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Biden Says $3.5 Trillion Reconciliation Bill Has a Price Tag of ‘Zero.’ That’s Dubious.


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One of the most persistent, annoying, and dangerous lies regularly told in Washington, D.C., is that everything is paid for in full.

Let’s be clear: The federal government hasn’t fully paid for its normal, run-of-the-mill spending in a single year since 2001. If you believe the projections of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), there is not a single year in the next 30 (the longest length of time for which the office projects spending and revenue) in which the budget will balance. Despite that, lawmakers from both parties continue to peddle this line whenever they want to make big policy changes. Democrats promised that Obamacare would be revenue-neutral. It hasn’t been. Republicans promised the Trump tax cuts would pay for themselves. They didn’t.

Now it’s the Democrats’ turn to play this game, and President Joe Biden has dutifully stepped up to the plate. Speaking Friday about the combination infrastructure package and budget reconciliation bills that the House may vote on sometime this week, the president declared that anyone worried about the latter legislation’s $3.5 trillion price tag should calm down.

“We talk about price tags. It is zero price tag on the debt,” Biden said. “We are going to pay for everything we spend.”

Sure, Joe.

Democrats are proposing to pay for their $3.5 trillion reconciliation package with about $2.3 trillion of tax increases and $700 billion in savings from changing how Medicare and Medicaid purchase pharmaceutical drugs. The rest is written off as being paid for with future economic growth—the idea being that increases in government spending will cause more hiring and greater economic activity, which will cause future tax collections to be higher than projected.

It’s a little bit like saying that your drinking habit can pay for itself, as Reason‘s Peter Suderman has explained.

The math doesn’t add up. In order to achieve the amount of “dynamic scoring” necessary to offset that last $600 billion or so of new spending, the reconciliation bill would have to boost America’s economic output by about 3.5 percent by 2021. That’s far in excess of what every independent assessment of the package says it will do. In fact, at least one assessment of the package says the bill’s tax increases and borrowing will more than cancel out the benefits of heightened spending, dragging growth lower.

The debate over those projections is pretty esoteric. But regardless of which forecast you believe, there’s no getting around the fact that some of the lawmakers now championing the magic of “dynamic scoring” used to be quite skeptical of it. Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee—the very committee that put together the details of the reconciliation bill over the past few weeks—blasted Republicans for relying on “dynamic scoring” to make it look like the Trump tax cuts would balance over the long-term. In the Senate, meanwhile, Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) used to call dynamic scoring a “gimmick” meant to “conceal” the real cost of legislation. Now, he’s fine with using it because Republicans did it first.

If hypocrisy could be taxed, maybe we’d be able to balance the budget.

That isn’t the only dubious assumption behind Biden’s promise that everything will be fully paid for. It doesn’t fully account for the long-term budget impact of the newly expanded child tax credit, which allows Congress to claim $700 billion in “savings” that are unlikely to materialize. The reconciliation bill also calls for boosting IRS enforcement in the hopes of generating $239 billion in revenue from taxes that are currently going uncollected. That is likely an overestimation, as the CBO says the provisions would generate no more than $120 billion from increased tax compliance.

If any of the overly rosy assumptions underpinning the reconciliation bill don’t come true, the excess cost will be added to the national debt. That means it will be added to the $1.9 trillion in one-time spending that Congress approved by Biden’s behest earlier this year—none of which was offset by spending reductions or paid for with tax increases. The national debt already matches the size of the nation’s economy and is on pace to keep growing for the foreseeable future even without adding to it.

If the bill is truly paid for, Democrats in Congress should prove as much by asking the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation to provide a detailed analysis of the “dynamic scoring” promises contained in the reconciliation bill. Without that, argues Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, Democrats’ claims that higher spending will generate sufficient economic growth have no hard backup.

“There is no magic money tree in Washington,” Edwards says. “Rather, taxpayers will ultimately pay for the spending through current tax increases, debt and future tax increases, and inflation.”

Some lawmakers, notably Sens. Joe Manchin (D–W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D–Ariz.), have refused so far to back the president’s plan due to their concerns about adding to the national debt. They should not be convinced by Biden’s phony promise of a “zero price tag”—even after the White House doubled down on that claim on Monday.

And taxpayers should not be comforted by another round of Washington’s favorite lie.

