Bill introduced in Senate to ban sex-change surgeries, hormone treatments for minors

From Washington Times.com (July 22, 2023):

Sen. J.D. Vance has introduced legislation that would make gender-reassignment treatments for minors a federal crime.

Mr. Vance’s bill, the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, would ban gender-transition surgeries, puberty blockers, hormone treatments and other transgender-related medical care from being provided to minors.

People that administer gender-change treatments to children would be charged with a federal class C felony, which carries a sentence of 10 to 25 years in prison.

The bill prevents federal funding from going toward transgender surgery or treatments, including blocking Affordable Care Act insurance plans from paying for the procedures. Mr. Vance’s measure would also ban universities from teaching about gender-reassignment treatments, and prevent illegal aliens that performed transgender-related medical procedures on children from getting visas.

“Under no circumstances should doctors be allowed to perform these gruesome, irreversible operations on underage children,” Mr. Vance, Ohio Republican, said in a statement. “With this legislation, we have an opportunity to save countless young Americans from a lifetime of suffering and regret.”

Mr. Vance’s measure is a companion bill to Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene’s legislation of the same name. Ms. Greene’s bill, which was introduced last year, has 45 cosponsors in the House.

Ms. Greene, Georgia Republican, thanked Mr. Vance for introducing the measure in the Senate.

“Every Republican in Congress should sign on as a cosponsor to this important legislation,” Ms. Greene said on Twitter. “We must end the genital mutilation of kids!”

A Reuter’s study, which compiled health insurance claim data that showed gender dysphoria diagnoses and gender-transition treatments, found that over 121,000 children were diagnosed with gender dysphoria between 2017 and 2021.

During that same time period, 4,780 youth that had a gender dysphoria diagnosis started taking puberty blockers, while nearly 15,000 minors underwent hormone therapy.

Surgeries were far less common. There were 776 top surgeries, which remove breasts, between 2019 and 2021. There were 56 genital surgeries during that same three-year span. [source]

Good for him! If minors cannot make contracts with adults then they shouldn’t be able to make life changing medical decisions about their bodies. Just common sense.

Hunter Biden investigation: Agents barred from accessing the laptop

From Washington Examiner.com (July 20, 2023):

Investigators on Hunter Biden’s criminal case testified that they were denied access to information found on his infamous laptop by prosecutors, which inhibited their ability to investigate further possible crimes committed by the president’s son.

Internal Revenue Service supervisory agent Gary Shapley, one of the whistleblowers, testified to the House Oversight Committee that IRS special agent Joe Ziegler, the other IRS whistleblower, requested access to the laptop in a meeting with investigators and was told they weren’t going to be given access to it as part of their investigation into Biden.

According to Shapley, who was Ziegler’s superior, when Ziegler brought up the lack of access he had to the information on the laptop, a federal prosecutor on the Hunter Biden investigation, Lesley Wolf, said it was because “prosecutors decided not to give it to you all.”

Shapley said in his testimony that the authenticity of Biden’s laptop had been confirmed in 2019.

Another example of the Department of Justice hindering their investigation was a request for a search warrant of then President Joe Biden’s guest house, where Hunter Biden had been staying.

They were blocked from executing a search warrant at the guest house because Wolf believed it would cause bad optics, they testified.

“With the circumstances of the probable cause being achieved and knowing that this was there, I don’t know how she could have not allowed us to execute the search warrant,” Shapley said.

It wasn’t just the guest house; pursuing questioning or leads that would have involved Joe Biden was highly discouraged.

“Any time we potentially wanted to go down the road of asking questions related to the president, it was, ‘That’s going to take too much approvals. We can’t ask those questions,’” Ziegler said in a pretaped interview with CBS News.

This also was the case with text messages that Hunter Biden sent a Chinese business associate where he brought up his father by saying he was sitting next to him in an effort to pressure the associate to send him money. Ultimately, Hunter Biden would receive millions by invoking “my father” in messages.

But, investigators were barred from using location data in the obtained messages to see if the elder Biden was actually with Hunter Biden when he sent those messages.

Shapley said the location data was “something we clearly needed to follow up on,” but it “simply wasn’t supported by the prosecutors.” [source]

Nothing to see here. Just the Deep State protecting its own.

The laptop saga continues:

FBI Knew New York Post’s Hunter Biden Laptop Story Was Real Ahead Of 2020 Election, FBI Form Shows

When is an insurrection not an insurrection?

From American Thinker.com (July 14, 2023):

Word emerged the other day that Ray Epps is finally about to be charged for events on January 6, 2021. Sharp-eyed media consumers instantly noticed that, with this news, the mainstream media moved in unison to redefine their previous characterization of events on that day.

Since the day Joe Biden took office, the administration has spent an inordinate amount of time, energy, and money to arrest and prosecute every random grandmother who took a picture inside the Capitol on January 6, ignoring the fact that Capitol police welcomed many into the building.

The administration has also savaged the constitutional rights of some of those arrested by locking them up without bail or trial for two-and-a-half years and it has been accused of major prosecutorial misconduct. Additionally, congressional Democrats staged a kangaroo court inquiry intended to destroy Donald Trump and whitewash any failures or complicity on the part of government actors.

Through it all, Ray Epps occupied an unusual position. Videos, especially the famous one below, showed him seemingly playing an active role (see, e.g., here and here):

Meanwhile, the FBI ignored Epps, and Democrats respected him. The House January 6 Committee liked him. The known facts were confusing.

Things changed abruptly the other day when word emerged that Ray Epps had sued Fox News for its coverage accusing him of working with the FBI to incite and entrap people on January 6:

Ray Epps, the man at the center of a widespread conspiracy theory about the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday accusing Fox News and its former host Tucker Carlson of defamation for promoting a “fantastical story” that Mr. Epps was an undercover government agent who instigated the violence at the Capitol as a way to disparage then-President Trump and his supporters.

[snip]

“Just as Fox had focused on voting machine companies when falsely claiming a rigged election, Fox knew it needed a scapegoat for January 6th,” the complaint says. “It settled on Ray Epps and began promoting the lie that Epps was a federal agent who incited the attack on the Capitol.”

In his lawsuit, Ray Epps denies that he ever worked for the government other than the time he spent in the Marine Corps. He says the theory about his working with the government has put him and his wife at risk and destroyed their finances. [read more]

More on Ray Epps:

• EXCLUSIVE: Ray Epps Told FBI He Expected Bomb Attack Near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Documents Show
• On The Darkest Day In American History, Ray Epps Was Just A Little Rascal

House Republicans Impeach Mayorkas Over Border Crisis

From The Epoch Times.com (Feb. 13):

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on Feb. 13 became only the second presidential cabinet member ever to be impeached in the 236-year history of the United States government.

Mr. Mayorkas, who was appointed by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Democratic Senate in 2021, was impeached on two counts relating to his handling of the border crisis by a vote of 214–213, with all but three Republicans voting in favor and all Democrats opposing the action. The chamber burst into applause after the result was announced.

