MEP Christine Anderson Blows up on the Vaccine Agenda: “I Will Not Inject a Poisonous Substance into My Body”
“‘The vulnerable group among those who should be given priority to take this updated vaccine are pregnant women.’ I have never heard anything more despicable than that! Because the point is this — they do not know what this vaccine does to the unborn child. They simply have no clue.”
As The Washington Post reported in 2019, various government regulations and fees, such as “impact fees,” which are the same regardless of the size of the unit, “incentivize developers to build big.” The Post continues, “if zoning allows no more than two units per acre, the incentive will be to build the biggest, most expensive units possible.”
The average square footage in new single-family houses has been declining since 2015. House sizes tend to fall just during recessionary periods. It happened from 2008 to 2009, from 2001 to 2002, and from 1990 to 1991.
But even with strong economic-growth numbers well into 2019, it looks like demand for houses of historically large size may have finally peaked even before the 2020 recession and our current economic malaise. (Square footage in new multifamily construction has also increased.)
According to Census Bureau data, the average size of new houses in 2021 was 2,480 square feet. That’s down 7 percent from the 2015 peak of 2,687.
2015’s average, by the way, was an all-time high and represented decades of near-relentless growth in house sizes in the United States since the Second World War. Indeed, in the 48 years from 1973 to 2015, the average size of new houses increased by 62 percent from 1,660 to 2,687 square feet. At the same time, the quality of housing also increased substantially in everything from insulation, to roofing materials, to windows, and to the size and availability of garages.
Source: Department of Labor, US Census Bureau, HUD.1
Meanwhile, the size of American households during this period decreased 16 percent from 3.01 to 2.51 people.
Source: US Census Bureau
Yet, even with that 7 percent decline in house size since 2015, the average new home in America as of 2021 was still well over 50 percent larger than they were in the 1960s. Home size isn’t exactly falling off a cliff. US homes, on a square-foot-per-person basis, remain quite large by historical standards. Since 1973, square footage per person in new houses has nearly doubled, rising from 503 square feet per person in 1973 to 988 square feet person in 2021. By this measure, new house size actually increased from 2020 to 2021.
Source: US Census Bureau
This continued drive upward in new home size can be attributed in part to the persistence of easy money over the past decade. Even as homes continued to stay big—and thus stay comparatively expensive—it was not difficult to find buyers for them. Continually falling mortgage rates to historical lows below even 3 percent in many cases meant buyers could simply borrow more money to buy big houses.
But we may have finally hit the wall on home size. In recent months we’re finally starting to see evidence of falling home sales and falling home prices. It’s only now, with mortgage rates surging, inflation soaring, and real wages falling—and thus home price affordability falling—that there are now good reasons for builders to think “wow, maybe we need to build some smaller, less costly homes.” There are many reasons to think that they won’t, and that for-purchase homes will simply become less affordable. But it’s not the fault of the builders.
This wouldn’t be a problem in a mostly-free market in which builders could easily adjust their products to meet the market where it’s at. In a flexible and generally free market, builders would flock to build homes at a price level at which a large segment of the population could afford to buy those houses. But that’s not the sort of economy we live in. Rather, real estate and housing development are highly regulated industries at both the federal level and at the local level. Thanks to this, it is becoming more and more difficult for builders to build smaller houses at a time when millions of potential first-time home buyers would gladly snatch them up.
How Government Policy Led to a Codification of Larger, More Expensive Houses
The world’s English-speaking nations that share historical and ideological ties — commonly referred to as the Anglosphere — were once understood as the world’s most powerful beacons for the tenets of freedom. Through our elected politicians in 2022, however, this social contract has vanished, and its ideas are completely absent within the halls of political power. In today’s Anglosphere, it’s difficult to find a politician or policymaker, on either side of the dominant political factions of government, who genuinely defends the enlightenment principles that sparked the incredible and unprecedented human flourishing of past decades and centuries.
This morning, British Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation after only 6 weeks in office.
Much of the legacy media cited a “Tory revolt,” leading the Free World normies to believe that perhaps some kind of freedom rebellion has occurred.
In fact, just the opposite is true. Truss, they say, stepped out of line by proposing a “risky plan” to cut taxes.
Today’s U.K. tories believe in what amounts to communism + tax cuts, but the tax cuts are negotiable. And with a global recession and economic crisis underway, the Oxbridge-educated, World Economic Forum-groomed U.K. politicians ousted the British PM after only 44 days.
British political observers now believe that a man named Rishi Sunak, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, is the tory frontrunner to replace Truss as prime minister.
Sunak went to Oxford, and he speaks like this:
“The challenge of climate change is clear, and it is urgent. We need to ensure a positive and fair transition to net zero.”
Congresswoman Barbara Lee is pushing to pass a bill to repeal the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, which gave the White House the power to invade Iraq
US Congresswoman Barbara Lee, the only lawmaker to have voted against the invasion of Afghanistan, is renewing a legislative push to pass a resolution that would limit the White House’s ability to wage war.
