If you were to read the local news sites in Las Vegas earlier this month, you would think that police—while saving the public from a dangerous murderer—were ambushed and two of them were shot, barely escaping with their lives. The “shooter’s” face, plastered on news sites, telling the public that he fired 18 shots at officers before they finally and heroically killed him. But Isaiah Tyree Williams wasn’t so much a shooter as he was a victim of police violence. Their badges do nothing to change this reality.
After police executed Williams in his own home, a report from a local CBS affiliate read as follows, “Police said the shooter, 19-year-old Isaiah Tyree Williams, opened fire when officers broke a window and entered the apartment near Nellis Boulevard and Vegas Valley Drive at about 5 a.m. on Monday.”
But the question is this: does defending your home from armed intruders make you a “shooter”?
Had Williams been accused or suspected of a crime, perhaps police may have been more justified in their actions. However, he was not. Williams was not the person police were looking for and thanks to their brutal incompetence, two cops are recovering from bullet wounds and a black teenager is dead.
On that early morning raid, police were looking for 23-year-old Wattsel Rembert who was not staying at that apartment. Rembert is accused of participating in a shooting at a casino back in November. Instead of simply arresting Rembert in a normal manner, police chose to dangerously show up in the middle of the night, bash in doors, throw flash bang grenades, and put everyone involved in danger.
During the raid, Williams, who was asleep on the sofa when armed intruders broke into his home, began firing after a flashbang grenade smashed through his window. Police answered back with their AR-15s and pistols, firing 23 shots into the teen’s body—executing him on the sofa. He was still under the blanket when he died.
Two of the armed intruders, Officer Kerry Kubla, 50, and Officer Brice Clements, 36 were injured in the shooting.
After the shooting, police held a press conference, during which they demonized Williams, rattling off all the charges Williams would have faced for defending himself in his own home against armed intruders who threw a grenade through his window as he slept.
“Had he survived,” police explained, “Williams would have been arrested on counts of attempted murder with use of a deadly weapon on a first responder; battery with a deadly weapon on a first responder, assault on a first responder and three counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied structure.”
For defending himself against armed intruders, clearly intent on doing him harm in his own home as he slept.
As you watch the video below, it is clear that police did yell, “police department, search warrant.” But they did so as they bashed in windows, set off a flash bang grenade and used a battering ram on the door.
The idea that a person—who had committed no crime—is supposed to wake up calmly as windows are breaking and grenades are exploding in their home is utterly asinine and speaks to the failed and ineffective nature of no-knock raids. Sadly, judging by the comments from Assistant Sheriff Andrew Walsh, police still think that early morning no-knock raids keep them safe.
“You have to take into consideration the danger to officers, the danger to the community if you’re ever in that area and in that neighborhood,” Walsh said. “In the early morning hours, it’s much safer for the officers and it’s much safer for the community for us to do it at that time because there are less people out.”
Had Williams not been executed and two officers shot during this raid, Walsh’s comments would be laughable. Unfortunately, however, they highlight the sheer disconnect between the reality of policing and playing warrior cop.
Exposing the entirely unnecessary nature of the raid is the fact that the actual person police were looking for, Wattsel Rembert, turned himself into police without incident.
Watch as cowboy cops in Las Vegas, Nevada serve a warrant on WRONG person; KILL HIM as he tries to figure out if he’s victim of home invasion. *Full shooting shown. pic.twitter.com/je7UoPBrt4
Known as “The Butcher of Prague,” Reinhard Heydrich was for the government of Nazi Germany an accomplished senior figure. He had the preferred look that many racialists enjoyed, clean cut and Germanic. A man that Adolf Hitler had described as having an “Iron Heart.” For many of the monumental events in the history of the Nazi government, Heydrich had helped organize or participated in them. From the 1936 Berlin Olympics to the Kristallnacht persecutions, he was a crucial element of the prewar government and its growth. Heydrich was an excellent administrator and would be an ideal asset for most any government; obedient, a stickler for bureaucraucy and administrative detail and void of compassion. A man of action. The particular ideology of the Nazi regime seemed to suit his talents and principles best. It was one of those perfect historical matches, where the outcome was terrible.
