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“A Strange Game”, Part 2

“A Strange Game”, Part 2

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

In Part One of this article I laid out the dire situation we find ourselves facing, as the illegitimate Biden administration inflicts the coup de grace to our dying empire of debt. I will now provide a possible framework of resistance and methods of undermining the corrupt pillaging system we call government.

The concept of passive resistance has existed in various forms for centuries and has been used effectively in toppling enemies. A few weeks ago I was introduced to a concept I had never heard before in Doug Lynn’s article  Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair: Hover Through the Fog and Filthy Air. The passage below references “Irish Democracy” as a method for bringing an authoritarian regime to their knees.

More regimes have been brought, piecemeal, to their knees by what was once called “Irish Democracy”—the silent, dogged resistance, withdrawal, and truculence of millions of ordinary people—than by revolutionary vanguards or rioting mobs.

The premise behind “Irish Democracy” is that the State lacks the enforcement power to have its way with millions upon millions of rebels. It’s Mohandas Gandhi’s strategy, albeit without his overt confrontations with the institutions of government. “You can ignore the State and do as you please, as long as you keep your head down.”

Removing the overt confrontations makes “Irish Democracy” much safer than any other form of rebellion. The State needs conspicuous, targetable rebels. It cannot use terror of its forces without someone to turn into an “example.” No conspicuous rebels means nothing for the State to crucify for the edification of the public.

The description of Irish Democracy was put forth by Yale professor James C. Scott in his book, “Two Cheers for Anarchism“:

“Quiet, anonymous, and often complicitous, lawbreaking and disobedience may well be the historically preferred mode of political action for peasant and subaltern classes, for whom open defiance is too dangerous. One need not have an actual conspiracy to achieve the practical effects of a conspiracy.”

Widespread non-coordinated resistance to the mandates and dictates of a totalitarian state can succeed, as millions of individual actions result in having an overwhelming cumulative negative impact on the state’s functioning. As Scott reflects, the state needs conspicuous targetable enemies, which we have clearly seen, as this fledgling communist regime continues to promote the white supremacist insurrection fabrication and Trump’s guilt in provoking pretend Vikings to steal podiums and take selfies in Pelosi’s office.

The goal of these mendacious totalitarians is to provoke Trump supporters into a violent response, so they can usher in their Domestic Terrorism Act (Patriot Act 2.0) and implement a modern-day techno gulag solution. We cannot take the bait. It is time to arrange our affairs in such a way that denies the State their claimed piece of your pie, while doing so in such a way the State does not scrutinize your “unlawful” acts. Ignoring ridiculous decrees, demands, and laws are the duty of every right-thinking American.

As the cancel culture social justice warriors seek their next prominent victim to crucify across their media empire, it behooves us “little people” to deny them the satisfaction of ruining our lives. They want nothing more than to de-platform you, get you fired from your job, and destroy your reputation. This is where Irish Democracy, Going Galt, and numerous other variations of these strategies, along with heeding the wisdom Sun Tzu, need to be utilized to defeat our now firmly entrenched enemy.

There are no white hats coming to save us. It is now up to millions of truculent, disagreeable, angry, deplorable citizens to undermine the establishment and force this empire built on a foundation of unpayable debt to collapse. It might seem like a daunting task, but each individual act of resistance is like a grain of sand added to the unstable pile. No one knows which grain will trigger the catastrophic failure of the system. We are all capable of becoming the straw that broke the camel’s back.

John Galt’s speech in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is over 33 thousand words, but these passages capture the essence of Going Galt:

“For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt? This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the man who has deprived you of victims and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing—you who dread knowledge—I am the man who will now tell you.

You have heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. You have cried that man’s sins are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster. In the name of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all those evils which you held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty.

You will win when you are ready to pronounce the oath I have taken at the start of my battle—and for those who wish to know the day of my return, I shall now repeat it to the hearing of the world:

I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

The key point is to deprive the Marxist/Deep State/Oligarchy of victims who they can use to further their warped, non-sensical, totalitarian agenda of control, force and wealth extraction for the greater good – of the oligarchs. They create a crisis with their laws, regulations, legislation, mandates, executive orders, and decrees and then make it far worse with their “solutions”, while demanding more sacrifices by the little people to keep their sinking ship afloat. This is their Achilles heel.

If millions of individuals Go Galt and Starve the Beast, one transaction at a time, withdrawing our consent because we believe those governing us are illegitimate, the State lacks the enforcement power and means to punish people they cannot find or identify as criminals. This is guerilla warfare in a modern technological dystopian world. Each of us has different life circumstances, financial capacity, and constraints, but everyone can contribute something to toppling our oppressors. Here are some thoughts. I am sure you can creatively add to this list:

  • Reduce your taxable footprint as much as possible, rendering as little to Caesar as possible. Spending less deprives them of sales tax.

  • Do home improvement projects yourself and buy supplies from local retailers, rather than big box mega-stores.

  • Don’t buy anything from Amazon. If you are still on Facebook or Twitter, depart for a platform that does not censor. Don’t use Google for searches. Cancel Netflix and Amazon Prime.

  • Boycott any organization pushing the BLM agenda or critical race theory.

  • Take a course or two at the local tech school in electrical, plumbing, or other practical skill, so you can do it yourself.

  • No matter how small your plot of land, learn to grow some food – the more the better. See if hydroponics is possible. Deny the mega-food industry your business.

  • Make friends with local farmers, source meat, eggs, corn, milk, etc. from them and pay in cash. The government cannot track the transaction.

  • If you need to utilize a contractor, landscaper, painter, etc. find a local guy and pay in cash. They often will give a discount and the government will not get their slice.

  • If your circumstances warrant, bartering with locals can satisfy the needs of both parties and keeps the government out of your business.

  • Only frequent small family-owned restaurants and always pay in cash, including the tip for your waitress. The government will absolutely get their slice if you pay using a credit card.

  • If you have money in a Wall Street bank, withdraw it and put it in credit union or small local bank.

  • Do not carry any credit card debt. Pay down your mortgage. Do not borrow to buy a new car. Buy a used car.

  • Reduce your driving, not to save the environment, but to deny the State gasoline taxes and toll revenue.

  • If possible, own some precious metals, in preparation for the inevitable collapse of the USD. Crypto currencies may also be a hedge but may be too risky for most people.

  • Learn how to communicate with allies using encrypted messaging.

  • Don’t wear a mask or get the experimental DNA altering jab. Ridicule those who do.

