Streetwise Professor

I have despised and distrusted Dr. Anthony Fauci from the very onset of the Covid crisis. I was aware of his dubious–to put it mildly–role in the AIDS issue in the ’80s. But my extremely negative priors were based more on the fact that he has been at the top of the bureaucratic food chain in DC for decades, which can only mean that he is a apparatchik who cultivates power and seeks rents, rather than a man who cultivates science and seeks truth.

I think I was very early to the game. When I tweeted something critical about him in March, a couple of friends chided me for dissing “Dr. Fauci.” They are now staunch Fauci foes.

If anything, events have shown that my priors were far to generous: my posteriors are unbounded from below.

The man has pirouetted on virtually every covid-related issue. Masks. Means of transmission. Vulnerability of children. Lockdowns. He has always taken the politically expedient position of the moment. Pre-November, moreover, his words and deeds were almost invariably calculated to damage Trump. And no wonder, given the mutual antipathy between Trump and the bureaucratic establishment in DC.

But Dr. Dervish’s most disgusting spin has been from heaping scorn on the Wuhan lab leak theory to his recent acknowledgement that gee, yeah, it’s a plausible hypothesis that needs to be investigated.

Who knew? Really? Well knock me down with a feather.

Like many of the government party and ruling class (e.g., Glenn Kessler of Pravda on the Potomac), Fauci (survivalist that he is) was forced into this spin by facts. But this is little excuse. The circumstantial case for the culpability of the Wuhan Institute of Virology was always quite strong. Strong enough that it should not have been dismissed out of hand–let alone characterized as conspiratorial (and racist) lunacy as a justification for not investigating. But some recent facts of the barking dog and non-barking dog variety have only strengthened it. The illness of 3 WIV employees immediately prior to the outbreak. The connection between WIV and a bat-infested cave 1000+ miles away where (a) several individuals had contracted covid-like symptoms, and (b) the WIV had dispatched researchers to collect samples. The failure to find any animal intermediaries between the bats and people (again–who were separated by 1000+ miles).

So like a cornered cockroach, Fauci has had no choice but to admit the obvious.

And Fauci comes to this with very dirty hands indeed. He has bobbed and weaved for weeks about his role in funding WIV. He almost certainly lied about it in Congressional testimony. When forced to tell the truth slowly, he acknowledged the funding but claimed it was impossible to know whether it had gone to “Bat Woman’s” “gain of function research.” His latest spin is that it would have been a “dereliction of duty” not to cooperate with WIV on coronavirus research–all the while expressing ignorance as to whether this institution was engaged in GOF research.

WELL WHY THE HELL DON’T YOU KNOW? This is your excuse, Sergeant Schultz? “I KNOW NUTHINK?” Really? For this you are the highest paid employee in the U.S. government?

Very few in Washington have been willing to challenge this superannuated elf. Only Rand Paul has had the stones to shirtfront Fauci time and again. Other Senate Republicans (and most in the House), you ask? Surely you jest. Worthless and craven governing uniparty POS almost without exception.

As a result, there is little doubt that, like Blattella germanica, this bureaucratic cockroach will survive, and even thrive. Rand Paul, on the other hand, should rightly fear assassination.

This is where we are.

After terminating a Pompeo-initiated effort to investigate the lab leak theory, whoever has his/her hand up the back of Joe Biden’s/Charlie McCarthy’s shirt has ordered the intelligence community to investigate.

Yeah, that inspires confidence, don’t it?

Can you say “whitewash” these days? If you can, I guarantee that’s what this “investigation” will be.

Last week CNN ran a story on the Colonial Pipeline shutdown that claimed that Colonial had not paid a ransom to the ransomware attackers. According to CNN, based on four anonymous sources, the hackers had exfiltrated data from Colonial’s billing system, but that the cyber response team had located the data on a server in the US, and prevented the data being sent outside the US, thereby eliminating the need to pay ransom.

I called bullshit immediately after reading the story:

This story on Colonial Pipeline doesn't pass the smell test.https://t.co/l5yjPy8uBq

— streetwiseprof (@streetwiseprof) May 13, 2021

There’s a thread if you’re interested, but I will summarize it. First, the incident was described as a ransomware attack from the first. But ransomware does not involve exfiltration of data. Instead, the attacker encrypts the target’s computers, and demands ransom in exchange for the decryption key or tool. Exfiltration of data is more commonly described as a “leakware” attack. But leakware wouldn’t explain all the facts. Notably, just exfiltrating data would not have prevented Colonial from operating its system: thus, leakware can’t explain the shutdown, though ransomware could.

