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When There Wasn’t Enough Hand Sanitizer, Distilleries Stepped Up. Now They’re Facing $14,060 FDA Fees. – Reason.com

Posted by M. C. on December 31, 2020

Government fans have something to celebrate tonight!

Is this the same FDA that approves drugs and vaccines?

https://reason.com/2020/12/30/when-there-wasnt-enough-hand-sanitizer-distilleries-stepped-up-now-theyre-facing-14060-fda-fees/

Jacob Grier

For many American craft distillers, 2020 was already one of their worst years ever. The COVID-19-related closure of tasting rooms and cocktail bars, loss of tourism, and inability to offer in-store sampling slashed their sales revenue and cut them off from their customers. Then this week, just as it seemed they’d made it through the worst of a terrible year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had one more surprise in store: The agency delivered notice to distilleries that had produced hand sanitizer in the early days of the pandemic that they now owe an unexpected fee to the government of more than $14,000.

“I was in literal disbelief when I read it yesterday,” says Aaron Bergh, president and distiller at Calwise Spirits in Paso Robles, California. “I had to confirm with my attorney this morning that it’s true.” The surprise fee caught distillers completely off guard, throwing the already suffering industry into confusion.

When the onset of the pandemic led to a massive increase in demand for hand sanitizer this spring, many distilleries stepped up to alleviate the sudden shortage. The main ingredient in sanitizer is ethanol, which they are in the business of making, albeit typically in more fun and tasty formats. More than 800 distilleries pivoted from spirits to sanitizer, offering it for sale or in many cases donating it to their communities free of charge. Their prompt action helped ensure supplies of sanitizer when it was otherwise unobtainable.

(Even then, the FDA needlessly complicated things, imposing additional requirements on top of guidelines published by the World Health Organization for emergency production. The FDA’s mandate that all alcohol used in sanitizer first be denatured—rendering it undrinkable—created a bottleneck that raised costs for distillers and slowed production.)

Producing sanitizer is viewed as a point of pride in the distilling business, a way that they were able to help their communities in a fearful time of crisis. 

Now, however, that good deed is being punished with unanticipated fees by the FDA. “I compare it to surprise medical billing,” says Becky Harris, president of the American Craft Spirits Association (ACSA) and of Catoctin Creek Distilling in Purcellville, Virginia.

At issue is a provision of the CARES Act that reformed regulation of non-prescription drugs. Under the revised law, distilleries that produced sanitizer have been classified as “over-the-counter drug monograph facilities.” The CARES Act also enacted user fees on these facilities to fund the FDA’s regulatory activities. For small distillers, that means ending the year with a surprise bill for $14,060 due on February 11.

“People are incredibly anxious,” Harris says. “We have been dealing with tons of phone calls talking to individual members and state guilds to tell them what we know and what we don’t know.”

Harris and the ACSA have spent the day trying to learn more details about the law and the FDA’s intentions, but the combination of the holidays and the pandemic makes this a difficult time to reach anyone. “We recognize that this bill [the CARES ACT] was not written specifically for the issue of sanitizer,” Harris says. “The problem that we have right now is that [the fee assessment] is going out to a whole lot of small businesses who are struggling in the pandemic.”

Bergh’s CalWise Spirits is a typical example. He says that his distillery produced 5,000 gallons of hand sanitizer, with distribution prioritized to medical workers and others on the frontlines of the pandemic response. “Some of my hand sanitizer was donated,” he said in a statement today. “The rest was sold at a fraction of the market price. My goal was to get as much out as I could, at as low of a price as I could, while being able to bring my furloughed employees back to work. The hand sanitizer business saved me from bankruptcy—but I didn’t make an enormous profit.”

Potentially compounding the impact of the fee is that it is determined by registration as an OTC (over-the-counter) monograph drug production facility in the previous calendar year. That means that distilleries not only have to contend with this year’s fee; if they fail to update their status with the FDA by tomorrow, they may be liable for an additional fee in 2022 as well.

For now, Harris is advising members not to pay the fee right away. “We want to push back on this,” she says. She’s hopeful that if the FDA has some discretion as to the applicability of the fee, that they will exercise it to exclude distilleries, most of which no longer produce sanitizer and have no intention of continuing to do so now that the emergency shortage has passed. Currently, however, the FDA’s website explicitly notes that facilities that produced sanitizer under the agency’s temporary COVID-19 policy are not exempt. Reason‘s inquiry with the FDA has yet to receive a detailed response, but we will update if we receive one.

Paying a surprise $14,000 bill would be a challenge for small businesses in any year, but it’s a particular challenge for craft distilleries in 2020. An industry survey conducted earlier this year by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States and the American Distilling Institute projected that sales revenue at craft distilleries would decline by more than $700 million this year, amounting to approximately 40 percent of their sales.

For many distillers, the unexpected fee assessment from the FDA thus arrives as one more substantial blow in an already devastating year. “If you were making sanitizer for your community at a limited capacity, this should not be something you have to deal with,” says Harris. “It will be a slap in the face to make it through all of this and then get hit with this bill.” 

Jacob Grier, a freelance writer, bartender, and consultant based in Portland, is the author of The Rediscovery of Tobacco (Kindle Direct) and Cocktails on Tap (Stewart, Tabori and Chang).

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Arbitrariness and Censorship Are Back in the West – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on December 31, 2020

Ensuring that they are only neutral carriers, these forums protect the anonymity of their customers. As a result, they all carry among their messages some that provoke the commission of crimes and offenses, insulting and defamatory, and they cover up for their perpetrators. Whereas in the print media, the printer who refuses to reveal the name of his client is considered responsible for the comments he has printed, these “information carriers” have set themselves up as “regulators”.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/12/thierry-meyssan/arbitrariness-and-censorship-are-back-in-the-west/

Upon the invention of printing, many authors challenged the preconceptions of their time. It took four centuries of struggle for the West to finally guarantee freedom of expression. However, with the invention of the Internet, authorship was democratized and freedom of expression was immediately challenged. It may take several centuries to absorb this shock and restore freedom of expression. In the meantime, censorship is back.