  • The IRS is a dysfunctional, understaffed, bureaucratic calamity of an organization. You are small potatoes. They don’t have the resources to check whether your return is accurate. If the Fed can print $4 trillion out of thin air, why do they need your taxes anyway. Act accordingly.

  • If you live in an urban area, and have the means, get the hell out, preferably to a rural area inhabited by like- minded people.

  • If you live in a blue state or blue county, and can do so, move to a red state or red county. As states raise income tax rates, move to states with little or no income taxes. PA governor Wolf just proposed increasing the state income tax by 46% to give my money to teachers’ unions. Florida is looking awfully inviting.

  • With federal, state and local taxes surely going to rise, if you are near retirement, and can afford to, just drop out now and stop paying income taxes.

  • As these Going Galt actions are sure to infuriate those wielding power, make sure you are armed, have firearms training, and have a sufficient supply of ammo. Be mentally prepared to defend your homestead.

Some of these actions are easier than others, but they would all contribute to an undetected rebellion against the State. If you are interested in going full Galt, this article from Marc Moran (aka Hardscrabble Farmer) –  Five Things To Do When Going Galt –details his family’s journey from being trapped in the Matrix to the freedom of controlling your own destiny – also known as the liberty to live life as you choose.

None of what I’ve described is easy, but direct confrontation would be futile, as the majority of sheep would support the government because they are incapable of critical thought, distracted by their technological gadgets, and fearful of their own shadows. Since there is no doubt we are already at war, as the new regime has already classified us as domestic terrorists, we should heed the wisdom of Sun Tzu in confronting the enemy.

“If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him.  Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

If ever an opponent had a choleric temper it is the Marxist regime currently in power, with the hateful Pelosi, wrathful Schumer, venomous AOC, angry Biden, malevolent Harris, and malicious Deep State apparatchiks easily irritated and can be goaded into making irrational decisions. Their arrogance, lack of self-awareness, and continuous barefaced hypocrisy, leaves them exposed to ridicule and scorn on a daily basis, which makes them angrier and more susceptible to contempt and mockery from their opponents.

There is no need to interrupt the enemy when they continue to issue executive orders and pass legislation which will have disastrous consequences. Even though the Reddit guys eventually had their asses handed to them, they proved a strategized sneak attack by the little guys could create havoc and disarray on Wall Street. The entire episode tore back the curtain and revealed the game is perpetually rigged in favor of billionaire hedge fund managers and the Wall Street cabal.

This war is winnable if we use Irish Democracy and Going Galt tactics and out-think our narcissist, intellectually deficient, liberal arts major enemies. The danger is when they become frustrated by being out-smarted and out-maneuvered, they will lash out violently against men who just want to be left alone to live their lives as free men. When the financial system implodes, and it certainly will, they will attempt to scapegoat the deplorables.

If they endeavor to violently enforce their mandates, they will unleash hardened men who will give no quarter in inflicting their vengeance upon those who chose not to leave them to peacefully liver their lives. The electrical grid and government computer systems are highly susceptible to attack. Strategic strikes of truckers could create food shortages in a matter of days in Democrat run urban enclaves of peaceful protests.

The 300 million guns in this country are owned by men who know how to use them. These political animals will pay a dear price for awakening the inner Outlaw Josey Wales in millions of angry men. This unattributed quote captures what will happen when they push us too far.

“The most terrifying force of death comes from the hands of ‘Men who wanted to be left Alone’.

They try, so very hard to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love.

They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it.

They know the moment they fight back, the lives as they have lived them, are over.

The moment the ‘Men who wanted to be left Alone’ are forced to fight back, it is a small form of suicide. They are literally killing off who they used to be.

Which is why, when forced to take up violence, these ‘Men who wanted to be left Alone’, fight with unholy vengeance against those who murdered their former lives.

They fight with raw hate, and a drive that cannot be fathomed by those who are merely play-acting at politics and terror.

TRUE TERROR will arrive at the Left’s door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy, but it will fall upon deaf ears.”

*  *  *

The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/09/2021 – 18:05

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3jxlP8D Tyler Durden

Japanification On The Rocks: JGBs Slide In Longest Losing Streak Since 2003

Japanification On The Rocks: JGBs Slide In Longest Losing Streak Since 2003

Is Japan’s “Japanification” experiment about to suffer a major hiccup?

In a country where even the smallest rise in yield sparks alarms across Tokyo and the BOJ, things are suddenly looking dicey. On Tuesday, Japan’s benchmark 10-year government bond futures fell for a tenth consecutive session on Tuesday, their longest losing streak in 18 years, as local investors were spooked that some of the surging US inflation (according to 10Y breakevens, which are now at 7 year highs) is going to cross the Pacific.

Adding insult to injury, demand for government debt was also weak Reuters reports, as some market players are nervous that the Bank of Japan could reduce its bond-buying when it reviews its policy in March, a market participant said.

As a result, Benchmark U.S. Treasury yields held near 11-month highs overnight as U.S. fiscal stimulus was seen boosting economic growth and spurring inflation. Benchmark 10-year JGB futures fell 0.02 point to 151.48.

The 10-year JGB yield was unchanged at 0.065% and the 20-year JGB yield rose 0.5 basis point to 0.460%. The 30-year JGB yield rose 0.5 basis point to 0.670%. The two-year JGB yield was unchanged at minus 0.130% and the JGB five-year yield was flat at minus 0.100%. Meanwhile, the 40-year JGB yield rose 0.5 basis point to 0.715%.

So far Kuroda has kept quiet, but it is only a matter of time before the BOJ – which has become the only marginal price setter in Japan’s massive bond market – flexes its YCCing muscle and shows those pesky sellers who’s boss.

 

Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/09/2021 – 17:45

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3tHJdov Tyler Durden

Trump’s Dubious First Amendment Defense Against Impeachment

capitol-riot-1-6-21-Newscom

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers flesh out their impeachment defenses in a 78-page pretrial memorandum they filed yesterday. They argue that the Constitution does not allow the Senate to try a former president, a process that began today. They also deny that Trump “incit[ed] violence against the Government of the United States” when he delivered an inflammatory speech to his followers shortly before hundreds of them attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

The first argument is plausible, although hotly contested. But the second argument misconstrues the impeachment as a criminal charge, subject to the limits that the First Amendment imposes in such cases.

Impeachment of former officials was a well-established practice in England and preconstitutional America. Given those precedents, Trump’s lawyers think it is telling that the Framers did not explicitly authorize late impeachments. “The Framers could have explicitly included a provision allowing for the impeachment of a former President, but they did not,” the memorandum says. “The text is also doubly clear given the clarity of available models in some of the United States themselves that did allow for late impeachments to take place.”