And lo and behold, the very next day:

This story calls BS on yesterday's CNN story, which I called BS on yesterday. This says Colonial machines were encrypted, i.e., an actual ransomware attack. So why the fake story yesterday??? https://t.co/oYHJlreZP9

— streetwiseprof (@streetwiseprof) May 13, 2021

And yes, it was ransomware:

Once they received the payment, the hackers provided the operator with a decrypting tool to restore its disabled computer network. The tool was so slow that the company continued using its own backups to help restore the system, one of the people familiar with the company’s efforts said.

Ransomware would explain a shutdown. Colonial couldn’t use its computers. (Supposedly the computers in question related to billing rather than pipeline operations. But a pipeline ain’t going to operate if it can’t bill properly for tens of millions of dollars of product.)

You’ll note I have not quoted from the 12 May CNN article. That’s because after the revelation that the original story was bullshit, CNN replaced it with this drivel (which is where you are directed if you click the link in my first tweet).

Although CNN admits its original story that no ransom was paid was wrong, the schmucks still can’t fully admit how wrong they were:

CNN was previously told by multiple sources that Colonial Pipeline had not yet paid the ransom, but two sources said on Thursday that the company did pay as it sought to retrieve the stolen information. It is not clear when the payment was made.

The information was NOT STOLEN, losers.

CNN was lied to. Obviously. Which raises two questions.

First, given that the story was obviously fishy, why didn’t CNN figure that out? I saw through it immediately. Meaning that CNN reporters are either complete morons, or they deliberately went with a story that they knew was bilge.

Second, and more importantly, why hasn’t CNN named the liars? The four liars.

Oh, but journalists can’t burn their sources dontcha know. Well, if your sources screw you, screw them back. If you don’t, then you have revealed an ugly reality: journalists would rather maintain access to liars in powerful places, and be accessories in spreading their lies, than to call out the liars and lose access to them. Access to lying liars trumps truth. Every time.

This perpetuates the cycle of lies. There is NO accountability for lying. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Or maybe CNN doesn’t think its sources screwed them. Maybe they were in on it all along.

So the lying goes on and on and on and journalists at CNN and every other major media outlet knowingly spread the lies day after day after day.

Word to the wise: do not believe a single word in a story that relies on anonymous sources. Not. A. Single. Word. Anonymous sources can lie with impunity. And given that, you know that they will, and do.

The media is just one American institution that needs to be torn up, root and branch. It is too corrupt, and its relationship with political (and bureaucratic) power too incestuous, to be reformed. CNN’s Colonial Pipeline story glaringly reveals that truth, and the truth that the modern media is built on lies.

One of the developments that has distressed me most over the past years is the descent of the US military into what is now called wokism. The descent began long before the term “woke” gained currency, but it has accelerated since it has, and especially post-20 January.

One of the primary stress points has been over the role of women in combat, especially in the infantry. Clearly here a decisive–and arguably the decisive–issue is physical capacity, notably strength and body mass.

Combat is extraordinarily difficult physically (and mentally as well). It taxes every muscle and sinew. Even movement to combat is physically punishing, especially given the increasing weight of material (including body armor) that the modern soldier must hump before firing a shot.

After WWII, the US Army surveyed veterans. One question they asked was what needed to change in basic training. The overwhelming answer was more physical fitness training. A lot more. Soldiers who had served in the ETO and the jungles of Asia responded that extended combat was far more physically demanding than they had been trained to handle.

In its efforts to integrate women, including into combat billets, the military has had to try to overcome what should be immediately obvious to any sentient being: men are stronger than women. (If this statement offends you, so be it: I am not going to bend to your denial of reality.)

The flash point here has been physical fitness testing. Recently the military adopted a new “Army Combat Fitness Test” (note the word “combat” in the title, as opposed to the old “Army Physical Fitness Test”). The intention was that the test standards would apply equally to women and men, to make sure all had the physical strength required for combat.

The only way this could happen if the test was no test at all. To the extent that the test does impose physical challenges even remotely similar to those required in combat, it was inevitable that women would fail at a far higher rate than men.

And lo and behold, that’s exactly what happened.

But rather than questioning whether this undermined entirely the case for even thinking about letting women serve in infantry units (or other MOS demanding physical strength), the Army is consider gender norming the tests.

Combat is not gender normed. Period.