Heydrich became instrumental in establishing the task forces that rounded up Jewish people and placed them into ghettos. Some estimates claim that one million innocent people were murdered during the process of this bureaucratic implementation. Heydrich’s planning and attention to detail ensured that no child was left behind or no family was spared. No exceptions were made, it was the law. By 1941, Heydrich’s reputation was such that he was appointed as Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, what was formerly known as Czechoslovakia. Executions, arrests, and slavery ensued. For the history that was being written for the Nazi State, he was a great man. Which is why he was one of the key figures at the Wannsee Conference, the ninety minute meeting that would write the laws allowing for the mass extermination of those determined to be of Jewish descent. Genocide was to become official government policy.
The cruelty of Heydrich’s administration in Czechoslovakia was brutal. He was an efficient government director, calculating and obedient to the ambitions of the state. He was the viceroy of an already industrial and productive sector pre-occupation, and he milked and bled the people under his rule to gain profit for the state. The nation was at war and men like Heydrich were crucial in protecting the state from defeat from its many enemies. In 1942 Heydrich was killed by British military-trained Czechoslovakian operatives. For the Nazi state, a hero had been slain by foreign backed terrorists. The reprisal was horrible.
Immoral Revenge of the Law
The German government’s instinctive proposal was to kill 10,000 random Czechoslovakians, but after some consideration the plan was dropped. The region was an important industrial sector for the war effort, so such random mass murder could interfere with production. Over 13,000 people were arrested, most tortured. Approximately 5,000 were then executed. German military intelligence falsely linked the village of Lidice to the assassination. Everyone in Lidice was punished. On the spot 199 males were murdered. 195 women and 95 children were taken into custody and ended up in concentration camps. Rape and torture ensued; eventually the women were gassed to death along with 81 children. The village of Lidice and neighboring Lezaky were destroyed. The full power of the state and control over human life was on display as the spirit of vengeance took hold.
A thorough manhunt followed; the German government threatened to murder more innocent people if information relating to the culprits did not reach them by the end of a deadline. A bounty was also set for information leading to the capture of the killers of Heydrich. One of the culprits, Karel Caruda, gave himself up and shared the location of his contacts. For his confession he was paid one million Reich-marks. When the Nazi agents raided a safe house, a 17-year-old boy was tortured, forced to get drunk, and then shown his mother’s severed head that had been placed in a fish tank by the authorities, all attempts to get him to talk. He was told that if he did not give up information, his father would be next. He ended up revealing what he knew to save his father. He was later executed with his father, his fiance, and her family. The state rarely keeps its promises.
Others were arrested and a siege occurred at the Karel Boromejsky church. The defenders fought back with determination against a larger German paramilitary force. The defenders were armed with pistols and the German government, besides using conventional weapons of war, also deployed tear gas and had the local fire fighters flood the church. The defenders were eventually killed and identified. The bishop and senior church leaders were tortured and then murdered by the Nazis. The mathematics is always simple: the death of one government official is worth the blood of thousands of innocent civilians to the state.
An Exceptional Man and Collective Responsibility
Heydrich was mourned as a hero. Two large funeral ceremonies were held in his honor. A great leader of the Nazi Party had been assassinated by terrorists and the reprisal was a punishment to those associated by any collective identity to have been linked to the killing. It is the mindset that all governments impose when they embrace policies of vengeance. It may be the carpet bombing of cities, the targeted attacks on infrastructure, embargoes, or the destruction of Czechoslovakian villages. Because of his position in the German government Heydrich was an important human being. He is above others; in some ways such an individual is sacred and in death the government will sanctify such a man and justice will be absolute to any who would dare defy.
The collective responsibility of punishment utilized by the German government was not unique to the Nazi regime. It is in essence common among all governments. It is found inside of prohibitions and censorship and each regulation. The assumption that all are to be held responsible because of the imagined potential actions of a few or because in the past a minority had in some way been linked to that which is now being banned or controlled. The collective belongs to the state, to be ruled and regulated by the government. Regardless of the ideology of the government the outcome always is that the state is more important than individuals. The state is absolute but the elites that fill its key positions or hold influence are examples of unique human beings that transcend the rest of the citizenry. The more egalitarian the policies of the state, the more it collectivizes and the more the planners, experts, and policy makers of importance become exceptional and above all others.