In the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, Lee, along with anti-war groups and other lawmakers, is mobilising support to repeal the resolution that paved the way for the military intervention, the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).
During a webinar on Wednesday evening hosted by anti-war advocacy groups, including Win Without War, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) and Afghans For A Better Tomorrow, Lee said that since 2001, more lawmakers have learned “not to give any president the authority to wage war, for whatever reason, in perpetuity”.
“It’s unfortunate that we’ve had to go 20, 21 years in this, this fight to repeal these authorisations that should have never happened,” Lee said.
The AUMF is a resolution passed by Congress that gives the president permission to wage military action, without the need for Congress’ approval, as laid out in the specific terms set in the measure.
There are currently multiple AUMFs active: a 1991 AUMF and a 2002 AUMF that were both for Iraq; and a 2001 AUMF that gives the president the ability to wage war against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.
The authorisations have been continually used by the past four administrations to launch military campaigns and strikes across the Middle East. The 2002 AUMF was used by the Donald Trump administration to assassinate Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.
The 2002 AUMF is close to being repealed, with the House in July voting in favour of revoking the authorisation and companion legislation in the Senate gaining bipartisan support.
“We’re close. Now we’re in the Senate with Senator [Tim] Kaine working and we’ve got to find 10 Republicans,” Lee said.
The repeal also has support from the Biden administration, with the White House issuing a policy statement noting that it supports Lee’s bill that would repeal the 2002 AUMF.
“There is strong bipartisan support for repealing the 2002 Iraq AUMF in both the House and the Senate. There are 11 Republican cosponsors of a Senate bill to repeal the 2002 AUMF,” Heather Brandon-Smith, a legislative director at FCNL, said during the webinar on Wednesday.
“So that’s enough to overcome a filibuster, and what’s more, the White House has even come out in support of this repeal.”
“If you don’t reopen those cases, you don’t really understand what’s gone wrong,” said Emily Tripp, director of U.K.-based airstrike monitoring group Airwars. “Can you really know if you’re getting to learn your lessons if you don’t know why the thing has gone wrong in the first place?”
Why do I think the new plan consists of better ways not to get caught.
The Pentagon has decided that an overhaul aimed at reducing risks to civilian casualties will not include reinvestigating past incidents, even those that were erroneously dismissed, according to a department spokesperson.
The plan also will not involve reopening past cases in which civilian casualties were confirmed but the department did not make amends to the victims’ families, Lt. Col. Cesar Santiago-Santini said. The agency will, however, continue its policy of reviewing cases if new evidence emerges, he added.
The Pentagon’s new action plan, released in August, “is a forward-looking document that focuses on how DoD will further refine our capabilities and processes to better mitigate and respond to civilian harm, and provisions relating to reevaluation of past incidents of civilian harm are therefore outside the scope of this plan,” Santiago-Santini said in a statement.
In the near term, in accordance with the new action plan, DoD “will further expand the sources of information used in assessments and investigations so that DoD has access to more information and is more capable of assessing and investigating the results of military operations,” he said.
Outside groups focused on preventing civilian casualties said they were disappointed with the decision. The groups have long urged the Pentagon to provide better accounting of the incidents, many of which they say were improperly adjudicated or summarily dismissed.
The groups have pressed DoD to reopen previous cases as part of the overhaul, in part to learn lessons from past mistakes.
What else are we to think when a president of the United States says that his selection for a new appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court had to be a “black woman,” but when that nominee was asked during the Senate confirmation hearings if she could define a “woman,” she declined, saying that she was not a biologist. So, a “black woman” accepts being nominated for the highest court of the land, but she cannot explain what makes her eligible for that appointment under the declared criteria.
So, to give our own answer to Elliot Dodds’ question, “Is liberalism dead?” Not for as long as there are any who cherish the liberty and autonomy of every human being, along with their own freedom.
Among conservatives, liberalism is rejected for not fostering a proper moral sense in people and creating a group loyalty of something outside of and better than “merely” the autonomy of the narrowly self-interested individual, both inside and outside of the marketplace. The role of a properly led political order is to inculcate and instill such views and values in the American citizenry. A renewed sense of national identity and purpose is necessary to save the “soul” of America.
Both on “the left” and among conservatives, there is an intolerance and vehement dislike for many, if not all, forms of intellectual and cultural diversity (the latter having nothing to do with the scam notions of “diversity” among the “politically correct”). There is a deep desire among both these political groups for a far greater homogenization of humanity in thought, deed, and societal identity.
“Progressives” and conservatives want to plan your life
This is reflected in their respective willingness to turn to those in political power to use the coercive authority of government to impose their dogmas on the general population. Those on “the left,” in the name of “racial and gender justice” and saving the world from “climate change,” wish to use the government to control, regulate, and plan the economic and social activities of everyone in society. Their ideal is the centrally planned economy under which “right-thinking” people in government (that is, people like ‘them”) would determine and dictate the wages we could earn and the prices we might pay, the types of employment and workplace environments we would be required to accept, and the variety of goods and services and the means of production to provide them.