I say again: combat is not gender normed. A gender normed “combat fitness test” is an oxymoron that makes “military intelligence” look like the epitome of consistency.

I often use Jeff Davis’s phrase “died of a theory.” Here, that will be literally true. People will die. Wars will be lost. The nation’s survival may be at stake.

There are few things more serious–existential even. Serious people–including bad ass women in the military who can hack it physically (there are exceptions to every rule)–understand this. But the US military is currently in the hands of very, very unserious people–and has been for a long time. These are people in thrall to a theory, and are willing to send service men and women to their deaths (and jeopardize the security of the nation) rather than choose reality over theory.

The incoherence of the theorists is also striking. The feminist left argues that men are predisposed to violence and aggression, and are certainly more violent and aggressive than women: indeed, they direct much of their violence and aggression towards women, who are incapable of defense because of their lesser physical strength and aggression. Well, a comparative advantage in violence is an attribute in the military, and this comparative advantage recommends–compels!–that men specialize in socially sanctioned violence–notably in combat arms in the military–and that women specialize in other things.

This is not an assertion of superiority, dominance, or hierarchy. It is a basic point about comparative advantage and specialization. A basic point that is grasped by few, and basically by none on the left, whose obsession with simplistic notions of equality leads them to shrink with horror from the ideas of comparative advantage and specialization.

Yet the same leftist feminists–whose theories have captured the US defense establishment–argue that men and women should not so specialize, but that women and men should both close with enemies in violent combat. In the name of equity. Or something. Like I say, the theorists and the theory are incoherent, so explaining this patent contradiction is beyond the powers of mere mortals.

Various strains of Critical Theories predicated on perverted concepts of equality and delusional views of reality have attacked the brains of those at the pinnacle of the uniformed and civilian hierarchies. I am reminded of this line from Patton’s legendary speech to the Third Army:

The bilious bastards who write that stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don’t know any more about real battle than they do about fucking

Alas, the bilious bastards who want to gender norm “combat fitness tests” are no longer merely editors and writers for newsweeklies.* They run the US military. God save us.

*There are obviously many in the Pentagon, including those holding flag ranks, who know battle. That actually makes it worse. Most likely out of the intersection of careerism and a political class in thrall to the theory, they are willingly collaborating with–nay, directing–policies that they know are are in conflict with basic reality and which jeopardize lives and the nation’s security.

Niall Ferguson rightly worries about the ruling class’s infatuation with the Chinese system, and their clear desire to imitate it. Astoundingly, he fails to grasp the reason for this fanboy attraction.

Ferguson draws an analogy with Cold War I, during which he argues a process of “osmosis” threatened to make the US and the West generally more and more like the Soviet Union. But what is going on now is completely different. It is not an unthinking imitation driven by a need to compete, as in 1945-1991. It is a mixture of admiration (among the political class) and venality (among the corporate class). Yet Ferguson ignores these facts–which are far more disturbing than “osmosis”, which is an unconscious process. The ruling class’s affinity for the CCP model is anything but unconscious.

The West’s political class clearly envies the CCP’s autocratic powers, and strives to imitate them. This is most noticeable with respect to Covid policy, but it is not limited to that. Indeed, the political class fantasizes about using the extraordinary powers it seized based on the Covid pretext to reshape society generally.

The most forthright of the fanboyz is Canada’s effete Justin Trudeau–a perfect useful idiot for the CCP. He openly admires the Chinese dictatorship because, you know, it allows them to dragoon people into going green (amongst other things).

Maybe there are other reasons why Trudeau likes China. pic.twitter.com/mbxfpLQ34Y

— Camus (@newstart_2024) May 1, 2021

I could come up with other Trudeau examples, but I will spare you the torture of watching more of the twerp’s (cleaned that up) power worship/envy.

Although Trudeau is the most open in his admiration, it is clear that in the EU and the US the political class is itching to embrace China-like policies, whether it is massive “infrastructure” spending, draconian restrictions on liberty in the name of public health, or a social credit system (disguised, perhaps, in the form of vaccine passports or government cryptocurrencies which (a) China is racing to introduce in order to expand its social control, and (b) would almost certainly be non-anonymous to the government and linked with vast amounts of other personal information).

The Rosetta Stone to all ruling class policy initiatives is quite simple, people: you can make sense of any policy by asking what most enhances the ruling class’s power most, and deprives you of the most liberty and personal sovereignty. The ruling class envies the party/state power in the Chinese system, and hence is anxious to ape it at every opportunity.