Former Secretary of War George Belknap resigned in 1876 after the House passed five counts of impeachment against him. The Senate failed to convict Belknap, who was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant.

The House action came exactly a week after the lower chamber of Congress failed to impeach the embattled Homeland Security secretary on a 215–215 vote. That tally was updated to 214–216 when Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) changed his vote to a “no” in a parliamentary move to enable the House to reconsider the impeachment resolution.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who was absent from the vote last week due to being treated for blood cancer, cast the deciding vote on Feb. 13.

Three Republicans who opposed the impeachment resolution last week voted the same the second time around. The trio includes Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, and Rep. Tom McLintock of California. [read more]

Even though the Senate won't vote to impeach, it is important to hold Mayorkas accountable. If he were impeached, Crooked Joe would just appoint another lackey.

Bill O’Reily’s opinion: Mayorkas Impeached

To Save America, Ten (or Eleven) Point Plans Aren’t Enough

From American Thinker.com (April 4, 2022):

In 1994, Newt Gingrich put out a ten-point plan called The Contract with America. It was a primary feature of that year’s mid-term Republican wave. Every part of that plan was implemented. And today it’s a dead letter. We have hard-Leftists controlling all three branches of the federal government, and active programs to destroy the America we grew up in everywhere.

Plans are worth bupkis. We need something different, not another plan.

Senator Rick Scott has an excellent eleven-point plan. Even if it is implemented, it will suffer the same fate as the Contract with America. Self-serving, power-mad Leftists will find their way to sabotage it bit by bit, taking us even farther down the road to perdition. The problem is very simple. We lack the two elements that are absolutely necessary to prevent the irresistible slide to destruction.

The first task is a statement of principles. The Republican Party, the only presently viable alternative to the Marxists, is simply Democrat-lite. That’s because we allow almost anyone to run with an “R” behind their name. “Republican” candidates are not required to declare any principles whatever. That’s how we get big-government soft liberals like John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Susan Collins. McCain torpedoed ObamaCare’s repeal. Romney voted to impeach Trump over bogus charges, and now Collins has declared that she will vote to confirm radical leftist Judge Jackson to the Supreme Court.

It’s no wonder that my wife has openly questioned the wisdom of voting for Republicans. “They don’t do anything anyway!” In short, they are Republi-Crats. Current RINOs would make FDR look like a right-wing lunatic. JFK would be a conservative Republican.

If we’re going to rescue America from its slide into darkness, it’s imperative that the Republican Party adopt a declaration of principles. The best place to search for those principles would be in the debates the Founders had over the Constitution. This would comport well with our recent emphasis on “originalism” for Supreme Court nominees. Those original debates contain a wealth of well-considered discussions of human nature and law.

The first principle is that the Constitution is designed to limit the power of the federal government. The Founders were painfully aware of the fact that those in power tend to seek more power. It is rare for any of them to be content with self-governing citizens. As Lord Acton noted, power corrupts. As it becomes absolute power, then the level of corruption becomes equally absolute. The only solution to this universal law is to prevent the aggregation of power.

The Founders created a list of enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8. These powers were meant to perform tasks that the central government was far better suited to than state governments. These are described as being for “the common Defense and general Welfare” of the United States. But, as some feared, the Supreme Court adopted “the general welfare” as an excuse to rubber-stamp anything Congress passed. The doctrine of enumerated powers has been buried.

We must exhume limitations on DC. Thus, the Republican National Committee must adopt a permanent principle that, if an action is not within the list of enumerated powers beginning after “general welfare,” it is not proper for the feds to do it. Period. And that means that a lot of DC must be scaled back or eliminated. [read more]

U.S. intelligence chiefs plan for a future where every spy uses AI

From Washington Times.com (July 14, 2023):

U.S. spy agencies are preparing for a future where all of its analysts and spies use artificial intelligence to augment their work rather than rely on traditional tradecraft.

The spy agencies’ leadership plans to be “AI-first” and wants everyone from senior leaders on down to leverage artificial intelligence, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Rachel Grunspan.

In remarks Friday at the Intelligence and National Security Summit in Maryland, Ms. Grunspan said she foresees a world where spy agencies use AI for hybrid war games, simulations, and strategic “red-teaming” that tests the government’s defenses.

“Anything that is getting AI in the hands of individual officers regardless of their job, regardless of their role, regardless of their background, technical or not, and just maximizing the capacity of the entire workforce,” she said. “That’s where I see us going.”

The spy agencies are not there yet but they are working on it. Lakshmi Raman, the CIA’s AI chief, said her agency is examining the applicability of large language models used by popular tools such as ChatGPT.

“We are in that exploration and experimentation phase,” Ms. Raman said.

The National Security Agency, which is responsible for intercepting electronic and digital foreign intelligence, is also scrutinizing artificial intelligence. NSA’s Jason Wang said his agency is “very active” in studying the opportunities for bringing large language models inside the code-breaking and code-making agency.

Such talk only fan fears that AI will produce a nightmare scenario of robots ruling over humans. This idea has long dominated science fiction, however it now seems realistic.

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is concerned about a future where AI runs the world, rather than the other way around.

Mr. Musk launched an artificial intelligence startup this week called xAI and said on Twitter Spaces that America must worry about catastrophic outcomes.

“It’s actually important for us to worry about a Terminator future in order to avoid a Terminator future,” Mr. Musk said.

OpenAI, the maker of the popular chatbot ChatGPT, is assembling a new team to stop the technology from going rogue and having the potential to extinguish humanity.

The company said last week it did not have a solution for controlling a “potentially superintelligent AI and preventing it from going rogue” so it was assembling a new group of engineers and researchers to solve the problem.

Still, the U.S. appears intent on harnessing superintelligence for its positive potential.

At the conference, Booz Allen Hamilton’s Patrick Biltgen told the AI chiefs of the CIA, NSA, and DNI that he expected the nearest-term application of the new tech would be realized in the form of an AI assistant for all intelligence officers.

Mr. Biltgen, who works on AI at the government contractor with U.S. agencies, said that he envisioned spies using AI similar to how the artificial intelligence character JARVIS assists Tony Stark in the popular “Iron Man” superhero stories.

“I think the analyst-assistant, the JARVIS for your Tony Stark, is going to be the first, most viable thing that’s going to be the viral app for the IC,” Mr. Biltgen said. “It’s like, ‘Jarvis, go get my selectors and put them in a format I need. I’m going to be over here on my other monitor doing this other thing.’” [source]

Six questions every Democrat must answer

From Washington Examiner.com (Jan. 23):

The Democrats have settled upon their 2024 campaign message: “Former President Donald Trump poses a threat to democracy and must be stopped. He has openly admitted he will become a dictator on day one.”

Liberals make these statements about Trump and so-called MAGA Republican “extremists” because they know if they are repeated enough, they will stick. And they’re right. No evidence is required because the Democrats know they will never be called upon to support their claims by their comrades.

