Early results from antibody testing in Colorado suggest far more people have been infected with the novel coronavirus than recorded confirmed cases account for, thus drastically dropping the estimated fatality rate of COVID-19, analysis from <a href="https://reason.com/2020/04/08/mass-antibody-testing-in-this-rural-colorado-county-sheds-light-on-covid-19s-prevalence-and-lethality/">Reason</a> argued Wednesday.
United Biomedical, in collaboration with the Department of Health and Environment, is seeking to roll out some 8,000 antibody tests in coming days or weeks. Thus far, they have taken 6,000 blood tests, of which 986 have been processed.
According to a <a href="https://www.sanmiguelcountyco.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=513">release</a> from the San Miguel County Public Health Department, of the 986 processed tests from late March, 955 came back negative, eight were positive, and 23 were ambiguous or &#8220;borderline.&#8221;
The health department explained the three results as follows:
<blockquote>
A positive result on the first blood test means that individual has been exposed to COVID-19 (and may or may not have ever experienced symptoms).
An indeterminate or borderline result on the first test indicates that the result produced a “high-signal flash” which is not enough to produce a positive result. It means that the individual may have been recently exposed to COVID-19 and/or may be in the early stage of producing antibodies.
A negative result on the first blood test means that an individual either has not been exposed to COVID-19 –OR— the person is in the window of having recently been exposed and has not yet developed antibodies that would make the test result be positive.
</blockquote>
&#8220;Counting only the positive results, and assuming this initial sample is representative of the county, these findings suggest that something like 0.8 percent of the local population has been infected by the virus,&#8221; Reason explained.
However, due to San Miguel County&#8217;s population density, &#8220;the prevalence of infection is likely to be a lot higher in areas of the country where people are more closely packed together,&#8221; the outlet said, noting that the &#8220;<a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/">average population density</a> for the entire country is 94 people per square mile, 16 times the rate in San Miguel County.&#8221;
&#8220;Applying the low prevalence estimate for San Miguel County to the national population implies something like 2.6 million infections,&#8221; Reason noted. &#8220;Applying the high estimate raises that number to nearly 10 million, compared to 418,000 <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/">confirmed cases</a> at last count. And whatever the actual prevalence is in San Miguel County, the national average is apt to be substantially higher.&#8221;
On the low end of infection prevalence, Reason estimates &#8220;the crude case fatality rate (CFR) for the United States, currently 3.4 percent, drops to something like 0.5 percent, which would make COVID-19 about five times as deadly as the seasonal flu.&#8221;
Looking at the high end of infection prevalence, &#8220;the actual fatality rate would be only slightly higher than 0.1 percent, the estimated CFR for the flu.&#8221;
Of course, there are caveats and unknowns. For example, is the fatality count for COVID-19 inflated, or is undercounted? As noted by Dr. Deborah Birx, the United States is recording coronavirus in &#8220;very liberal&#8221; fashion; if someone has COVID-19, &#8220;we are counting that,&#8221; the influential doctor said at a recent White House briefing. However, Dr. Birx also made note that deaths in January and February were likely undercounted, since the disease was not fully on our radar, nor were tests as readily available.
If the deaths are undercounted, it would wrongly skew the fatality rate too low; and if they are inflated, the death rate would be skewed too high.
&#8220;Even allowing for delayed and undocumented deaths, it obviously makes a huge difference whether the overall prevalence of infection in the United States is 0.1 percent, as the official tally improbably suggests; close to 1 percent, as the initial tests indicate for San Miguel County; or several times that figure, as we might surmise based on relative population densities,&#8221; Reason concludes.
<a href="https://reason.com/2020/04/08/mass-antibody-testing-in-this-rural-colorado-county-sheds-light-on-covid-19s-prevalence-and-lethality/">Read the full report here.</a>

Corona Virus In Red Background – Microbiology And Virology Concept

How Lethal Is Coronavirus? Antibody Testing Results In Colorado Gives Us Better Insight.

