority of Pennsylvania’s convention authored a report in which they contended that citizens have a right to bear arms “unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury.” And at the Massachusetts convention, Samuel Adams proposed a qualifier to the Second Amendment that limited the scope of the right to “peaceable citizens.”
But these proposed amendments are not reflective of the Nation’s early understanding of the scope of the Second Amendment right. While they were influential proposals, neither became part of the Second Amendment as ratified. Thus, the proposals might somewhat illuminate the scope of firearm rights at the time of ratification, but they cannot counter the Second Amendment’s text, or serve as an analogue for § 922(g)(8) ….
The Government also relies on the ancient criminal offense of “going armed to terrify the King’s subjects.” This common law offense persisted in America and was in some cases codified…. [But] those laws only disarmed an offender after criminal proceedings and conviction. By contrast, § 922(g)(8) disarms people who have merely been civilly adjudicated to be a threat to another person. Moreover, the “going armed” laws, like the “dangerousness” laws discussed above, appear to have been aimed at curbing terroristic or riotous behavior, i.e., disarming those who had been adjudicated to be a threat to society generally, rather than to identified individuals. Thus, these “going armed” laws are not viable historical analogues for § 922(g)(8)….
Lastly, the Government points to historical surety laws. At common law, an individual who could show that he had “just cause to fear” that another would injure him or destroy his property could “demand surety of the peace against such person.” The surety “was intended merely for prevention, without any crime actually committed by the party; but arising only from probable suspicion, that some crime [wa]s intended or likely to happen.” If the party of whom surety was demanded refused to post surety, he would be forbidden from carrying a weapon in public absent special need….
The surety laws come closer to being “relevantly similar” to § 922(g)(8) than the “dangerousness” and “going armed” laws discussed supra. First, they are more clearly a part of our tradition of firearm regulation. And they were “comparably justified,” in that they were meant to protect an identified person (who sought surety) from the risk of harm posed by another identified individual (who had to post surety to carry arms). Put simply, the why behind historical surety laws analogously aligns with that underlying § 922(g)(8).
Aspects of how the surety laws worked resemble certain of the mechanics of § 922(g)(8) as well. The surety laws required only a civil proceeding, not a criminal conviction. The “credible threat” finding required to trigger § 922(g)(8)’s prohibition on possession of weapons echoes the showing that was required to justify posting of surety to avoid forfeiture. But that is where the analogy breaks down: As the Government acknowledges, historical surety laws did not prohibit public carry, much less possession of weapons, so long as the offender posted surety. See also Bruen (noting that there is “little evidence that authorities ever enforced surety laws”). Where the surety laws imposed a conditional, partial restriction on the Second Amendment right, § 922(g)(8) works an absolute deprivation of the right, not only publicly to carry, but to possess any firearm, upon entry of a sufficient protective order. At bottom, the historical surety laws did not impose “a comparable burden on the right of armed self-defense.” …
Doubtless, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) embodies salutary policy goals meant to protect vulnerable people in our society. Weighing those policy goals’ merits through the sort of means-end scrutiny our prior precedent indulged, we previously concluded that the societal benefits of § 922(g)(8) outweighed its burden on Rahimi’s Second Amendment rights. But Bruen forecloses any such analysis in favor of a historical analogical inquiry into the scope of the allowable burden on the Second Amendment right. Through that lens, we conclude that § 922(g)(8)’s ban on possession of firearms is an “outlier[] that our ancestors would never have accepted.” …
Judge Ho joined the majority but concurred; an excerpt:
I write separately to point out that our Founders firmly believed in the fundamental role of government in protecting citizens against violence, as well as the individual right to keep and bear arms—and that these two principles are not inconsistent but entirely compatible with one another.
Our Founders understood that those who commit or threaten violence against innocent law-abiding citizens may be arrested, convicted, and incarcerated. They knew that arrest and incarceration naturally entails the loss of a wide range of liberties—including the loss of access to arms. {See, e.g., Chimel v. California (1969) (“When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape.”); State v. Buzzard (Ark. 1842) (Ringo, C.J.) (“Persons accused of crime, upon their arrest, have constantly been divested of their arms, without the legality of the act having ever been questioned.”).}
So when the government detains—and thereby disarms—a member of our community, it must do so consistent with the fundamental protections that our Constitution affords to those accused of a crime. For example, the government may detain dangerous criminals, not just after conviction, but also before trial. Pre-trial detention is expressly contemplated by the Excessive Bail Clause and the Speedy Trial Clause. And it no doubt plays a significant role in protecting innocent citizens against violence. See, e.g., United States v. Salerno (1987) (permitting “the detention prior to trial of arrestees charged with serious felonies who … pose a threat to the safety of individuals or to the community”).
Our laws also contemplate the incarceration of those who criminally threaten, but have not (yet) committed, violence. After all, to the victim, such actions are not only life-threatening—they’re life-altering.