When we founded the Voltaire Network in 1994, our first concern was to defend freedom of expression in France, and then around the world.

Today, however, this concept is, in our view, distorted and fought against. We will therefore try to define this ideal further.

The circulation of ideas experienced a considerable boom with the invention of modern typography at the end of the 15th century. It was no longer possible to blindly believe authorities; everyone could make up their own mind.

It was agreed that although debate was indispensable to the evolution of human thought, certain ideas would be harmful to society and should therefore be censored. The authorities had to determine what was useful and what was harmful. But the creation of the famous Index librorum prohibitorum (Index of Forbidden Books) by Pope Paul IV did not prevent the spread of anti-Papist ideas.

Our view, on the contrary, is that in most cases censorship is more harmful than the ideas it prohibits. All societies that practice censorship end up being frozen. That is why all censorship authorities were once overthrown.

At that point, two great schools clash. Article 11 of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) stipulates that the law must determine and repress abuses of freedom of expression, while the First Amendment to the US Constitution (1791) states that no law may limit this freedom.

The United States was a nation in formation, newly emancipated from the British monarchy. It was not yet aware of the difficulties of living in society, but it had already suffered from the abuses of the Power of London. They therefore had a conception of freedom without limits.

It took nearly a century for the French legislature to determine the limits of freedom of expression: provocation to commit crimes or misdemeanors, insult and defamation. Compared to the censorship regime, control is no longer exercised before publication, but after.

Latin countries call defamation the act of reporting derogatory elements without being able to produce proof, it being understood that certain facts cannot be proven (for example amnestied facts, prescribed crimes or simply elements of private life) and therefore are not publishable. On the contrary, the Anglo-Saxon countries only call defamation imputations that can be proven false. In practice, Latin laws require the author to prove what he or she claims, while Anglo-Saxon laws on the contrary state that it is up to the defamed person to prove that the author is telling nonsense.

In either case, the courts can only protect freedom of expression if they are composed of popular juries (as in Belgium) and not of professional magistrates (as in France) likely to defend their social class. This was the great struggle of Georges Clémenceau, which was brought to an end during the Second World War, when governments regained control of proceedings.

The freedom of expression that the West had taken four centuries to develop was totally called into question with the appearance of new computerized techniques of diffusion that broadened the number of authors. As in the sixteenth century, after a short period of flourishing freedom, it is on the way to being completely controlled.

In the past, the French and Americans spoke of both freedom of expression and freedom of the press (i.e. the possibility of exercising freedom of expression in newspapers). Today, however, freedom of the press is often invoked to deny freedom of expression to mere mortals accused of being “conspiracy seekers”, that is to say, uncultured, irresponsible and dangerous to society.

Usually the advocates of prior censorship do not invoke their desire to control the political opinions of the masses, but place themselves in the realm of religion (protecting society from heresy) or morality (preventing the corruption of youth through pornography). The appearance of “social networks” offers a new context for bringing out old arguments.

As established religions are in gradual retreat in the contemporary West, they are being replaced by a new one without God, but with its dogmas (consensus) and clerics (formerly journalists, today the owners of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.). For example, a referendum should be called in France to enshrine in the Constitution the following sentence: “The Republic guarantees (1) the preservation of biodiversity, (2) the environment and (3) the fight against climate change”. Three meaningless proposals since biodiversity is not a stage, but a process; that the environment has never been preserved, but always modified; and that the climate is not subject to any regulation. There is already talk of censoring this remark, which disturbs the consensus, first on social networks and then in society in general.

Each of us is shocked by the pornography inflicted on children and would spontaneously wish to protect them from it. True, but in the past little peasants used to watch farm animals —not always very tender and moral—, today small schoolchildren are convinced that animals only mate to perpetuate their species and watch films —not always very tender and moral— on their smartphone. Historically, most authoritarian regimes started by censoring pornography before attacking political ideas. It is therefore much less risky for everyone to implement parental control procedures rather than opening the way for the loss of our freedoms.

Last remarks: a big step backwards was taken in 1990 with the European laws repressing “Holocaust denial”, then in the 2000s with the privileges granted to social networks, and finally in the 2010s with the rating agencies.

One would have understood that laws repress forms of rehabilitation of the Nazi racialist regime, but not that they set themselves up as guardians of the Truth. Above all, and this is the most important point, they have reinstated prison sentences for offenders. It is therefore possible today in Europe to find oneself in prison for one’s ideas.

Internet forums (including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube) have obtained a staggering privilege in the United States in order to conquer the world. They are considered both as carriers of information (like the Post Office) and as regulators of the information they convey; as if the Post Office had the right to read what they convey and to censor what they don’t like. Ensuring that they are only neutral carriers, these forums protect the anonymity of their customers. As a result, they all carry among their messages some that provoke the commission of crimes and offenses, insulting and defamatory, and they cover up for their perpetrators. Whereas in the print media, the printer who refuses to reveal the name of his client is considered responsible for the comments he has printed, these “information carriers” have set themselves up as “regulators”. They always refuse to reveal the names of the guilty parties, but sovereignly destroy the accounts that they judge contrary to their ideas. In doing so, they set themselves up as judges, without laws, debates or appeals.

On May 28, 2020, President Donald Trump took away this privilege, paving the way for regulation by the judiciary, but it is unlikely that the US Congress will transform this Executive Branch decision into law. All the more so since the owners of these forums have already set up rating agencies with NATO for websites that are beyond their control (including NewsGuard). For them, it is a question of burying bad thinkers in the depths of search engines until they disappear. Arbitrariness and censorship are back.