COVID

Reason Magazine

Everything&#8217;s about to get really, reallllly, weird.
A new Ipsos poll provided exclusively to the <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-poll-43-of-republicans-want-to-give-trump-the-power-to-shut-down-media?ref=home">Daily Beast</a> finds that 43% self-identified Republicans say they think &#8220;the president should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behavior.&#8221;
<blockquote>
Only 36 percent disagreed with that statement. When asked if Trump should close down specific outlets, including CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, nearly a quarter of Republicans (23%) agreed and 49 percent disagreed.
Republicans were far more likely to take a negative view of the media. Forty-eight percent of them said they believed &#8220;the news media is the enemy of the American people&#8221; (just 28 percent disagreed) while nearly four out of every five (79 percent) said that they believed &#8220;the mainstream media treats President Trump unfairly.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Democrats, of course, didn&#8217;t have the same feeling (what with the liberal slant of the mainstream media). Just 12% of self-identified Democrats think &#8220;the president should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behavior,&#8221; while 74% disagreed.
President Trump has bashed the media since he began running for the White House and has labeled outlets like CNN and the Post as &#8220;fake news.&#8221;
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger, Senate Democrats are reportedly circulating plans for a government takeover of the internet, <a href="https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/31/democrats-tech-policy-plans-leaked?utm_source=deployer&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=ConservativeFWD+Daily&amp;utm_content=20180807161113">Reason</a> reports.
<blockquote>
A leaked memo circulating among Senate Democrats contains a host of bonkers authoritarian proposals for regulating digital platforms, purportedly as a way to get tough on Russian bots and fake news. To save American trust in &#8220;our institutions, democracy, free press, and markets,&#8221; it suggests, we need unprecedented and undemocratic government intervention into online press and markets, including &#8220;comprehensive (GDPR-like) data protection legislation&#8221; of the sort enacted in the E.U.
Titled &#8220;Potential Policy Proposals for Regulation of Social Media and Technology Firms,&#8221; the draft policy paper&#8212;penned by Sen. Mark Warner and leaked by an unknown source to Axios&#8212;the paper starts out by noting that Russians have long spread disinformation, including when &#8220;the Soviets tried to spread &#8216;fake news&#8217; denigrating Martin Luther King&#8221; (here he fails to mention that the Americans in charge at the time did the same). But NOW IT&#8217;S DIFFERENT, because technology.
</blockquote>
So brace yourself. It&#8217;s all going to get much worse &#8212; and much weirder &#8212; in the coming days.

