71% Of Americans Believe ‘We Are Not Alone’ In The Universe
Do you think of “Life on Mars?” as not just a song by David Bowie but as a legitimate question? Is “I want to believe” not just another pop culture quote to you but a personal conviction? Then, as Statista’s Florian Zandt details below, you’re a part of the majority of people in the United States at least.
In a survey conducted by scientists at the transnational Outer Space Institute (OSI) at the University of British Columbia and the Angus Reid Forum USA, 71 percent of respondents claimed they believe in intelligent life in the Milky Way. As the chart shows, the hardline skeptics make up only a fraction of the representative sample surveyed.
While the OSI’s survey mainly revolved around militarization of space, satellite launches and orbital debris, it also included some more colorful questions. For example, 26 percent of respondents thought that current NASA missions were not ambitious enough and that humanity should aim to travel to Mars, while 30 percent saw the Moon as a viable target. Interestingly, 71 percent wouldn’t go on a trip to Mars when offered a one-way ticket.
When pressed further on life forms in space, 75 percent thought it was likely to detect living microorganisms in our solar system and 77 percent saw a high-to-medium probability of discovering living microorganisms in our galaxy.
The issue of satellite light pollution and debris in the Earth’s orbit has become more pressing in the last couple of years. According to ESA estimates, 30,000 pieces of debris are floating through orbit as of now, and Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has been launching more than 1,700 Starlink satellites over the course of two years. In 2022, Starlink satellites alone are likely to surpass the total number of 2,000 satellites in orbit in 2019.
If you’re unaware of the most recent 2nd amendment case in the supreme court, let me give you a quick refresher. NYSRPA v. Bruen deals with the “may-issue” scheme plaguing liberal states. Essentially the government decides whether you can carry a firearm based on specific criteria or an atypical need from the general population. Suspiciously missing from this criteria is “self-defense.”
Maryland has a scheme very similar to New York’s. The Machine Gun Nest is a Maryland-based company, and I grew up in Maryland. I recently received my concealed carry permit from Maryland State Police after submitting to an intensive background check which required me to prove (with tax forms, bank account statements, and more) that I was indeed a business owner. If I had merely said that I was a humble tax-paying, law-abiding citizen who was concerned about their safety on my evening walks through Baltimore city, I would have denied that permit.
See the issue here?
Well, so does the Supreme Court.
Oral Arguments for NYSRPA v. Bruen took place on Nov. 3rd, and afterward, it seemed like the majority of Justices were staunchly on the 2nd amendment side. We’ll have to wait until summer 2022 to get the verdict, but it appears that the State of New York has seen the future and has already started crafting legislation to render a concealed carry permit useless.
New York Bill A08684 is an apparent reaction to the almost certainty that the Supreme Court will rule New York’s permitting scheme as unconstitutional. The bill itself states that no firearms can be possessed anywhere on “public” transportation (including rideshares, trains, and taxis), in restaurants, or anywhere where 15 or more people are gathered.
While this bill may be depressing to read for the New Yorkers who are desperate for the ability to defend themselves, the evidence is clear that even the Government of New York seems to be confident that they’re going to lose NYSRPA v. Bruen.
What does this mean for the rest of the country? Well, it means the end of “may-issue” schemes, which means that all 50 states would switch to a shall-issue system. We saw a similar occurrence in 2017 when Washington DC lost in DC Circuit Court for the case Wrenn v. District of Columbia. If you want to carry a firearm in DC and complete the required training, you are guaranteed to receive a permit to carry a gun. Interestingly enough, DC Government did not appeal the case to the Supreme Court probably because they didn’t want an NYSRPA v. Bruen situation on their hands.
The firearms industry certainly is preparing for an explosion of concealed carry. We were at SHOT Show in Las Vegas and heard much talk about the case, especially from dealers and firearms instructors in more liberal states. In addition, many new products for 2022 are personal protection and carry focused, like Federal’s new 30 Super Carry, S&W’s new CSX handgun, and many more.
So, what should we expect?
Later this year, when the court announces their verdict, they also may decide to clear up a big problem in gun law right now. There’s only been a handful of 2nd Amendment cases that the Supreme Court has ruled on. Because of this, 2nd Amendment law isn’t exactly crystal clear to some courts. (How you could misinterpret “shall not be infringed is beyond me) The result of this uncertainty is that lower courts like the liberal-leaning 9th Circuit essentially rubber stamp unconstitutional gun control like assault weapon bans and more because the Supreme Court hasn’t explicitly ruled on one way or another on an issue.
NYSRPA v. Bruen may serve as an excellent opportunity for the Supreme Court to clear up some bad lower court rulings.
At the very least, here in Maryland, we’re expecting an explosion in concealed carry permits. To give you an example of the disparity between a free state and a liberal state, Maryland and Indiana have similar populations. Still, the percentage of residents with carrying permits in Maryland is 0.4%, while Indiana is 18%. That’s a significant disparity, and this disparity has likely grown larger as the statistics on carry permits were last recorded in 2017. 2020 & 2021 saw a considerable rise in concealed carry permit applications at the rate of 10.5% growth in permit applications year over year.