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Get the Americans With Disabilities Act Out of the COVID Wars


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The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has announced its intention to file suit against a Georgia school district under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, on the basis of the district’s decision not to require certain COVID-19 precautions. The SPLC argues that children with certain disabilities, who are especially vulnerable to the virus, might not be able to safely access an education in an environment where masking is optional. Therefore, even if most children are at little risk of serious harm from COVID-19, it argues that in order to ensure all children have the ability to attend school, schools must take every available precaution.

The Biden administration has similarly indicated that it believes schools without maximum masking requirements may be in violation of the ADA. The Department of Education has launched investigations in multiple states based on the alleged civil rights violations arising from optional mask policies. At least one federal judge has already ruled that masks are indeed legally required for the protection of students with disabilities.

Any school administrator who is aware of these investigations will be hesitant to lift a mask mandate, regardless of the conditions in his local community. If exposing a child to a respiratory illness is apparently now an ADA violation, it’s difficult to imagine that schools will ever again be mask-free environments. Given that initial research suggests influenza is about as dangerous to children as COVID-19, it would be difficult to say the ADA imposes a mask requirement for COVID-19, but not the flu. This will trouble anyone who hopes that we will one day be able to live life as we did before the pandemic.

But legal scholars haven’t always agreed that people with disabilities should be given protection from those who have, or might have, COVID-19. In the early days of the pandemic, some speculated that those without immunity to COVID-19 should be considered vulnerable and in need of protection under the ADA. After all, those who are assumed to be potential COVID-19 carriers would be likely to face discrimination from employers and the public at large. Others acknowledged the ADA is in many ways a clumsy tool for dealing with COVID-related social distinctions. A year ago, it was clear enough that social policy should not deliberately create an underclass of citizens who face difficulty in accessing basic services due to their immunity status. Now, administration policy is leaning, little by little, toward making life uncomfortable for those who choose not to get vaccinated.

The ADA covers a broad and ever-widening array of situations. Disability law protects those with cancer, HIV/AIDS, and many mental health disorders—none of which the average person may immediately associate with the idea of disability. Extending the ADA to include COVID-19 protections is tricky at best. The fact that legal thinkers looking at the act have imagined it both as a vessel to protect the unvaccinated and as a tool to protect people from the unvaccinated should be an indicator that the statute does not cleanly apply to this situation.

Yes, parents are in a difficult place right now. It is perfectly understandable that parents of disabled children worry that their kids could face physical harm in their school environments. School administrators who are tasked with providing a safe learning environment for all children might decide that universal mask policies are the best way to accomplish that mission. Other leaders might look at the challenges that masks pose to kids with other learning difficulties. Kids with hearing loss who rely on lip reading to get through the day might have an ADA claim that masking imposes significant barriers to learning. Masks also pose challenges to children who are English language learners.

A safe environment looks different to everyone. If the Biden administration truly believes that the only environment that is safe and conducive to learning for all is one in which all are masked, it can ask Congress to pass legislation mandating masks. Likewise, if red-state governors believe that the only good learning environment is one without masks, they can ask their state legislatures to ban mandates. But the executive branches of our governments should not be acting alone to create such sweeping change in everyday life.

Unfortunately, Biden seems to be following in the path of former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama in seeking to use executive orders and the regulatory arms of the federal government to carry out his priorities. As Congress has mired itself in squabbling and posturing, the powers of the executive branch have crept in to fill the gap that Congress has left behind. The administration’s attempt to use a 30-year-old law to control how schools respond to the COVID-19 pandemic is just another symptom of this.

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Get the Americans With Disabilities Act Out of the COVID Wars


bsiphotos066997

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has announced its intention to file suit against a Georgia school district under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, on the basis of the district’s decision not to require certain COVID-19 precautions. The SPLC argues that children with certain disabilities, who are especially vulnerable to the virus, might not be able to safely access an education in an environment where masking is optional. Therefore, even if most children are at little risk of serious harm from COVID-19, it argues that in order to ensure all children have the ability to attend school, schools must take every available precaution.

The Biden administration has similarly indicated that it believes schools without maximum masking requirements may be in violation of the ADA. The Department of Education has launched investigations in multiple states based on the alleged civil rights violations arising from optional mask policies. At least one federal judge has already ruled that masks are indeed legally required for the protection of students with disabilities.

