Muda69

Why the Covid Shutdowns of Public Schools Are Driving So Many to Homeschooling https://mises.org/wire/why-covid-shutdowns-public-schools-are-driving-so-many-homeschooling

We Could Be Vaccinating Twice as Fast. The Government Won't Allow It.: https://reason.com/video/2021/01/16/we-could-be-vaccinating-twice-as-fast-the-government-wont-allow-it/ As usual government is just part of the problem, not the solution. And as one of the comments to this stored states:

Yep. Sue me.

Is there someway that neither The Bucs or the Packers win and by some longstanding but never used NFL bylaw the Saints get to go to the Super Bowl?

Exactly, thank you for the example. Hideous.

I don't mind if a high school decides to change it's colors, but what does bug me is this move to more 'accent' type colors in athletic uniforms. For example you have a school whose colors are Blue and White, full stop. Why do you have some uniforms with a significant amount of black or gray in them? Because it looks cool? Black, grey, and red seems to be the big offenders here.

Are academic accrediting agencies like financial bond rating agencies? Just pay them enough $ either above or below the table and voila! you have an accredited school of X or an AAA rated bond.

Ughh

https://reason.com/2021/01/12/antique-plate-fiestaware-school-evacuation/?itm_source=parsely-api What has our country become? A bunch of scared, overreactive nannies for the most part.

No, AOC, It's Not the Government's Job to 'Rein in Our Media' https://reason.com/2021/01/14/aoc-rein-in-our-media-literacy-trump-capitol-rots/ It's true that both traditional media and social media sometimes spread "disinformation and misinformation." But the federal government has no formal role to play in suppressing its spread. The First Amendment explicitly bars Congress from infringing on freedom of the press or freedom of speech, and the Supreme Court has recognized no exceptions for disinformation. If the government could ban disinformation, after all, it could use that as a cover for banning speech that is not actually false but merely critical of the government, or of specific politicians. Recall that Democrats swiftly denounced The New York Post's report on Hunter Biden's foreign connections as "disinformation," even though many underlying aspects of the story have since been confirmed. Social media platforms are currently struggling with how to identify disinformation and what actions against it are appropriate. Certain subjects—such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election results—are aggressively policed, while other misleading content is left alone. Users have every right to criticize these decisions, but ultimately Twitter and Facebook are private companies with the right to set their own moderation policies. They can prohibit speech they define as misinformation. Congress can't. In suggesting a role for the government to regulate the media's speech, AOC is echoing comments made by numerous right-wing figures—most notably President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly called for changing libel laws to make it easier for maligned officials to sue the press. Trump has also made threats against newspapers for covering his presidency negatively. It's critical that the law not be changed; the media must be free to vigorously criticize the president, Congress, or any other aspect of the government, even if the reporting is sometimes wrong or off-base. Similarly, addressing disinformation should be a job for private platforms and individual readers, not the government.

The man has had not one but two brain surgeries in his lifetime. Long term complications/issues from these procedures could easily be used an excuse for Mr. Biden to resign.