Because the Nazi regime was defeated, men like Heydrich are no longer seen as heroes (except from among the ranks of a perverse few). Heydrich is seen as a criminal though he acted lawfully according to his own government. He was cruel and savage, though in victory he would have been justified. People like Heydrich are called monsters, though they were human beings. They left a path of pain and death for millions of innocent civilians. Any neutral moral observer would judge a person for such outcomes and that is all that should matter. No context needs to be considered other than the contribution to so many innocent deaths and countless tortures. We however do not live in a moral and neutral world; context and perspective seems to reign and steer many minds. For those inside Nazi Germany proper, Heydrich was a hero. His victims were necessary eggs to be broken in order to improve the omelette of the state, or so it is often said well beyond the bloody history of Nazi Germany.
Charges against the now-disgraced NYPD detective Joseph Franco are being welcomed by the families of more than 130 more New Yorkers as it is leading to the dismissal of their family members’ charges. Franco was reportedly caught framing innocent individuals last year and this is the second wave of case dismissals tied to his corruption..
Last April, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez’s Conviction Review Unit asked for the dismissal of 27 felony convictions and 63 misdemeanor convictions based on Franco’s corrupt policing. Now, that number has grown as Bronx Supreme Court Justice David Lewis granted the motion to drop the felony cases against 133 defendants who were indicted between 2011 and 2015.
“We did not want to dismiss or vacate out of hand all cases he was involved in; we investigated those that hinged on his testimony and sworn statements,” Bronx County District Attorney Darcel Clark said in a statement.
“[Franco’s] compromised credibility suggests a lack of due process in the prosecution of these defendants, and we cannot stand behind these convictions.”
An addition 250 cases are under review and a total of 500 cases could be dropped.
According to ABC 7, Franco was indicted in Manhattan for perjury, official misconduct and other charges in connection with four incidents whereby he allegedly framed numerous individuals for making narcotics transactions.
According to the Conviction Review Unit, the dozens of cases are being dismissed because Franco’s crimes have discredited his witness testimonies.
“Criminal convictions largely based on the work of corrupt former or active NYPD officers who engaged in misconduct while executing their duties flies in the face of the oaths officers take to protect and serve New Yorkers,” said Elizabeth Felber, director of the Wrongful Conviction Unit at The Legal Aid Society, in a statement, according to the NY Post.
After Gonzalez moved to dismiss cases under his office, Judge Matthew D’Emic moved to dismiss dozens of similar drug convictions tied to the corrupt cop. Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Keisha Espinal followed suit vacating more than 50 drug convictions.
As for Franco, he is currently awaiting trial on dozens of counts of first degree perjury and other related charges. Despite facing over a dozen charges in April 2019, and again in July 2019, Franco was not fired from the department until a year later in May of 2020.
“It shows you the unbelievable ripple effect that one individual who wears a shield can have on lives of hundreds, if not thousands,” said Aida Leisenring, a criminal defense attorney with Barket Epstein. “Overturning a wrongful conviction is not a substitute for justice, because the damage has already been done. Filing a lawsuit against the NYPD and receiving financial reparations for that, that’s a step towards justice.”
Unfortunately, there is no shortage of police officers like detective Franco. Here at the Free Thought Project, we report on cops who frame people frequently. One such cop, whose actions were similar to the actions of Franco was Jackson County Sheriff’s Deputy Zachary Wester.
Wester was arrested in 2019 after video surfaced of this drug enforcement cop planting meth on an innocent grandmother. After the release of that video, other videos surfaced, showing the officer planting drugs on other folks as well.
While it is no question that folks will claim that drugs found on them or in their possession “aren’t theirs” and “they don’t know how that got there,” nearly all of Wester’s cases had this characteristic. The videos showed that people were utterly shocked when Wester claimed to have found drugs in their vehicles. While a single person may have been lying, when everyone reacts the exact same way, something is up.
This characteristic led to assistant state attorney at the 14th Judicial Circuit, Christina Pumphrey, investigating the corrupt cop, and she discovered he’d been conducting this framing scheme for some time.
As a result of Pumphrey’s actions which led to Wester’s arrest, 119 people were exonerated and freed from jail.
This article was originally featured at The Free Thought Project and is republished with permission.