Our use of words is to be circumscribed to fit their ideological lexicon of race and gender. But if someone is looking for a revised dictionary of clearly defined new terms and meanings that can serve as a “safe space” to assure one does not offend any in society, they will not find it. Male and female and all imaginable things in-between are now amorphous concepts that have no linguistically certain meanings. What else are we to think when a president of the United States says that his selection for a new appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court had to be a “black woman,” but when that nominee was asked during the Senate confirmation hearings if she could define a “woman,” she declined, saying that she was not a biologist. So, a “black woman” accepts being nominated for the highest court of the land, but she cannot explain what makes her eligible for that appointment under the declared criteria.
Outside the US, UK and Europe, the war in Ukraine looks more complicated than it does in the US. And many of those countries want to reserve the right to remain nonaligned and want to push for a diplomatic solution to the war. It is not true that the US does not ask those countries to choose sides, that it does “not ask any nation to choose between the United States or any other partner.”
In his September 21 address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Biden said “We do not seek a Cold War. We do not ask any nation to choose between the United States or any other partner.”
It took a lot of courage to make that claim.
On October 5, OPEC+ announced that they were cutting oil production by two million barrels a day. That represents a 2% reduction of the daily global supply, larger than expected and the biggest cut in over two years.
That cut in oil production comes despite Biden’s plea to Saudi Arabia to increase oil production to offset rising prices caused by Russian sanctions and, crucially, boost the efficacy of sanctions on Russia. Biden offered Saudi Arabia an expanded “strategic partnership,” a “commitment to supporting Saudi Arabia’s security and territorial defense,” and a further commitment to uphold Saudi Arabia as the dominant power in the region.
Biden welcomed the pariah kingdom back into the world community in a trade for siding with the US by increasing oil production. He got rejected. And that is when the White House proved that they do ask nations to choose sides: “It’s clear that OPEC+ is aligning with Russia with today’s announcement,” announced White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
And there is a penalty for not being on America’s side. Several members of congress have called for the US to respond by putting an end to all US military aid to Saudi Arabia. Senator Bob Mendez, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, promised that, because of Saudi Arabia’s “decision to help underwrite Putin’s war,” he “will not green-light any cooperation with Riyadh until the kingdom reassesses its position with respect to the war in Ukraine.” Legislation has been introduced to remove US troops and missile systems from Saudi Arabia and to stop all arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The price that Saudi Arabia will pay is not for its decision’s effect on oil markets or anything other than choosing sides: the military relationship could be restarted if Saudi Arabia “reconsiders its embrace of Putin,” said Senator Richard Blumental and Representative Ro Khanna, describing the legislation they have proposed.
The experience of Saudi Arabia is not an isolated example that refutes Biden’s claim that the US does not ask countries to choose sides.
The Biden administration formally decreed last week that America’s COVID “emergency” continues. That proclamation was tricky to reconcile with President Biden’s announcement last month on 60 Minutes: “The pandemic is over.” Apparently, that was malarkey—perhaps part of the Democratic messaging for the midterm congressional elections…
Biden’s emergency perpetuation seeks to provide a legal whitewash for his $500+ billion student loan bailout charade. Biden justified the bailout by citing the HEROES Act of 2003—a law passed to assist soldiers and their family members during the Global War on Terror. Law professor Jonathan Turley wrote, “Biden had promised to wipe out tuition debt in the [2020] campaign and simply hijacked the Act for that unintended purpose.” Biden previously admitted that the law would not justify blanket forgiveness of college loans but he and his advisors decided to force Americans to pay any price for Democratic votes in the midterm elections. The administration provided no evidence that the beneficiaries (who earn up to $250,000) have suffered any financial harm from the pandemic. College graduates are doing much better financially than other Americans who will get stuck with the bill for their schooling…
In his raging Philadelphia speech last month, Biden declared, “Today, COVID no longer controls our lives.” But Biden has no intent to forfeit any control over Americans that he unjustifiably seized during the pandemic he says no longer exists. Nothing in Biden’s oath of office entitled him to turn the Constitution into COVID road kill…
While people in Europe face the prospect of not being able to afford to heat their homes this winter, and experiencing freezing dark blackouts, Bill Gates declared that “in the long run” the energy crisis is a “good” thing.
Touting his Breakthrough Energy Ventures climate-technology (carbon tax) investment company, Gates told CNBC “People did get a little optimistic about how quickly the transition could be done.”
“Without the Russian natural gas being available in Europe… it’s a setback,” Gates continued.
“We need to find non Russian hydrocarbon sources to substitute for those so there’s coal plants running and variety of things, because, you know, keeping, you know, people warm, keeping those economies in decent shape is a priority,” Gates asserted.
He continued, “Now, on the other hand, it’s good for the long run, because people won’t want to be dependent on Russian natural gas so they’ll move to these new approaches more rapidly.”
MCViewPoint 