When questioned by conservatives, however, they simply hold fast to their lies. Take, for example, Fox News host Bret Baier’s interview last week with Biden campaign official Quentin Fulks, who blamed Republicans for the influx of more than 300,000 illegal immigrants at our southern border in December alone. “President Biden took office, sent a comprehensive immigration reform package to Congress,” he said. “They have refused to pass it or do anything.”

Baier quickly reminded him that Biden reversed the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” and catch-and-release policies on day one.

Fulks said that “Donald Trump rounded up immigrants, separated families, and put them in cages. That’s not how we treat human beings.”

Baier was having none of it: “There are more kids in custody under the Biden administration than there were under the Trump administration. You know that.” He added, “You have to concede immigration is a vulnerability for the Biden campaign. Can’t you concede that?”

Fulks replied: “What we concede is that President Biden is working on this issue and that Republicans in the House are playing political games and doing Donald Trump’s bidding so no real results get done. They are the least effective House since the Great Depression because they are playing political games instead of trying to get real results done and working with this president for the American people.”

The exchange shows that this blubbering imbecile either had no understanding of the topic or was lying through his teeth. My money’s on the latter. And unfortunately, Fulks’s disingenuousness is typical of most liberals. They will defend the indefensible at all costs — no matter how dishonest they sound. When called out on their lies, they turn into sniveling idiots.

Conservatives, on the other hand, are generally well armed with the facts. They need to be because it’s not a level playing field.

Baier, for example, refused to let Fulks’s lies stand — a strategy every conservative should adopt when dealing with the Left. Pin them down. Question their “facts.” Force them to explain themselves. Be the 3-year-old in the room who never stops asking why.

Here are six questions we must ask our liberal friends:

How exactly does Trump pose a threat to democracy? Too much has been revealed by the House Republicans’ investigations, the “Twitter Files,” and the conservative media for them to make this claim credibly. From the Russian collusion hoax in 2016 to the Democrats’ current lawfare campaign against Trump, the party’s hypocrisy is on full display.

Why, specifically, do you hate Trump? Did they hate the robust economy we had before the pandemic? The 1.4% inflation rate? The low gas prices? Were they unhappy when the United States was energy-independent? When Russia and China stayed in their lanes? When the Trump administration enforced U.S. immigration laws?

Can you name three accomplishments of the Biden administration? Were they happy when Biden returned Afghanistan to Taliban rule? Are they pleased that more than 7 million immigrants have entered the U.S. illegally since he took office? That 100,000 people die annually from drug overdoses from the fentanyl that flows over our open border? That their reckless spending has driven the national debt to $34 trillion and that consumer prices are up over 17% overall (38% for energy and 20% for groceries, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) on his watch? Or that mortgage interest rates have doubled?

Do you honestly believe Biden is mentally competent? Virtually all public appearances end in humiliation for the president. The Wall Street Journal’s Barton Swaim summed up Biden’s incompetence in a September op-ed, pointing out that his deficiencies are very different (and far more dangerous) than Trump’s. The painful truth, according to Swaim, is that Biden’s “personal culpabilities and political liabilities are what any normal, uninvested person would call grave.”

Swaim wrote: “Mr. Biden’s cringe-making decline is on display nearly every time he appears in public; examples are too many, and too painful, to describe. His diminished state might be funny in a novel or a movie, but in the real world it’s a continuing invitation to bad actors to engage in devilry and expect no consequence.”

Are you proud of Biden on the global stage? Biden has become the object of ridicule by leaders around the world. After Biden’s physician released a post-examination statement saying the president remained “healthy” and “vigorous,” Sky News Australia host Rita Panahi compiled a montage of his most cringeworthy moments. By the end of the segment, she was laughing so hard, she cried. Suffice it to say that in Biden’s case, age isn’t just a number, and the rest of the world is well aware of that.

And finally, are you better off now than you were three years ago? As Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Fox News last week, “Unless you’re a Big Tech billionaire or a drug lord, you’re not.” [source]

Good questions that Dems can't and won't answer. Or if they do they might BS an answer.

China Perfecting Techno-Totalitarianism for Export Around the World: Rep. Gallagher

From The Epoch Times.com (July 12, 2023):

WASHINGTON—The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is seeking to perfect a techno-totalitarian regime for export to the rest of the world, according to Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.).

The regime’s worsening repression of faith was highlighted during a roundtable hearing that the lawmaker led on July 12. One key takeaway, noted by Gallagher, who chairs the House Select Committee on the CCP, and other roundtable participants, is that such abuses don’t stop at Chinese borders.

“Across the board, we’ve seen the Chinese Communist Party leverage access to their market and their economic power in order to coerce American companies, international companies,” Mr. Gallagher told NTD, The Epoch Times’ sister media outlet.

He made the comment in response to a question regarding a lawsuit against Cisco Systems, accusing the California-based tech giant of aiding the Beijing regime’s persecution of the spiritual group Falun Gong—which encourages people to live by the universal principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

Cisco is alleged to have given the regime U.S. technology and components that allowed it to build a vast surveillance network. More than a dozen adherents, including one U.S. citizen, have claimed that the resulting system tracked their Falun Gong-related activities online, leading to their arrest and torture in China.

“The techno-totalitarian regime that the CCP is perfecting in China will not stay there,” Mr. Gallagher said. “It’s a model increasingly they want to export around the world, so we’re considering a variety of pieces of legislation to counter that.”

At the roundtable, Chinese Christians, Tibetans, and Uyghurs also spoke about their suffering at the hands of CCP officials, with some, in the case of house church pastor Pan Yongguang, continuing to suffer even after they fled China. [read more]

Swamp Victory

From Bill O’Reilly.com (July 13, 2023):

It was annoying in the extreme to see FBI chief Christopher Wray pretty much walk away from the House Judicial Committee hearing unscathed.

Now, I have nothing against Wray personally, but on his watch, the FBI has descended into political turmoil.

Democrats on the committee could not care less and spent their time bashing Trump and MAGA. Boring and unproductive.

Republicans wanted to make speeches about how bad the FBI is instead of pinning Wray down with specific, simple questions.

Here are a few:

- The FBI had advanced information that a violent action might take place on January 6 at the Capitol. Who was alerted, and why was no action taken by the Bureau?

- Twitter executives say the FBI visited them and suggested they censor news about Hunter Biden's laptop. Did you know about that, Mr. Wray?

- An FBI informant told the Bureau he had evidence then Vice President Biden took money from Hunter and Jim Biden. Agents put those allegations into a memo that you refused to share with Congressional investigators. Why?

- Are those Biden allegations currently under investigation?

- And finally, did the IRS request FBI assistance in the Hunter Biden tax investigation?

Incredibly, Wray was not asked those simple questions.

The swamp wins again.

See you this evening for the No Spin News. [source]

Good questions that could have been asked.

The Pledge

Every book on the Pony Express, without exception, has quoted the oath that [Alexander] Majors made his employees take. This one is no different.