That basic fact is missing in Ferguson’s article. Maybe it’s because he’s so embedded in the ruling class, although he from time to time takes contrarian positions.

Insofar as the corporate class is concerned, they are the 21st century version of Lenin’s 20th century aphorism about the capitalists who will sell communists the rope with which the latter will hang the former. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Slavering over the Chinese market, Western corporatists (I won’t say capitalists) are perfectly willing to countenance the enslavement of billions.

The ruling class and the corporate class crave power–the ability to control you, to coerce you. They see the power the CCP wields, and they want the same. Is not about emulating China to compete with China. It is about emulating China to emulate the domineering power of China’s political class. And to reprise Lenin again: “Who? Whom?” You are the whom.

This should be an obvious point, but Ferguson fails to make it.

The appropriate historical analogy here is not Cold War I, but the 1930s, when many in the Western ruling class openly admired the Italian Fascists, the Nazis, and the Bolsheviks because of the untrammeled power to reshape society that these malign movements possessed. The power to reshape society free from the resistance of the unenlightened proles is what the Western progressive political class desired, and desires, above all else. So they admired Mussolini then, and admire Xi now. Sinophilia (or more precisely, CCP-o-philia) is just the latest symptom of a very old disease.

These people are the enemies of freedom. They are your enemies. Respond accordingly.

The Biden administration self-inflicted two serious diplomatic wounds in the space of a single day.

First, even though India is experiencing a wave of covid infections and deaths, its worse so far, the administration refused to relent on a ban (imposed by the Trump administration) on the export of vaccine ingredients.

Yes, the policy was originally Trump’s, but (a) you’d think that would be a bug not a feature with this administration, (b) India’s circumstances are far more dire today than they were when the ban was implemented, and (c) in the US, vaccine usage has nearly reached a saturation point, with many providers having shots wanting for arms.

India (both the government but especially the citizenry) has reacted extremely negatively due to this refusal, which is not surprising given the state of covid panic in the country. The United States should be courting India, not alienating it. After decades of hostility to the US (due not least because of US support for Pakistan, India’s post-independence antipathy to colonial powers or their allies, and dependence on Soviet/Russian weapons), India’s existential conflict with an aggressive China had created an opportunity to make India if not an ally, a country with which the US could cooperate on issues of common interest–most notably containing China.

That underlying dynamic is still there, but this thoughtless refusal fuels the latent suspicions of the US among many Indians and makes such cooperation far, far more difficult. It benefits the health of Americans virtually not at all, but alienates a country we should be courting.

The second self-inflicted wound involves Biden’s official recognition of the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire during the depths of WWI. (Do not underestimate how this war scarred Turkey. The Ottoman Empire suffered a greater percentage loss of population during the war than any other nation, even if one deducts the Armenian dead. The Ottoman Empire was dismembered, and Turkey itself was almost devoured in the aftermath. Only Ataturk’s miracles in the War of Independence saved Turkey from being divided among the Western powers and the Greeks, and left as an Anatolian rump that no one else wanted.)

Yes, the fate of Armenians was horrible. Well over a million died. Numberless others were displaced, often to desolate camps in the Syrian desert. If you meet someone whose name ends in “ian” they are almost certainly the descendants of the Armenian diaspora. (Those with names ending in “yan” are usually post-Soviet emigres). Their martyrdom was widely acknowledged in the US. In my parents’ era, children were told to eat their vegetables, because of the starving Armenians.

Like all historic episodes, especially those that occurred in the crucible of WWI, the story is complicated. But regardless of where the guilt lies, it happened more than a century ago. Those who committed the atrocities, and those who suffered them, have long since died.

But living Turks of all political persuasions are neuralgic about being blamed for these long-ago events. Even ardent Erdoğan haters in the CHP are of one mind with him on this issue: calling what happened in the long-dead Ottoman Empire a genocide is a red line. Those who do so are Turkey’s enemies.

Turkey’s response was immediate. It recalled its ambassador to the US, and its foreign minister gave a bitter statement, claiming that this will irreparably harm Turkish-US relations. He also said that the US should not cast stones, given its historical treatment of Native Americans. (The administration’s repeated condemnations of America’s historical actions make it a particularly attractive target for such barbs.)

Many in the US, particularly in the Armenian community, dismiss this. They say that it will blow over.