The Framers’ failure to explicitly address late impeachments, of course, also can be construed the other way. If they wanted to rule out what they knew was a common practice, they could have done so.

The text is not actually clear at all, which is why legal scholars are still debating this issue 233 years after the Constitution was ratified. But Trump’s lawyers think it is plain that a trial of a former president does not qualify as a trial of “the President.” If the Senate were in fact trying “the President,” they say, Chief Justice John Roberts would be presiding, which he is not. They also note that “remov[al] from Office” is mandatory upon conviction, while disqualification from future federal office is optional.

“The Senate is being asked to do something patently ridiculous: try a private citizen in a process that is designed to remove him from an office that he no longer holds,” Trump’s lawyers say. “Congress’ power to impose penalties upon conviction of impeachment is limited to removal, and (not or) disqualification.” When removal is no longer possible, they argue, a Senate trial is not only unauthorized but amounts to an unconstitutional bill of attainder targeting a private citizen. They cite court decisions that interpreted similar language in state constitutions as precluding impeachment of former officials.

The memorandum notes that Columbia law professor Philip Bobbitt and former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz share this view. It also repeatedly cites Michigan State law professor Brian Kalt’s thorough 2001 article on late impeachments without noting that Kalt disagrees with Bobbitt and Dershowitz.

One telling way in which Trump’s lawyers part with Kalt is their handling of Federalist No. 39, where James Madison says “the President of the United States is impeachable at any time during his continuance in office.” Trump’s lawyers read that statement as ruling out impeachment of a former president. But as Kalt notes, “Madison was not speaking of the limits of the federal impeachment power; rather, he was speaking of its expansion. Unlike certain states where the governor cannot be impeached at all or can only be impeached after he leaves, Madison explained, the President can be impeached while he is in office.”

Trump’s lawyers also misleadingly cite Kalt while attributing this quotation to “one legal scholar”: “A half-grown boy reads in a newspaper that the President occupies the White House; if he would understand from that that all Ex-Presidents are in it together, he would be considered a very unpromising lad.” That remark does appear in Kalt’s article, but it is not his assessment. It is a quotation from a lawyer who defended former Secretary of War William Belknap during his 1876 impeachment trial. Kalt, by contrast, thinks the weight of the historical evidence supports the constitutionality of impeaching (or trying) former federal officials.

Trump’s lawyers concede that a majority of the House thought Belknap could still be impeached on corruption charges even after he resigned, while a majority of the Senate thought a trial was still appropriate. But as the memorandum notes, the minority of senators who disagreed was large enough to ensure Belknap’s acquittal. Trump’s lawyers also note that the House did not pursue impeachment after President Richard Nixon resigned, although that decision does not necessarily show that members of Congress thought doing so would have been unconstitutional.

In a 33-page reply filed today, the House members charged with prosecuting Trump say “scholars from across the political spectrum, including renowned conservative constitutional scholars, have recognized that the Constitution empowers the Senate to convict and disqualify officials who commit misconduct late in their terms and therefore can realistically only be tried after leaving office.” The House managers laid out the reasons for that conclusion in greater detail when they filed their trial memorandum last week.

The scholars cited by the prosecution argue that ruling out late impeachments would frustrate the goals of accountability and deterrence by leaving Congress with no recourse against a president who commits serious misconduct toward the end of his term or who resigns (as Nixon did) after his misconduct comes to light. The House managers also note that the Senate has “the sole Power to try all Impeachments.” Since “the House undisputedly had jurisdiction to impeach President Trump while he was still President,” they say, a Senate trial is clearly authorized.

This issue is not as clear as many of Trump’s defenders and critics suggest. Kalt, who argues that late impeachments are constitutional, nevertheless calls it “a close and unsettled question.” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who is more skeptical of late impeachments, likewise describes the issue as “a close question upon which people of good faith can disagree.”

There is less evidence of good faith in Trump’s argument that he cannot be impeached for persistently promoting the fantasy that he actually won the presidential election by a landslide, culminating in his fiery pre-riot address, because his expression of that demonstrably false opinion was protected by the First Amendment. His lawyers note that Trump never advocated violence and in fact urged his supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” protest the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory. “His statements cannot and could not reasonably be interpreted as a call to immediate violence or a call for a violent overthrow of the United States government,” they say. “President Trump’s speech at the January 6, 2021, event fell well within the norms of political speech that is protected by the First Amendment.”

I think that’s true. It seems clear Trump’s speech would not qualify as incitement to riot under federal law. It also seems clear that he did not exceed the bounds of constitutionally protected speech described by the Supreme Court in the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, which held that even advocacy of lawbreaking is protected by the First Amendment unless it is not only “likely” to incite “imminent lawless action” but also “directed” at that goal.

Even if the First Amendment does not allow the government to criminally prosecute Trump for inciting the Capitol riot, however, that does not mean Congress cannot impeach him, not only for the reckless speech he gave that day but for his monthslong campaign to overturn the election results. That campaign went well beyond court challenges, extending to arguably illegal conduct such as pressuring state officials and Vice President Mike Pence to stop Biden from taking office.

Whether or not Trump violated any criminal statutes, he abused his power and exercised his influence over his supporters in a way that undermined democracy and predictably (although perhaps unintentionally) led to violence. That is the main thrust of his impeachment, and it does not require proof that Trump did anything that was technically illegal.

As for Trump’s claim that the First Amendment bars his impeachment, George Mason law professor Ilya Somin notes that “high government officials don’t have a First Amendment right to be protected from firing based on their political views.” That principle, he says, “applies to presidents facing impeachment no less than other officials.”

The House managers likewise cite the verdict of “nearly 150 First Amendment lawyers and constitutional scholars,” who called Trump’s First Amendment defense “legally frivolous.” The reply brief argues that “the First Amendment has no application in an impeachment proceeding, which does not seek to punish unlawful speech, but instead to protect the Nation from a President who violated his oath of office and abused the public trust.”

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Youth Sports Mask Requirement Is Constitutional

From Let Them Play MN v. Walz, decided yesterday by Judge Eric C. Tostrud (D. Minn.):

This case concerns the state of Minnesota’s decision to require youth athletes to wear face coverings while participating in organized sports activities and to limit spectators at organized youth sports events, both in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19…. In this lawsuit, Plaintiffs claim that the face-covering requirement and spectator limits violate their rights under the Equal Protection Clause …. {Because Plaintiffs have identified no fundamental right, and because the challenged restrictions likely satisfy the rational-basis standard, Plaintiffs are not likely to succeed on the merits of their substantive-due-process claim[, either]…. [A] “rational basis for equal protection purposes also satisfies substantive due process analysis.”}

In the absence of a suspect classification or a fundamental right, the rational-basis standard applies. Under that standard, a challenged state law will be upheld as long as it is “rationally related to a legitimate government interest.” Plaintiffs do not seem to dispute that Minnesota has a legitimate interest in controlling the spread of COVID-19, and it is hard to see how they could. Instead, Plaintiffs argue that Minnesota’s youth-sports restrictions are arbitrary and irrational in relation to that interest.