Needless to say. We’re excited to be delivering some good news when it comes to gun law, but only time will tell what the Supreme Court has to say for NYSRPA v. Bruen. But if there’s any indication of victory, it’s when the blue state governments start to panic. That’s clear from the pending legislation in New York. So, we’re predicting a victory for the 2nd Amendment. The only thing yet to be shown is how far that victory will go.
NY Nurses Arrested After Selling $1.5 Million In Fake Vaccine Cards
Two New York nurses were busted after having made a reported $1.5 million selling fake Covid-19 vaccination cards.
Two Long Island nurses, 49-year-old Julie Devuono and 44-year-old Marissa Urraro, had forged vaccine cards between November 2021 and January 2022.
Law enforcement officers seized around $900,000 during a search of DeVuono’s home, and a ledger showing more than $1.5 million from the scheme, according to NBC4NY.
The #Suffolk County DA arrested two people including the owner of an Amityville pediatric office for selling fake Covid-19 vaccine cards. $220 for adults, $85 for children. Ledgers show they may have made $1.5 million dollars from this illegal scheme #NBC4NYpic.twitter.com/jm0bcOkCeX
“I hope this sends a message to others who are considering gaming the system that they will get caught and that we will enforce the law to the fullest extent,” said Suffolk County DA Raymond Tierney.
The pair reportedly charged between $220 and $440 for adults and $85 for children. After selling the cards, the women would then allegedly add the information to the NY State Immunization Information System (NYSIIS).
According to prosecutors, the pair – who worked at Wild Child Pediatric Healthcare in Amityville (owned by DeVuono) – forged vaccine cards for undercover detectives.
Taiwan’s 15-member athletic delegation, which includes athletes and coaches, will not take part in the opening or closing ceremonies of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, its Sports Ministry said on Friday.
“According to the event’s pandemic prevention and entry policy, flights have been adjusted and delayed, and not all could arrive in Beijing by the opening ceremony on Feb. 4,” the ministry said in a statement.
Only four Taiwanese athletes will compete in the Beijing Winter Olympics next month, including Huang Yu-ting in the women’s 500m, 1000m, and 1500m races, Lin Si Rong in the luge women’s single, Ho Ping-jui and Lee Wen-yi in the men’s and women’s slalom.
They will be traveling to the Games separately from the United States, Switzerland, and Taiwan, according to the Sports Ministry.
“Based on the protection of the athletes, high-standard pandemic prevention and control measures have been adopted to prevent any risk of infection; to accumulate combat strength, our delegation will not participate in the opening ceremony,” it stated.
The ministry further stated that because Taiwan’s team is small, athletes and team officials will return home after completing their events, skipping the closing ceremony as well.
Taiwan has also decided not to send any government officials to the Games, citing the limited number of athletes competing.
A senior Taiwan official claimed that Taiwan refused to send any delegation due to concern that Beijing could “downgrade” Taiwan’s status by putting its athletes alongside those from the Chinese “special administrative region” of Hong Kong at the opening ceremony.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday referred to Taiwan’s team as “China, Taipei,” rather than the official designation “Chinese Taipei,” prompting Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council to rebuke China for using the wrong name.
Taiwan competes in most sporting events, including the Olympics, under the name “Chinese Taipei” at the request of Beijing, which regards democratically-ruled Taiwan as part of “one China” and inviolable Chinese territory.
Tensions between the self-ruled island Taiwan and the regime in Beijing have been escalating, with the most recent Chinese incursion involving 39 aircraft and a bomber. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has vowed to conquer the island by force if necessary.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council has also called on Beijing not to tamper with the tournament through “political factors.”
“We call on this year’s organizers to abide by the ‘Olympic Charter’ and not use political factors to interfere with the competition and suppress and belittle our side. Relevant government units will also be prepared to respond to various emergencies,” it stated, without elaborating.
Bacon Shortage? US Pork Supplies Tumble To 11-Year Low
Bacon lovers might be in for a sizzling surprise as pork supplies in cold storage tumble to an 11-year low as prices rise due to declining hog herds.
The latest United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) pork data in cold storage as of Dec. 1 was approximately 399 million pounds, a drop of 4.1% from a year ago and now at the lowest point since 2010.
“The drop came before the spreading omicron virus variant prompted slaughterhouses to slow down in recent weeks as more workers called in sick, further limiting meat production and likely keeping prices for the meat high,”Bloomberg explains.
Slumping cold storage has sent USDA bacon prices per pound (as of late December) to around $7.21, a record high and up 39% since the beginning of the virus pandemic.
More importantly, what this means is breakfast is becoming a lot more expensive for Americans as some of the highest inflation in four decades has wiped out their real wage gains.
Food prices are at the highest in a decade, from coffee to oranges to wheat, among other popular breakfast items. Americans are very concerned about inflation. High inflation has spurred discontent for the president, reflected in record low polling numbers ahead of the midterms.
American liberals are obsessed with finding ways to silence and censor their adversaries. Every week, if not every day, they have new targets they want de-platformed, banned, silenced, and otherwise prevented from speaking or being heard (by “liberals,” I mean the term of self-description used by the dominant wing of the Democratic Party).
For years, their preferred censorship tactic was to expand and distort the concept of “hate speech” to mean “views that make us uncomfortable,” and then demand that such “hateful” views be prohibited on that basis. For that reason, it is now common to hear Democrats assert, falsely, that the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech does not protect “hate speech.” Their political culture has long inculcated them to believe that they can comfortably silence whatever views they arbitrarily place into this category without being guilty of censorship.