Don’t be so sure. Under Erdoğan Turkey has been wobbling away from the American (and Nato) orbit. Given Erdoğan’s dicey domestic circumstances, stoking the resentment and taking real steps to distance the country from the US are natural political moves. Russia will clearly notice–and seize upon–the opportunity. Erdoğan will be quite open to their blandishments.

And do not underestimate the power of Turkish nationalism. In my experience, they are among the most chauvinistic people in the modern world. (Han Chinese are the only rivals for the title.) They are not postmodern or post-nationalist, like most Europeans. This is deadly serious to them. It will not blow over.

Turkey has geopolitical importance, not least because of its geographic position. It has been a difficult country for the US in recent years, in large part because of its mercurial and grandiose leader. Provoking it unnecessarily will bring the US many policy headaches. Virtually at the same moment as Biden’s announcement, Turkey escalated its conflict with America-aligned Kurds in Iraq. The genocide announcement will make it all the more difficult to try to manage that conflict.

And for what? This gesture will not bring anyone back from the dead. It will not undo what has been done. America helped in the best way possible–by welcoming tens of thousands of Armenians. (Including the Kardashians. Isn’t that sacrifice enough?) It is moral preening that will not reverse past atrocities, nor prevent future ones. And it is contrary to US national interests.

And Turks–including in particular Turks in the US–believe that Biden’s action does not even rise to the level of moral preening. In their eyes it is corruption, political venality, repaying Armenian-Americans (in California in particular) for massive campaign contributions, given in exchange for his promise to do what he just did. Given the absence of any other plausible explanation, this seems very reasonable. And very despicable

One day, two pointless gestures that do significant damage to relationships with two geopolitically important nations with which the US has had difficult relations. I see zero upside for US interests in these actions, and much downside. God help us if these are harbingers of US policy over the next four years–which alas is extremely likely.

But hey. At least we don’t have to worry about mean tweets, right?

Under Federal law, a pharmaceutical intervention must be proven safe and effective before it is marketed to the public. If after introduction it proves unsafe or ineffective, the Food and Drug Administration can rescind its approval.

Note the burden of proof: the manufacturer must prove safety and efficacy. Safety and efficacy are not rebuttable presumptions.

Would the same be true of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). This neologism (neoanacronym?) is used to describe the policies that have been imposed during the Covid Era–most particularly, lockdowns and masks.

Neither had been proven safe or effective prior to their wholesale–and I daresay, indiscriminate–use. Lockdowns in particular had never been subjected to any clinical experiment or trial. Indeed, the idea had been evaluated by epidemiologists and others, and soundly rejected. But a policy first introduced in a police state–China–spread just as rapidly as the virus to supposedly non-police states despite it never having been proven efficacious or safe.

A year’s experience has produced the evidence. Greetings, fellow lab rats!

And the evidence shows decisively that lockdowns are NOT effective at affecting any medically meaningful metric about Covid. This American Institute of Economic Research piece provides an overview of the evidence through December: subsequent studies have provided additional evidence.

Furthermore, lockdowns have been proven to be unsafe. Unsafe to incomes, especially for those whose jobs do not permit working from home. Unsafe for physical health, in the form of inter alia deferred cancer diagnoses and treatment for heart attacks and strokes and greater substance abuse (with higher incidence of overdoses), as well as delayed “elective” surgeries that improve life quality. Unsafe for mental health. Unsafe for children, in particular, who have experienced debilitating social isolation and profound disruption in their educations. (Although given the trajectory of American public education, especially post-George Floyd/Derek Chauvin, feral children might be better off than those subjected to the tortures of a CRT-infused curriculum and CRTKoolAid drinking “educators.”)

Masks are not as devastating as lockdowns, but they have also been shown to be ineffective and also unsafe, especially for those who must wear them for extended stretches–which includes in particular children at school.

(Remember “For the children”? Ah, good times. Good times.)

Drug regulation was one of the first major initiatives of the Progressive Era, and the 1962 FDA Amendments that imposed the efficacy requirement were also driven by progressives. My assessment of the economic evidence (especially the literature spawned by my thesis advisor, the great Sam Peltzman) is that the efficacy requirement in particular has been harmful, on net, because it delayed and in some cases prevented the introduction of beneficial therapies.

But even if–especially if–you accept the progressive-inspired conventional wisdom regarding pharmaceutical intervention regulation, you should be dismayed and even furious that the same logic that has NOT been applied to NPIs. The underlying principle of drug regulation has been “show me”: show me something works. The underlying principle of Covid Era ukases has been: “Evidence? Evidence? I don’t have to show any stinkin’ evidence.” Indeed, it’s been worse than that: those who demand evidence, or even politely point out the lack of evidence, are branded as heretics by the very same “progressives” who believe religiously that requiring proof of efficacy of drugs is a good thing.