It should probably be mentioned—though it rarely is—that the oath was originally meant for men on the ox trains, and while there is evidence that Pony riders did take it, it's not like records were kept indicating that every single rider, let alone every employee, did. And there's plenty of testimony from Richard Burton, and others, that at least some of the provisions—cussing most prominently—were more observed in the breach.

It's somewhat picturesque to imagine someone like Jack Slade taking the oath; you can almost see him spitting a wad of tobacco out between phrases and toasting the conclusion with a bottle of Julesburg's best. But it's an integral part of Pony lore, and there were plenty of Pony riders who took it seriously:

I ________, do hereby swear, before the great and Living God, that during my engagement, and while I am an employee of Russel, Majors & Waddell, I will, under no circumstances, use profane language; that I will drink no intoxicating liquors; that I will not quarrel or fight with any other employee of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers. So help me God.

Source: West Like Lightning The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express (2018) by Jim DeFelice.

Weather forecasting is having an AI moment

From Technology Review.com (July 11, 2023):

Is it hot where you are? It sure is here in London. I’m writing this newsletter with a fan blasting at full power in my direction and still feel like my brain is melting. Last week was the hottest week on record. It’s yet another sign that climate change is “out of control,” the UN secretary general said.

Punishing heat waves and extreme weather events like hurricanes and floods are going to become more common as the climate crisis worsens, making it more important than ever before to produce accurate weather forecasts. 

AI is proving increasingly helpful with that. In the past year, weather forecasting has been having an AI moment.

Three recent papers from Nvidia, Google DeepMind, and Huawei have introduced machine-learning methods that are able to predict weather at least as accurately as conventional methods, and much more quickly. Last week I wrote about Pangu-Weather, an AI model developed by Huawei. Pangu-Weather is able to forecast not only weather but also the path of tropical cyclones. Read more here.

Huawei’s Pangu-Weather, Nvidia’s FourcastNet, and Google DeepMind’s GraphCast, are making meteorologists “reconsider how we use machine learning and weather forecasts,” Peter Dueben, head of Earth system modeling at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), told me for the story.

ECMWF’s weather forecasting model is considered the gold standard for medium-term weather forecasting (up to 15 days ahead). Pangu-Weather managed to get comparable accuracy to the ECMWF model, while Google DeepMind claims in an non-peer-reviewed paper to have beat it 90% of the time in the combinations they tested.

Using AI to predict weather has a big advantage: it’s fast. Traditional forecasting models are big, complex computer algorithms based on atmospheric physics and take hours to run. AI models can create forecasts in just seconds.

But they are unlikely to replace conventional weather prediction models anytime soon. AI-powered forecasting models are trained on historical weather data that goes back decades, which means they are great at predicting events that are similar to the weather of the past. That’s a problem in an era of increasingly unpredictable conditions.

We don’t know if AI models will be able to predict rare and extreme weather events, says Dueben. He thinks the way forward might be for AI tools to be adopted alongside traditional weather forecasting models to get the most accurate predictions.

Big Tech’s arrival on the weather forecasting scene is not purely based on scientific curiosity, reckons Oliver Fuhrer, the head of the numerical prediction department at MeteoSwiss, the Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology.

Our economies are becoming increasingly dependent on weather, especially with the rise of renewable energy, says Fuhrer. Tech companies’ businesses are also linked to weather, he adds, pointing to anything from logistics to the number of search queries for ice cream. 

The field of weather forecasting could gain a lot from the addition of AI. Countries track and record weather data, which means there is plenty of publicly available data out there to use in training AI models. When combined with human expertise, AI could help speed up a painstaking process. What’s next isn’t clear, but the prospects are exciting. “Part of it is also just exploring the space and figuring out what potential services or business models might be,” Fuhrer says. [read more]

It seems that AI is affecting every aspect of life.

Google’s quantum computer instantly makes calculations that take rivals 47 years

From SMH.com (July 3, 2023):

Google has developed a quantum computer that instantly makes calculations that would take the best existing supercomputers 47 years, in a breakthrough meant to establish beyond doubt that the experimental machines can outperform conventional rivals.

A paper from researchers at Google published online claims that the company’s latest technology is “beyond the capabilities of existing classical supercomputers”.

Proponents of quantum computers say the technology, which relies on the peculiar states of quantum physics, can create hugely powerful machines able to battle climate change and create breakthrough drugs.

However, they also threaten to undermine today’s encryption systems, making them a national security priority.

Four years ago, Google claimed to be the first company to achieve “quantum supremacy” – a milestone point at which quantum computers surpass existing machines.

This was challenged at the time by rivals, which argued that Google was exaggerating the difference between its machine and traditional supercomputers.

The company’s new paper – Phase Transition in Random Circuit Sampling – published on the open access science website ArXiv, demonstrates a more powerful device that aims to end the debate.

While the 2019 machine had 53 qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers, the next-generation device has 70.

Adding more qubits improves a quantum computer’s power exponentially, meaning the new machine is 241 million times more powerful than the 2019 machine. [read more]

Three Explosive Attacks on Washington DC Businesses July 4th Weekend

From Daily News Planet.com (July 2023):

In a series of early morning attacks on Sunday, June 2, three businesses in Washington, DC were targeted with explosive devices and a Molotov cocktail.

These incidents occurred within a 15-minute time frame. The locations included a Truist Bank, a Nike shop, and a Safeway grocery store, with the Nike store just blocks away from the US Supreme Court and Capitol buildings.

The first explosion occurred around 4:30 a.m. at the Truist Bank, where a device was detonated on the sidewalk near the ATM. Shortly afterward, at 4:36 a.m., another explosive device was set off in front of the nearby Nike store on H Street. Approximately nine minutes later, at 4:45 a.m., the suspect arrived at the Safeway store on 40th Street and threw a Molotov cocktail-style object through a window.

Fortunately, no people were present at the businesses during the early morning hours, and no injuries have been reported. Metro police believe that the suspect’s intent was to harm the businesses themselves, rather than directly targeting people. Law enforcement authorities have not released any further information about the suspect or a potential motive for the attacks.

The investigation into these incidents is being conducted by the Metro Police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The DC police have offered a reward of up to $10,000 to anyone providing information that leads to an arrest and conviction. [source]

I don't remember hearing or seeing this on the news.

Seven technologies to watch in 2024

From Nature.com (Jan. 22):

From protein engineering and 3D printing to detection of deepfake media, here are seven areas of technology that Nature will be watching in the year ahead.

Deep learning for protein design

Two decades ago, David Baker at the University of Washington in Seattle and his colleagues achieved a landmark feat: they used computational tools to design an entirely new protein from scratch. ‘Top7’ folded as predicted, but it was inert: it performed no meaningful biological functions. Today, de novo protein design has matured into a practical tool for generating made-to-order enzymes and other proteins. “It’s hugely empowering,” says Neil King, a biochemist at the University of Washington who collaborates with Baker’s team to design protein-based vaccines and vehicles for drug delivery. “Things that were impossible a year and a half ago — now you just do it.”