Constitutional illiteracy to the side, the “hate speech” framework for justifying censorship is now insufficient because liberals are eager to silence a much broader range of voices than those they can credibly accuse of being hateful. That is why the newest, and now most popular, censorship framework is to claim that their targets are guilty of spreading “misinformation” or “disinformation.” These terms, by design, have no clear or concise meaning. Like the term “terrorism,” it is their elasticity that makes them so useful.
When liberals’ favorite media outlets, from CNN and NBC to The New York Times and The Atlantic, spend four years disseminating one fabricated Russia story after the next — from the Kremlin hacking into Vermont’s heating system and Putin’s sexual blackmail over Trump to bounties on the heads of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, the Biden email archive being “Russian disinformation,” and a magical mystery weapon that injures American brains with cricket noises — none of that is “disinformation” that requires banishment. Nor are false claims that COVID’s origin has proven to be zoonotic rather than a lab leak, the vastly overstated claim that vaccines prevent transmission of COVID, or that Julian Assange stole classified documents and caused people to die. Corporate outlets beloved by liberals are free to spout serious falsehoods without being deemed guilty of disinformation, and, because of that, do so routinely.
This “disinformation” term is reserved for those who question liberal pieties, not for those devoted to affirming them. That is the real functional definition of “disinformation” and of its little cousin, “misinformation.” It is not possible to disagree with liberals or see the world differently than they see it. The only two choices are unthinking submission to their dogma or acting as an agent of “disinformation.” Dissent does not exist to them; any deviation from their worldview is inherently dangerous — to the point that it cannot be heard.
The data proving a deeply radical authoritarian strain in Trump-era Democratic Party politics is ample and have been extensively reported here. Democrats overwhelmingly trust and love the FBI and CIA. Polls show they overwhelmingly favor censorship of the internet not only by Big Tech oligarchs but also by the state. Leading Democratic Party politicians have repeatedly subpoenaed social media executives and explicitly threatened them with legal and regulatory reprisals if they do not censor more aggressively — a likely violation of the First Amendment given decades of case law ruling that state officials are barred from coercing private actors to censor for them, in ways the Constitution prohibits them from doing directly.
Given the climate prevailing in the American liberal faction, this authoritarianism is anything but surprising. For those who convince themselves that they are not battling mere political opponents with a different ideology but a fascist movement led by a Hitler-like figure bent on imposing totalitarianism — a core, defining belief of modern-day Democratic Party politics — it is virtually inevitable that they will embrace authoritarianism. When a political movement is subsumed by fear — the Orange Hitler will put you in camps and end democracy if he wins again — then it is not only expected but even rational to embrace authoritarian tactics including censorship to stave off this existential threat. Fear always breeds authoritarianism, which is why manipulating and stimulating that human instinct is the favorite tactic of political demagogues.
And when it comes to authoritarian tactics, censorship has become the liberals’ North Star. Every week brings news of a newly banished heretic. Liberals cheered the news last week that Google’s YouTube permanently banned the extremely popular video channel of conservative commentator Dan Bongino. His permanent ban was imposed for the crime of announcing that, moving forward, he would post all of his videos exclusively on the free speech video platform Rumble after he received a seven-day suspension from Google’s overlords for spreading supposed COVID “disinformation.” What was Bongino’s prohibited view that prompted that suspension? He claimed cloth masks do not work to stop the spread of COVID, a view shared by numerous experts and, at least in part, by the CDC. When Bongino disobeyed the seven-day suspension by using an alternative YouTube channel to announce his move to Rumble, liberals cheered Google’s permanent ban because the only thing liberals hate more than platforms that allow diverse views are people failing to obey rules imposed by corporate authorities.
It is not hyperbole to observe that there is now a concerted war on any platforms devoted to free discourse and which refuse to capitulate to the demands of Democratic politicians and liberal activists to censor. The spear of the attack are corporate media outlets, who demonize and try to render radioactive any platforms that allow free speech to flourish. When Rumble announced that a group of free speech advocates — including myself, former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, comedian Bridget Phetasy, former Sanders campaign videographer Matt Orfalea and journalist Zaid Jilani — would produce video content for Rumble, The Washington Post immediately published a hit piece, relying exclusively on a Google-and-Facebook-aligned so-called “disinformation expert” to malign Rumble as “one of the main platforms for conspiracy communities and far-right communities in the U.S. and around the world” and a place “where conspiracies thrive,” all caused by Rumble’s “allowing such videos to remain on the site unmoderated.” (The narrative about Rumble is particular bizarre since its Canadian founder and still-CEO, Chris Pavlovski created Rumble in 2013 with apolitical goals — to allow small content creators abandoned by YouTube to monetize their content — and is very far from an adherent to right-wing ideology).