How to square this circle? How to explain this seeming contradiction?

I think it is as plain as the nose on your face. Power. In particular, power exercised by progressive technocratic elites. The FDA acts empower a progressive technocratic elite. Lockdowns and mask mandates empower a progressive technocratic elite–far beyond the wildest dreams of the most zealous FDA bureaucrat. (They also empower idiot politicians who imagine themselves to be part of some elite.) They are both premised on the belief that individuals are incompetent to choose wisely, and must be coerced into making the right choice. Coerced by credentialed elites who are better than you proles.

So an apparent logical inconsistency–proof of efficacy for thee, but not for me–is in fact no inconsistency at all. They are both who, whom. A soi disant elite (ha!) always pushes the alternative that gives them the most power, and deprives you of the most choice. Who (the progressives): Whom (you).

Domestically, the US political situation is dysfunctional. On its best days. To compound the dangers, the international situation is fraught.

At present there are two smoldering hotspots involving world powers (and arguably superpowers) that could suck the US into a confrontation with such powers–Taiwan and Ukraine.

China has ramped up the rhetoric over Taiwan. It has also increased its provocative military behavior around the island.

Russia has amassed a 50,000 man plus military force, heavily armed and armored, on the borders of Ukraine.

Taiwan and Ukraine have been hotspots for years, but it is at least plausible, and in my view likely, that the increase in tensions is the direct result of the change in administrations. That is, China’s Xi and Russia’s Putin are testing Biden. Or they believe they have already found him wanting in the fortitude and strategic departments.

Who can blame them, really?

In Ukraine in particular, the Biden administration has played things in about the worst way imaginable, and has no doubt convinced Putin that they are weak.

Most notable was the embarrassing exhibition involving the supposed dispatching of two US destroyers into the Black Sea. The Russians reacted quite aggressively, and last week it was announced that no ships would be transiting the Bosporus after all.

I thought it was a horrible idea to send the ships in any event. Play out the game. If deterrence fails, and Russia and Ukraine recommence the hostilities that (sort of) ended 7 years ago, then either the DDGs would have to turn tail (which would not be a good look), or they could get involved in combat with the Russians. Even overlooking the dire consequences of armed confrontation between the US and Russia, the ships would have been able to accomplish little, and would be at extreme risk. Yes, they are very capable platforms, but are intended to operate as part of a carrier battlegroup. Operating independently, they would have little influence on a battle in Ukraine, and would be extremely vulnerable operating within range of dominant land-based air and missile forces. Which is why they almost certainly would have turned tail.

The Russians would have known this, and playing out the game, would have realized that two DDGs would not effect their operations in Ukraine. So the deterrence value of the deployment would have been close to zero; the upside of the deployment negligible; and the potential downside huge.

In other words, don’t make non-credible bluffs. That’s exactly what the administration did, before backing down. Thereby revealing that it was bluffing, and had no intention of backing it up.

This came to mind:

(That was John Cleese as Putin at the end.)

The worst possible way to play this, regardless of whether you believe that the US should risk a confrontation with Putin over Ukraine, or not. The. Worst.

It’s sickly ironic that this climbdown from a confrontation with Putin occurred about the same time that one part of the administration discretely acknowledged that the “Russian bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan” story was a complete crock. That story was flogged incessantly over the summer to reinforce the narrative that Trump cowered before Putin, and was running away from Afghanistan as a result. Well, the story was bullshit, so there was no cowering. It is the Biden administration that is demonstrably cowering. (Even while the Pentagon was backing off the bounties story, others in the Biden administration were continuing to assert it.)

That story was another flagrant example of media mendacity. The NYT journalists who wrote it should be consigned to oblivion–but they won’t be. If they were lied to by their anonymous sources, they should call them out–but they won’t. So there is NO accountability for lying, or for trading in lies (as the NYT journalists and so many other journalists do). They used to say never trust anyone over 30. That was always a dubious statement. It is anything but dubious to say never trust any journalist, regardless of age.

Furthermore, Biden cemented his image of weakness before Putin by offering to meet him in a summit–at least, you can be sure that this offer cemented an image of weakness in Putin’s mind. It makes it look like Biden is coming to Putin as a supplicant.

Another own goal.