French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.

The articles on Voltaire Network may be freely reproduced provided the source is cited, their integrity is respected and they are not used for commercial purposes (license CC BY-NC-ND).

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Looking For Warriors: Face Masks, Giving In, & Proceeding Boldly Against Evil – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on December 31, 2020

As with all central planning, a one-size-fits-all approach from central planners in the public health field brings with it all the same downfalls of other blunt force central planning. This approach which we call by the public relations developed term “public health,” in our era, is a polar opposite of medicine, which at its best has an individualized approach going back more than 2500 years and pits doctor and patient as a team against the world.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/12/allan-stevo/looking-for-warriors-face-masks-giving-in-proceeding-boldly-against-evil/

By Allan Stevo

Mr. Stevo:

I read your article “Face Masks Refusal Says So Much, Because Courage Is the Prerequisite to  All Virtuous Behavior.”

When the suggestion first started to wear a mask to help stop the spread of Covid, I was skeptical and not a believer. And did not wear one. Then it became a requirement.  I was very reluctant . However, I did then do a lot of research regarding mask wearing for Covid. There are many articles and videos on this subject. And after reading on this matter, I became convinced masks could help, at least on some level, in helping stop the spread of Covid.

It is apparent you think masks are useless. I would like to believe this. But how do I combat videos such as this one at Men’s Health and It’s Okay To Be Smart that supposedly show masks stopping the droplets containing the virus from someone with the virus? 

J.T.

—

Dear J.T.,

Thank you for this note.

This Is A Poor Source 

Men’s Health is a poor source for this type of information, but it depicts the popular sentiment that is now circulating, so I am grateful for the reference point.

The information at those links is spread with a lack of understanding by those writing on the topic, or is alternately spread with some dishonesty. It’s not clear which is more common. Certainly it is both dishonest and irresponsible to write for an audience about a topic which the writer is unable to comprehend the magnitude of. Articles like the one linked are reverberators of unhelpful information taken out of context and obedient to a status quo.

Confirmation Bias: Beware Of Information Obedient To The Status quo 

When information is obedient to a status quo, it deserves a special level of skepticism to avoid the bias known as confirmation bias, an easy bias to fall into.

Mechanistic Studies Are Accurate “In Theory” 

The link you sent points to mechanistic studies. Mechanistic studies are not useful in prescribing behavior on this matter because they use theory to attempt to depict reality instead of actually measuring reality to the best of our ability. Sometimes we cannot measure the results of an experiment very well. With face masks we can. Mechanistic studies are commonly cited because they fit the narrative that everyone must be masked. They are not commonly cited because they are the best depictions of reality, which should be the meritocratic basis for citing a study.

Better Sources: Look For Randomized Controlled Trials With Laboratory Confirmed Results 

If you desire to avoid the confirmation bias that has accompanied face masks in this heavily politicized electoral year, I recommend you look for randomized controlled trials with laboratory confirmed results. These are attempts at measuring reality to the best of our ability. Studies like these have often been ignored and even censored in 2020 because the results so clearly counter the politicized narrative that all must be masked.

Mechanistic studies consistently tell us what can be summarized as “Face masks should in theory work to prevent Covid-19 transmission,” while randomized controlled trials with laboratory confirmed results consistently tell us what can be summarized as “In reality however, masks do not in fact work to prevent Covid transmission and may increase transmission, making face masks not neutral but harmful.”

There Is No Need For A Narrative Of Divisiveness, Yet This Is What We Have 

There is no need for divisiveness on this topic. The two types of studies are very helpful when read alongside each other and the results integrate quite nicely.

It should be no surprise that theory and reality in this field are divergent, since theory and reality are divergent in many fields. Scientific journalists covering the topic out of a sense of honesty for the subject matter would have no problem integrating these two types of studies, by saying: “In theory face masks should work to prevent the spread of Covid, in reality they don’t work to prevent the spread of Covid.” There’s nothing complicated about constructing such a sentence. There’s nothing complicated about presenting the idea in a way that anyone over the age of eight could easily read it.

Beware Of Those Telling You How A Theory Is So Complicated There Is No Way You Would Possibly Understand 

I have long found that theories that cannot be described to an eight-year-old are either fallacious or poorly understood by the speaker. Simplicity of communication is obtainable to he who understands his subject matter and possesses a sincere desire to communicate.

Instead, this topic of face masks and Covid is covered with great divisiveness. Anyone who suggests that an unmasked person is putting others in harm’s way or does not care about another is doing their audience a great disservice. Either they don’t respect their audience enough to understand their subject matter or they don’t respect their audience enough to cover the subject matter honestly.

For A Person Trying To Make Sense Of Efficacy, Xiao Presents The Most Useful Face Mask Research Of 2020 

Xiao in the May 2020 issue of Emerging Infectious Disease is the best study of the year on the topic. For those interested in delving deeper, I address that topic further in a recent article entitled “Reminder: The CDC Says Face Masks Don’t Stop Covid.” I cover the same topic in greater detail in my recent book Face Masks in One Lesson. I strongly recommend Xiao’s journal article.

Emerging Infectious Disease is a CDC journal of epidemiology. Attempting to avoid lip service or the lure of political correctness, Xiao and her co-authors looked at Covid as a serious concern and sought to distinguish superstition from efficacious approaches.

In Xiao’s Emerging Infectious Disease review of 14 randomized controlled trials with laboratory confirmed results, we see quite conclusively that

  • 1.) Face masks do not reduce the spread of Covid-19 or other respiratory viruses,
  • 2.) Hand washing does not reduce the spread of Covid-19 or other respiratory viruses, and
  • 3.) Disinfecting surfaces does not reduce the spread of Covid-19 or other respiratory viruses. Fauci: The Bernie Mado… Ortleb, Charles Buy New $5.99 (as of 02:55 EDT – Details)

This information is so vitally important, and Xiao deserves reading by anyone with an interest in the topic. Again Xiao does not need to be seen as a contradiction of mechanistic face mask studies, but an elaboration that we can turn to in order to see that theory diverges from reality on this topic and that practice should be modified accordingly.