Much of that progress comes down to increasingly massive data sets that link protein sequence to structure. But sophisticated methods of deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence (AI), have also been essential.

‘Sequence based’ strategies use the large language models (LLMs) that power tools such as the chatbot ChatGPT (see ‘ChatGPT? Maybe next year’). By treating protein sequences like documents comprising polypeptide ‘words’, these algorithms can discern the patterns that underlie the architectural playbook of real-world proteins. “They really learn the hidden grammar,” says Noelia Ferruz, a protein biochemist at the Molecular Biology Institute of Barcelona, Spain. In 2022, her team developed an algorithm called ProtGPT2 that consistently comes up with synthetic proteins that fold stably when produced in the laboratory¹. Another tool co-developed by Ferruz, called ZymCTRL, draws on sequence and functional data to design members of naturally occurring enzyme families².

ChatGPT? Maybe next year

Readers might detect a theme in this year’s technologies to watch: the outsized impact of deep-learning methods. But one such tool did not make the final cut: the much-hyped artificial-intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots. ChatGPT and its ilk seem poised to become part of many researchers’ daily routines and were feted as part of the 2023 Nature’s 10 round-up (see go.nature.com/3trp7rg). Respondents to a Nature survey in September (see go.nature.com/45232vd) cited ChatGPT as the most useful AI-based tool and were enthusiastic about its potential for coding, literature reviews and administrative tasks.

Such tools are also proving valuable from an equity perspective, helping those for whom English isn’t their first language to refine their prose and thereby ease their paths to publication and career growth. However, many of these applications represent labour-saving gains rather than transformations of the research process. Furthermore, ChatGPT’s persistent issuing of either misleading or fabricated responses was the leading concern of more than two-thirds of survey respondents. Although worth monitoring, these tools need time to mature and to establish their broader role in the scientific world.

Sequence-based approaches can build on and adapt existing protein features to form new frameworks, but they’re less effective for the bespoke design of structural elements or features, such as the ability to bind specific targets in a predictable fashion. ‘Structure based’ approaches are better for this, and 2023 saw notable progress in this type of protein-design algorithm, too. Some of the most sophisticated of these use ‘diffusion’ models, which also underlie image-generating tools such as DALL-E. These algorithms are initially trained to remove computer-generated noise from large numbers of real structures; by learning to discriminate realistic structural elements from noise, they gain the ability to form biologically plausible, user-defined structures.

RFdiffusion software³ developed by Baker’s lab and the Chroma tool by Generate Biomedicines in Somerville, Massachusetts⁴, exploit this strategy to remarkable effect. For example, Baker’s team is using RFdiffusion to engineer novel proteins that can form snug interfaces with targets of interest, yielding designs that “just conform perfectly to the surface,” Baker says. A newer ‘all atom’ iteration of RFdiffusion⁵ allows designers to computationally shape proteins around non-protein targets such as DNA, small molecules and even metal ions. The resulting versatility opens new horizons for engineered enzymes, transcriptional regulators, functional biomaterials and more. [read more]

‘Islamophobia’ Is as Old as Islam

From American Thinker.com (Mar. 30, 2022):

The United Nations recently named March 15 -- also rather ominously known as the “Ides of March” -- as “the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.”  In doing so, they have accepted and seek to mandate the idea that whatever fear (literally, phobia) non-Muslims have of Islam is unfounded and irrational, and therefore must be “combatted.”

In reality, aversion to Islam is not new or something that “just happened”; nor is it a byproduct of temporal circumstances (say, resentment towards Muslims due to the terror strikes of 9/11).  Instead, it is something that all rational non-Muslims have felt from the very inception of Islam in the seventh century.

Western peoples, for instance, including many of their luminaries, have always portrayed Islam as a hostile and violent force -- often in terms that would make today’s “Islamophobe” blush.  And that wasn’t because Europeans were “recasting the other” to “validate their imperial aspirations” (to use the tired terminology of Edward Said that has long dominated academia’s treatment of Western-Muslim interactions).  Rather, it was because Islam has always treated the “infidel,” the non-Muslim, the same way ISIS treats the infidel: atrociously.

According to Muslim history, in 628 AD, Muhammad summoned the Roman (or “Byzantine”) emperor, Heraclius -- the symbolic head of “the West,” then known as “Christendom” -- to submit to Islam; when the emperor refused, a virulent jihad was unleashed against the Western world.  Less than 100 years later, Islam had conquered more than two-thirds of Christendom, and was raiding deep into France.  While these far-reaching conquests are often allotted a sanitized sentence, if that, in today’s textbooks, the chroniclers of the time make clear that these were cataclysmic events that had a traumatic impact on, and played no small part in forming, Europe proper, that is, the unconquered portion and final bastion of Christendom.

But it wasn’t just what they personally experienced at the hands of Muslims that developed this ancient “phobia” to Islam.  As far back as the eighth century, Islam’s scriptures and histories -- the Koran, hadith, sira and maghazi literature -- became available to those Christian communities living adjacent to, or even under the authority of, the caliphates.  Based solely on these primary sources of Islam, Christians concluded that Muhammad was a (possibly demon possessed) false prophet who had very obviously concocted a creed to justify the worst depravities of man -- for dominion, plunder, cruelty and carnality (see Sword and Scimitar for copious documentation, especially Chapter 2).

This view prevailed for well over a millennium throughout Europe; and it was augmented by the fact that Muslims were still, well over a millennium after Muhammad, invading Christian territories, plundering them, and abducting their women and children.  The United States’ first brush with Islam -- its very first war as a nation, soon after its independence -- came by way of Muslim raids on American ships for booty and slaves in the name of Allah.

A miniscule sampling of what Europeans thought of Islam throughout the centuries follows:

Theophanes, important Eastern Roman chronicler (d.818):

He [Muhammad] taught those who gave ear to him that the one slaying the enemy -- or being slain by the enemy -- entered into paradise [see Koran 9:111].  And he said paradise was carnal and sensual -- orgies of eating, drinking, and women. Also, there was a river of wine… and the women were of another sort [houris], and the duration of sex greatly prolonged and its pleasure long-enduring [e.g., Koran 56: 7-40, 78:31, 55:70-77].  And all sorts of other nonsense.

Thomas Aquinas, one of Christendom’s most influential philosophers (d.1274):

He [Muhamad] seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh urges us… and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine… Muhammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms -- which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants [i.e., his “proof” that God was with him is that he was able to conquer and plunder others]…  Muhammad forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms.

[read more]

6 Key Aspects of Biden’s Amnesty Bill

From Daily Signal.com (Feb. 18, 2021):

President Joe Biden is promoting an immigration bill that could grant amnesty to up to 20 million illegal immigrants.

“The Biden administration, in coordination with Democrats on the Hill, introduced legislation that would give citizenship to 10-20 million illegal immigrants,” Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action for America, said in a public statement.

The Biden White House released an outline of the amnesty legislation on his first day in office.