And shifting to the other end of the world, you know Xi is watching this very, very closely.

The coming months could be worrisome, indeed.

In the US, conspiracy/collusion among firms to fix prices is a per se violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Per se meaning that it is illegal, full stop. There is no defense that the action is reasonable. The EU has similar rules. So do most G20 nations.

But this is a classic example of “rules for thee, but not for me.” Many governments have been hot to establish a global minimum corporate tax rate. Recently, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen came out in support–something that the United States has never done officially.

You see, though governments (at least theoretically and rhetorically) think that firms should compete, they are aghast at the idea of governments competing, especially on tax. The ability of capital to flee to low tax jurisdictions sends governments of large nations in particular into paroxysms of fury. Why? Easy: because it constrains governments’ extractive power.

The conversion of the US government to the tax collusion cause (which has long been led by Germany and France) is clearly driven by post-Covid fiscal diarrhea. (And you thought Covid was a respiratory illness, didn’t you?) The trillions in spending continue to mount, with more to come if Biden’s “infrastructure” bill passes. (What’s infrastructure, you ask? What isn’t!) The debt-to-GDP ratio is already in excess of 100 pct, and the end of the climb in the ratio is nowhere in sight. To the extent that the administration has a plan to at least slow it, that plan relies on higher corporate taxes. Hence the need to keep corporate capital in the US, and to prevent it from fleeing to lower tax jurisdictions.

Hence the support for a tax cartel.

Competition is the strongest bulwark of liberty. Indeed, a persuasive hypothesis explaining Europe’s rise to prominence was that its fragmentation promoted competition among polities that limited the extractive power of governments, in contrast to say China or Russia. Even within Europe, the biggest states (e.g., France, Spain) were the most extractive because their size gave them some extractive market power.

Without the option to exit, you are at the mercy of the state.

When governments start to work together–i.e., collude–be afraid. Very afraid. They are colluding against you to deprive you of that exit option. You should want them to compete. Because they will compete by reducing the amount they will take from you.

And if you think that the tax cartel’s burden will fall only on corporations, not you–think again. Capital taxation is extremely inefficient, and reduces labor income. Tax capital, and there is less capital. Less capital, labor is less productive. Labor is less productive, wages fall.

Not to mention that the fiscal fillip will support spending that largely wasteful–wealth destroying, not wealth enhancing. It diverts resources from productive to unproductive uses.

So fight the tax cartel. It is an anathema to your freedom and economic well-being.

In the Time of Covid, numerous liberties, and indeed Constitutional rights, have been sacrificed in the name of “public health.” The ruling class has learned this lesson well: these enemies of freedom realize that claims of “public health” are the perfect Trojan horse to achieve their dreams of subjugating the proles.

Now everything is a “public health” crisis. Guns–“public health” issue. Racism–“public health” issue. CO2–“public health” issue. The Supreme Court–“public health” issue.

I kid you not!:

“There’s growing recognition that the Supreme Court poses a danger to the health and well-being of the nation and even to democracy itself,” said Aaron Belkin, the director of the group Take Back the Court. “A White House judicial reform commission has a historic opportunity to explain the gravity of the threat and to help contain it by urging Congress to add seats, which is the only way to restore balance to the court.”

Appeals to health are particularly seductive in this era of safetyism, when ironically most of the true health scourges of humanity have been eliminated, or at least greatly reduced, and marginal risks have been transmogrified into horrific threats. Moreover, by appending the term “public” to the emotive word “health”, the ruling class denies individual responsibility or insinuates the abject irresponsibility of individuals, and asserts the necessity of controlling you. For your own good, you know, and that of “the public.” You are a selfish bastard if you resist, right?

The public health profession has always attracted statist control freaks. There are indeed limited circumstances in which external health effects of individual decisions are so damaging that some constraints on individual choice are justified, and it would be acceptable if public heath authorities stayed within that small box. But the profession has striven mightily to expand its authority to wider and wider spheres of personal behavior. And particularly in the midst (would that it be in the aftermath) of covidmania the totalitarians among us, who presume to rule us, have found public health claims to be a powerful weapon in their relentless campaign to destroy freedom and rights.

Which is why unless proven otherwise, subject to a very high burden of proof, we should view any assertion that something is a public health issue as a mask for fascist assaults on our liberties.

Over four years ago, to address social media platforms’ exclusion on the basis of viewpoint (i.e., censorship) I advocated treating them as common carriers subject to a non-discrimination requirement. The thrust of my argument was that these platforms have substantial market power and are subject to weak competitive discipline due to network effects and other technological factors.