Xiao’s Conclusion: Face Masks Are Superstition At Best 

The face mask is superstition at best. There is no question about that. This has been known for a long time and is even more obvious now after billions have been masked.

Xiao, takes this a step further. Xiao points out that the face mask is harmful and may increase the spread of Covid, especially when it is worn in disregard for the following protocol:

  • 1.) Face masks are single use only,
  • 2.) They are to be sterile when put on,
  • 3.) They are to be put on with sterile hands,
  • 4.) The nose and mouth should not be touched while wearing a face mask, and
  • 5.) If the face mask becomes moist it should be changed immediately.

Xiao cites a 2009 World Health Organization circular on this topic. I’ve never seen a single person in 2020 follow this protocol and no one should not be expected to as they are not trained in the protocol. Notably, as much as this protocol is followed, face masks do not work to reduce the spread of Covid-19 or other respiratory viruses. That is the bottom line.

Face masks are superstition at best.

“At Best,” Is Not A Realistic Standard, There Is Much Downside To Masking

There is also much worse to be said about face masks. Xiao does not cover the vastly more harmful aspects of face mask wearing:

  • 1.) Restriction of breathing,
  • 2.) Restriction of waste removal,
  • 3.) Medical impact,
  • 4.) Individualized impact necessitating an individual approach,
  • 5.) Deceased oxygen increased carbon dioxide in the micro environment of the face mask,
  • 6.) Social impact,
  • 7.) Developmental impact,
  • 8.) Communicational impact.

This was outside of her scope. The entire picture is something that must be responsibly synthesized by doctor and patient for an individual approach.

Central Planning Makes Its Way To Medicine Under The Guise Of “Public Health”

As with all central planning, a one-size-fits-all approach from central planners in the public health field brings with it all the same downfalls of other blunt force central planning. This approach which we call by the public relations developed term “public health,” in our era, is a polar opposite of medicine, which at its best has an individualized approach going back more than 2500 years and pits doctor and patient as a team against the world.

“Public health” is a theory that came about in the second half of the 1800s on the English and later the American side of the North Atlantic and seeks to drive a wedge between doctor and patient in order to make it the decision of neighbor what medical treatment a patient receive. Rather than doctor and patient against the world, it is doctor as a servant of the plebiscite, imposing that will upon the patient. Public health has aspects of communism and utilitarianism mixed in with medicine to effectively make it the very opposite of medicine.

It may be no surprise to readers that those who advocate for one-size-fits-all central planning in the field of public health have the same opinion about that same technocratic-led one-size-fits-all central planning in government and economics. It is a truly vile field that seeks to use manipulation to control man. A VOYAGE IN IMAGINATIO… Holmes, Dr Joel S Buy New $9.95 (as of 04:21 EDT – Details)

Public health motivation theory is an openly discussed topic in the field that is fundamental to public health and so contrary to medical ethics for it seeks to frame and spin apparently unbiased education to achieve a predetermined outcome, making doctor into a salesman or pitchman rather than someone seeking to achieve informed consent for his patient, to whom he has that duty.

Public Health Has Become A Countermovement To Medical Ethics 

Public health is in total contradiction to virtually all medical ethics, including the ethics around informed consent that grew out of the Nuremberg trials. It may be no shock therefore to recognize that the reincarnation of the most vile socialists of the past century — the national socialist of Germany, the Stalinist socialists of Russia, the Maoist socialists of East Asia, and their many compatriots — are kept alive and well in the field of public health. All of these men were young and charismatic in their time and praised in the pages of The New York Times. The same paper praises the public health politburo members of our day as heroes.

There is nothing heroic about men and women who bring tyranny to their homeland and seek to extinguish liberty from the globe, all the while claiming through cynical gaslighting that this utter destruction of human society is the only way to protect your loved ones and all that you hold dear.

It is hard to be appropriately pejorative about such behavior.

While They Are Effective Marketers, And Unethically Manipulative, The Field Of “Public Health” Has Not Hid Its Intent 

For more than 170 years, the forefathers of the public health field have publicly stated their desire to eliminate the structures of society and all people hold dear — church, free expression, self-defense, private property, livelihood, business, family.

Should anyone be surprised that in 2020, the year that the public health professional was allowed to take over society, we ended up with exactly the kind of life that the public health profession and their forefathers have been promising for 170 years?

Listen to them. They are telling you their plans. They have never hid it.

He who follows a single one of their orders, the face mask included, betrays freedom. You enable the most disgusting evil in the world.

Face Masks Should Not Be Worn By Any Person Of Conscience 

The face mask is a total joke of a medical intervention advanced by the clown of a man we call Fauci. It is with great sadness that I’ve seen even a single American adopt this medical intervention. Sadly, this adoption of face masks have been far more impactful to society than just a single American engaging in this harmful superstition.

That would be forgivable. That would be so minor as to be unnoticed. We are past the point where anyone should say “Anyone who wants to should wear a face mask.” The toxic symbol of obedience should be eradicated with the greatest level of societal pressure that a peaceful people can tolerate. 2020 is very different and the comfort of supplicating oneself to the masses is so impactful, so harmful to all that I hold dear and so deceitfully done in the name of protecting all that we hold dear.

No person of conscience should wear the mask even a single minute more. Not a minute. To do so is to give tacit approval to a great lie and to send ripples of harm through society as you empower such a lie.

I do not wear a mask. I will not wear a mask. I seldom allow anyone in a mask to speak to me without first removing their mask. I hold some degree of contempt for those who wear masks.