The same attack was launched, and is still underway, against Substack, also for the crime of refusing to ban writers deemed by liberal corporate outlets and activists to be hateful and/or fonts of disinformation. After the first wave of liberal attacks on Substack failed — that script was that it is a place for anti-trans animus and harassment — The Post returned this week for round two, with a paint-by-numbers hit piece virtually identical to the one it published last year about Rumble. “Newsletter company Substack is making millions off anti-vaccine content, according to estimates,” blared the sub-headline. “Prominent figures known for spreading misinformation, such as [Joseph] Mercola, have flocked to Substack, podcasting platforms and a growing number of right-wing social media networks over the past year after getting kicked off or restricted on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube,” warned the Post. It is, evidently, extremely dangerous to society for voices to still be heard once Google decrees they should not be.
This Post attack on Substack predictably provoked expressions of Serious Concern from good and responsible liberals. That included Chelsea Clinton, who lamented that Substack is profiting off a “grift.” Apparently, this political heiress — who is one of the world’s richest individuals by virtue of winning the birth lottery of being born to rich and powerful parents, who in turn enriched themselves by cashing in on their political influence in exchange for $750,000 paychecks from Goldman Sachs for 45-minute speeches, and who herself somehow was showered with a $600,000 annual contract from NBC News despite no qualifications — believes she is in a position to accuse others of “grifting.” She also appears to believe that — despite welcoming convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell to her wedding to a hedge fund oligarch whose father was expelled from Congress after his conviction on thirty-one counts of felony fraud — she is entitled to decree who should and should not be allowed to have a writing platform:
This Post-manufactured narrative about Substack instantly metastasized throughout the liberal sect of media. “Anti-vaxxers making ‘at least $2.5m’ a year from publishing on Substack,” read the headline of The Guardian, the paper that in 2018 published the outright lie that Julian Assange met twice with Paul Manafort inside the Ecuadorian Embassy and refuses to this day to retract it (i.e., “disinformation”). Like The Post, the British paper cited one of the seemingly endless number of shady pro-censorship groups — this one calling itself the “Center for Countering Digital Hate” — to argue for greater censorship by Substack. “They could just say no,” said the group’s director, who has apparently convinced himself he should be able to dictate what views should and should not be aired: “This isn’t about freedom; this is about profiting from lies. . . . Substack should immediately stop profiting from medical misinformation that can seriously harm readers.”
The emerging campaign to pressure Spotify to remove Joe Rogan from its platform is perhaps the most illustrative episode yet of both the dynamics at play and the desperation of liberals to ban anyone off-key. It was only a matter of time before this effort really galvanized in earnest. Rogan has simply become too influential, with too large of an audience of young people, for the liberal establishment to tolerate his continuing to act up. Prior efforts to coerce, cajole, or manipulate Rogan to fall into line were abject failures. Shortly after The Wall Street Journal reportedin September, 2020 that Spotify employees were organizing to demand that some of Rogan’s shows be removed from the platform, Rogan invited Alex Jones onto his show: a rather strong statement that he was unwilling to obey decrees about who he could interview or what he could say.
On Tuesday, musician Neil Young demanded that Spotify either remove Rogan from its platform or cease featuring Young’s music, claiming Rogan spreads COVID disinformation. Spotify predictably sided with Rogan, their most popular podcaster in whose show they invested $100 million, by removing Young’s music and keeping Rogan. The pressure on Spotify mildly intensified on Friday when singer Joni Mitchell issued a similar demand. Allsortsofcensorship-madliberalscelebrated this effort to remove Rogan, then vowed to cancel their Spotify subscription in protest of Spotify’s refusal to capitulate for now; a hashtagurging the deletion of Spotify’s app trended for days. Many bizarrely urged that everyone buy music from Apple instead; apparently, handing over your cash to one of history’s largest and richest corporations, repeatedly linked to the use of slave labor, is the liberal version of subversive social justice.
Obviously, Spotify is not going to jettison one of their biggest audience draws over a couple of faded septuagenarians from the 1960s. But if a current major star follows suit, it is not difficult to imagine a snowball effect. The goal of liberals with this tactic is to take any disobedient platform and either force it into line or punish it by drenching it with such negative attacks that nobody who craves acceptance in the parlors of Decent Liberal Society will risk being associated with it. “Prince Harry was under pressure to cut ties with Spotify yesterday after the streaming giant was accused of promoting anti-vax content,” claimedThe Daily Mail which, reliable or otherwise, is a certain sign of things to come.
One could easily envision a tipping point being reached where a musician no longer makes an anti-Rogan statement by leaving the platform as Young and Mitchell just did, but instead will be accused of harboring pro-Rogan sentiments if they stay on Spotify. With the stock price of Spotify declining as these recent controversies around Rogan unfolded, a strategy in which Spotify is forced to choose between keeping Rogan or losing substantial musical star power could be more viable than it currently seems. “Spotify lost $4 billion in market value this week after rock icon Neil Young called out the company for allowing comedian Joe Rogan to use its service to spread misinformation about the COVID vaccine on his popular podcast, ‘The Joe Rogan Experience,’” is how The San Francisco Chronicle put it (that Spotify’s stock price dropped rather precipitously contemporaneously with this controversy is clear; less so is the causal connection, though it seems unlikely to be entire coincidental):
It is worth recalling that NBC News, in January, 2017, announced that it had hired Megyn Kelly away from Fox News with a $69 million contract. The network had big plans for Kelly, whose first show debuted in June of that year. But barely more than a year later, Kelly’s comments about blackface — in which she rhetorically wondered whether the notorious practice could be acceptable in the modern age with the right intent: such as a young white child paying homage to a beloved African-American sports or cultural figure on Halloween — so enraged liberals, both inside the now-liberal network and externally, that they demanded her firing. NBC decided it was worth firing Kelly — on whom they had placed so many hopes — and eating her enormous contract in order to assuage widespread liberal indignation. “The cancellation of the ex-Fox News host’s glossy morning show is a reminder that networks need to be more stringent when assessing the politics of their hirings,” proclaimedThe Guardian.