Any school administrator who is aware of these investigations will be hesitant to lift a mask mandate, regardless of the conditions in his local community. If exposing a child to a respiratory illness is apparently now an ADA violation, it’s difficult to imagine that schools will ever again be mask-free environments. Given that initial research suggests influenza is about as dangerous to children as COVID-19, it would be difficult to say the ADA imposes a mask requirement for COVID-19, but not the flu. This will trouble anyone who hopes that we will one day be able to live life as we did before the pandemic.

But legal scholars haven’t always agreed that people with disabilities should be given protection from those who have, or might have, COVID-19. In the early days of the pandemic, some speculated that those without immunity to COVID-19 should be considered vulnerable and in need of protection under the ADA. After all, those who are assumed to be potential COVID-19 carriers would be likely to face discrimination from employers and the public at large. Others acknowledged the ADA is in many ways a clumsy tool for dealing with COVID-related social distinctions. A year ago, it was clear enough that social policy should not deliberately create an underclass of citizens who face difficulty in accessing basic services due to their immunity status. Now, administration policy is leaning, little by little, toward making life uncomfortable for those who choose not to get vaccinated.

The ADA covers a broad and ever-widening array of situations. Disability law protects those with cancer, HIV/AIDS, and many mental health disorders—none of which the average person may immediately associate with the idea of disability. Extending the ADA to include COVID-19 protections is tricky at best. The fact that legal thinkers looking at the act have imagined it both as a vessel to protect the unvaccinated and as a tool to protect people from the unvaccinated should be an indicator that the statute does not cleanly apply to this situation.

Yes, parents are in a difficult place right now. It is perfectly understandable that parents of disabled children worry that their kids could face physical harm in their school environments. School administrators who are tasked with providing a safe learning environment for all children might decide that universal mask policies are the best way to accomplish that mission. Other leaders might look at the challenges that masks pose to kids with other learning difficulties. Kids with hearing loss who rely on lip reading to get through the day might have an ADA claim that masking imposes significant barriers to learning. Masks also pose challenges to children who are English language learners.

A safe environment looks different to everyone. If the Biden administration truly believes that the only environment that is safe and conducive to learning for all is one in which all are masked, it can ask Congress to pass legislation mandating masks. Likewise, if red-state governors believe that the only good learning environment is one without masks, they can ask their state legislatures to ban mandates. But the executive branches of our governments should not be acting alone to create such sweeping change in everyday life.

Unfortunately, Biden seems to be following in the path of former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama in seeking to use executive orders and the regulatory arms of the federal government to carry out his priorities. As Congress has mired itself in squabbling and posturing, the powers of the executive branch have crept in to fill the gap that Congress has left behind. The administration’s attempt to use a 30-year-old law to control how schools respond to the COVID-19 pandemic is just another symptom of this.

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California Will Let ‘Violence Prevention’ Researchers Know That You Have a Gun


Gun_rights_rally__come_and_take_it__flag_at_the_Minnesota_State_Capitol (1)

Califoria Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law last week A.B. 173, which among other things gives various academics, most of them very likely to be hostile to private gun ownership, access to all the information California collects about the state’s buyers of guns, gun parts, and ammunition.

The law says that an assortment of government info about gun possessors “shall be available to researchers affiliated with the California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC Davis for academic and policy research purposes.” Furthermore, “At the department’s discretion…information collected pursuant to this section may be provided to any other nonprofit bona fide research institution accredited by the United States Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation for the study of the prevention of violence.”

Yes, the law also insists that “Material identifying individuals shall only be provided for research or statistical activities and shall not be transferred, revealed, or used for purposes other than research or statistical activities, and reports or publications derived therefrom shall not identify specific individuals.”

Still, whether or not the resultant research as published names a specific person, a gun owner might understandably not be thrilled that people in the business of coming up with reasons why no one should be allowed to own guns (largely true of people in the “gun violence research” field) can easily know their name, address, and all the weapons, parts, and ammo they bought legally. What’s more, nothing in the law as written applies any stern level of oversight or punishment over misuse of the information.

California gun owners have long had reason to be suspicious of the amount of information about gun purchases that the state insists on collecting and saving. These have, after all, led to literal attempts at confisction of certain once-legal, now-not weapons.