New Poll: 43% Of Republicans Want To Give Trump The Power To Shut Down Media

Democratic Party

Donald Trump

Fake News

New York Times

Republican Party

Washington Post

On Thursday, ReasonTV uploaded a new video featuring John Stossel.
Stossel begins the video with the following: &#8220;The Supreme Court is about to decide: Do you have to pay union dues if your workplace is unionized? When I worked at CBS and ABC, I had to. I was told: &#8216;This is a union shop; you must pay up.&#8217; But now the court may say for government workers, that&#8217;s unconstitutional.&#8221;
Over the course of the video, Stossel speaks with teacher Rebecca Friedrichs, who sued the California Teachers Association, as well as Steve Kreisberg, a representative for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
&#8220;Rebecca got mad at her union during the last recession. When she tried to save some teachers jobs by getting all the teachers to take a slight pay cut,&#8221; Stossel says.
<blockquote>
STOSSEL: They were willing to take a cut?
FRIEDRICHS: Absolutely [they] were willing to have that discussion. And all of America was taking a pay cut pretty much &#8211; why should we be any different?
</blockquote>
But Stossel notes that &#8220;the union wouldn&#8217;t even allow her to survey the other teachers.&#8221;
<blockquote>
FRIEDRICHS: They said absolutely not &#8211; would not let me send out that survey. They told me: &#8220;Rebecca, don&#8217;t worry about those teachers who are going to lose their jobs, the union&#8217;s going to take care of them. We&#8217;re going to give them a seminar on how to get unemployment benefits.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Rebecca sued the California Teachers Association, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. However, upon the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the court deadlocked, sending the judgment back down to the lower court. The union won &#8211; but that&#8217;s not the end of the story. Another government employee, Mark Janus, filed a separate lawsuit that, like Friedrichs&#8217; before it, has made its way up to SCOTUS.
Stossel&#8217;s then speaks with Kreisberg, the rep for AFSCME:
<blockquote>
KREISBERG: It&#8217;s his right to dissent and not be a member of our union. He only has to pay the fees. &#8230;
STOSSEL: But what&#8217;s the point in that if you have to pay? That&#8217;s the main reason he doesn&#8217;t want to join. He doesn&#8217;t want to be forced to pay for something he doesn&#8217;t agree with.
KREISBERG: Well, I&#8217;m not sure if he doesn&#8217;t agree with it, or he simply doesn&#8217;t want to pay because he&#8217;d like to get those services for free.
</blockquote>
Back with Friedrichs, Stossel plays devil&#8217;s advocate: &#8220;The union could say: &#8216;We are bargaining for all you teachers. If you don&#8217;t join the union, you&#8217;re a free rider.&#8217;&#8221; Friedrichs replies, &#8220;I never asked for their representation.&#8221;
<blockquote>
STOSSEL: All right, but you&#8217;re getting it, and presumably benefiting.
FRIEDRICHS: If I saw their representation as a benefit, then I could agree with that. But I don&#8217;t see it as a benefit. Their benefits aren&#8217;t worth the moral costs.
</blockquote>
Hearing Friedrichs&#8217; statement, Kreisberg says, &#8220;To me, that sounds like the words of a right-wing activist, not the words of a teacher.&#8221; Stossel hits back: &#8220;She was a teacher who got together with other teachers and said, &#8216;Let&#8217;s take a pay cut so nobody has to get fired,&#8217; and the union said, &#8216;No, you may not even put that to a vote.&#8217;&#8221;
<blockquote>
KREISBERG: They elected somebody else. So she has no more right to call a vote than Hillary Clinton has the right to conduct foreign policy for the United States of America.&#8221;
STOSSEL: Thomas Jefferson believed that &#8220;to compel a man to furnish contributions &#8230; for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves &#8230; is sinful and tyrannical.&#8221;
KREISBERG: Thomas Jefferson had no sense of 21st century labor relations.
</blockquote>
Stossel concludes the video with the following: &#8220;Now the Supreme Court will decide. Oral arguments are scheduled for Monday. The court will announce its decision sometime this summer. I hope they&#8217;ll see it the way Jefferson did. Forcing someone to pay for something they don&#8217;t want is tyranny.&#8221;
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="385" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c_JGRpqln8E" width="720"></iframe></div>

WATCH: ReasonTV’s John Stossel Talks About The Upcoming SCOTUS Case That Could Cripple Public Sector Unions

Teachers Unions

ReasonTV recently uploaded a video titled, &#8220;How Free are You?&#8221; The video features John Stossel speaking about the latest freedom rankings from the Fraser and CATO Institutes:
<blockquote>
Every year, researchers at the Fraser and CATO Institutes compare economic freedoms like the freedom to trade, amount of regulation, tax levels, plus personal freedoms like women&#8217;s rights and religious freedom. They publish the results in the Human Freedom Index. It compares countries according to how free they are. So, is America the freest country? No. We came in 17th this year, well behind many other countries.
</blockquote>
Stossel speaks with Ian Vasquez of the CATO Institute who co-authored the Freedom Index. Vasquez notes that the United States &#8220;used to have one of the freest economies in the world&#8221; before &#8220;government started to grow.&#8221; Stossel adds, &#8220;And regulate more, and tax more.&#8221;
Stossel continues, examining countries that rank higher on the index, like Switzerland and Hong Kong:
<blockquote>
Why does Switzerland rank first in the world? Because it has comparatively little regulation, low taxes, a free press, and other freedoms.
&#8230; A good ranking matters &#8211; not just because it&#8217;s good to be free, but because freedom allows people to prosper. Look what happened in Hong Kong &#8211; number two on the list. Not long ago, people in Hong Kong were among the poorest in the world, but now they&#8217;re among the richest. Prosperity happened because Hong Kong&#8217;s government put few obstacles in the way of trying new things like starting a business.
</blockquote>
Stossel then recounts that when he attempted to open a business in Hong Kong several years ago, all it took was a simple form. It was a &#8220;stupid business,&#8221; but he opened it to show how easy it was to compete in a free marketplace.
He then goes on to talk about some of the least free countries:
<blockquote>
By comparison, India ranks much lower because there, to start a business, entrepreneurs may have to wait years while bureaucrats like these debate the merit of your idea. Good ideas die waiting on these shelves. That&#8217;s a reason India stays poor.
&#8230; Second least-free country, Venezuela, was once the richest country in Latin America. Then socialists promised they&#8217;d spread the wealth. Now, Venezuelans fight over bags of flour.
</blockquote>
Speaking of Ireland, ranked number four on the index, CATO&#8217;s Vasquez says, &#8220;They reduced taxes; they reduced spending; they reduced some regulations; they opened up to trade.&#8221;
Stossel concluded with the following: &#8220;It&#8217;s too bad of the U.S. is now only 17th in the rankings, but the good news is that we are 17th partly because in recent years, other countries became more free.&#8221;
Check out the entire video here:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="385" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iybsZGP0ciE" width="720"></iframe></div>