Heroes Walk The Earth 

Readers of these pages refuse masks in their businesses for the liability it creates for them as a fainting hazard. They refuse service personnel who come onto their property masked. They sue government agencies that force them to be masked. They take their children out of schools where they are masked and brainwashed about Covid. They scold managers for requiring their employees to be masked. They push against the illogical and unjust. They inform their bosses that they can fire them if they need to, but they will never again wear a mask. Had 2020 not come as it did, I would never have met these brave souls who so boldly walk the earth and demand freedom for themselves and others.

If you are not already behaving like these brave readers, it is not too late. You, too, can set a higher standard and demand such freedoms in your own life.

Sheeplike Behavior Happens, But Tacit Approval From Those Who Know Better Is So Much Worse  

No adult should be given a bye for the sheeplike behavior they engage in. Sheeplike people exist though and that is a reality of life. Those who know better and refuse to go through the discomfort of acting on their realization are truly awful.

Humanity needs those who see the reality of this behavior to act in defense of reason and liberty. So many do not. They abrogate that role. They burn down society because they refuse to act to protect it.

Minor discomfort and subtle displays of courage are all that is required for them to behave accordingly to advance freedom for themselves and others. It is a testament to how little society must mean to them or how costly subtle displays of courage must appear to them if they are unable to summon the ability to no longer fly this disgusting flag on their precious faces.

No decent liberty-lover would fly a Nazi flag or a Soviet flag out of sincerity, but many fly a far more pernicious symbol.

Courage Is An Axiom 

There is clearly a disconnect for so many Americans to so potently represent such an awful symbol and to carry it around with them — not on an armband or embroidered to a hat — but on their precious faces, covering their precious mouths.

Out of many conversations, the most clear sense I’ve been able to make of that disconnect is the far greater prevalence of cowardice in the United States than I had previously realized.

There I reach an axiomatic disconnect with the mask wearer, for if you have no courage, you are not a man to be trusted, you are not an adult who has come of age, you are playing the role of the perpetual child that modernity wants you to be and wants to convince you that you are.

There is a question left up to each of us to answer: “Am I too cowardly to be inconvenienced in the name of human freedom?”

People who I once viewed as heroes have answered that question in ways I would never have expected.

I hope that you have decided to never again wear a mask.

If You Criticize A Governor While Obediently Wearing A Mask, You Have Not Turned The Mirror On Yourself 

See the rest here

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The Freedom To Pursue Happiness – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on December 31, 2020

SHEEPLE ALERT! Read at own risk.

It is hard to believe that any judge in America would permit a criminal trial of any person for violating a standard of behavior that has not been enacted into law by a legislature. We know this because under our system of representative government, separated powers and guaranteed liberties, only the legislative branch can craft laws and assign punishments for noncompliance. This is Constitutional Law 101.

But under the Constitution, these social-distancing, wear-your-mask, shut-your-business, stay-at-home edicts constitute mere recommendations that should induce rational voluntary compliance, because the government in America is without lawful power to compel compliance.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/12/andrew-p-napolitano/the-freedom-to-pursue-happiness-3/

By Andrew P. Napolitano

The governors of all 50 states, and the mayors of many large cities, have assumed unto themselves the powers to restrict private personal choices and lawful public behavior in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19.

They have done so not by enforcing previously existing legislation but by crafting their own executive orders, styling those orders as if they were laws, using state and local police to enforce those so-called laws and — presumably when life returns to normal and the courts reopen — prosecuting the alleged offenders in court.

It is hard to believe that any judge in America would permit a criminal trial of any person for violating a standard of behavior that has not been enacted into law by a legislature. We know this because under our system of representative government, separated powers and guaranteed liberties, only the legislative branch can craft laws and assign punishments for noncompliance. This is Constitutional Law 101. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has written that the executive branch cannot enforce a law that it has written. If it does, we will have approached tyranny.

Have we approached tyranny already?

During the past eight weeks, governors and mayors have closed most businesses, public venues and houses of worship, prohibited public assembly and restricted travel — all of which they have unilaterally decreed to be nonessential.

In his terrifying novel “1984” — which posits a future of total control of all persons by the government and total control of the government by one political party — George Orwell argued that he who controls the meaning of words controls the laws as well.

That Orwellian truism has been manifested like never before here in America, where executive branch officeholders have used state and local police to restrain people from engaging in private and public behavior which they concede was lawful two months ago because today it is not deemed “essential.”

Frankly, I am surprised at the ferocity of police enforcement and the lameness of police compliance. The police have taken the same oaths to uphold the same Bill of Rights — it’s not the Bill of Safety; it’s the Bill of Rights — as have all other officeholders. The police also know that it is unlawful for them to obey an unlawful order, particularly when they use force.

The lockdown orders are all unlawful because none of them — none — has been enacted by a legislature, and all of them — all — interfere with fundamental liberties, each of which is guaranteed — guaranteed — by the Constitution.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I recognize the scientific value of personal efforts to control contagion. But under the Constitution, these social-distancing, wear-your-mask, shut-your-business, stay-at-home edicts constitute mere recommendations that should induce rational voluntary compliance, because the government in America is without lawful power to compel compliance.

The governors complain about resistance. They need to know that Americans will resist efforts to interfere in behavior that remains as moral, natural, lawful and constitutional as it was 60 days ago.

Last week, President Donald Trump, sounding fed up with gubernatorial lockdown orders, declared that religious worship is essential — meaning, in his opinion, all houses of worship should be opened — and he offered that he was prepared to “override” any governors who disagreed with him.

When he realized that he lacked any authority to override even unlawful gubernatorial decrees, he dispatched the Department of Justice to begin filing challenges to governors in federal courts and to argue that constitutional freedoms are being impaired by the states.