Rational-basis review sets a low bar. The challenged law is presumptively valid, and a plaintiff can only overcome that presumption by showing that no “reasonably conceivable state of facts” could support the law. A challenged law may survive even if it is both overinclusive and underinclusive in advancing the asserted interest, and even if it is based on “rational speculation unsupported by evidence or empirical data.” Moreover, the state decisionmakers’ “subjective motives” for imposing the challenged restrictions are “irrelevant for constitutional purposes.” In other words, under these long-settled principles, it doesn’t matter whether Plaintiffs have the better policy argument. The question isn’t whether the state has made the best decision. The question the law requires us to answer is whether the challenged policies have some rational basis.

Under this standard, Plaintiffs have not shown that Minnesota’s face-covering and spectator requirements likely violate the Equal Protection Clause. In the preamble to EO 21-01, Governor Walz acknowledged that the state was facing a “challenging balancing act.” EO 21-01 at 2. He concluded that restrictions like the ones that Plaintiffs challenge were necessary because lifting the temporary ban on certain activities, like youth sports, would increase the risk of COVID-19 transmission. He described his reasoning for that conclusion in some detail:

“[S]ome settings continue to pose more risks than others. Indoor activities pose higher risks than outdoor activities. Strenuous activities resulting in increased respiration pose higher risk than sedentary activities. Unpredictable settings are riskier than more predictable and controlled settings. Settings conducive to prolonged contact provide more opportunity for transmission than settings featuring more transitory interactions.”

Based on the whole record in this case, it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that youth sports—which often involve sustained close contact, physical exertion, and large groups of spectators—would pose a risk of transmission. According to Defendants’ evidence, sports have been associated with multiple COVID-19 outbreaks throughout the country. In Minnesota, MDH has “traced at least 334 outbreaks and 10,207 positive COVID-19 cases to sports activities” and found that “[s]ports-related cases are more than twice as prevalent among high school-age children as any other age group[.]”

It is also reasonable to conclude that the face-covering and spectator restrictions would lessen this risk. Social distancing is a basic recommendation for limiting the spread of COVID-19. The American Academy of Pediatrics has specifically recommended that children wear face coverings while playing sports, and a recent nationwide survey found that the use of face coverings was associated with decreased COVID-19 infections in high-school athletes, at least for indoor sports….

To be sure, Plaintiffs present another side of the story with their evidence. They have submitted affidavits from multiple individual physicians opining that it is not safe for children to wear masks while playing sports. The concern, according to these sources, is that masks could hamper an athlete’s breathing, leading to dizziness, hyperventilation, and other negative effects. Or they could obstruct an athlete’s vision, increasing the risk of collisions and related concussive injuries.

Plaintiffs provide anecdotal evidence, including videos, to show that some of these injuries may already have occurred. Plaintiffs also emphasize the significant physical and emotional benefits of participation in youth sports, and with their Complaint, they included a summary of a Wisconsin study finding that “participation in sports is not associated with an increased risk of COVID-19[.]”

All of this evidence shows that Plaintiffs have a reasonable, good-faith policy disagreement with Minnesota’s approach to combating COVID-19 in youth sports. But their disagreement is ultimately a political one; it does not show that Defendants likely violated the Equal Protection Clause.

Seems legally quite correct to me.

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Trump’s Dubious First Amendment Defense Against Impeachment

capitol-riot-1-6-21-Newscom

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers flesh out their impeachment defenses in a 78-page pretrial memorandum they filed yesterday. They argue that the Constitution does not allow the Senate to try a former president, a process that began today. They also deny that Trump “incit[ed] violence against the Government of the United States” when he delivered an inflammatory speech to his followers shortly before hundreds of them attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

The first argument is plausible, although hotly contested. But the second argument misconstrues the impeachment as a criminal charge, subject to the limits that the First Amendment imposes in such cases.

Impeachment of former officials was a well-established practice in England and preconstitutional America. Given those precedents, Trump’s lawyers think it is telling that the Framers did not explicitly authorize late impeachments. “The Framers could have explicitly included a provision allowing for the impeachment of a former President, but they did not,” the memorandum says. “The text is also doubly clear given the clarity of available models in some of the United States themselves that did allow for late impeachments to take place.”

The Framers’ failure to explicitly address late impeachments, of course, also can be construed the other way. If they wanted to rule out what they knew was a common practice, they could have done so.

The text is not actually clear at all, which is why legal scholars are still debating this issue 233 years after the Constitution was ratified. But Trump’s lawyers think it is plain that a trial of a former president does not qualify as a trial of “the President.” If the Senate were in fact trying “the President,” they say, Chief Justice John Roberts would be presiding, which he is not. They also note that “remov[al] from Office” is mandatory upon conviction, while disqualification from future federal office is optional.

“The Senate is being asked to do something patently ridiculous: try a private citizen in a process that is designed to remove him from an office that he no longer holds,” Trump’s lawyers say. “Congress’ power to impose penalties upon conviction of impeachment is limited to removal, and (not or) disqualification.” When removal is no longer possible, they argue, a Senate trial is not only unauthorized but amounts to an unconstitutional bill of attainder targeting a private citizen. They cite court decisions that interpreted similar language in state constitutions as precluding impeachment of former officials.

The memorandum notes that Columbia law professor Philip Bobbitt and former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz share this view. It also repeatedly cites Michigan State law professor Brian Kalt’s thorough 2001 article on late impeachments without noting that Kalt disagrees with Bobbitt and Dershowitz.

One telling way in which Trump’s lawyers part with Kalt is their handling of Federalist No. 39, where James Madison says “the President of the United States is impeachable at any time during his continuance in office.” Trump’s lawyers read that statement as ruling out impeachment of a former president. But as Kalt notes, “Madison was not speaking of the limits of the federal impeachment power; rather, he was speaking of its expansion. Unlike certain states where the governor cannot be impeached at all or can only be impeached after he leaves, Madison explained, the President can be impeached while he is in office.”