In what could be a deal-killer for gaining any Republican support, the legislation doesn’t include proposals for increased border security, according to The Associated Press. This comes as Biden has rolled back several major border security measures through executive action.

The proposal comes after Biden ordered federal agencies to stop construction of a southern border wall and signed an executive order to strengthen the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy that gives legal status to illegal immigrants that arrived as children. A federal judge issued a temporary injunction order to Biden’s executive action ordering a halt to deporations.

“Biden has already signed a flurry of executive orders on immigration that have weakened the rule of law and triggered a surge of illegal migration toward the U.S.-Mexico border,” Heritage Action’s Anderson said, adding:

This latest move would only further harm American workers already struggling from our health and economic national crises caused by the ongoing pandemic and our government’s response. This new immigration bill will damage America’s safety, weaken our economy, and endanger our freedoms.

A version of the Biden-backed immigration bill is sponsored by Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., in the Senate and Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., in the House.

“Immigrants contribute greatly to our country and society; they own businesses, pay taxes and teach our children, they are our coworkers, neighbors and friends,” Menendez said in a written statement. “We have an historic opportunity to finally enact bold immigration reform that leaves no one behind, addresses root causes of migration, and safeguards our country’s national security.”

Here are six big points from the bill.

1. Eight-Year ‘Path to Citizenship’

The legislation calls for an eight-year path to U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants that would include going through a process of becoming a legal resident.

Earlier this week, the president said he is willing to compromise, but seemed to say the bill would have to have a pathway to citizenship.

“There’s things that I would deal by itself, but not at the expense of saying, ‘I’m never going to do the other.’ There is a reasonable path to citizenship,” Biden said Tuesday during a CNN “town hall” forum in Milwaukee.

Similar proposals have failed in Congress, whether under the control of Democrats or Republicans, and most recently in 2013. The Biden-backed legislation is more lenient than the proposal in 2013 that stretched the pathway to citizenship over 13 years.

To be covered by the bill, an immigrant would have had to be in the United States before Jan. 1, 2021. That would include illegal immigrants who rushed the border after the 2020 election, up until 20 days before Biden’s inauguration as president. 

After five years of temporary legal status, an illegal immigrant would have to wait another three years to get citizenship.

The Biden administration’s actions already have created a crisis at the southern border, Heritage Foundation immigration experts Chad Wolf, Ken Cuccinelli, Mark Morgan, James Carafano, and Lora Ries said Thursday in a joint statement.

“The Biden administration and others on Capitol Hill are putting illegal immigrants above the American people—the people whose very interests they were elected to represent,” they said, adding:

We have seen it time and again—amnesty only begets more illegal immigration. Rather than dealing with the loopholes incentivizing illegal immigration, or pursuing further security improvements on our southern border, this administration is choosing to reward law-breaking in what appears to be an effort to reshape the American electorate in ways that benefit the radical left and its agenda.

Worse still, this scheme is being carried out on the backs not just of American citizens, but thousands of migrant children as well, who have increasingly become pawns used by smugglers and human traffickers to exploit loopholes in our system and funnel hundreds of thousands of migrants to the U.S. southern border.

The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation, where Wolf, Cuccinelli, and Morgan—all former Trump administration officials—are visiting fellows. Heritage Action is the think tank’s grassroots lobbying arm. [read more]

The other aspects:

1. Exemptions for ‘Dreamers’ and Others
2. More PC Government Language
3. Chain Migration
4. Legal Immigration
5. Foreign Aid

Right-Wing Lega Back in Power: US Conservatives Have a Friend in Italy!

From The Gateway Pundit.com (Feb. 17, 2021):

While wild-eyed Democrats have seemingly taken over in Washington, the left-wing government of Giuseppe Conte has collapsed in Italy, opening the way for conservative parties to return to government in Rome.

It all started with the resignation of the two Ministers of Italia Viva, a minor left-wing party led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

The Conte government was relying on Italia Viva’s votes for their majority in the Parliament, as the online populist 5 Star Movement plus the other left-wing parties were not enough to rule. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte survived a vote of no confidence in the Senate, but with such a small majority that it was clear the coalition would not hold. Conte resigned.

For many Italians, this came as a complete surprise, since the general assumption was the left would do everything they could to avoid new elections, which the center-right parties would probably win.

Many Italians and the center-right parties then called for new elections, as they have since the first Conte-Salvini government collapsed in 2019. However, due to the COVID crisis, President Sergio Matarella instead chose to form a Government of National Unity, involving all political parties, under the former head of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi.

Matteo Salvini’s Lega party and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party decided to support the new government, for the sake of the Italian people. The only party to oppose this National Unity government was Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy).

While many leftist media mocked Eurosceptic Matteo Salvini for joining a Draghi government, the Italian media have largely lauded the Lega for their maturity, responsibility and problem-solving, as Salvini put Italy First and paved the way for more dialogue with our international partners.

On Friday, Feb. 12th, Draghi presented the list of Ministers he had kept as a surprise until the last minute. The Ministers were sworn in by President Matarella the following day.

The new government reflects the multitude of parties that compose its majority: three Ministers for Lega, three for Forza Italia, three for the Social Democrats (Partito Democratico), four for the 5 Star Movement, one each for Italia Viva and for Liberi Uguali. It also includes a number of neutral experts not associated with any one party.

The Lega has three important Ministers in areas that have been of crucial importance for the party: Giancarlo Giorgetti as Minister for Industry and Economic Development, Massimo Garavaglia as Minister for Tourism and Erika Stefani as Minister for Disability.

The main priority  now is to work together to help get Italy back on its feet. This is a vital lesson that Democrats and Republicans in Washington should maybe pay attention to: It is possible to overcome party divisions when the nation is at stake.For Lega, joining this government was a brave move by Matteo Salvini. It will make sure the new government has a strong center-right component to balance out the leftist influence of PD and 5 Star in the Draghi cabinet. After all, the center-right parties Lega, Forza Italia and Fratelli d’Italia now rule fourteen out of twenty Italian regions. It would have been even better if all the right-wing parties had joined Draghi’s cabinet.

It is clear this government is divided from the start, especially on issues like Lockdown, Immigration and EU Integration, but having the Lega in power puts us at the center of the new government, with a seat at the table when the decisions are made.

In a time when our nations are so ideologically divided and riven by crisis, Conservatives need to show they can step up and take responsibility for solving the problems our nations face every day.

For all the Conservatives in America who are feeling alone and left out in the cold, take heart: You have a great friend in Italy, and that friend is back in power in Rome! [source]

It’s good to see conservatism in other countries. It’ll make their countries more prosperous and free.

New Research Shows Evidence of “Vote-trading” in Congress

From FEE.org (June 28, 2023):

A new research paper by Drs. Marco Battaglini, Valerio Leone Sciabolazza, and Eleonora Patacchini with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) seems to suggest there may be some vote-trading going on in Congress with some interesting benefits for participants.