I applaud this, but it is too little, too late. Where was the DOJ when Catholic priests were threatened with arrest for saying Mass or distributing palms and when Jewish rabbis were put in COVID-19-infested jails for holding funerals? At all these religious events, folks freely chose to exercise their freedom to worship; and to take their chances.

These DOJ interventions provoked the question: Who should decide what goods, services or venues are essential — the states or the federal government? The question is Orwellian, as the answer is: neither of them. The government in America — state or federal — has no power and no right to determine what goods, services and venues are essential.

Those determinations have been for individuals to make since 1776, and those individual choices have been constitutionally protected from the feds since the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791 and from the states since the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868.

What is essential to the laborer or student or housewife may not be essential to the former Goldman Sachs partner who was elected governor of New Jersey, and who decreed last week, “It shall be the duty of every person or entity in this State… to cooperate fully” with his orders, or essential to the ideologue who is mayor of the Big Apple and who, for all his professed liberality, threatened to close permanently — permanently — businesses and houses of worship that flaunt his guidelines.

A duty is undertaken voluntarily or by nature, not by executive command, Governor Murphy. And the government cannot take property away from its owners except for a legitimate public use and only for just compensation, Mayor de Blasio.

Governors and mayors can make all the dictatorial pronouncements and threats that they wish. But they cannot use public assets to enforce them. And when they seek to use force, those from whom they seek it should decline the offer.

In America, we decide for ourselves what produces happiness. We have never delegated to the government — ever — the power to make personal choices for us.

And some of us are willing to take chances and even do “nonessential” things. The essence of the freedoms for which we have fought since 1776 is the liberty to be ourselves.

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Very Stoic

Posted by M. C. on December 30, 2020

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2020: The Year We Lost Our Common Sense, Courage and Civil Liberties — Strategic Culture

Posted by M. C. on December 30, 2020

This article is locked by Facebook

For the Fortune 500 companies, however, the pandemic has translated into a windfall. Between April and September, at a time when thousands of small business were quietly getting crushed underfoot, 45 of the 50 most valuable publicly traded American companies turned a profit, according to the Washington Post.

At the same time, at least 27 of the 50 largest firms slashed their workforce this year, collectively cutting more than 100,000 workers, while at the same time distributing billions of dollars to shareholders. As just one example, Walmart distributed more than $10 billion to its investors during the pandemic while terminating 1,200 office staff.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/12/28/2020-the-year-we-lost-our-common-sense-courage-and-civil-liberties/

Robert Bridge

Once it became clear to the Western elite that their subjects would readily accept draconian anti-Covid measures, it encouraged them to usher in a code-red lifestyle where there will be no ‘return to normal’ in the foreseeable future and, possibly, never.

If nothing else, nobody can say we were not warned about the madness that would descend upon leap year 2020, making it one of the worst 366 days ever recorded on the Gregorian calendar.

On October 18, 2019, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, together with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted the incredibly visionary Event 201, an exercise that simulated the outbreak of a pandemic “transmitted from bats to people that eventually becomes…transmissible from person to person.”

The simulation proved to be so uncannily similar to the real thing that started just three months later – from imagining a dramatic drop in air travel and business, to breaks in the global supply chain – that Johns Hopkins eventually felt compelled to release a statement saying their exercise was not intended to be a prophecy of future events.

Isn’t it crazy how “social distance for two weeks so our hospitals aren’t overwhelmed” evolved into “social distance til 2022 until a vaccine is developed…”

— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) April 26, 2020

“To be clear, the Center for Health Security and partners did not make a prediction during our tabletop exercise,” the statement read, in what just might be the creepiest caveat ever. “For the scenario, we modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction… We are not now predicting that the nCoV-2019 outbreak will kill 65 million people.”

Shortly after the global elite played Nostradamus, on January 15th to be exact (the very same day, incidentally, that the Democrats presented articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump in the Senate), the first Covid-positive person arrived in Seattle from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the disease is said to have sprung to life. From there it has been a non-stop roller-coaster ride of government-sponsored insanity.

Before continuing, it is important to remember the context with which the pandemic has been happening, that is, in the most consequential U.S. presidential election in recent memory. It should thus come as no surprise that the Democrats and Republicans would use the scourge to achieve some sort of advantage, demonstrating Machiavellian opportunism at its very best. Indeed, such is the nature of the political beast.

For example, although Trump shut down the U.S. border on January 31 to Chinese nationals, the Democrats and leftist media pounced, saying the U.S. leader responded too late to make a difference. Even Trump’s use of the term ‘Chinese virus’ was slammed by his opponents as ‘racist.’ Meanwhile, it was the Democrats themselves who were the pioneers in taking the first draconian steps of locking down society to stop the contagion.

On March 16, 2020, six counties in northern California and the city of Berkley ordered an unprecedented stay-at-home order for some 7 million Bay Area residents. This was all part of “flattening the curve” logic that would “buy time for hospitals to gear up for the onslaught…” Well, 233 days later political leaders are not only still flattening the curve, but flattening their economies as well. Today, although the survival rate for those infected with Covid-19 is reported to be in the neighborhood of 99.85 percent, harsh lockdowns continue to wreak havoc, not least of all for small businesses.

Over 100,000 restaurants have closed this year due to lockdowns, but not a penny for them in the “Covid Relief” bill?

— Cari Kelemen (@KelemenCari) December 22, 2020

Consider the situation in California, where Governor Gavin Newsom has mandated yet another ‘shelter-in-place’ order, which has shuttered, among other businesses, hair salons, barbershops, personal care services, movie theaters, wineries, bars, breweries, family entertainment centers and amusement parks. What is hard to fathom, however, is how the corporate big-box stores are considered “essential businesses,” apparently immune to the scourge, while the small business owner is trashed as expendable.