Various evidence presented in studies I have authored, which has been echoed by many other Western scholars who research these issues, show that both of these narratives are inaccurate. Indeed, the question of which side carried out the “snipers’ massacre” is central to understanding one of the “bloodiest and most controversial hours of European conflict since the end of the Cold War,” and the main tipping point in the escalating conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. According to testimonies by over 100 wounded protesters, several dozen prosecution witnesses, and forensic ballistic and medical examinations by government experts, the massacre of the absolute majority of protesters and police at the Maidan (central square) in Kyiv on February 20, 2014 was perpetrated principally by members of the Maidan opposition, specifically its far-right elements. This event precipitated the violent removal of the corrupt and oligarchic but democratically elected government in Ukraine, touching off a conflict which has since killed more than 13,000 people. Western governments were at least aware of, or de facto backed, the overthrow.
Enough is enough. It is time to stop wearing masks, or at the very least to eliminate mask mandates in all settings.
This is especially urgent for children in schools and universities, who suffer the effects of masks for long hours each day despite being at exceedingly low risk for death or serious illness from COVID.
We have a responsibility, once and for all, to reject the ludicrous, ever-shifting narratives underpinning masks as effective impediments to the spread of COVID infections.
Seriously people—STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus
—former US Surgeon General Jerome Adams in February 2020.
The story changed from “masks don’t work,” to “masks may work,” to “masks work and you must wear one.” Now the narrative switches yet again: “cloth masks don’t work, so you should wear a surgical or ‘well-fitted’ mask,” or even wear two!
Note that even as COVID evolves into a less dangerous omicron variant, we are supposed to increase the hysteria level by wearing masks intended for surgeons maintaining a sterile environment over open wounds. We are told this by the same political, medical, and media figures who have been “frequently wrong but never in doubt” about all things COVID over the past two long years. And they spoke with just as much bogus certainty then as they do now.
Perversely, the Biden administration recently ordered 400 million surgical N95 masks for distribution across the country. Since N95 masks are considered disposable, and meant to be worn at most perhaps 40 hours, it is unclear what happens in a week or two when 330 million Americans run out of their “free” personal protective equipment.
The UK has sensibly ended its mask mandates, both in public places (offices and other workplaces, bars, restaurants, sporting events, theaters) and thankfully schools. One young university student broke down in tears at the news, lamenting the inhumanity of her experience over the past two years. As British Health secretary Savid Javid stated, “We must learn to live with COVID in the same way we live with flu.”
Amen.
The arguments against masks are straightforward.
Masks don’t work. Or at least cloth masks don’t.
Even the CDC now admits what Dr. Anthony Fauci told the world in February 2020: cloth masks don’t work and there is no reason to wear one:
“The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you.”
I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location.
CNN’s dubious medical expert Dr. Lena Wen, previously an uber-masker, now tells us cloth masks are “little more than facial decorations.” And heroic skeptic Dr. Jay Bhattacharya cites both a Danish study and a Bangladeshi study which found cloth masks show little efficacy in preventing COVID.
Are we seriously prepared to wear tight and uncomfortable surgical masks all day to evade omicron?
Masks are filthy.
Humans lungs and our respiratory system are designed to inhale nitrogen and oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is literally a waste product, removed from the blood via our lungs. Masks may not trap injurious levels of carbon dioxide against our nose and mouth, but they certainly get filthy very quickly unless changed constantly. They also encourage mouth breathing, which can cause “mask mouth” symptoms including acne, bad breath, tender gums, and lip irritation.
Why would we ever interfere with natural breathing unless we felt sick, displayed symptoms, and were worried about infecting others? And in that case, why not just stay home?
Masks are dehumanizing.
Humans communicate verbally and nonverbally, and masks impede both forms. Masks muffle and distort our words. Our facial expressions are important cues to everyone around us; without those cues communication and understanding suffer. Infants and toddlers may be most affected, as a lack of facial engagement with parents and loved ones impedes the human connections and attachments formed during childhood.
Perhaps most disturbing, however, are the symbolic effects when millions of Americans dutifully wear masks based on flimsy evidence provided by deeply unimpressive people. Facelessness—the lack of individual identity, personality, and looks—is inherently dehumanizing and dystopian. Like prison or military uniforms, masks reduce our personal characteristics. Mask are muzzles, symbols of rote acquiescence to an ugly new normal nobody asked for or voted for.
Risk is inevitable.
Risk is omnipresent, and heavily subjective (e.g., COVID risk varies enormously with age and comorbidities). Nobody has a right to force interventions like masks onto others, just as nobody has a right to a hypothetical germ-free landscape. Exhalation is not aggression, short of purposefully attempting to sicken others. People wearing masks arguably shed slightly fewer COVID virus particles than those not, but this does not justify banning the latter from public life. As always, the overwhelming burden of justification for any intervention—including mask mandates—must rest on those proposing it, not those opposing it.