In 2018, California passed the California Consumer Privacy Act, which guarantees your right to “delete your personal information [possessed by businesses] and [make them] not…sell your personal information.” But that right to keep your information to yourself does not apply when the snoops work for the government.

Roy M. Griffith Jr., legislative director of the California Rifle & Pistol Association, wrote a letter to Newsom asking him not to sign this law. Griffith pointed out that by his read, A.B. 173 “is in direct violation of the California Constitution which states in Article 1, Section 1, ‘All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.’ In all, California Constitution names ‘privacy’ as a fundamental right of all Californians five times!”

With this law, anyone working in or near any academic “violence prevention” work “with an ax to grind, or had fallen from grace, would know that some [named person] with x number of guns lives at 123 Boogie Woogie Avenue in Sunnyvale,” says Griffith in a phone interview. That, he notes, may not be a situation conducive to security for the citizen at that address.

Griffith, who used to work in California law enforcement, thinks gun owners’ names, addresses, numbers of weapons and parts, and amount of ammunition are data police should need warrants to obtain in any state that alleges to respect privacy. They certainly shouldn’t spread it to researchers suspicious of private gun owernship, he adds.

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California Will Let ‘Violence Prevention’ Researchers Know That You Have a Gun


Gun_rights_rally__come_and_take_it__flag_at_the_Minnesota_State_Capitol (1)

Califoria Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law last week A.B. 173, which among other things gives various academics, most of them very likely to be hostile to private gun ownership, access to all the information California collects about the state’s buyers of guns, gun parts, and ammunition.

The law says that an assortment of government info about gun possessors “shall be available to researchers affiliated with the California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC Davis for academic and policy research purposes.” Furthermore, “At the department’s discretion…information collected pursuant to this section may be provided to any other nonprofit bona fide research institution accredited by the United States Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation for the study of the prevention of violence.”

Yes, the law also insists that “Material identifying individuals shall only be provided for research or statistical activities and shall not be transferred, revealed, or used for purposes other than research or statistical activities, and reports or publications derived therefrom shall not identify specific individuals.”

Still, whether or not the resultant research as published names a specific person, a gun owner might understandably not be thrilled that people in the business of coming up with reasons why no one should be allowed to own guns (largely true of people in the “gun violence research” field) can easily know their name, address, and all the weapons, parts, and ammo they bought legally. What’s more, nothing in the law as written applies any stern level of oversight or punishment over misuse of the information.

California gun owners have long had reason to be suspicious of the amount of information about gun purchases that the state insists on collecting and saving. These have, after all, led to literal attempts at confisction of certain once-legal, now-not weapons.

In 2018, California passed the California Consumer Privacy Act, which guarantees your right to “delete your personal information [possessed by businesses] and [make them] not…sell your personal information.” But that right to keep your information to yourself does not apply when the snoops work for the government.

Roy M. Griffith Jr., legislative director of the California Rifle & Pistol Association, wrote a letter to Newsom asking him not to sign this law. Griffith pointed out that by his read, A.B. 173 “is in direct violation of the California Constitution which states in Article 1, Section 1, ‘All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.’ In all, California Constitution names ‘privacy’ as a fundamental right of all Californians five times!”

With this law, anyone working in or near any academic “violence prevention” work “with an ax to grind, or had fallen from grace, would know that some [named person] with x number of guns lives at 123 Boogie Woogie Avenue in Sunnyvale,” says Griffith in a phone interview. That, he notes, may not be a situation conducive to security for the citizen at that address.

Griffith, who used to work in California law enforcement, thinks gun owners’ names, addresses, numbers of weapons and parts, and amount of ammunition are data police should need warrants to obtain in any state that alleges to respect privacy. They certainly shouldn’t spread it to researchers suspicious of private gun owernship, he adds.

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Check Your Authoritarian Blind Spot


blind-spot-3

On this Monday’s Reason Roundtable, Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillespie cover Biden’s domestic agenda package, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and other ways D.C. exhibits dysfunction.

Discussed in the show:

1:49: Biden’s domestic agenda package will allegedly cost “nothing.”

27:46: The $778 billion NDAA illustrates D.C. dysfunction.