https://mises.org/wire/there-no-such-thing-treason Nor would resistance to a regime constitute treason even if the allegedly treasonous person had voluntarily given his or her consent to the regime in the past. Only states insist they have the right to demand that one party of a contract (i.e., the taxpayer or citizen) be subject to a perpetual and unbreakable legal obligation forevermore. In the more reasonable world of peaceful, and voluntary relations (i.e., morally legitimate nonstate relations) contracts are breakable, and consent is negotiable and voidable. Moreover, Spooner notes, the regime has long since voided whatever contractual obligations might have existed due to its widespread violations of natural rights. The social contract, if it ever existed, has long since been voided by the regime's failure to keep up its end of the bargain. Thus, under these conditions, it's difficult to see how any person or group that refuses to comply with laws and edicts handed down by “constitutional” government violates any principle of patriotism, loyalty, or obligations to the state. Why the State Has Special Hatred for “Traitors” As one might expect, regimes take an especially dim view of “traitors.” This is largely because so-called traitors—whether through words or overt acts of violence—threaten the state’s monopoly powers. Murray Rothbard explains in "Anatomy of the State": What the State fears above all, of course, is any fundamental threat to its own power and its own existence. The death of a State can come about in two major ways: (a) through conquest by another State, or (b) through revolutionary overthrow by its own subjects—in short, by war or revolution. Note the inherent double standard: In the case of war, the state openly encourages its own citizens to take up arms and engage in open warfare against potential rights violations inflicted by a foreign state. "Fight for your freedom," we are told. But when it comes to rights violations committed by one's "own" state, Rothbard notes, "no 'defense' is permitted." Nor is it surprising, then, that states often pursue greater punishments against those who threaten the state than for those who threaten ordinary people: We may test the hypothesis that the State is largely interested in protecting itself rather than its subjects by asking: which category of crimes does the State pursue and punish most intensely—those against private citizens or those against itself? The gravest crimes in the State's lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of private person or property, but dangers to its own contentment, for example, treason, desertion of a soldier to the enemy, failure to register for the draft, subversion and subversive conspiracy, assassination of rulers and such economic crimes against the State as counterfeiting its money or evasion of its income tax. Or compare the degree of zeal devoted to pursuing the man who assaults a policeman, with the attention that the State pays to the assault of an ordinary citizen. So, we can conclude that the Capitol riot was not treason, and theoretically, at least, it was potentially an act of self-defense. Whether or not that is actually the case, however, is much less clear. As Spooner notes, those who take up arms against the regime under which they live are nonetheless engaging as "an open enemy," and are engaging in violent action. Just because the Capitol riot was not treason does not necessarily make it prudent, or moral, let alone legal. Perhaps the most unfortunate part of the Capitol riot is that many appeared to not intend to commit any acts that might even be interpreted as treasonous. Many rioters appeared content to simply register their dissatisfaction with the election. They roamed the building like tourists and waved flags. Many of these people will nonetheless face the full savagery of federal prosecutors for what the "perpetrators" likely thought amounted to a minor trespass. On the other hand, some rioters attacked Capitol personnel. Some others vandalized the building. Some of these people are guilty of real crimes, such as those who apparently engaged in violent confrontations with Capitol police. Their crimes may amount to assault, vandalism, and trespassing. Some may even be guilty of attempted murder. But none are guilty of the made-up, imaginary "crime" that is treason. Agreed. Treason in the American model is a myth.

Pagano retires from coaching after 36 seasons https://www.chicagobears.com/news/pagano-retires-from-coaching-after-36-seasons?fbclid=IwAR2lZN0wCHHuZHb4DV1CTU44QTmWqr3uVr00y3IUdI0Kij9kvTeZnWSGZoA

Most NFL contracts are not guaranteed, as was Mr. Castonzo's. FTA:

Well I guess we now what position the Colts will be looking for with their first 2021 draft pick: https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/nfl/colts/2021/01/12/colts-news-anthony-castonzo-retiring-nfl-indianapolis/6638222002/

'Tis the Braves way, at least it was when I played for the my alma mater back in the 1980's. Had to keep all the other athletes fresh for basketball season.......................

Perhaps they thought they had no real representation in Washington, a sentiment I can completely see.

Much like the perpetrators of the Boston Tea Party betrayed the British monarchy?