In sum, Americans are not children. Tradeoffs are part of every policy, whether government officials admit this or not. We know how to coexist with flu, just as we live with countless bacteria and viruses in our environment. We will similarly coexist with COVID. The goal is not to eliminate germs, and zero COVID is an absurdity. A healthy immune system, built up through diet, exercise, and sunlight will always be the best frontline defense against communicable disease. But diet, exercise, and sunlight cannot be outsourced to health officials or mandated by politicians.
Whatever slight benefits masks may provide are a matter for individuals to decide for themselves. People who feel sick with symptoms should stay home. We can all wash our hands frequently and thoroughly. Otherwise it is time for Americans to assert themselves against the dubious claims and non-existent legality of government COVID measures.
It is time to get back to normal life, and that starts with visible human faces.
This article was originally featured at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and is republished with permission.
“It’s my understanding that a guy can go out there and I mean, he can fall into a black hole,” Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr said of drivers getting entangled financially. “You know, we’ve had a lot of issues with Brookside.”
Jefferson County Sheriff Mark Pettway said the same.
“We get calls about Brookside quite regularly because they really go outside their jurisdiction to stop people,” Pettway said. “Most of the time people get stopped, they’re going to get a ticket. And they’re saying they were nowhere near Brookside.”
Police stops soared between 2018 and 2020. Fines and forfeitures – seizures of cars during traffic stops, among other things – doubled from 2018 to 2019. In 2020 they came to $610,000. That’s 49% of the small town’s skyrocketing revenue.
“This is shocking,” said Crowder. “No one can objectively look at this and conclude this is good government that is keeping us safer.”
Because people overwhelmed by debt have been shown to turn to crime to pay their fines “an argument can be made that this kind of policing creates crime,” Crowder said.
Brookside Police Chief Mike Jones, who spearheaded the change and grew the police department tenfold, at least, calls the town’s policing “a positive story.” Mayor Mike Bryan – a former councilman who assumed his position last year after the death of the previous mayor – sits and nods in agreement.
Jones said crime when he took over was higher than it appeared from numbers the town reported to the state. He said response times were long because Brookside often had to rely on the Jefferson County Sheriff’s department for service.
He said he’d like to see even more growth in revenue from fines and forfeitures.
“I see a 600% increase – that’s a failure. If you had more officers and more productivity you’d have more,” Jones said. “I think it could be more.”
As we enter the third year of the pandemic, every child age 5 and up is eligible to receive a COVID vaccine in the United States. Oddly, this development has been accompanied by increased pressure on kids to wear masks in school. Some private schools have gone beyond cloth-masking and mandated N95 (or equivalent) masks for children as young as 4. The Berkeley Unified School District in California recently began transitioning students to N95-level masking. This isn’t a matter of protecting children, their teachers, or their grandparents; it’s delusional and dangerous cultlike behavior.
The way to reduce scientific uncertainty when it comes to practices like masking young children is to conduct randomized studies. When it comes to masking kids in schools, the global scientific community has launched no such studies during the pandemic. The U.K. government recently commissioned a report on the efficacy of masks in school settings, which failed to identify any clear evidence in favor of this practice. Moreover, the authors write:
“Wearing face coverings may have physical side effects and impair face identification, verbal and non-verbal communication between teacher and learner. This means there are downsides to face coverings for pupils and students, including detrimental impacts on communication in the classroom.”
As noted, AFPC’s study shows farmers are currently facing nitrogen costs 80% higher than last year. That’s as Anhydrous Ammonia prices reached 2008 levels in October at over 1,000 dollars per ton. And those prices have been steadily rising ever since. “You’re talking fertilizer price that have gone up somewhere close to $200 an acre for this next year for some producers, and the revenue being generated is not offsetting that. And that’s just the fertilizer industry,” says Edgington. “That’s not even talking about the chemistry industry or land values or equipment that people can’t get. There is a big, big cash flow crunch coming. And the banking industry is nervous about it as well, as they watch what has been a pretty good year for agriculture could absolutely go completely backwards in this next growing season in a big way.”