By way of example, consider the tragic plight of Angela Marsden, the owner of Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill in Los Angeles. In an effort to comply with the ever-changing anti-Covid rules, Marsden spent over $80,000 to build an outdoor patio so she could stay in business during the pandemic. With Newsom’s latest lockdown restrictions, however, city officials denied her permission to serve clients on location, even in the parking lot.

To add insult to injury, the authorities granted permission for a film company to set up a large outdoor eating area for its staff just across the road from where Marsden had built her patio.

“I’m losing everything,” she exclaimed in a video posted to Twitter that has been watched almost 10 million times. “Everything I own is being taken away from me. They have not given us money and they have shut us down. We cannot survive; my staff cannot survive…”

This is criminal. Complete BS!!! I guess this is “science”! RT @ClayTravis: Watch this video of an LA bar owner that perfectly crystallizes the absurdity of California’s absurd and ridiculous shutdown rules. pic.twitter.com/XVLmAVyy70

— Larry The Cable Guy (@GitRDoneLarry) December 5, 2020

For the Fortune 500 companies, however, the pandemic has translated into a windfall. Between April and September, at a time when thousands of small business were quietly getting crushed underfoot, 45 of the 50 most valuable publicly traded American companies turned a profit, according to the Washington Post.

At the same time, at least 27 of the 50 largest firms slashed their workforce this year, collectively cutting more than 100,000 workers, while at the same time distributing billions of dollars to shareholders. As just one example, Walmart distributed more than $10 billion to its investors during the pandemic while terminating 1,200 office staff.

To put these figures another way, since mid-March – when President Donald Trump declared a national emergency – America’s 614 billionaires saw their net worth explode by $931 billion in total. Jeff Bezos, for example, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, saw his private wealth go from $73.2bn since the start of the crisis to a record $186.2bn.

What’s Good For Thee Is Not Good For Me

A thread ⬇ https://t.co/42p9Yc2xY7

— Patriotic Candor (@PatrioticCandor) December 3, 2020

It would probably come as no surprise that the very individuals who helped pave the way for astronomic wealth generation among the 1 percent, are the same ones breaking their own rules. Governor Newsom and his wife, for example, attended a birthday party with a dozen friends at the French Laundry restaurant in San Francisco. Equally maddening is that Dustin Corcoran, the CEO of the California Medical Association, was also in attendance. And who could forget the photo of Nancy Pelosi walking through a California hair salon when such businesses were deemed ‘super spreaders’?

Such incidences only served to reinforce the idea that the draconian lockdowns, the worst of which are centered on Democratic-controlled states, were specifically designed not to contain a contagion, but to foster as much anger and frustration among the general population in the most consequential presidential election in many decades. After all, unhappy people have a tendency to vote out their leaders whom they believe are responsible for such dire circumstances. And with the mainstream media almost totally in the Democratic anti-Trump camp, placing the blame on the president has proven no difficult task.

So where do we go from here? Now that we have reached the end of 2020, will the situation begin to improve? Will political leaders begin to loosen the screws and let some semblance of normality return once again? Or will people be forced to rise up and demand the return of their freedom and liberty?

At this great loggerhead in human history, there has been much talk about creating ‘freedom passes’ that will be demanded from people before they are allowed to travel or visit any sort of entertainment again.

“People who test negative for coronavirus could get a five-day freedom pass to attend big events or access public buildings, under plans being considered by public health experts running a trial program in England,” reported Bloomberg in November.

Already, five global airlines – United Airlines, Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic, Swiss International Air Lines and JetBlue – have announced they will observe the so-called CommonPass to passengers on some flights from December.

“The project, developed by non-profit group The Commons Project and backed by the World Economic Forum, uses a digital certificate downloaded to a mobile phone to show a passenger has tested negative for Covid-19,” according to the Financial Times. Here is the kicker: “The airlines are not making the CommonPass mandatory, but in time it will also be used to provide proof of vaccination.”

It seems rather obvious where all of this is heading: mandatory vaccination for anyone who ever wishes to board an aircraft or visit another entertainment venue again. Over time, it is not difficult to imagine a vaccine regimen extending to all human activities, including shopping and even getting a job. Yet what about the millions of people who have expressed extreme skepticism in being administered a vaccine that has been developed so quickly?

Whatever the case may be, should such a plan of action become mandatory, peoples’ lives will be entirely dominated by fears over a virus, together with an endless bureaucratic process of being tested and approved to move about. Vaccines will become a regular requirement since viruses are in a state of constant mutation, which makes them the authoritarians dream instrument of domination.

Such a system of totalitarian control, should it ever come into fruition, will have achieved in mere months what fascism could not in years: the pacification and unification of a great swath of the world’s population not by bayonet, but by syringe. In fact, today the people of London are fleeing their fair city not out of fear of the virus per se, but out of fear of the lockdown restrictions put in place by the authorities. To put it otherwise, the world gave an inch and the globalists took a mile, and a person would have to be a fool to believe it could have turned out any other way.

© 2010 – 2020 | Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture online journal www.strategic-culture.org.

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It’s Interesting How the Violent Riots of 2020 Ended Right After the Election – The Organic Prepper

Posted by M. C. on December 30, 2020

https://www.theorganicprepper.com/2020-riots/

by Daisy Luther

Lest people think that 2020 was only about Covid-19, lockdowns, and economic disaster, don’t forget about the protests, riots, and escalating exhibits of rage.

The triggering event was the death of George Floyd. He was killed during an arrest on May 25th in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The entire thing was caught on video. It had all the potential to be a turning point with regard to police brutality and race – the nation was riveted and outraged.

But then, as often occurs, the protests were co-opted. Extremists took over, extremists on the other side took umbrage, and  Mr. Floyd became a footnote.

2020 devolved into ongoing violence in American streets that most of us haven’t seen in our lifetimes. Distinct sides were chosen, lines were drawn, and those who saw the middle ground were quickly shouted down while America burned.