Democrats are not only the dominant political faction in Washington, controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, but liberals in particular are clearly the hegemonic culture force in key institutions: media, academia and Hollywood. That is why it is a mistake to assume that we are near the end of their orgy of censorship and de-platforming victories. It is far more likely that we are much closer to the beginning than the end. The power to silence others is intoxicating. Once one gets a taste of its power, they rarely stop on their own.
Indeed, it was once assumed that Silicon Valley giants steeped in the libertarian ethos of a free internet would be immune to demands to engage in political censorship (“content moderation” is the more palatable euphemism which liberal corporate media outlets prefer). But when the still-formidable megaphones of The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, CNN and the rest of the liberal media axis unite to accuse Big Tech executives of having blood on their hands and being responsible for the destruction of American democracy, that is still an effective enforcement mechanism. Billionaires are, like all humans, social and political animals and instinctively avoid ostracization and societal scorn.
Beyond the personal interest in avoiding vilification, corporate executives can be made to censor against their will and in violation of their political ideology out of self-interest. The corporate media still has the ability to render a company toxic, and the Democratic Party more now than ever has the power to abuse their lawmaking and regulatory powers to impose real punishment for disobedience, as it has repeatedly threatened to do. If Facebook or Spotify are deemed to be so toxic that no Good Liberals can use them without being attacked as complicit in fascism, white supremacy or anti-vax fanaticism, then that will severely limit, if not entirely sabotage, a company’s future viability.
The one bright spot in all this — and it is a significant one — is that liberals have become such extremists in their quest to silence all adversaries that they are generating their own backlash, based in disgust for their tyrannical fanaticism. In response to the Post attack, Substack issued a gloriously defiant statement re-affirming its commitment to guaranteeing free discourse. They also repudiated the hubristic belief that they are competent to act as arbiters of Truth and Falsity, Good and Bad. “Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse,” read the headline on the post from Substack’s founders. The body of their post reads like a free speech manifesto:
That’s why, as we face growing pressure to censor content published on Substack that to some seems dubious or objectionable, our answer remains the same: we make decisions based on principles not PR, we will defend free expression, and we will stick to our hands-off approach to content moderation. While we have content guidelines that allow us to protect the platform at the extremes, we will always view censorship as a last resort, because we believe open discourse is better for writers and better for society.
A lengthy Twitter thread from Substack’s Vice President of Communications, Lulu Cheng Meservey was similarly encouraging and assertive. “I’m proud of our decision to defend free expression, even when it’s hard,” she wrote, adding: “because: 1) We want a thriving ecosystem full of fresh and diverse ideas. That can’t happen without the freedom to experiment, or even to be wrong.” Regarding demands to de-platform those allegedly spreading COVID disinformation, she pointedly — and accurately — noted: “If everyone who has ever been wrong about this pandemic were silenced, there would be no one left talking about it at all.” And she, too, affirmed principles that every actual, genuine liberal — not the Nancy Pelosi kind — reflexively supports:
People already mistrust institutions, media, and each other. Knowing that dissenting views are being suppressed makes that mistrust worse. Withstanding scrutiny makes truths stronger, not weaker. We made a promise to writers that this is a place they can pursue what they find meaningful, without coddling or controlling. We promised we wouldn’t come between them and their audiences. And we intend to keep our side of the agreement for every writer that keeps theirs. to think for themselves. They tend not to be conformists, and they have the confidence and strength of conviction not to be threatened by views that disagree with them or even disgust them.
This is becoming increasingly rare.
The U.K.’s Royal Society, its national academy of scientists, this month echoed Substack’s view that censorship, beyond its moral dimensions and political dangers, is ineffective and breeds even more distrust in pronouncements by authorities. “Governments and social media platforms should not rely on content removal for combatting harmful scientific misinformation online.” “There is,” they concluded, “little evidence that calls for major platforms to remove offending content will limit scientific misinformation’s harms” and “such measures could even drive it to harder-to-address corners of the internet and exacerbate feelings of distrust in authorities.”
As both Rogan’s success and collapsing faith and interest in traditional corporate media outlets proves, there is a growing hunger for discourse that is liberated from the tight controls of liberal media corporations and their petulant, herd-like employees. That is why other platforms devoted to similar principles of free discourse, such as Rumble for videos and Callin for podcasts, continue to thrive. It is certain that those platforms will continue to be targeted by institutional liberalism as they grow and allow more dissidents and heretics to be heard. Time will tell if they, too, will resist these censorship pressures, but the combination of genuine conviction on the part of their founders and managers, combined with the clear market opportunities for free speech platforms and heterodox thinkers, provides ample ground for optimism.