Trump’s lawyers also misleadingly cite Kalt while attributing this quotation to “one legal scholar”: “A half-grown boy reads in a newspaper that the President occupies the White House; if he would understand from that that all Ex-Presidents are in it together, he would be considered a very unpromising lad.” That remark does appear in Kalt’s article, but it is not his assessment. It is a quotation from a lawyer who defended former Secretary of War William Belknap during his 1876 impeachment trial. Kalt, by contrast, thinks the weight of the historical evidence supports the constitutionality of impeaching (or trying) former federal officials.

Trump’s lawyers concede that a majority of the House thought Belknap could still be impeached on corruption charges even after he resigned, while a majority of the Senate thought a trial was still appropriate. But as the memorandum notes, the minority of senators who disagreed was large enough to ensure Belknap’s acquittal. Trump’s lawyers also note that the House did not pursue impeachment after President Richard Nixon resigned, although that decision does not necessarily show that members of Congress thought doing so would have been unconstitutional.

In a 33-page reply filed today, the House members charged with prosecuting Trump say “scholars from across the political spectrum, including renowned conservative constitutional scholars, have recognized that the Constitution empowers the Senate to convict and disqualify officials who commit misconduct late in their terms and therefore can realistically only be tried after leaving office.” The House managers laid out the reasons for that conclusion in greater detail when they filed their trial memorandum last week.

The scholars cited by the prosecution argue that ruling out late impeachments would frustrate the goals of accountability and deterrence by leaving Congress with no recourse against a president who commits serious misconduct toward the end of his term or who resigns (as Nixon did) after his misconduct comes to light. The House managers also note that the Senate has “the sole Power to try all Impeachments.” Since “the House undisputedly had jurisdiction to impeach President Trump while he was still President,” they say, a Senate trial is clearly authorized.

This issue is not as clear as many of Trump’s defenders and critics suggest. Kalt, who argues that late impeachments are constitutional, nevertheless calls it “a close and unsettled question.” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who is more skeptical of late impeachments, likewise describes the issue as “a close question upon which people of good faith can disagree.”

There is less evidence of good faith in Trump’s argument that he cannot be impeached for persistently promoting the fantasy that he actually won the presidential election by a landslide, culminating in his fiery pre-riot address, because his expression of that demonstrably false opinion was protected by the First Amendment. His lawyers note that Trump never advocated violence and in fact urged his supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” protest the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory. “His statements cannot and could not reasonably be interpreted as a call to immediate violence or a call for a violent overthrow of the United States government,” they say. “President Trump’s speech at the January 6, 2021, event fell well within the norms of political speech that is protected by the First Amendment.”

I think that’s true. It seems clear Trump’s speech would not qualify as incitement to riot under federal law. It also seems clear that he did not exceed the bounds of constitutionally protected speech described by the Supreme Court in the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, which held that even advocacy of lawbreaking is protected by the First Amendment unless it is not only “likely” to incite “imminent lawless action” but also “directed” at that goal.

Even if the First Amendment does not allow the government to criminally prosecute Trump for inciting the Capitol riot, however, that does not mean Congress cannot impeach him, not only for the reckless speech he gave that day but for his monthslong campaign to overturn the election results. That campaign went well beyond court challenges, extending to arguably illegal conduct such as pressuring state officials and Vice President Mike Pence to stop Biden from taking office.

Whether or not Trump violated any criminal statutes, he abused his power and exercised his influence over his supporters in a way that undermined democracy and predictably (although perhaps unintentionally) led to violence. That is the main thrust of his impeachment, and it does not require proof that Trump did anything that was technically illegal.

As for Trump’s claim that the First Amendment bars his impeachment, George Mason law professor Ilya Somin notes that “high government officials don’t have a First Amendment right to be protected from firing based on their political views.” That principle, he says, “applies to presidents facing impeachment no less than other officials.”

The House managers likewise cite the verdict of “nearly 150 First Amendment lawyers and constitutional scholars,” who called Trump’s First Amendment defense “legally frivolous.” The reply brief argues that “the First Amendment has no application in an impeachment proceeding, which does not seek to punish unlawful speech, but instead to protect the Nation from a President who violated his oath of office and abused the public trust.”

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The Dumbing Down Of America Is Poised To Accelerate

The Dumbing Down Of America Is Poised To Accelerate

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

Political correctness demands mediocrity. So expect more of it…

The Dumbing Down of America

Andrey Kessler at the Wall Street Journal accurately notes Mediocrity Is Now Mandatory

  • In January the College Board announced it would eliminate the essay portion of the SAT, as well as all of the separate SAT subject tests. Their stated purpose was “reducing and simplifying demands on students.” Such a burden.

  • When the University of California system did away with racial preferences in 1996, it moved to holistic admissions. Grades are only a suggestion—and SAT scores are biased, supposedly. 

  • Virtually all universities and now many companies have D&I departments, for diversity and inclusion. Sounds worthy. But as far as I can tell, the No. 1 job of a D&I department is to hire more people into the D&I department. No one ever mentions excellence.

  • Many schools, like Hampshire College, Antioch University and Reed College, don’t even bother with meaningful grades—feelings might get hurt.

  • The Biden administration constantly points out “firsts”—its gender and racially selected cabinet, vice president and other appointments. Great, but why not say “best” rather than first? 

  • An avowed socialist, mittens and all, is now chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, in whose hands merit will burn while mediocrity flourishes.

Political Correctness

A week ago I noted Politically Correct Educators Vote to Rename 44 SF Schools Including Washington and Lincoln.

The San Francisco school board is leading the surge in political correctness by voting to rename 44 schools.

Washington, Jefferson, McKinley, Monroe, John Muir, Robert Louis Stevenson, Daniel Webster, Herbert Hoover, Francis Scott Key, Mission, and Paul Revere are among the names targeted. 

The stated cost is $10,000 per school. That’s $440,000 just for new signs. 

By the time they finish replacing all the statues, stationary, murals, and uniforms, I expect the board will waste double that.

A Few Politically Incorrect Points

  1. Changing the name on an building will not change anything  going on inside.

  2. Eliminating the essay portion of the SAT will not improve reading ability.

  3. Eliminating grades does not make people smarter, nor does giving everyone an A, nor does letting students grade themselves.

  4. Diversity for diversity’s sake does not benefit blacks or anyone else.

  5. It’s not just black lives that matter.

  6. Sheltering kids does not prepare them for the real world.

Why People Voted For Trump

If you are looking for a reason why millions of people voted for Trump, look no further. 

Every bit of this is a complete outrage. It is exactly why Trump got elected in 2016 and had he toned things down a bit in 2020 he probably would have gotten reelected.