Since the murder of George Floyd rocked the nation in 2020, across the country police departments and municipalities have passed legislation requiring cops to intervene if they see their fellow officer—like Derek Chauvin—committing a crime or violating someone’s rights. Since then, TFTP has reported on several instances of good cops stepping in to stop bad cops from unleashing their pent up anger on unwitting suspects. In the following scenario, however, a good cop stepped up to stop a bad cop and it got her attacked.
A veteran Sunrise police sergeant is on desk duty and under investigation this week after he was captured on video strangling a female officer. The incident unfolded in November but body camera footage from the shocking scene was only just released this week. Apparently, the audio in the footage is too revealing for the public to hear, so the video is silent but it’s bad enough.
On November 19, 2021, Sunrise police were arresting at man at a local convenience store for allegedly assaulting people outside. When the video begins, the man is in handcuffs and being loaded into the police cruiser. Though he was putting up some resistance at first, eventually the man sat down and got inside.
The suspect’s compliance was of no concern to Sgt. Christopher Pullease, however, who pulled up to the scene after the suspect was in the back of the squad car. For no apparent reason, Pullease began threatening the suspect with a can of pepper spray.
“I find it to be inappropriate and unprofessional, because what he did is he escalated the situation when calm was actually required,” Chief Anthony Rosa told 7 News Miami, describing Pullease’s actions that day as “disgusting.”
Luckily for the suspect, there was a good cop on the scene who was unafraid of stepping in to stop a bad cop in his tracks. As Pullease threatened the handcuffed man, priming the taxpayers of Sunrise for a lawsuit which they would be forced to fund, a brave female officer came from behind the raging cop and intervened.
As the video shows, the female officer grabbed Pullease by his duty belt and dragged him away before he could inflict anymore damage. The suspect had been saved, but the angry sergeant then turned his rage on the hero cop.
Pullease is then seen in the video grabbing the female officer by her neck, essentially strangling her as he shoved her backward for daring to stop him from carrying out his fantasies of aggression against incapacitated individuals. He then slams her up against the patrol car before turning his rage back on the handcuffed man.
Despite this clear act of assault captured on video, Pullease hasn’t been arrested, fired, or even placed on unpaid leave. Instead, he’s still collecting a paycheck as the department investigates. 7 News asked why that was the case.
“If one of us had ever grabbed an officer by the throat, we would be arrested. We would be put in jail. Why is that not happened with him?” 7 News asked the chief as he dodged the question.
“So there’s some details of the investigation that I’ve not disclosed, that I’m unable to disclose right now, and if any of the information that comes up during the investigation rises to a level of criminal behavior or criminal conduct, then we’ll address it appropriately.”
As you watch the video below, try to think of a situation in which the officer’s behavior is not criminal.
This case is similar to that of former Buffalo Police Officer, Cariol Horne who has been fighting for her pension since she was fired after 19 years on the force, over a near-identical incident in 2006 when she stopped a fellow officer from choking a handcuffed suspect. For her heroic actions, instead getting rewarded and allowed to retire, Horne was beaten and fired.
This article was originally featured at The Free Thought Project and is republished with permission.
On COI #217, Patrick MacFarlane joins Kyle Anzalone to break down SCOTUS’s ruling on Biden’s OSHA-enforced vaccine mandate and the federally-funded healthcare worker vaccine mandate. Pat explains why the court came to the decision on each case and gives a libertarian legal perspective.
Pat discusses the Virginia Beach police generating confessions with fabricated DNA evidence. The practice can easily create false confessions. Pat and Kyle talk about the possibility of cops being held accountable for lying to suspects.
Kyle and Pat discuss the creation of a new Department of Justice force that will target ‘domestic terrorism.’ The force is a result of the government’s inflated fear of another 1/6 event.
According to new data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, price inflation in December rose again to a new multidecade high, rising to the highest level recorded in nearly forty years. According to the Consumer Price Index for December, year-over-year price inflation rose to 7.1 percent. It hasn’t been that high since June 1982, when the growth rate was at 7.2 percent.
December’s increase was up from November’s year-over-year increase of 6.9 percent. And it was well up from December 2020’s year-over-year increase of 1.3 percent.
This surge in price inflation is likely to further increase political pressure on the Federal Reserve and Chair Jerome Powell to “do something” about price inflation. After months of insisting that price inflation is “transitory” and not a cause for concern, it became clear by October 2021 that price inflation was surging to some of the worst levels experienced in several decades.