31:09: Weekly Listener Question: “While attending graduate school, it was obvious to me that people on both the left and the right have authoritarian tendencies. How do we as libertarians deal with people who can see bad instincts or tendencies in the other side but can’t see those same instincts in themselves or their side? I feel like pointing out the hypocrisy won’t be a productive approach, but haven’t been able to come up with a way of bringing it up with friends and acquaintances who exhibit this behavior. What do you think?”

48:26: Media recommendations for the week.

This week’s links:

Send your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

Today’s sponsors:

  • Imagine an app where you can get unlocked access to reliable news sites. An app that filters out fake news and clickbait but still shows you every story from multiple perspectives to counter bias. Where good news, as in positive stories, is highlighted—so you don’t become despondent. And where journalists dig through news from around the world to find stories you wouldn’t normally see. That’s what an innovative Australian startup called Inkl has come up with. The service unlocks more than $12,000 of premium news for $100 a year. If you go now to inkl.com/podcast, they’ll give you an additional 25 percent discount, so you can get a whole year’s worth of headache-free news for just $75.
  • Living in a digital age where your personal data are always under attack, your online privacy seems to be a thing of the past. Did you know there is a way to protect your information and privacy without worrying about Big Tech mining and stealing your private data? Introducing Sekur—an encrypted instant messaging and secure email service hosted in Switzerland, where the world’s strictest data privacy laws are applied. Take back your privacy and online security with Sekur, by going to Sekur.com.

Audio production by Ian Keyser
Assistant production by Regan Taylor
Music: “Angeline,” by The Brothers Steve

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Footnotes and Exile

An e-mail exchange in Russian just reminded me on this: In Russian, “a reference in a footnote” and “internal exile” (often as a form of criminal punishment) are the same word, ссылка (ssylka). Odd but true.

Or maybe not so odd, given the root “send”; the footnote sends you to another source, the exile to another city. So remember: Footnotes are the Siberia of your article or your brief—and endnotes, I suppose, the Kamchatka (the peninsula, not the vodka).

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N.J. Court: Newark May Impose Employee Vaccine Mandate Without Negotiating with Union

From today’s decision in City of Newark v. Newark Police Superior Officers’ Ass’n (written by Judge Robert Gilson and joined by Judges Jose Fuentes and Katie Gummer):

We hold that the City has a non-negotiable managerial prerogative to immediately implement its COVID-19 vaccination mandate…. Consequently, we affirm the portion of the PERC Order that held that the City had a managerial prerogative to implement its COVID-19 vaccination mandate.

We reverse and vacate the restraints PERC placed on the City, including the requirement to negotiate the Negotiable Terms. The restraints imposed on the City under these circumstances impermissibly interferes with the City’s managerial prerogative to protect the health and safety of all its employees and the City residents with whom those employees come into contact. If necessary, the City and Unions can negotiate who will pay the cost of testing without interfering with the City’s prerogative, but those negotiations can take place after the mandate is implemented….

The City has not cited to any statute or regulation authorizing the City or Mayor to establish a vaccination mandate. Nevertheless, the City has a well- recognized right to hire or direct its workforce. That right, coupled with the clear national and state public policy to combat the health threats posed by COVID-19, supports the City’s authority to implement a vaccination mandate….

The Unions maintain that the [New Jersey Employer-Employee Relations] Act requires the City to negotiate the vaccination mandate before it is implemented. They rely on N.J.S.A. 34:13A- 5.3, which states: “Proposed new rules or modifications of existing rules governing working conditions shall be negotiated with the majority representative before they are established.” Sections 5.4(a)(1) and (5) of that Act prohibit public employers from:

“(1) [i]nterfering with, restraining or coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed to them by this act…. (5) [r]efusing to negotiate in good faith with a majority representative of employees in an appropriate unit concerning terms and conditions of employment of employees in that unit, or refusing to process grievances presented by the majority representative.” …

The Unions’ arguments ignore the well-established law that negotiations of managerial prerogatives are not required if the negotiations significantly interfere with the public employer’s ability to set policy…. “To decide whether a negotiated agreement would significantly interfere with the determination of governmental policy, it is necessary to balance the interests of the public employees and the public employer. When the dominant concern is the government’s managerial prerogative to determine policy, a subject may not be included in collective negotiations even though it may intimately affect employees’ working conditions.” …

In the context of a public health emergency, negotiating procedures for the implementation of a COVID-19 vaccination mandate, or the enforcement or timing of the mandate, would interfere with the managerial prerogative…. Delaying, even on a temporary basis, the timelines for implementing the vaccination mandate undercuts the effectiveness of the mandate.