The Left’s Reichstag Fire https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/left-reichstag-fire-soft-totalitarianism-social-credit-system-live-not-by-lies/ When Black Lives Matter protests turned into mass riots, where were the calls to suppress CNN, The New York Times, and other media that constantly repeated the BLM message, and the general message that America is a bastion of white supremacy, whose regime lacks legitimacy? They didn’t exist. They didn’t exist because this is a free country. I read the Times every day, and on some issues, it’s more or less a propaganda sheet (its Pulitzer-winning 1619 Project is clearly intended to delegitimize the American founding). But the state and any other authority had better keep its hands off the Times, and all other left-wing media. The idea that a journalist, Oliver D’Arcy, is calling for a discussion on whether to deplatform and suppress other journalists — including a direct competitor — is chilling. But I am certain that it is a sign of things to come. Yesterday Simon & Schuster cancelled a deal with Sen. Josh Hawley, who was under contract to pen a book about the tyranny of Big Tech. I was bothered by this, because I don’t like to see anybody lose a book deal, and because I think Big Tech deserves a hell of a lot of scrutiny by Congress. But then Hawley issued a statement calling it “Orwellian” and a violation of the First Amendment, and I decided not to participate in defending Hawley’s book deal. It is not “Orwellian” or a violation of the First Amendment. All publishers retain the right in their contracts with authors to cancel books pre-publication (trust me on this; I’ve written five books). Whether or not it is morally correct for a publisher to do so is a different question. I stood up for Woody Allen in his fight with his publisher last year over this issue. Hawley is free to shop his manuscript around, and any other publisher is free to buy it and publish it. To call this “Orwellian” and unconstitutional is cynical, manipulative hype. While I wish S&S had stuck by its commitment to publish what I expect will be an important book, the fact is that Josh Hawley, by his own actions post-Election Day, has made himself a uniquely controversial figure, one central to one of the most shameful events in American political history. What Simon & Schuster did was regrettable, from my point of view, but within the bounds of reason. I bring this up to say that not every attempt to marginalize a dissident-right voice is unjustified. Take too the case of Paul Davis, a Texas corporate lawyer who Instagrammed a photo of himself on Capitol Hill, at the riot: His company fired him. I can’t blame them. He is a lawyer, and he participated in a riot. To be fair, if he did not enter into the Capitol, I would have given him the benefit of the doubt. But the fact that he was tear-gassed means he was at least very close to the action. The event itself was a shameful act, and I can’t blame a company for wanting to separate itself from one of its house lawyers, especially one stupid enough to put evidence of his participation in it on social media. That said, will it stop with Paul Davis? I doubt it. I expect many companies to pink-slip employees who were photographed at the Trump event, even if they were nowhere near the invasion of the Capitol. If it happens, it will be extremely unjust, and dangerous. If photographic or other hard evidence existed of an employee participating in one of last year’s race riots existed, a company would be justified in firing that employee. But not everybody who marched in those protests intended to riot, or be at all tied to criminal activity. There would be no grounds to fire them. Nevertheless, I expect corporate America, goosed by left-wing activists, to undertake a purge of any employees who publicly expressed sympathy, on their private social media channels or anywhere, with Trump, MAGA, or the election protest. This has already been happening in some hospitals over gender ideology. As I write in Live Not By Lies: Do not think that your many years of service or your expertise will save you if your company or institution’s HR department finds evidence that you are now or ever were a sympathizer with MAGA. We are about to enter into a full-blown political and moral panic, led by the institutional power-holders. Glenn Greenwald is a man of the Left, but yesterday spoke out courageously against the coming repression. Excerpt: I hope we listen to Greenwald, but I doubt we will. The disgusting assault on the US Capitol, and on the constitutional process of certifying an election, by Trump fanatics was a great gift to the authoritarian, repressive Left. After last year’s riots, the Establishment accelerated the implementation of race-radicalism as re-education within US schools, universities, and other institutions. And now, that same Establishment can be expected to accelerate even stronger ideological measures to suppress anything it regards as dissent — and that will eventually mean the expression of ordinary social, religious, and