Since then, the Fed has completely changed its tune, and Powell this week called inflation a “severe threat” and reiterated that the Fed plans to raise the target federal funds rate:
As we move through this year…if things develop as expected, we’ll be normalizing policy, meaning we’re going to end our asset purchases in March, meaning we’ll be raising rates over the course of the year.
Note the conditional “if things develop as expected.” Naturally, the Fed’s planned tightening will depend heavily on whether or not the Fed’s economic indicators show ongoing economic improvement and a bullish stock market.
For many Americans, though, the news is already bad, and inflation is taking a bite out of workers’ purchasing power. December’s numbers on average hourly earnings show that inflation is continuing to erase the gains made in workers’ earnings. During December 2021, average hourly earnings increased 4.7 percent year over year. But with inflation at 7.1 percent, earnings clearly aren’t keeping up:
Looking at this gap, we find that real earnings growth has been negative for the past eight months, coming in at—2.3 percent year-over-year growth for December 2021.
Combined with December’s unemployment rate of 3.9 percent, November’s inflation growth puts the U.S. misery index at 11. Those are “recession-like levels” and similar to the misery index levels experienced when the unemployment rate surged in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
In addition to Consumer Price Index inflation, asset-price inflation will likely continue to be troublesome for consumers as well. For example, according to the Federal Housing and Finance Agency, home price growth has surged in recent months, with year-over-year growth now coming in at 16.4 percent.
Apparently, though, the earnings data isn’t capturing the reality of how great the economy really is. As Newsweeknoted last week, much of the American public is unhappy with today’s economy in which earnings are falling behind thanks to inflation. But this doesn’t bother economists like Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution, who points to the stock market as evidence that the public’s “perceptions may not mirror reality.” More explicit was Paul Krugman, who declares: “[T]his is actually a very good economy, albeit with some problems.” Mark Zandy at Moody’s analytics insists “the economy is booming. It’s busting out all over.”
Many voters—who perhaps aren’t quite as prosperous and distant from the troubles of daily life as highly paid economists—disagree with these rosy assessments. And that will continue to result in additional pressure to both the administration and the Fed.
But we’ll find out very soon if the Fed agrees with the idea that the economy is “busting out all over.” Although Powell has stated that he believes the economy no longer needs emergency stimulus, that doesn’t mean the economy can tolerate anything more than a tiny amount of trimming to the Fed’s asset purchases, low interest rates, and other manifestations of quantitative easing. The fact is that in our bubble economy, the boom can only continue so long as infusions of newly created credit continue. The Fed likely won’t have to reverse course on quantitative easing for very long before the lack of ongoing stimulus puts the U.S. on a path to recession. And this likely ends up being the choice the Fed faces: Will it choose to keep the boom going by avoiding a real scaling back of stimulus? Or will it truly try to tackle inflation and set off a recession as a result?
Given that it’s an election year, it’s hard to see the Fed doing anything that might even risk a recession, but if Consumer Price Index inflation continues to climb, the Fed might be forced to do so.
Covid The Navy has now removed 45 sailors for failing to take the covid vaccine. [Link] The US donates 900,000 Pfizer covid vaccine doses to Laos. [Link] The US will send two million Pfizer covid vaccine doses to Kenya and Morocco. [Link] US News In the first half of...
Various evidence presented in studies I have authored, which has been echoed by many other Western scholars who research these issues, show that both of these narratives are inaccurate. Indeed, the question of which side carried out the “snipers’ massacre” is central...
Remember when Congress at least pretended to discuss policy? Remember it was a battle of ideas and not changing the system just to win? More comics at the Webcomic Factory.
“It’s my understanding that a guy can go out there and I mean, he can fall into a black hole,” Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr said of drivers getting entangled financially. “You know, we’ve had a lot of issues with Brookside.” Jefferson County Sheriff...
Courageously protecting the world from people who drive white Toyota Corollas and move stuff around town. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/military-releases-videos-august-drone-strike-killed-civilians/index.html
Scott is joined by Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute to discuss Yemen. Sheline wrote an article recently about the shifting balance of the war. One year after Biden announced an end to U.S. support for offensive Saudi operations, the bombing campaign remains as...
Scott interviews Richard Hanania of Defense Priorities. They discuss the reality of how the American military’s presence impacts global events. Hanania argues that, if it were true that the U.S. was out there defending its allies, you’d expect those countries to want...