None of this is to suggest that American liberals are the only political faction that succumbs to the strong temptations of censorships. Liberals often point to the growing fights over public school curricula and particularly the conservative campaign to exclude so-called Critical Race Theory from the public schools as proof that the American Right is also a pro-censorship faction. That is a poor example. Censorship is about what adults can hear, not what children are taught in public schools. Liberals crusaded for decades to have creationism banned from the public schools and largely succeeded, yet few would suggest this was an act of censorship. For the reason I just gave, I certainly would define it that way. Fights over what children should and should not be taught can have a censorship dimension but usually do not, precisely because limits and prohibitions in school curricula are inevitable.
In sum, censorship — once the province of the American Right during the heydey of the Moral Majority of the 1980s — now occurs in isolated instances in that faction. In modern-day American liberalism, however, censorship is a virtual religion. They simply cannot abide the idea that anyone who thinks differently or sees the world differently than they should be heard. That is why there is much more at stake in this campaign to have Rogan removed from Spotify than whether this extremely popular podcast host will continue to be heard there or on another platform. If liberals succeed in pressuring Spotify to abandon their most valuable commodity, it will mean nobody is safe from their petty-tyrant tactics. But if they fail, it can embolden other platforms to similarly defy these bullying tactics, keeping our discourse a bit more free for just awhile longer.
NOTE: Tonight at 7 pm EST, I will discuss the Rogan censorship campaign and the broader implications of the liberal fixation with censorship on my live Callin podcast. For now, live shows can be heard only with an iPhone and the Callin app — the app will be very shortly available on Androids for universal use — but all shows can be heard by everyone immediately after they are broadcast on the Callin website, here.
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Well, we are happy to report that a silver lining of the recent market crash, or as DB’s Jim Reid puts it, “one of the side effects of the hawkish pivot from the Fed in 2022, that continued this week” is that it could finally crack the facade of ESG and make January a catastrophic month for ESG investors; this is shown in Reid’s Chart of the Day which lays out the 1-month rolling difference between S&P 500 Energy sector returns and the NASDAQ.
Clearly this is a very crude measure of ESG under-performance but the nature of the US market means that ESG funds in the US market are very tech heavy.
A look the tables below (courtesy of DB’s Luke Templeman’s ESG monthly) reveals the largest holdings in the big US…
… and European ESG ETF funds.
Note the big European funds are far less tech exposed and also that overall some funds are buying into energy companies because of their environmental transition plans. So as the market develops, Reid notes that ESG is becoming increasingly nuanced and complicated.
Back to the Fed and this hawkish pivot has occurred at a point where the US Energy sector is up +18% YTD and the only positive performance of the 11 top level sectors within the S&P. With just a day to go in the month, could January mark the biggest divergence between this and the Nasdaq on record? The 30-day rolling difference in returns is within 2% of the highs seen since we have sector data from 1989 onwards.
And while ESG is (unfortunately) here to stay – especially since Wall Street collectively needs to periodically wash its conscience in hollow but expensive acts of virtue signaling which will mean much more money flows toward the three letters – January is proving that performance can be influenced by bigger picture themes.
Physical activity can do wonders for the body. Exercise can trim weight, chisel muscles, and strengthen the lower back, among many other benefits. Less overt, but no less consequential, physical activity can also buff up your brain. Science is increasingly revealing that the brains of those who regularly work out can look very different compared to the brains of people who don’t.
Changes can start to occur in adolescence. Reviewing the scientific literature in 2018, researchers from the University of Southern California found that for teens aged 15-18, regular exercisers tended to have larger hippocampal volumes as well as larger rostral middle frontal volumes compared to healthy matched control teenagers. The hippocampus is most commonly associated with memory and spatial navigation, while the rostral middle frontal gyrus has been linked to emotion regulation and working memory. Studies suggest that these structural changes translate to improved cognitive performance and better academic outcomes.
Exercise’s brain augmenting qualities extend into adulthood, even though the brain tends to be less ‘plastic’ (easily changed) as we get older. Rutgers University scientists beautifully demonstrated this in a study published early last year:
The researchers recruited older African Americans, all previously sedentary, to complete twenty weeks of twice-weekly cardio-dance exercise classes held at local churches and senior centers. As compared to the control group comprised of community members of similar age and background who did not exercise, those in the program showed significant improvements in dynamic brain connectivity (or “neural flexibility”) in their hippocampus and surrounding medial temporal lobe, as measured using resting-state functional MRI.
In another study, published in August 2019, scientists looked at 45 sets of adult identical twins, who, within their pair, all differed greatly in physical activity levels. “More active co-twins showed larger gray matter volumes in striatal, prefrontal, and hippocampal regions, and smaller gray matter volumes in the anterior cingulate area than less active co-twins,” the researchers found.
The scientists also probed the twins’ cognitive abilities.
“More physical activity may expedite preconscious processing of visual stimuli and, in somatosensory domain, improve selective attentional processing by dampening the strength of unattended deviant somatosensory signals,” they added.
The brain alterations do appear beneficial, but current twin studies are too small, and the participants too young, to find whether exercise-induced changes can actually reduce the risk of cognitive disorders or improve outcomes such as education or income.