political conservatism, even by people who never liked Donald Trump. This is what it means to live in a pre-totalitarian society. But turning to the Right, you know what it also means to live in a pre-totalitarian society? Read Declan Leary’s TAC account of being at the MAGA rally on Capitol Hill when it went off on Wednesday. Excerpts: More: Read it all. Leary says that He’s no doubt correct. I’ve been looking at the social and other media of some of the people involved in the fanatical Jericho March, and there is not the least contrition or second thoughts about what they have done. To take an especially sad case (for me, personally), here is a piece I did about the hysterical post-election rhetoric from Eric Metaxas. Excerpts: More from that December post of mine: You can hear and see Eric say all these things in this Charlie Kirk interview from December 9. Well, now five people are dead, including Trump fanatic Ashli Babbitt, who was as rabid about Trump as Eric Metaxas was. Here’s a link to a New York Post story about Babbitt, including a barking-mad video she posted about Kamala Harris. You should watch it, and consider whether you want this country to be ruled by people like that. I went back to read her Twitter feed from early December until now. It’s full of QAnon garbage, such as: And so forth. Lots of this stuff. And, of course, this: The Washington Post has published video from one of the protesters, showing the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. You really should watch this. She was at the forefront of an angry mob that had reached the doors of the Speakers Lobby, which, had they gotten in, would have given them access to the House Chamber. The WaPo has this map: That’s how close the mob was to the Chamber. At the start of the video, you can see, behind the closed doors, members of Congress. Police are trying to keep the mob from going through the doors, but the mob chants, “F–k the blue! F–k the blue!”, and starts bashing the glass on the doors. Eventually the police move away, and the crowd keeps bashing. The doors begin to give way. An officer inside the door points a gun at the mob. Someone yells that he has a gun. The mob does nothing. Then the police officer fires. A bullet hits Ashli Babbitt, who later died. The only person responsible for Ashli Babbitt’s death is Ashli Babbitt. The officer who shot her was doing his duty. But there is on MAGA media talk about how she is a martyr, and was assassinated by the Deep State, etc. Such rot. See, though, Eric Metaxas spoke openly about how “we need to fight to the death, to the last drop of blood, because it’s worth it.” And now this lunatic woman, hopped up on this kind of rhetoric, died assaulting the US House of Representatives. For what? This is how her life ended. She alone is responsible for her death, but I wish that people like Eric, who juiced up their listeners with talk about the necessity to shed blood to defend Donald Trump, would feel even the slightest bit of remorse for their rash rhetoric. Not gonna happen. Not yet, anyway. He’s doubling down on the MAGA-mob mentality: He is not the only one. As I said, this is painful to me, because Eric is a longtime friend. He has given over his fine mind and sweet spirit to madness — madness that has now resulted in the same bloodshed that he was telling his listeners they needed to be prepared to submit to as recently as last month. Notice, though, in this tweet of his from Thursday, he is already deflecting blame for the event onto Antifa. This is all over MAGA social media, this idea. Nope, couldn’t be them. All this bad stuff was surely Antifa. Friends and readers report hearing this from their own social networks, and family members. Listen, if you have been a regular reader of this blog for a while, you know that I have been hell on the ideological Left for pushing its fanatical theories. My book Live Not By Lies goes into detail about how the identity-politics Left is laying the groundwork for a form of totalitarianism. That has not changed one bit as the result of events this week — in fact, as I claim in this post, these events have almost certainly accelerated the Left’s plans. But no honest person can deny that Donald Trump and his MAGA devotees have also accelerated it by their actions. And they too are going along the totalitarian path. In Live Not By Lies, I have a chapter on Hannah Arendt and her study of how Nazi and Communist totalitarianism came to power. A sign that totalitarianism is at hand is the willingness of large numbers of people to quit caring about the truth, and to prefer ideology. Excerpt: Add “for Donald Trump” and “for ‘Make America Great Again'” to Kovaly’s list. This is not a left-vs-right thing. This is about the power of ideological narrative to conquer hearts and minds — and nations. Ashli Babbitt’s road to her own violent death began when she opened her mind up to the lies of QAnon and Donald Trump. As you watch that video on the Post’s site — the one of the events leading up to Babbitt’s shooting — think of this passage from Live