Scott is joined by Clint Ehrlich who recently went viral after his appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show struck the nerve of a handful of foreign policy “experts.” So Scott invited him on the show to dive deeper into his arguments. They discuss why Ehrlich is nervous...
Scott interviews Zaher Wahab of the Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education about the economic catastrophe taking place in Afghanistan. Although the U.S. Government claimed it was working to develop Afghanistan, Wahab explains that what it really did was prop...
On COI #222, Kyle Anzalone and Connor Freeman cover the hawks advocating the killing of Russians, the ongoing Cold War with China, and recent violence in Syria. Connor reviews his latest column discussing the Washington imperial elite’s calls for Russian blood during...
On COI #221, Kyle Anzalone discusses the Ukraine crisis. Biden has overextended American commitments and now must make concessions to defuse the crisis. Even if it leads to war, the Blob will demand that Biden hold firm against Putin. While the US continues to take...
On COI #220, Kyle Anzalone discusses the recent talks between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. While no deal was reached, the two diplomats were able to make progress on limited issues. However, after the talks ended,...
On COI #219, Kyle Anzalone is joined by Dave DeCamp - News Editor at Antiwar.com - to review Biden’s first year as president. Dave breaks down Biden’s Ukraine policy. At a recent press conference, Biden suggested, if there is a small Russian invasion of Ukraine, the...
https://youtu.be/jjzTu_joO1A ... universal education has in fact led to a general degradation of cultural and educational standards. Murray N. Rothbard, Ph.D., Economic Controversies, p. 566 Jason Bedrick is the director of policy at EdChoice and was a policy analyst...
https://youtu.be/fqbxcDjs15k In politics, whenever I hear the word “unity,” to paraphrase the famous words of a German politico of the 1930’s, “I reach for my revolver.” For almost always, “unity” is a scam, a call to abandon principle and follow the leader into some...
https://youtu.be/Nl1XqsSI_MI ... interventionism is not only immoral and aggressive; it doesn’t work. We must regain liberty at home, end all interventions in other countries, and return to the historic, forgotten “foreign policy” of serving as an example and a...
https://youtu.be/AJCUX3FwWkU One of the most vital struggles in the writing and publishing of history is the conflict between the government’s propaganda myths, enshrined in “official history,” and historical reality brought forward by “revisionism.” Murray N....
https://youtu.be/ffkZukAL2Rk Indeed, international establishment has long drooled over the prospect of a "Cyber 9/11." It would be a single catalyzing event to usher in the pre-planned response: a "Digital Patriot Act." If successful, this event could forever change...
https://youtu.be/bE8SGCFsYXk In December, the UN met in its second-ever "Special Session" to discuss what they are calling a "Global Pandemic Treaty." In this session, it adopted a road map called "The World Together." This road map sets deadlines for the production...
https://youtu.be/QfgZLNj31xY In this episode, I analyze the truth of the Vietnam war as it is covered up by Ken Burns' Vietnam PBS series. Episode 197 of the Liberty Weekly Podcast is Brought to you by: Join Liberty Weekly and tons of your favorite creators on Rokfin...
https://youtu.be/p9ycCASQohU In this episode, I uncover Wisconsin's leading role in the eugenics movement by exploring the "Wisconsin Home for the Feebleminded," a correctional institution that I rode by on the school bus every day growing up. Episode 197 of the...
Drew, The Clean Libertarian, joins me again. This time Drew has received a pardon and is working on legislation at the state level, so I wanted to catch up and have a more positive episode for y’all. Drew Twitter The Clean Libertarian Discord Libertarian Institute 19...
Brett Hawes joined me to discuss the history of South Africa, how it was the testing ground for the tyranny being rolled out today, the WEF corporate governance agenda, and how COVID has been taken advantage of to empower the parasite class and destroy the middle...
Michael Harris is back. In this episode we discuss COVID, the SCOTUS decision on the OSHA mandate, the mandate on healthcare workers, and Hoppe. Libertarian Institute 19 Skills Pdf Autonomy Course Critical Thinking Course Donate Patreon...
Patrick joined me again to discuss MK Ultra, CIA operations, and eugenics and how these programs may have been instrumental in educating the elites in the psychology of the masses. Patrick Twitter Liberty Weekly Libertarian Institute 19 Skills Pdf Autonomy Course...