Researchers have also tried exercise interventions on much older adults, even those with Alzheimer’s disease, to see if physical activity could repair their stricken brains. In 2016, a team of scientists recruited 68 older individuals with probable Alzheimer’s disease to determine whether moving more could help with their symptoms. Some subjects aerobically exercised for 150 minutes per week while others underwent a less rigorous control regimen of stretching and toning for 26 weeks. Compared to the control group, the aerobic exercise group improved more on the Disability Assessment for Dementia at the study’s conclusion. Boosts to cardiorespiratory fitness were also linked to improvements in memory and reduced atrophy of the hippocampus.
Working out also augments the brains of otherwise healthy older adults. Getting thirty minutes of physical activity each day does seem to preserve brain volumes in adults over age 70 compared to sedentary individuals, according to a study published in August of last year. Moreover, higher cardiorespiratory fitness was linked to lower levels of brain atrophy in the research.
One way exercise can induce changes in the brain is by increasing levels of the protein brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the blood, which is linked to neurogenesis. More BDNF may mean more new neurons in the brain. Regular exercise also increases the growth of additional blood vessels in the brain and helps maintain current ones, leading to boosted blood flow for the oxygen-hungry organ. Lastly, physical activity seems to keep microglia in good working order. Microglia “constantly check the brain for potential threats from microbes or dying or damaged cells and clear any damage they find,” Áine Kelly, a Professor in Physiology at Trinity College Dublin wrote for The Conversation.
Regularly moving one’s body may be the closest thing there is to a health panacea, for both outside the skull and inside.
Opportunity Knocks: Ukraine Seeks US Money, Loans, Weapons While Downplaying ‘Russian Invasion’
At a moment Ukraine’s top defense leadership, as well as President Volodymyr Zelensky himself, is urging the Biden administration to calm its dangerous and hyped rhetoric regarding a possibly “imminent” Russian invasion of Ukraine (Kiev has said all week that all indicators suggest this just isn’t so), it seems the Zelensky government will at least use the occasion to get what it wants from Washington. Or, put another way, perhaps the quid pro quo now emerges after the Ukrainians long kept mum on the Biden family and Burisma scandal.
We could add that Kiev is now so openly pushing back against White House assessments as to the actual level of the ‘Russia threat’ on Ukraine’s borders, that it’s proving quite awkward and embarrassing for team Biden. As Northeastern University political science professor Max Abrahms put it this week (while generally addressing mainstream media and pundits), “You guys aren’t making a big enough deal of this weird dynamic that American leaders are more worried than Ukrainian leaders of Russia invading Ukraine. This needs to be explained.”
Now Axios is reporting in an exclusive: “The chairman of Ukraine’s parliament has sent a letter to eight U.S. senators outlining four specific requests for security assistance and sanctions that Kyiv believes will help deter a Russian invasion.”
Zelensky doubled down on his insistence that a Russian invasion is not “imminent,” as the US has repeatedly warned.
“I’m the President of Ukraine, I’m based here, and I think I know the details deeper than any other president,” Zelensky told reporters.https://t.co/XWs5NcspNH
Again, it appears the logic for Ukraine’s government is that it might as well make use of the tense situation, understanding full well the “threat” is hugely inflated, to get what it wants out of the US hawks. After all, the opportunity for US billions to pour in has never been hotter.
Thus far Biden has only prepared far-reaching anti-Russia sanctions only in the scenario of a Putin-ordered offensive into Ukraine. As Axios observes…
Like the Ukrainian government, Republicans are pushing for the bill to impose some sanctions now, before Russia invades.
But Ukraine’s intervention in yet another U.S. legislative fight is unlikely to please a Biden administration already frustrated with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The awkward but advantageous quid pro quo is fast becoming apparent to many…
“Ukraine denies”
“We understand the difficult position President Zelensky is in and the pressure he’s under,” a White House official said Saturday. “But at the same time he’s downplaying the risk of invasion, he’s asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to defend against one.”
CNN’s White House correspondent Natasha Bertrand cited a top admin official who complained that Zelensky is contradicting Biden’s assessment of the Russia threat, “But at the same time” is busy “asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to defend against one.”
Here are the four specific requests in the new letter sent by Ukraine to the US administration, said to be approved by Zelensky’s himself, according to Axios sources:
“Expedited and higher-impact security assistance, including air defense, anti-ship and anti-armor capabilities, and flexible loans and financing mechanisms.”
“Immediate, mandatory sanctions” against the operator of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which the letter calls “no less an existential threat to Ukraine’s security and democracy than the Russian troops on our border.”
“A clear trigger” for sanctions based on Russia’s actions, with a lower threshold than what has been outlined in the current Democratic-sponsored legislation under consideration.
“Mandatory pre-trigger and post-trigger sanctions against all of Russia’s most significant financial institutions.”
The eight senators who were directly appealed to (all Russia hawks, it should be noted), are as follows: Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.)
Sen. Menendez, it should be noted, is pushing his “mother of all sanctions” bill as a threat to hold over Putin’s head.
Meanwhile…
I don’t think Zelensky needs to worry about the Russians – I think he needs to worry about the US overthrowing him for going against their narrative. https://t.co/Zn8oBkqyFm
Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is solid prog & v smart. Even has identity politics benefit of being first Asian (Indian) American. But alas doesn’t fit into the latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get lesser black woman. Thank heaven for small favors?
Because Biden said he’s only consider[ing] black women for SCOTUS, his nominee will always have an asterisk attached. Fitting that the Court takes up affirmative action next term.