In their 1962 book The Calculus of Consent, economists James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock explore the idea of vote-trading. The idea is simple. If a representative from Kansas really wants an agriculture bill to pass, and a different representative from Ohio wants a manufacturing bill to pass, they can engage in a simple deal—“I’ll vote for your bill if you vote for mine.”

Economists call this process logrolling. Let’s consider an example of why it can be such a problem. Imagine the fictional country of FEELand is split into three districts. Each district has a representative. The representatives want one thing—to be re-elected. And they maximize their chance of being re-elected by giving their constituents the most money taken from those who are not their constituents.

So let’s say there are two bills up for a vote. Bill A provides free agriculture equipment to farmers, and for sake of ease let’s say only District 1 has farmers. The technology provides $120 worth of benefits in total, and it costs $150 which is divided evenly among the three districts.

District #	Benefit	Cost	Vote?
District 1	$120	$50	Yes
District 2	$0	$50	No
District 3	$0	$50	No
Total FEELand	$120	$150	No

Figure 1—Bill A

In this case, District 1’s representative votes yes because the constituents receive $120 and it only costs them $50. On the other hand, the other two districts vote no because it’s $50 of cost with no benefit to their constituents. In this case, Bill A would fail which is a good thing. The benefits are less than the costs! FEE Land is made worse off by Bill A.

But now let’s consider Bill B, a manufacturing subsidy bill. Bill B costs $60 for each district and provides $115 worth of benefit to District 2, and nothing to the other two. The figure for Bill B looks similar.

District #	Benefit	Cost	Vote?
District 1	$0	$60	No
District 2	$115	$60	Yes
District 3	$0	$60	No
Total FEELand	$115	$180	No

Figure 2—Bill B

So District 2 supports Bill B, but the other two districts do not. In this case, Bill B fails.

But now imagine the representatives from Districts 1 and 2 engage in an exchange. They both agree to vote for the other’s favored bill. Look at the results now.

District #	Benefit	Cost	Vote?
District 1	$120	$50+$60=$110	Yes
District 2	$115	$110	Yes
District 3	$0	$110	No
Total FEELand	$235	$330	Yes

Figure 3—Bill A and Bill B Logrolling

With this exchange, District 1 receives $120 in benefits for their agriculture bill, and pays a total of $110. This is a net gain of $10. District 2 has a net gain of $5. But how did these two bills pass if they both have costs higher than the benefits? They passed on the back of taxpayers in District 3 who take on these costs for no benefit.

So this is logrolling. Politicians trade votes with colleagues to get bills passed, and those outside of the exchange hold the bag.

Logrolling With a Twist

So what did the researchers find in their NBER paper? Well it does appear logrolling happens. First they find, “results show legislators are more likely to vote in the same way as their alumni connections when the majority of them choose to take a common stance, that is, voting Yeah, Nay, or abstain.”

In other words, the research did identify groups who appear to vote together on particular bills, and this isn’t merely capturing the effect of party coalitions. The authors point out their results are “statistically significant over and beyond the influence exerted on the legislator by his/her party.”

But that isn’t all. Second, the researchers find a pattern to when these coalitions are strongest. “Evidence shows logrolling is most likely to occur between two connected colleagues when one of them has a vested personal interest in the outcome of the vote, and the other does not.”

Remember, in our example above, the representative of District 2 had very little interest in whether Bill A passed, so long as it didn’t impose a net cost on District 2 constituents. The idea here is you only are willing to trade votes when it isn’t very costly for you to do so. This evidence makes perfect sense in the context of our simple example.

But, lastly, the authors document something odd. Logrolling doesn’t appear to affect legislative outcomes. In other words, unlike our example above, bills don’t live and die by logrolling.

However, vote-trading isn’t valueless for politicians. Despite having no clear relation to legislative success, the authors find vote-trading “has a positive and statistically significant impact on his/her chances of obtaining a promotion.”

So the authors find that politicians who engage in logrolling improve their future career prospects. Why? It’s not exactly clear, though the authors suggest that it’s a sort of loyalty test.

Whatever the reason, the authors provide further evidence that logrolling is a real phenomena in legislatures. This sort of finding acts as a good reminder that an accurate analysis of politics involves looking at politics without romance as James Buchanan rightly suggested. [source]

Makes sense. Just another example of "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine" exchange. Politicians acting normally.

White House Powder Problems

From Bill O’Reily.com (July 5, 2023):

Apparently, cocaine has been found in the White House, and the anti-Biden forces are cracking wise about Hunter. Predictable but certainly within satirical limits.

The Justice Department should be investigating because so-called "controlled substance" is under its jurisdiction.

However, in his quest to protect everything Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland is a bit confused about how to proceed. Should he call in Crockett and Tubbs from Miami Vice? Perhaps another US Attorney in Delaware is available. Didn't Hunter once live in Delaware before he moved to Malibu, California, to live in the nation's highest rent district?

Cocaine in proximity to the Oval Office is not a good look unless you're auditioning for a spot in the Mexican government. And how exactly did the blow get in there? Visitors to the White House are subjected to more scrutiny than Trump at a singles bar. Secret Service agents are wanding, X-raying, and profiling.

So how did the powder get through all that?

Don't know, and Joe Biden will not address it. But I think his new nickname, Super Fly, is unfair. Besides, I believe Hunter has already copyrighted it.

See you this evening for the No Spin News. [source]

So, the secret service has no idea who left the cocaine. Hmmm. Well, maybe they can match fingerprints on it to let's say Hunter Biden? Or the Cackler aka Carmila Harris? Dan Bongino says the only way someone can get in that area is with a secret service escort. And the Capitol police don't search you if you have that kind of escort. So who would have that kind of escort? A VIP connected to the POTUS or the VPOTOS. You get the idea. The whole deal feels like a snow job.

The White House cocaine saga continues…

• The Case of Cocaine at the White House
• Federal Top Men Say Finding Source of West Wing Cocaine Will Be Too Difficult
• White House cocaine disarray as story keeps changing and one faction implies Kamala might be the fall-gal and she surrenders to hysterical laughter
• Was Hunter Framed? Second Suspect Emerges in WH Cocaine Scandal
• White House cocaine mystery deepens as Secret Service says it was found in the West Wing and NOT the library: Joe and Hunter's July 4 celebrations clouded in controversy as agents try and track down who was responsible for dropping drugs
• Mark Meadows to Newsmax: White House Cocaine Smuggler Likely on Staff
• Why FBI & Secret Service HAVE TO KNOW who brought cocaine to White House [video]
• Secret Service Reveals Cocaine Wasn't The First Illicit Drug Found In The White House
• 10 Absurd Assumptions You Have To Swallow To Believe The White House-Cocaine Failure Theater
• Secret Service Refuses to Hand Over ‘Known Pool of Individuals’ List in White House Cocaine Incident

We Are Well Beyond Hypocrisy

From American Greatness.com (Dec. 18, 2023):

The abject narcissism of the insular Left is startling. They apparently believe the American public is amnesiac enough to forget what leftists once did, now that they’re doing the utter opposite. And they assume we are to discount their hypocrisy and self-absorption simply because they self-identify as erudite and moral and assume their opponents are irredeemable and deplorable.