In concurring with a Supreme Court decision to deny cert in a case that found Donald Trump violated First Amendment rights by blocking users on Twitter, Justice Clarence Thomas came out strongly in favor of the common carrier approach to regulating Twitter, Facebook, and Google.

Justice Thomas’ reasoning follows mine quite closely:

It changes nothing that these platforms are not the sole means for distributing speech or information. A person always could choose to avoid the toll bridge or train and instead swim the Charles River or hike the Oregon Trail. But in assessing whether a company exercises substantial market power, what matters is whether the alternatives are comparable. For many of today’s digital platforms, nothing is.

Justice Thomas also notes, as I did, that limiting common carriers’ right to exclude is a longstanding element of the American and British legal systems: “our legal system and its British predecessor have long subjected certain businesses, known as common carriers, to special regulations, including a general requirement to serve all comers.” To this, somewhat more perfunctorily Justice Thomas adds more modern public accommodation laws as a restriction on business’ ability to exclude. Common carriage is a narrower conception because it generally requires some market power on the part of the company, and for this reason I find it a superior basis for regulating social media companies. But regardless, this is hardly a radical proposal, and is in fact deeply embedded in law dating from a classical liberal–i.e., laissez faire–period.

Thomas notes that imposing such a restriction is up to the legislature. Alas, that’s not likely, especially given the influence the social media and tech companies have on the legislature, and more ominously, the clearly expressed interest of the party in power to use the social media and tech companies to exclude and censor speech by their political opponents–whom I daresay they consider political enemies, and indeed, beyond the pale and deserving of banishment from the public sphere.

The leftist party in power cannot restrict speech directly–that would violate the First Amendment. And this is where Twitter, Facebook, Google, Amazon etc. can be quite useful to the leftist party in power. As private entities, their exclusion of speech from their platforms does not facially violate 1A. So note with care the pressure that leftist legislators are putting on these companies to police speech even more than they do already. These members of the party in power are outsourcing censorship to ostensibly private entities as a way of circumventing the Constitution.

As their previous behavior indicates, moreover, these companies do not necessarily need much prompting. They are ideologically aligned with the party in power, and are implementing much politically-slanted censorship of their own volition.

This symbiosis between the private businesses and the governing party is the essence of the political-economic model of fascism. At times, the relationship looks like an Escher etching. Like this one in particular:

Which hand is the Democratic Party, and which one is Twitter et al? That is, is the Democratic Party driving social media companies, or are social media companies pulling the strings of the Democratic Party?

The answer is both–like in the Escher. And that is the essence of the political-economic model of fascism. Corporations are acting as political actors, and politicians and those in government are using corporations to advance their political agenda. This is true in any political system, but the symbiosis is far, far stronger in fascist ones, and the antagonisms far weaker than in more liberal polities.

And as we’ve seen in recent months, it’s not just social media and tech companies that are involved. Corporate America generally has adopted a leftist political agenda, is advancing this agenda, and is attempting to pressure governments–especially state governments–to do so as well.

The injection of companies like the major airlines–all of them–and Coca Cola into the Georgia (and now Texas) voting law controversies is the most recent example. But entertainment companies–including professional sports as well as Hollywood, music businesses, etc.–are also exerting substantial political muscle.

Corporatism–a strong symbiotic relationship between government and powerful economic entities, especially corporations–is the essence of fascist economic systems. That is exactly what “capitalism” in the United States is today.

In such a system, the public-private dichotomy does not exist, and libertarians/classical liberals who act as if it does are useful idiots for the corporatists.

This model is also a good characterization of the Chinese system, which although is ostensibly communist, has become clearly corporatist/fascist in the post-Deng era. Interestingly, the main struggle today in China is between the state/Party and large corporations that Xi and his minions believe are too powerful and hence too independent of the state. Even in symbiotic relationships, there is a struggle for power–and for control over the rents.

So while I applaud Justice Thomas for advocating legislation to impose common carrier status on tech behemoths, it must be acknowledged that this proposal is naive in the current environment. The mutual interest between the current party in power and corporate interests in advancing political agendas generally, and suppressing speech in particular (in part because it also helps advance those agendas), is so great that such legislation cannot come to pass today. It is doubtful that it would have come to pass even had Trump won reelection. The slide into corporatism/economic fascism has progressed too far to hold out little hope that it can be reversed, absent some social convulsion.