Now the phrase “lesser black woman” is a bad way of putting this, but it seems to me pretty clear that it was just a poorly chosen way of saying “less qualified black woman.” And that strikes me as an eminently legitimate criticism of Biden’s position, though as it happens one I don’t share. I think we should be having more debate about this subject, especially in law schools, rather than less; and I certainly don’t think professors or center directors should be fired for expressing such views (as some having been saying should happen to Shapiro).
President Biden had pledged that he’d select a black woman for this seat (he said he’d appoint a black woman to the Court, and this is likely the one vacancy that he’ll be able to fill in this presidential term). This is to say that he has limited himself to roughly 7% of the population. That makes it highly unlikely that whoever he picks would “objectively”—I take it Shapiro means based on professional qualifications apart from race and sex—be the best of the progressive picks for the spot.
To be sure, it’s of course possible that a black woman would be the most qualified candidate. It just isn’t very likely, the same way that it’s unlikely that you’re unlikely to get the objectively best person for any position if you announced that you would choose someone whose first name starts with D (also apparently about 7% of the population). Indeed, a common argument in favor of nondiscrimination in employment—and in favor of taking affirmative steps to broaden the pool of potential applicants—is that by artificially narrowing the pool of applicants (or even by failing to correct for existing narrowness of the pool) you’d be missing out on some of the best candidates.
What’s more, Shapiro believes—quite plausibly—that in this case the artificial narrowing did indeed fence out the best candidate: Sri Srinivasan, who has served for 8 years as an appellate judge on the D.C. Circuit, and who many view as one of the smartest lawyers and appellate judges in the country. I’ve heard his name mentioned often in that capacity, much as then-Judge John Roberts was viewed that way when he was on the D.C. Circuit.
And while Judge Srinivasan is sometimes specially noted as a prominent nonwhite judge, my sense is that he would be included on lists of the top lawyers and judges entirely apart from his identity. The leading black female candidates are not, I think, generally listed on sycg lists; for instance, the top two candidates that have recently been talked about, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and Justice Leondra Kruger, are generally very well-regarded, but I don’t think they’ve made a name for themselves at quite the level of Judge Srinivasan. (This is no knock on either of them—to be a successful and well-regarded judge, as both of them are, is itself a great accomplishment.)
Naturally, others may rank judges differently in different ways; perhaps Judge Jackson and Justice Kruger should be on such lists entirely apart from identity. And we might also be suspicious of various factors that influence the ranking; for instance, it may well be that legal elites just focus more on federal circuit judges than on state supreme court justices like Justice Kruger. But it’s certainly plausible to think, as Shapiro does, that Judge Srinivasan would be the best pick based on non-identity factors—and that therefore President Biden is doing a disservice to the country by passing him over because of a precommitment to appoint someone from 7% of the population.
Now as I’ve noted, I don’t quite see matters this way. First, I think that race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and the like are legitimate factors in high-level government appointments even though they aren’t for everyday public employment or education. I don’t think Presidents should feel limited to “objective,” non-identity-based factors in making such appointments.
Second, I think it’s also relevant here that the “objective” factors are really quite subjective. It’s hard to accurately evaluate the quality of people’s legal minds, and especially to predict their likely work product on a nine-member Supreme Court. That doesn’t of course dispose of the question of whether we should consider identity factors; for instance, I don’t think race, religion, or sex should play a role in ordinary government hiring or student admissions, even when qualifications are hard to measure and success is hard to predict. But if I’m right that for high-level positions considering identity factors is permissible, then it’s hard for me to say confidently that considering those factors would yield a materially less qualified candidate, given that the qualifications are so hard to pin down.
Third, the “asterisk” claim strikes me as factually implausible, at least if one views the asterisk as a negative. I think it would be highly plausible in many other contexts; if the next world chess champion, for instance, were selected based on the chess federation’s promise that the next champion would be Hispanic (or even that all Hispanic players would be spotted a pawn), that would surely cheapen his success. (Compare the great Jose Raul Capablanca, who of course has no such asterisk.) But judicial appointments aren’t an objective competition. Having the opportunity to serve the law at that level is a great accomplishment whatever the bases for the appointment; and the way to make it greater is simply to do more with it. Earl Warren, like him or not, is remembered as an especially important Chief Justice because of what he helped do on the Court, and no-one diminishes that on the grounds that he was appointed in part for political reasons stemming from the 1952 election.
But I think this is the sort of discussion we should be having. Perhaps Shapiro is mistaken, and I’m right. Or perhaps he’s right, and I’m mistaken. Or perhaps we’re both mistaken, or perhaps both partly right.
And more importantly, to the extent I’m right (or to the extent President Biden is right), no-one can have any confidence about that unless rival views can be freely aired, both at the outset and in response to disagreements such as this one. If people are fired from law schools for expressing either side (or for an ill-chosen word in a Tweet expressing either side), then we can’t have that confidence. The view that dominates will dominate because of fear and suppression, not because people have actually seen the best arguments on both sides. And I don’t want that even for the view that I happen to think is correct.
Note: Ilya Shapiro and I have worked together on various projects in his time on Cato, including amicus briefs that I’ve written (usually through my Amicus Brief Clinic) with Cato. I consider him a friend, though through our professional lives rather than our social lives.