Biden needs to speak out against this. But he won’t. Instead he has embraced it. The dumbing down of the USA will accelerate.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/09/2021 – 17:25

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3p6pEmm Tyler Durden

Youth Sports Mask Requirement Is Constitutional

From Let Them Play MN v. Walz, decided yesterday by Judge Eric C. Tostrud (D. Minn.):

This case concerns the state of Minnesota’s decision to require youth athletes to wear face coverings while participating in organized sports activities and to limit spectators at organized youth sports events, both in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19…. In this lawsuit, Plaintiffs claim that the face-covering requirement and spectator limits violate their rights under the Equal Protection Clause …. {Because Plaintiffs have identified no fundamental right, and because the challenged restrictions likely satisfy the rational-basis standard, Plaintiffs are not likely to succeed on the merits of their substantive-due-process claim[, either]…. [A] “rational basis for equal protection purposes also satisfies substantive due process analysis.”}

In the absence of a suspect classification or a fundamental right, the rational-basis standard applies. Under that standard, a challenged state law will be upheld as long as it is “rationally related to a legitimate government interest.” Plaintiffs do not seem to dispute that Minnesota has a legitimate interest in controlling the spread of COVID-19, and it is hard to see how they could. Instead, Plaintiffs argue that Minnesota’s youth-sports restrictions are arbitrary and irrational in relation to that interest.

Rational-basis review sets a low bar. The challenged law is presumptively valid, and a plaintiff can only overcome that presumption by showing that no “reasonably conceivable state of facts” could support the law. A challenged law may survive even if it is both overinclusive and underinclusive in advancing the asserted interest, and even if it is based on “rational speculation unsupported by evidence or empirical data.” Moreover, the state decisionmakers’ “subjective motives” for imposing the challenged restrictions are “irrelevant for constitutional purposes.” In other words, under these long-settled principles, it doesn’t matter whether Plaintiffs have the better policy argument. The question isn’t whether the state has made the best decision. The question the law requires us to answer is whether the challenged policies have some rational basis.

Under this standard, Plaintiffs have not shown that Minnesota’s face-covering and spectator requirements likely violate the Equal Protection Clause. In the preamble to EO 21-01, Governor Walz acknowledged that the state was facing a “challenging balancing act.” EO 21-01 at 2. He concluded that restrictions like the ones that Plaintiffs challenge were necessary because lifting the temporary ban on certain activities, like youth sports, would increase the risk of COVID-19 transmission. He described his reasoning for that conclusion in some detail:

“[S]ome settings continue to pose more risks than others. Indoor activities pose higher risks than outdoor activities. Strenuous activities resulting in increased respiration pose higher risk than sedentary activities. Unpredictable settings are riskier than more predictable and controlled settings. Settings conducive to prolonged contact provide more opportunity for transmission than settings featuring more transitory interactions.”

Based on the whole record in this case, it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that youth sports—which often involve sustained close contact, physical exertion, and large groups of spectators—would pose a risk of transmission. According to Defendants’ evidence, sports have been associated with multiple COVID-19 outbreaks throughout the country. In Minnesota, MDH has “traced at least 334 outbreaks and 10,207 positive COVID-19 cases to sports activities” and found that “[s]ports-related cases are more than twice as prevalent among high school-age children as any other age group[.]”

It is also reasonable to conclude that the face-covering and spectator restrictions would lessen this risk. Social distancing is a basic recommendation for limiting the spread of COVID-19. The American Academy of Pediatrics has specifically recommended that children wear face coverings while playing sports, and a recent nationwide survey found that the use of face coverings was associated with decreased COVID-19 infections in high-school athletes, at least for indoor sports….

To be sure, Plaintiffs present another side of the story with their evidence. They have submitted affidavits from multiple individual physicians opining that it is not safe for children to wear masks while playing sports. The concern, according to these sources, is that masks could hamper an athlete’s breathing, leading to dizziness, hyperventilation, and other negative effects. Or they could obstruct an athlete’s vision, increasing the risk of collisions and related concussive injuries.

Plaintiffs provide anecdotal evidence, including videos, to show that some of these injuries may already have occurred. Plaintiffs also emphasize the significant physical and emotional benefits of participation in youth sports, and with their Complaint, they included a summary of a Wisconsin study finding that “participation in sports is not associated with an increased risk of COVID-19[.]”

All of this evidence shows that Plaintiffs have a reasonable, good-faith policy disagreement with Minnesota’s approach to combating COVID-19 in youth sports. But their disagreement is ultimately a political one; it does not show that Defendants likely violated the Equal Protection Clause.

Seems legally quite correct to me.

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Biden Airlifts the Goalposts on School Reopening: 1 Day a Week!

JenPsaki

“Biden vows to reopen most schools after 1st 100 days on the job,” ran the Associated Press headline on December 8. Advocates of reopening who follow the issue closely could see the potential wiggle room—it’s not the federal government’s call, the full statement was shot through with hedges and conditions, “most” just means 50 percent plus one, etc.

Still, even after the downgrading of most K-12 schools to most K-8 schools (sorry, Classes of 2021-24, you’re just hosed), I can’t say I was ready for a goalpost-shift this tectonic:

 

This is the ground-softening in advance of the Biden administration’s expected guidelines tomorrow to “safely reopen” K-8 schools in the United States, which has had among the lowest percentage of classroom attendance in the industrialized world during these past 11 pandemic-cursed months.

Reopening has become a heated political issue, with labor clashes delaying in-school instruction in Democratic-run big cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. Remote and hybrid learning has been statistically brutal on students and their parents, with the former suffering educational setbacks and significant increases in emotional problems, and the latter experiencing a mass dropout of women from the labor force.

Teachers unions and the politicians they support, including Biden, say that more money is needed to safely reopen elementary, middle, and high schools, on top of the $69 billion in additional federal funding they received in two 2020 COVID-relief bills. (The K-12 system typically receives around $40 billion a year from the feds.) Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package proposal contains $130 billion for pre-college education, and an additional $350 billion in fiscal stabilization for the states. Given that public school spending amounts to around 20 percent of state budgets, it’s safe to assume around $70 billion of that would go to K-12.

Complicating that combined $200 billion ask is the fact that many schools are already open five days a week, without any new checks being written.

“More than 70 [percent] of all K-12 students in Alabama, North Dakota, Texas, and Utah have the option of in-person instruction, while Florida and Wyoming are teaching almost all of their students in person,” reported CBS News, citing the reopening-tracker website Burbio. “All of these states also have ‘right to work’ laws that say no one can be forced to join a union, which means that…if the district orders schools to be reopened, teachers must show up for work or risk losing their job.”