In sum, our Founders envisioned a nation in which both citizen and sovereign alike play important roles in protecting the innocent against violent criminals. Our decision today is consistent with that vision….
‘The Scandal Would Be Enormous’: Pfizer Director Worried About Vax-Induced Menstrual Irregularities
Project Veritas on Thursday released a new segmentof undercover footage of Pfizer director Jordon Walker in which the Director of R&D within the company’s mRNA operation expressed concern over how the COVID-19 vaccine may be affecting women’s reproductive health.
“There is something irregular about the menstrual cycles. So, people will have to investigate that down the line,” Walker told an undercover journalist he thought he was on a date with.
“The [COVID] vaccine shouldn’t be interfering with that [menstrual cycles]. So, we don’t really know,” he added.
Walker also hopes we don’t discover that “somehow this mRNA lingers in the body and like — because it has to be affecting something hormonal to impact menstrual cycles,” adding “I hope we don’t discover something really bad down the line…If something were to happen downstream and it was, like, really bad? I mean, the scale of that scandal would be enormous.”
Watch:
BREAKING: @Pfizer Director Concerned Over Women’s Reproductive Heath After COVID-19 Vaccinations
“There is something irregular about their menstrual cycles…concerning…The vaccine shouldn’t be interfering with that…It has to be affecting something hormonal…”#Pfertilitypic.twitter.com/XAuMPJNShD
A growing number of doctors say that they will not get COVID-19 vaccine boosters, citing a lack of clinical trial evidence.
“I have taken my last COVID vaccine without RCT level evidence it will reduce my risk of severe disease,” Dr. Todd Lee, an infectious disease expert at McGill University, wrote on Twitter.
Lee was pointing to the lack of randomized clinical trial (RCT) results for the updated boosters, which were cleared in the United States and Canada in the fall of 2022 primarily based on data from experiments with mice.
Lee, who has received three vaccine doses, noted that he was infected with the Omicron virus variant—the vaccines provide little protection against infection—and described himself as a healthy male in his 40s.
Dr. Vinay Prasad, a professor of epidemiology and biostatics at the University of California, San Francisco, also said he wouldn’t take any additional shots until clinical trial data become available.
“I took at least 1 dose against my will. It was unethical and scientifically bankrupt,” he said.
Allison Krug, an epidemiologist who co-authored a study that found teenage boys were more likely to suffer heart inflammation after COVID-19 vaccination than COVID-19 infection, recounted explaining to her doctor why she was refusing a booster and said her doctor agreed with her position.
She called on people to “join the movement to demand appropriate evidence,” pointing to a blog post from Prasad.
“Pay close attention to note this isn’t anti-vaccine sentiment. This is ‘provide [hard] evidence of benefit to justify ongoing use’ which is very different. It is only fair for a 30 billion dollar a year product given to hundreds of millions,” Lee said.
Dr. Mark Silverberg, who founded the Toronto Immune and Digestive Health Institute; Kevin Bass, a medical student; and Dr. Tracy Høeg, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, joined Lee and Prasad in stating their opposition to more boosters, at least for now.
Høeg said she did not need clinical trials to know she’s not getting any boosters after receiving a two-dose primary series, adding that she took the second dose “against my will.”
“I also had an adverse reaction to dose 1 moderna and, if I could do it again, I would not have had any covid vaccines,” she said on Twitter. “I was glad my parents in their 70s could get covid vaccinated but have yet to see non-confounded data to advise them about the bivalent booster. I would have liked to see an RCT for the bivalent for people their age and for adults with health conditions that put them at risk.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization to updated boosters, or bivalent shots, from Pfizer and Moderna in August 2022 despite there being no human data.
Observational data suggests the boosters provide little protection against infection and solid shielding against severe illness, at least initially.
Five months after the authorization was granted, no clinical trial data has been made available for the bivalents, which target the Wuhan strain as well as the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron. Moderna presented efficacy estimates for a different bivalent, which has never been used in the United States, during a recent meeting. The company estimated the booster increased protection against infection by just 10 percent.
The FDA is preparing to order all Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines be replaced with the bivalents. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which issues recommendations on vaccines, continues advising virtually all Americans to get a primary series and multiple boosters.
Professor Calls for Halt to Messenger RNA Vaccines
A professor, meanwhile, became the latest to call for a halt to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which are both based on messenger RNA technology.
“At this point in time, all COVID mRNA vaccination program[s] should stop immediately,” Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a video statement. “They should stop because they completely failed to fulfill any of their advertised promise[s] regarding efficacy. And more importantly, they should stop because of the mounting and indisputable evidence that they cause unprecedented level of harm, including the death of young people and children.”
Levi was referring to post-vaccination heart inflammation, or myocarditis. The condition is one of the few that authorities have acknowledged is caused by the messenger RNA vaccines.