The Unions focus on the impact of the mandate to some of their members who have chosen not to be vaccinated. That focus, however, ignores the impact their “choice” has on coworkers and their families who have been vaccinated. Just as importantly, it ignores the impact on people with whom unvaccinated City employees come into contact. City police officers and firefighters go to or into homes, businesses, and public places daily where they encounter City residents. Indeed, all public employees interact with members of the public in a variety of settings and circumstances. Many of those residents are children under the age of twelve who do not have the option of getting vaccinated at the current time. Given the scientifically undisputed risk of spreading this deadly virus, the City has the right to protect the public….

There are many actions that we take as a society to protect the common good. Sometimes the protection of the many requires an individual, especially a public servant, to act for the public good. The Unions have not cited any facts that would support the purported rights of what appears to be a minority of City employees to pose a risk to coworkers and City residents. The people they are committed to serve, in particular, the aged who are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19, and children who currently cannot be protected by a vaccine, are placed at greater risk by unvaccinated City workers….

We also reject the Unions’ contention that their members have a “strong interest in privacy” that is somehow being impacted by the mandate. The Executive Order requires proof of vaccination. Such proof can be submitted on a confidential basis, and there has been no showing that privacy issues will be impacted. Here again, the City and Unions can discuss those concerns, but such discussions cannot hold up the vaccination mandate.

The Unions have also cited to bills pending in the Legislature that would prohibit discrimination against individuals who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine. Those bills are not currently law; existing laws and executive orders strongly support the City’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate….

Thanks to Keith Kaplan for the pointer.

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Check Your Authoritarian Blind Spot


blind-spot-3

On this Monday’s Reason Roundtable, Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillespie cover Biden’s domestic agenda package, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and other ways D.C. exhibits dysfunction.

Discussed in the show:

1:49: Biden’s domestic agenda package will allegedly cost “nothing.”

27:46: The $778 billion NDAA illustrates D.C. dysfunction.

31:09: Weekly Listener Question: “While attending graduate school, it was obvious to me that people on both the left and the right have authoritarian tendencies. How do we as libertarians deal with people who can see bad instincts or tendencies in the other side but can’t see those same instincts in themselves or their side? I feel like pointing out the hypocrisy won’t be a productive approach, but haven’t been able to come up with a way of bringing it up with friends and acquaintances who exhibit this behavior. What do you think?”

48:26: Media recommendations for the week.

This week’s links:

Send your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

Today’s sponsors:

  • Imagine an app where you can get unlocked access to reliable news sites. An app that filters out fake news and clickbait but still shows you every story from multiple perspectives to counter bias. Where good news, as in positive stories, is highlighted—so you don’t become despondent. And where journalists dig through news from around the world to find stories you wouldn’t normally see. That’s what an innovative Australian startup called Inkl has come up with. The service unlocks more than $12,000 of premium news for $100 a year. If you go now to inkl.com/podcast, they’ll give you an additional 25 percent discount, so you can get a whole year’s worth of headache-free news for just $75.
  • Living in a digital age where your personal data are always under attack, your online privacy seems to be a thing of the past. Did you know there is a way to protect your information and privacy without worrying about Big Tech mining and stealing your private data? Introducing Sekur—an encrypted instant messaging and secure email service hosted in Switzerland, where the world’s strictest data privacy laws are applied. Take back your privacy and online security with Sekur, by going to Sekur.com.

Audio production by Ian Keyser
Assistant production by Regan Taylor
Music: “Angeline,” by The Brothers Steve

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3EX2RCA
via IFTTT

Footnotes and Exile

An e-mail exchange in Russian just reminded me on this: In Russian, “a reference in a footnote” and “internal exile” (often as a form of criminal punishment) are the same word, ссылка (ssylka). Odd but true.

Or maybe not so odd, given the root “send”; the footnote sends you to another source, the exile to another city. So remember: Footnotes are the Siberia of your article or your brief—and endnotes, I suppose, the Kamchatka (the peninsula, not the vodka).

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3i9j0v2
via IFTTT