Whereas most of the public system remains fully or partially closed, most private schools are fully open, including in the same cities and neighborhoods where government-run education is 100 percent remote. And many of the empty school buildings in largely closed districts are not in fact empty—they are filled with kids, being supervised by adults, just not adults who belong to teachers unions.

Regardless of the contractual status of participating adults, indoor buildings full of kids during weekdays have consistently been among the safest known settings for humans to gather during the COVID pandemic. This was true in late August, when the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) was running anti-Donald Trump scare-ads characterizing schools as “superspreader events,” as it is true this week, when the The New York Times is implausibly portraying AFT President Randi Weingarten as a tireless advocate for reopening schools.

A president and political party who campaigned on the haughty promise to “listen to scientists and heed their advice—not silence them,” now find themselves shooshing the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for making factual statements that complicate the P.R. rollout for the $200 billion beg.

“There is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen and that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said on February 3, echoing the position of her predecessor. “Vaccinations of teachers is not a prerequisite for safely reopening schools.”

Responded White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki on February 4: “Dr. Walensky spoke to this in her personal capacity.”

So what specific measures are in the $200 billion proposal?

According to a White House breakdown, $60 billion would go for preventing layoffs, $50 billion for reducing class size (which comes with an estimated 10 percent staffing bump), $29 billion for extra make-up learning and tutorial, $14 billion for increased custodial staff, $10 billion for more counselors and psychologists, and $3 billion for school nurses. So basically 80 percent of the money would go toward personnel. At a time when K-12 enrollment is down by around 6 percent nationwide.

To sum up: The Biden administration seeks an extra $200 billion, on top of the $70 billion in extraordinary COVID relief already spent, so that K-8 schools that have been bleeding students can hire enough more teachers and staff that maybe 50 percent of them can open once a week by April. Meanwhile, private schools without a drop of federal funding have remained open five days a week in the most shuttered cities.

Sound like a plan?

“Science is not the obstacle. Federal money is not the obstacle. The obstacle is a lack of willpower,” snarled Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) in a February 3 statement. “The President’s Chief of Staff keeps saying we need even more massive federal funding before teachers can go back. There’s no scientific basis for that. The goalpost-moving doesn’t stop with money. In several places, these unions sought to elbow toward the front of the line for vaccinations—only to turn around and say, thanks for those vaccines, but don’t think these will necessarily get our folks back in the classroom anytime soon.“

But McConnell isn’t the one who holds power here. Democrats are prepared to use Vice President Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker on a 50-50 Senate vote, so the only thing standing between teachers unions and their workplace-avoiding payday is any lingering sense of shame about moving goalposts, breaking promises, ignoring science, infuriating parents, and inflicting measurable damage on students.

“Schools plan for potential of remote learning into the fall,” went yesterday’s Associated Press headline. Meanwhile, those millions of us parents who want no such thing are making other plans of our own.

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Biden Airlifts the Goalposts on School Reopening: 1 Day a Week!

JenPsaki

“Biden vows to reopen most schools after 1st 100 days on the job,” ran the Associated Press headline on December 8. Advocates of reopening who follow the issue closely could see the potential wiggle room—it’s not the federal government’s call, the full statement was shot through with hedges and conditions, “most” just means 50 percent plus one, etc.

Still, even after the downgrading of most K-12 schools to most K-8 schools (sorry, Classes of 2021-24, you’re just hosed), I can’t say I was ready for a goalpost-shift this tectonic:

 

This is the ground-softening in advance of the Biden administration’s expected guidelines tomorrow to “safely reopen” K-8 schools in the United States, which has had among the lowest percentage of classroom attendance in the industrialized world during these past 11 pandemic-cursed months.

Reopening has become a heated political issue, with labor clashes delaying in-school instruction in Democratic-run big cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. Remote and hybrid learning has been statistically brutal on students and their parents, with the former suffering educational setbacks and significant increases in emotional problems, and the latter experiencing a mass dropout of women from the labor force.

Teachers unions and the politicians they support, including Biden, say that more money is needed to safely reopen elementary, middle, and high schools, on top of the $69 billion in additional federal funding they received in two 2020 COVID-relief bills. (The K-12 system typically receives around $40 billion a year from the feds.) Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package proposal contains $130 billion for pre-college education, and an additional $350 billion in fiscal stabilization for the states. Given that public school spending amounts to around 20 percent of state budgets, it’s safe to assume around $70 billion of that would go to K-12.

Complicating that combined $200 billion ask is the fact that many schools are already open five days a week, without any new checks being written.

“More than 70 [percent] of all K-12 students in Alabama, North Dakota, Texas, and Utah have the option of in-person instruction, while Florida and Wyoming are teaching almost all of their students in person,” reported CBS News, citing the reopening-tracker website Burbio. “All of these states also have ‘right to work’ laws that say no one can be forced to join a union, which means that…if the district orders schools to be reopened, teachers must show up for work or risk losing their job.”

Whereas most of the public system remains fully or partially closed, most private schools are fully open, including in the same cities and neighborhoods where government-run education is 100 percent remote. And many of the empty school buildings in largely closed districts are not in fact empty—they are filled with kids, being supervised by adults, just not adults who belong to teachers unions.

Regardless of the contractual status of participating adults, indoor buildings full of kids during weekdays have consistently been among the safest known settings for humans to gather during the COVID pandemic. This was true in late August, when the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) was running anti-Donald Trump scare-ads characterizing schools as “superspreader events,” as it is true this week, when the The New York Times is implausibly portraying AFT President Randi Weingarten as a tireless advocate for reopening schools.

A president and political party who campaigned on the haughty promise to “listen to scientists and heed their advice—not silence them,” now find themselves shooshing the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for making factual statements that complicate the P.R. rollout for the $200 billion beg.

“There is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen and that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said on February 3, echoing the position of her predecessor. “Vaccinations of teachers is not a prerequisite for safely reopening schools.”

Responded White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki on February 4: “Dr. Walensky spoke to this in her personal capacity.”

So what specific measures are in the $200 billion proposal?

According to a White House breakdown, $60 billion would go for preventing layoffs, $50 billion for reducing class size (which comes with an estimated 10 percent staffing bump), $29 billion for extra make-up learning and tutorial, $14 billion for increased custodial staff, $10 billion for more counselors and psychologists, and $3 billion for school nurses. So basically 80 percent of the money would go toward personnel. At a time when K-12 enrollment is down by around 6 percent nationwide.