May

Minneapolis immediately erupted into violent riots that turned deadly.

Rioters set the police station on fire.

Within a week of Mr. Floyd’s death, demonstrations had spread to 30 cities across the United States, many turning from peaceful protests to riots.

Riots in Denver:

Seattle was the site of particularly destructive and violent riots.

In fact, protestors took over a six-block area in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle, driving out police and maintaining their presence there for months. They even strategically changed the name of the area to make it part of a bigger movement.

June

The National Guard was deployed to cities across the country in an attempt to quell the violence.

Seattle:

Atlanta:

Los Angeles and Hollywood:

In this article, a National Guardsman shared a personal account of what was really going on during the Seattle riots.

July

In July, police and rioters in cities across the country were engaged in violent clashes.

Federal police squared off with rioters in Portland.

August

On August 23, fuel was added to the raging inferno when Jacob Blake was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. At this point, the facts of the shootings were no longer relevant – any police violence against a black suspect was going to result in riots.

By that evening, Kenosha was on fire.

The destruction of Kenosha, a moderate-sized town, was shocking.

We ran the first-person account of a Kenosha resident who said, “Everyone in the city was getting ready for a war.”

Looting and rioting broke out in Chicago after another police shooting and the “Magnificent Mile” was trashed by angry mobs.

It got so bad that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot ordered the drawbridges raised.

Interestingly, activists attempted to justify the looting as “reparations.”

September

By September 1st, riots occurred for the 95th consecutive day in Portland.

Violence also erupted in Louisville, Kentucky when the Grand Jury declined to charge the officers accused of killing Breonna Taylor, a local paramedic, with homicide.

These protests also spread across the nation.

Some of those arrested in the New York City riots were entitled kids from wealthy families who were “enacting their revolutionary strategy.”.

October

In October, Walter Wallace was shot sixteen times by Philadelphia police during a mental health call after he refused to drop a knife.

Looting soon followed the rioting.

November

While America braced itself for riots based on the outcome of the hotly contested US presidential election, these fears did not come to fruition. In fact, the violence has slowed down since the outcome (which is still being argued by attorneys for President Trump.)

Did police shootings suddenly cease? Did racially-motivated violence end? Did the justice system radically evolve? Did everyone finally agree and settle their differences amicably?

It’s almost enough to make a person ask questions about the widespread violence from May through October.

What are your thoughts on this timing? Let me know in the comments.

About the Author

Daisy Luther

Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, gun-toting blogger who writes about current events, preparedness, frugality, voluntaryism, and the pursuit of liberty on her website, The Organic Prepper. She is widely republished across alternative media and she curates all the most important news links on her aggregate site, PreppersDailyNews.com. Daisy is the best-selling author of 4 books and lives in the mountains of Virginia with her two daughters and an ever-growing menagerie. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

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The Nashville Bombing vs. The Oklahoma City Bombing – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on December 30, 2020

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/12/29/the-nashville-bombing-vs-the-oklahoma-city-bombing/

Paul Craig Roberts

The Nashville bombing raises questions about the Oklahoma City bombing.  In 1995 the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was blown up.  Allegedly, the building was destroyed by a fertilizer bomb in a Ryder rental truck parked on the street.  The Murrah building had massive reinforced concrete columns, some being  3 feet thick if memory serves. The front third of the building was destroyed with columns turned to dust.

The guilty parties were allegedly Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.  According to reports, the blast killed 168 people, injured 680 others, and destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a 16-block radius along with 86 cars and caused $652 million of damage in 1995 dollars.

At the time US Air Force General Partin, who had high level responsibilities for ordinance and weapons development, distributed an expert report to 75 members of the House and Senate.  The report proved that the Murrah building blew up from the inside out.  Many Americans concluded that the truck bomb was cover for an inside job.  McVeigh and Nichols were regarded as patsies who thought they blew up the building, but their role was to direct attention away from those responsible.

General Partin’s report was quickly tossed into the Memory Hole. To get rid of the evidence the Murrah building was hauled away and buried just as the steel in the World Trade Center buildings in 2001 was sent abroad to be melted down, and an official bogus report was issued like the 9/11 official reports. Instead of a real investigation, we got a controlled explanation.

Twenty-five years after the Oklahoma City Bombing we have another bomb in a vehicle parked in the street in front of a building.  This time the building is an AT&T building. The parked vehicle with the bomb is a RV.

When the RV bomb went off, 3 people were injured, and building damage seems to be limited to blowing out windows.  Clearly, there is no  structural damage comparable to the Oklahoma City bombing.

Why?  Was the RV bomb just an oversized firecracker?  Or was General Partin, clearly an expert, correct when he concluded that the Murrah Federal building was blown up from the inside out?

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Leaked Pentagon Video: Flu Vaccine Used To Modify Human Behavior – YouTube – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on December 30, 2020

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/12/no_author/leaked-pentagon-video-flu-vaccine-use-to-modify-human-behavior-youtube/

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Erie Times E-Edition Article-County sees big drop in virus tally

Posted by M. C. on December 30, 2020

After 9-10 months they still can’t figure out the data for the biggest health event in a century. They don’t know if the statewide mitigation orders that are destroying Pennsylvania are doing any good.

“The number of COVID-19 deaths has not declined…”, “Erie County Executive Kathy Dahlkemper on Tuesday reported 147 new cases of COVID-19…”. Would you bet YOUR life on that data?

https://erietimes-pa-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=4ce8d85dc

Officials don’t know why numbers have declined

David Bruce

Erie Times-News USA TODAY NETWORK

Erie County’s number of new COVID-19 cases has declined significantly in recent days, though local health officials aren’t sure whether it’s due to statewide mitigation orders or holiday-related delays in testing and reporting…

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