Quick Jots: July 2023

Affirmative Action SCOTUS ruling
#affirmativeaction
Proponents of affirmative action would writhe at this, but affirmative action is perhaps the final area of the law where we have actual "systemic racism" as they like to say, and it was struck down recently by the Supreme Court. This is a huge win for Asians, who have launched the original suit, and a blow to the feelz of those that unironically scream "Stop Asian Hate!" This is also potentially a win, perhaps paradoxically so at first glance, for black and Latino students, who would likely get better matched to schools and earn higher graduation rates in better fields. If one truly wants to help black and Latino students, they would fix (or preferably, abolish) the failing public K-12 schools and let the students go to a school of their choosing.

Some libertarians would say "but these are private institutions and they should be allowed to discriminate if they choose to do so!" Well, yes, but are they private institutions, really, considering the tens of billions of taxpayer funds Ivies receive?

Kennedy cancelled
#libertarians
Not that kind of cancelled. Her show on Fox Business was cancelled. Kennedy, an MTV VJ when I was growing up, joined fellow libertarians Matt Welch and Kmele Foster for a show called The Independents on Fox and the show eventually morphed into Kennedy, where she solo anchored the show, frequently bringing libertarians onto the show to debate, well, destroy, really, a conservative and progressive also on the panel for the topic du jour. She has been one of the very few libertarian shows on Fox, or any news channel for that matter (as if MSNBC or CNN would actually allow diverse opinions in their show lineup on their networks) and this cancellation will leave a gaping hole in the, albeit dying, cable television medium. Perhaps the only show left in this segment that has maybe some kind of even slight leanings to libertarianism (after Andrew Napolitano left Fox) is Gutfeld, but he is, in my opinion, no match to Kennedy (or Napolitano) as far as libertarian credo goes. Matt and Kmele attribute learning how to handle television to her. Dave Smith has been incredibly thankful to her for being the first person to put him on cable television, and wrecking statists in the process. It was one of the few shows that actually put diverse opinions on the air and not just left/right uniparty parrots. 

Sweden's death rates, age-adjusted, compare favorably
#covid19
Back in 2020, "experts" predicted people dropping like flies in the streets of Sweden when they declined to shut people in their homes. They hyperventilated about how Sweden was doing worse than other Scandinavian countries while ignoring they did better than every single other European country. Now looking at the more accurate statistic to judge Covid responses of age-adjusted excess mortality, we find that Sweden fared among the best in not only the European countries, but did better than Norway. Watch how the linked BBC article completely ignores how they and other major news outlets completely whiffed on Sweden.

Dr Hotez refuses to debate
#covid19
Dr. Hotez, the new patron saint in corporate media to replace Fauci, was on Joe Rogan and declined to debate RFK, Jr while calling all of RFK's stuff wrong. So Joe offered $100k (to a charity of Hotez's choice) to debate RFK which others chimed in to grow the pot to over $1.5m. And still Hotez refused. Now, I'm not a fan of RFK's overall vaccines-cause-autism push, but come on. If he's so wrong, go debate him and destroy him. Hotez said RFK is a cunning lawyer which elevates his debate skills over a scientist who is not quite so quick on his feet. I actually sympathize with this. I really do. But Hotez made himself the figurehead on news and talk shows. I don't think you get to still claim this when you have this role. Even so, fine. Add a condition to have with you your own medical lawyer who knows their stuff to counter this. I seriously doubt Rogan or RFK would object. There has since been a litany of articles by establishment puppets that say he shouldn't entertain a debate because it would "legitimize" the other side. This isn't 1960 anymore where the media gets to dictate the information. All refusing to debate does is make your side look afraid that your arguments won't hold. Other "arguments" were brought up like how "conspiracy theorists" will shower a debate with hundreds of specious and tiny arguments that miss the bigger picture, creating a behemoth that is too large to take down in any amount of reasonable time. But this isn't the case here. Rogan specifically said there would be no time limit. And since none of them probably have ever watched Rogan, his show has a dedicated real-time fact checker. Hell, bring a team of scientists with you to run fact-checks of your own in real-time.

RFK's probably not the best opponent to debate Hotez. I'd prefer to see Hotez debate Robert Malone to keep it on the mRNA vaccines, but we'll just have to settle for Hotez & gang to look like a bunch of bitches that aren't willing to put their views to the test. Which really kind of summarizes their position.

White House cocaine
#drugwar
I so don't care about this, but damnit, conservatives think this is some kind of dunk on Biden, somehow. Even if it was Hunter Biden that left it there, who the hell cares? Give it back to him so he can continue to embarrass himself. The only reason I made an entry about this is that Spike Cohen makes a brilliant point. If it was found in some guy's house, the DEA would kick down his door, shoot his dog, throw a flash bang into his son's crib, and haul him off to jail. But when it's at the White House: eh, we conducted an investigation and found nothing. Golly gee wilikers, oh, well.

Suppressing lab leak theory
#covid19 #freespeech
The hits keep coming for those that suppressed the lab leak theory. The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released a report titled The Proximal Origin of a Cover-Up that suggests the original paper was not based in sound science or fact. Of course, this is a political document, presented by the House of Representatives, currently controlled by the GOP, but still, the paper releases some documents and emails that were not previously available. 

Among them, it appears that there were edits and emails from the higher-ups that modified the language to make it sound like the lab leak theory was near impossible, versus the earlier drafts and internal communications among the mid-level scientists that thought the lab leak was quite possible, even if not the most likely scenario with the information they had at the time. Another, it was very early on that the scientists discovered the pangolin theory was very unlikely because the virus found in them did not have the furin cleavage site found in SARS-CoV-2, and yet, this was rather dismissed, pushed even, by the higher-ups.

More interestingly in the realm of political battles, an email that was previously completely redacted following a FOIA request, was unredacted in the paper. The only interesting part of the redaction was Anthony Fauci explicitly stating in the email that the Wuhan lab was working on gain of function experiments which Fauci's groups funded by proxy, prior to his senate hearing where he made the semantics argument to Rand Paul to dispute the gain of function allegation. It seems now, that Fauci should be prosecuted for both funding gain of function research which was against the law at the time and for committing perjury in a senate hearing. For good measure, prosecute the people who made that ridiculous redaction. 

Zach and Nick at Reason interviewed Matt Ridley, one of the early experts that expressed skepticism against the original Proximal Origin study that expressed in no uncertain terms that a lab leak was not possible, for a deep dive into the paper.

IRS Whistleblowers on Hunter Biden Investigation
#corruption #joebiden
Two IRS agents have stepped forward to claim the Attorney's Office and Department of Justice handled the tax situation for Hunter Biden very differently than any other case. They claim that "At every stage, decisions were made that benefited the subject of the investigation." They went on to allege that a search warrant at Joe Biden's house in Delaware was railroaded due to "optics" even when the expectation of finding strong evidence was high. 

US receives credit rating downgrade
#economics
Fitch downgraded the US Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating to AA+ from AAA. They cite rising deficits, the inability of the government to address unfunded liabilities like social security and Medicare, rising interest rates, and an uncertain economy. I just have one question: What the hell took so long? According to the CBO, by 2050, a third of the federal budget will just go toward interest payments though I suspect that will come on a much sooner deadline. There seems to be a complete inability to even really slow deficit growth. There is no attempt to cut spending. At any rate, this follows S&P's downgrade back in 2011. Still waiting on Moody's to wake up.