Impeachment

The Left is saturating the airwaves with outrage over the current House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry. They allege that formally investigating Joe Biden’s role in the family grifting operation is somehow a poor constitutional precedent, if not out-of-bounds entirely.

So we hear further arguments that it will be unwise to impeach a first-term president when he loses his House majority, that there is no reason to “waste” congressional time and effort when Biden will be automatically acquitted in the Democratically controlled Senate, and that the impeachment is cynically timed to synchronize with president’s reelection efforts.

All of these are the precise arguments many of us cited when Donald Trump was impeached in December 2019 (as his reelection campaign began, and immediately after being cleared of the 22-month, $40-million-special-counsel Russian-collusion hoax).

The Democrats tried to remove an elected president over a phone call without a special counsel’s report. So Trump was impeached only after the 2018 election led to a Democratic House majority, which went from eating up nearly two years of his administration in the Russian-collusion hoax straight into the impeachment farce. There was no concern about the cost to the nation of putting an elected government into a continual state of siege.

There is one difference, though, between the Trump impeachment and the Biden impeachment inquiry. Donald Trump was impeached because he accurately accused the members of the Ukrainian government of paying Hunter Biden, with his zero fossil fuel expertise, an astronomical sum to serve on the Burisma board—as the costly quid that earned the lucrative quo from his dad Vice President Joe Biden.

No one now denies that Joe Biden got prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired by threatening to cancel legislatively-approved U.S. aid. Shokin knew about the skullduggery through which the Biden family eventually received $6.5 million from Ukraine—and so Biden ensured his firing, and publicly bragged about it in performance-art fashion.

In sum, Trump had a perfect right as commander in chief to delay (he did not cancel) aid to Ukraine, to ensure that its government was not still paying off the Bidens for their lobbying efforts on its behalf.

It is also now clear that Biden serially lied about his ignorance of Hunter’s shake-down operation. In fact, he was, as Devon Archer emphasized, “the brand” central to Hunter’s scheme to coerce money from foreign governments. Joe was proverbially, in Hunter’s words “the man sitting next to me” and thus able to either punish or reward foreign interests, depending on the size of the checks they wrote to his various fronting family members. [read more]

Sad but true. Another great article by VDH.

How Not to Argue against the Minimum Wage

From Mises.org (Feb. 11, 2021):

There are plenty of sound reasons to oppose government minimum wage laws, but there is one objection making the rounds that is based on bad economics and should be avoided, and that’s the "businesses will pass on the costs to consumers" objection.

For instance, a now deleted tweet by someone claiming that a $15 minimum hourly wage will cause Taco Bell burritos to explode in cost was shot down in short order by the tweet below. Scrolling through the replies also shows hundreds of other similar responses from people in cities that already have a $15 minimum wage. Indeed, the responses were so decisive and numerous that the original poster deleted his tweet to avoid further embarrassment.

Don’t make the same mistake.

There are two main reasons why the "but tacos or hamburgers at fast food joints will cost $10" argument is easily shot down. First, it is bad economics.

If Taco Bell or McDonalds could charge $10 per taco/burger, they already would be, regardless of wages and the costs of other inputs. But businesses can’t just unilaterally increase their prices without a response from customers. The law of demand tells us that consumers will demand more of a good at lower prices and less of it at higher prices, other things held equal. Taco Bell doesn’t charge $10 for a burrito, because customers won’t pay that price.

To illustrate this point, imagine if the government mandated a minimum price for beef of $15 per pound. Burger joints couldn’t just pass on the increased costs to customers, because the demand curve for burgers would not change. Instead, burger joints would buy less beef.

The mandated increase in beef prices would do nothing to improve the quality of the beef nor change the price customers are willing to pay for the finished product it’s used to make. To the extent that burger joints would still buy beef; they would need to cut costs elsewhere, on other inputs and expenses.

Fast-food restaurants would decrease their demand for beef and seek alternatives, maybe instead sell more chicken sandwiches or salads.

Some larger national chains might be able to absorb the added costs of beef by dispersing the spending cuts across many other inputs and across thousands of stores, so it would be smaller mom-and-pop shops that would be hit the hardest.

Now swap "low-skilled labor" for "beef." Businesses can’t just "pass along" the higher input costs to customers. Government’s artificial raising of the price of an input will decrease the demand for that input, meaning that fewer low-skilled workers will have access to the important first rung of the career ladder.

Businesses will instead seek alternatives, like automated kiosks, that are more economical. Moreover, to the extent that businesses pay the increased minimum wage to employees that can’t be replaced, they will be forced to cut costs elsewhere, perhaps reducing fringe benefits, worker training programs, or even investments in workplace safety.

Moreover, warning against price increases in fast food or other goods provided by minimum wage workers misses the mark and exposes one to easy refutation. Changes in the costs of inputs, whether labor, raw materials, durable capital goods, or anything else, do not change the demand curve for the finished good for which they are used. So when minimum wages are increased, the change will not be reflected in noticeable price increases, allowing minimum wage advocates to say "see, we raised the minimum wage and McDonald’s hamburgers still only cost a couple bucks."

Secondly, not only can your argument be easily dismissed on economic grounds, to the extent that minimum wage advocates accept the faulty notion that increased minimum wages will cause the prices of fast food and other low-priced goods to increase, but they can readily respond by saying they will happily pay a few cents more for a cheeseburger if it means the workers are paid a respectable wage.

Instead, we need to focus on the negative consequences of minimum wages on vulnerable, low-skilled workers, especially minorities. Follow the Horton rule: "Attack the right from the right, and the left from the left."

In the case of the minimum wage, we can address how, as Thomas Sowell has repeatedly pointed out, minimum wage laws have been a "disaster" for young and poor black people.

Not only is focusing on the negative impact minimum wage laws have on low-skilled, especially minority, people more economically accurate, it also makes for a much harder argument for progressives to counter. Minimum wage laws end up disproportionately harming the very people its advocates claim to be helping.

Like so many other harmful state interventions, minimum wage laws need to be fought and repealed. To be successful, however, opponents must avoid falling into weak and easily refutable arguments. [source]

Other articles on the minimum wage:

• A $15 Minimum Wage Would Be a Huge Blow to the Small Business Economy
• Target Employees Are Furious After Raising Minimum Wage, You'll Never Guess Why
• 6 Bleak Consequences From CBO’s Report on the $15 Minimum Wage
• Here’s What $15 Minimum Wage Would Mean for This Frozen Yogurt Shop Owner
• Minimum Wage, Maximum Discrimination
• Video Of How Kyrsten Sinema Voted Against $15 Minimum Wage Goes Viral, Leftists Erupt In Anger
• Ocasio-Cortez’s Terrible Minimum Wage Argument
• Capital and Labor Both Suffer under Minimum Wage Mandates