To sum up: The Biden administration seeks an extra $200 billion, on top of the $70 billion in extraordinary COVID relief already spent, so that K-8 schools that have been bleeding students can hire enough more teachers and staff that maybe 50 percent of them can open once a week by April. Meanwhile, private schools without a drop of federal funding have remained open five days a week in the most shuttered cities.

Sound like a plan?

“Science is not the obstacle. Federal money is not the obstacle. The obstacle is a lack of willpower,” snarled Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) in a February 3 statement. “The President’s Chief of Staff keeps saying we need even more massive federal funding before teachers can go back. There’s no scientific basis for that. The goalpost-moving doesn’t stop with money. In several places, these unions sought to elbow toward the front of the line for vaccinations—only to turn around and say, thanks for those vaccines, but don’t think these will necessarily get our folks back in the classroom anytime soon.“

But McConnell isn’t the one who holds power here. Democrats are prepared to use Vice President Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker on a 50-50 Senate vote, so the only thing standing between teachers unions and their workplace-avoiding payday is any lingering sense of shame about moving goalposts, breaking promises, ignoring science, infuriating parents, and inflicting measurable damage on students.

“Schools plan for potential of remote learning into the fall,” went yesterday’s Associated Press headline. Meanwhile, those millions of us parents who want no such thing are making other plans of our own.

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J&J CEO Says Annual Covid Vaccine Needed “For Years” As MSM Warns Virus Will “Circulate For Decades”

J&J CEO Says Annual Covid Vaccine Needed “For Years” As MSM Warns Virus Will “Circulate For Decades”

In recent days there has been a flood in good news on the covid front. Consider that a recent report from Bank of America, which notes that “COVID-19 hospitalizations continue to plunge” we read the following encouraging data points:

The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the US has declined dramatically to 81,439, or 51,035 (down 39%) from the peak which occurred on January 5th – a rapid turn in the crisis. The decrease is broad-based (50 states + DC, except for AK, which saw a minimal 2-person increase over the past week).

The weekly percentage change in US COVID-19 hospitalized is consistent with the largest declines seen during the coronavirus crisis. Moreover the 7-day test positivity rate has declined to 7.2% from the 13.6% peak on January 8th. Since hospitalizations are lagged relative to time of infection,US coronavirus outbreaks peaked back in the second half of December.

Finally, the vaccine rollout in the US accelerated to more than 2 million doses per day over the weekend and a cumulative 41.2mn doses had been administered through February7th.

The recent widespread improvements prompted Goldman to get this close to declaring the all clear: in a Monday note from chief economist Jan Hatzius, he writes that “the global virus situation has improved significantly, with both new confirmed cases and the positivity rate down meaningfully since December.  It is still too early for a significant impact from vaccinations, so we would attribute the improvement to other factors such as new restrictions, greater caution in individual behavior, and perhaps partial herd immunity in some places.”

More notably, Hatzius notes that “the renewed improvement in the UK is particularly noteworthy because of the concerns about new variants, in this caseB117, which surfaced first there…. the UK’s response to its B117-heavy infection surge in December was similar to France’s response to its surge in October. The fact that both countries saw their infections decline in similar ways after the ELI increase suggests that B117 has not been a game changer, at least so far.”

So much for worries that mutant strains would render both the response strategy and vaccines moot.

And yet despite this impressive improvement in the pandemic, some are hinting that covid may be here to stay for a long, long time. Take the CEO of Johnson & Johnson, Alex Gorsky, who told CNBC that people may need to get vaccinated annually for Covid-19, Gorsky told CNBC the virus can mutate as it spreads causing it to have different responses to therapeutics and vaccines.

“Unfortunately, as [the virus] spreads it can also mutate,” he told CNBC’s Meg Tirrell during a Healthy Returns Spotlight event. “Every time it mutates, it’s almost like another click of the dial so to speak where we can see another variant, another mutation that can have an impact on its ability to fend off antibodies or to have a different kind of response not only to a therapeutic but also to a vaccine.”

“We’ll be getting a Covid-19 shot just like we would a flu shot. What that shot is going to be comprised of, I don’t think we know today. But I think we could all imagine a future where we’re living with this. But where we can keep the science at pace with the virus, so that we can keep on living our lives” Gorsky said.

Of course, the CEO of J&J – a company which stands to make billions from selling the covid vaccine year after year – has a clear conflict of interest and would like nothing more than to sell vaccines indefinitely… and to see Covid circulate within the population forever. After all, that would not only pump up JNJ’s stock price but the CEO’s compensation as well.

What is more troubling is that the narrative that covid will never actually go away is one that the mainstream media is starting to trumpet as well. As the WSJ reported earlier this week, while “vaccination drives hold out the promise of curbing Covid-19, but governments and businesses are increasingly accepting what epidemiologists have long warned: The pathogen will circulate for years, or even decades, leaving society to coexist with Covid-19 much as it does with other endemic diseases like flu, measles, and HIV.”

“Going through the five phases of grief, we need to come to the acceptance phase that our lives are not going to be the same,” said Thomas Frieden, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I don’t think the world has really absorbed the fact that these are long-term changes.”

So does that mean masks and social distancing forever? Perhaps:

Endemic Covid-19 doesn’t necessarily mean continuing coronavirus restrictions, infectious-disease experts said, largely because vaccines are so effective at preventing severe disease and slashing hospitalizations and deaths. Hospitalizations have already fallen 30% in Israel after it vaccinated a third of its population. Deaths there are expected to plummet in weeks ahead.

But some organizations are planning for a long-term future in which prevention methods such as masking, good ventilation and testing continue in some form. Meanwhile, a new and potentially lucrative Covid-19 industry is emerging quickly, as businesses invest in goods and services such as air-quality monitoring, filters, diagnostic kits and new treatments.

Of course, it also means that while some zombie companies will exist only thanks to billons in periodic PPP bailouts, other companies will make unprecedented profits as they directly benefit from a perpetual pandemic.

More importantly, it will means constant media propaganda, because any time the administration needs to pass a multi-trillion stimulus – say when ratings sag – it can just crank up the panic dial to max and greenlight itself another multi-trillion fiscal boost which makes the economy ever more artificial and unable to survive on its own two feet absent constant government handouts.

Most importantly it means that tens of millions of people will become perpetual financial wards of the state, cementing any political system that promises constant handouts to all those who no longer have a chance of coping, or survival in a world where universal basic income – which is gradually becoming the norm – is pulled away.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/09/2021 – 17:05

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3p5ctC7 Tyler Durden