Not By Lies: Or maybe because they saw in these mobs a wave that they could surf to political power. This, I think, explains Sen. Hawley and Sen. Ted Cruz. You read Declan Leary’s account of embedding himself in that MAGA mob on Wednesday, and you will see examples of baseness masquerading as liberation. This has long been a facet of the Left. It is now undeniably a facet of the Right. I have long complained in this space that responsible liberals have allowed totalitarians to thrive on the Left because they lack the courage, the wisdom, or the conviction to stand up to them. It is now undeniably true on the Right as well. The difference is this: Trump and his fanatics have been unmasked. We know where their brand of ideological madness leads: to a mob attacking the US Capitol in an attempt to stop the constitutionally mandated certification of an election. The Establishment will now use everything in its power to suppress anything related to Trumpism — including plain old conservatism. Because the left-wing extremists have honeycombed Establishment institutions with their sympathizers, the Left will now benefit from popular disgust with Trump’s legacy, and use this moment to consolidate power. The social credit system is coming. Repression is coming. Guilt by association is coming. I hope I’m wrong about this, but I feel sure that any real opportunity the Right had to stop it was trampled underfoot by Donald Trump and his mob, who were willing to throw everything away to live by the lies of QAnon, Stop The Steal, and late-period MAGA. We on the Right who were not part of this movement are going to have to pay a steep price for what they have done. Don’t misread me: we have to fight it as hard as we can, and hope we can prevail. To my Christian readers, I say again: read the signs of the times. We are in a Kolakovic Moment. Father Tomislav Kolakovic, the Croatian priest to whom I dedicate Live Not By Lies, escaped the Nazis and hid out in Slovakia, in 1943. He immediately set himself to preparing the Slovak church for the persecution he knew was coming. From my book: Father Kolakovic’s bishops denounced him as an alarmist, but he did not listen. He understood what was happening, and what was going to happen. He taught the Christians who were willing to listen not to be passive, to assume that it couldn’t happen there. He knew that they wouldn’t be able to stand up to the might of the Red Army. He taught them how to use their freedom to prepare for what was coming. This is what we have to do right now: use our freedom to prepare to resist. Do not listen to the lies of the MAGA diehards, whose fanaticism has been a blessing to the would-be totalitarians of the Left. Do not allow yourself to think that you will be protected because you never supported Trump, Stop The Steal, or any of it. The attack on the Capitol — which was unquestionably a MAGA affair — is the Left’s Reichstag fire: a pretext to begin the systematic oppression of all opposition. If you thought the Left’s soft-totalitarian rhetoric of smashing rights and liberties for the sake of creating a “safe space” was bad before, oh baby, just you wait. UPDATE: Since posting this, I learned that Twitter has permanently banned Donald Trump. I feel exactly as Denny Burk does. Trump deserves it — but this will not stop with Trump. Don’t you believe for a second that it will. UPDATE.2: More: Let me repeat, in case I was not clear enough: resisters and dissidents against the coming soft totalitarianism cannot afford to waste themselves listening to QAnon and MAGA lies. This is real, and this is serious. We need to think as clearly as we can. UPDATE.3: This is true: UPDATE.4: Five minutes ago, I thought that the problem is not really going to be Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer, but the faceless people in corporations and institutions. Then I read this new in the WSJ: More: Well, here we go. Do we not have laws now capable of dealing with the thugs who invaded the Capitol? Do we need more laws? Of course we don’t — but we are going to get them, because we have to made America a Safe Space™. UPDATE.5: A Catholic reader e-mails: UPDATE.6: This really is astonishing footage. It is infuriating, what that MAGA mob did to this country. I hope every one of these people who can be positively identified are arrested and charged. They are no patriots. UPDATE.7: Columnist Debra J. Saunders is correct, I’m sorry to say: UPDATE.8: This is important. This was always coming — we just didn’t know what would kick it off. UPDATE.9: A reader just sent in a screenshot of a young woman outing the names of her mother, uncle, and other family members on social media, as Trump supporters. She claims that she is a lesbian, and that her family kicked her out for going to BLM marches. I’m not going to post the photo, but of course Twitter is thrilled that she’s turned her family over to the mob. I’m not going to add to the outing by posting the screenshot (my reader did not ask me to, note well). The reader writes: UPDATE.10: Reader Barlaam of Weimerica writes:

Your Rioters Are Worse Than Our Rioters https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/your-rioters-are-worse-than-our-rioters/

So, is the last time we will see Mr. Rivers and Mr. Roethlisberger on a football field?

The Bears’ offense should be ashamed for torturing the kids watching on Nickelodeon: https://deadspin.com/the-bears-offense-should-be-ashamed-for-torturing-the-1846033306 Watson in a Bears uniform and Bieneimy on the sideline. Intriguing.................

I don't follow Canadian politics at all so no, I don't notice.

I would put Indiana in the lower half of that list of state, most definitely. And Illinois does have the best high school football field in the nation, Fleur-de-lis field in Greenfield:

What Should Happen to the Capitol Invaders? https://reason.com/2021/01/08/what-should-happen-to-the-capitol-invaders/ He's referring to the rule of felony murder, a legal doctrine that allows prosecutors to charge a person with murder if somebody dies during the commission of a felony, even if the offender played no role in the person's death and did not intend for anybody to die. The felony murder rule is terrible. It's not justice. It should be eliminated. We should not be convicting people of murder when they did not, in fact, commit murder. I bring up Lieu's tweet here because California, the state he represents, mostly eliminated its own version of the felony murder rule in 2018 (though it is worth noting that killing a police officer remains its most significant exception, and so it would still apply here if this all took place in California). There are many, many penalties we can throw at these people, and federal prosecutors habitually charge defendants with any possible violation they can unearth in order to intimidate them into plea bargains. The only people we should consider charging with murder are those who are actually responsible for Sicknick's injuries. We have enough laws to address this invasion and don't need more. There have been dozens of arrests related to the assault on the Capitol. Everything any of these people did that harmed a person or property at the Capitol is a violation of an existing law. It feels important to point this out because, in the wake of any outrage-inducing criminal event, politicians will quickly come forth to try to take advantage of the situation to introduce laws to make the government more powerful and increase the punishment and incarceration of citizens. President-elect Joe Biden says he is open to passing more laws to address domestic terrorism, possibly including "red flag laws" that allow the government to forbid citizens from possessing guns even if they haven't been convicted of crimes out of fear of what they might do. If Trump's presidency has taught us anything at all, it should be that the federal government is extremely powerful. What happened on Wednesday is a result of poor planning and police control, not a result of the government not being powerful enough to stop it. Fox News pointed out that these trespassers could face long federal prison sentences thanks to Trump's call to prosecute anybody damaging federal monuments, an executive order he put in place to go after antifa members. Nobody should face 10 years in federal prison for breaking windows, or stealing a bust, or destroying chairs. That's not a proportionate response. That's anger and disgust channeled through the halls of authority, not justice. It will not create peace. It will create martyrs. It won't prevent future violence—it will foment it. Make sure these people are aware of the mercies extended to them. There is an irony, of course, that many of these same people believe in the same extremely harsh forms of justice that Trump does. They see antifa everywhere. Some cynically attempted to blame the invasion on antifa. They refuse to accept the harshness of the criminal justice system because they aren't typically the targets. Resist the instinct to "teach them a lesson" by making them the targets. But do make sure they know exactly what could have happened. Make sure they know that it's only because of the activism of the very criminal justice reformers they dismiss that they're not being treated the way the federal government treated criminals in the 1990s. In a country that values liberty, what does "justice" look like for the men and women who trespassed in the U.S. Capitol? We should consider what's appropriate on the basis of the reforms some Americans have been pushing for years. Limit pretrial detention to those who may be planning more crimes. America has a pretrial detention problem. We have half a million people who are behind bars who have not yet been convicted of a crime. This is, fortunately, much less common on the federal level, where there are fewer than 50,000 people being detained prior to trial (this isn't counting immigration holds). Pretrial detention is intended to be used when there's no other option to make sure defendants show up for court dates or prevent them from committing other crimes while awaiting trial. But the reality is that our justice system has been throwing people in jail because they couldn't afford bail requirements or because prosecutors exaggerate dangers, and then apply pressure on defendants to accept plea deals so that they hopefully stop languishing in jail. Pretrial detention has turned justice on its head by punishing citizens before they've been convicted. We are also in the midst of a pandemic that has hit jails and prisons hard. We do not need to be filling up jail cells with people who, emotional responses aside, were acting out a deluded fantasy and are likely not an imminent threat. Throughout 2020, Reason covered prisons' mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the deaths that followed. Twenty percent of the prison population across the country has been infected with the virus.