ReasonTV: Why Is The U.S. Only Ranked 17th On The Human Freedom Index?

Economy

ReasonTV&#8217;s John Stossel is back with another fascinating video. The topic this time is food trucks, and how government regulators are trying to &#8220;bottleneck&#8221; the industry.
Stossel spoke with two food truck operators in Chicago, Laura Pekarik and Joey Vanoni, who are struggling against regulations put in place in order to &#8220;protect&#8221; brick and mortar restaurants. One of these regulations stipulates that a food truck cannot park within 300 feet of an existing restaurant that sells the same products. For Vanoni, who makes and sells pizza, following such a regulation is a daunting task.
Stossel also spoke with two individuals on opposing sides of the economic debate &#8212; Dick Carpenter of the Institute for Justice, and Chicago Alderman Tom Tunney.
&#8220;Food trucks are just a way for people to enter,&#8221; says Carpenter. &#8220;The costs are often much less for a food truck, so it&#8217;s a way for them to get into business, and then grow that business into something bigger.&#8221;
Tunney, who allegedly sets the regulations in his district, has a different perspective, saying: &#8220;I&#8217;m going to be prejudicial toward those kinds of businesses because that keeps my neighborhood. A brick and mortar is a much more stable enterprise.&#8221;
Tunney notes, however, that he himself is a restaurant operator in Chicago.
These kinds of regulations, Dick Carpenter states, are being used to &#8220;keep competitors as far away as possible.&#8221; Playing devil&#8217;s advocate, Stossel asks: &#8220;The guy who opened the restaurant and had to pay real estate taxes, and pay for his building, isn&#8217;t he getting ripped off by these new guys?&#8221;
Carpenter replies: &#8220;That assumes that the food truck operator doesn&#8217;t pay expenses of the same type. In fact, food truck operators pay taxes, they pay rents, and through their rents they pay property taxes.&#8221;
According to Stossel, Pekarik and Vanoni are &#8220;fighting the regulations in court. They argue it&#8217;s unconstitutional to favor one industry at the expense of another.&#8221;
Check out the video for more details:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" gesture="media" height="385" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x2duCmY4wVs" width="720"></iframe></div>

WATCH: ReasonTV’s John Stossel On How Government Regulators Are Strangling Food Truck Entrepreneurs

Conservatism

On Monday, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro elicited an incendiary and violent response from, ironically, an editor at Reason magazine after Shapiro simply said he didn&#8217;t believe &#8220;transgender women&#8221; were actually women.
The set-up for the situation was this. Shapiro was responding to this tweet:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
trans women are women 
trans women are women 
trans women are women 
trans women are women 
trans women are women 
trans women are women 
trans women are women 
trans women are women 
trans women are women 
trans women are women 
trans women are women 
trans women are women
pass it on
&#8212; brooke (@dirak_) <a href="https://twitter.com/dirak_/status/929479655089942529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 11, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
Shapiro responded by issuing a tweet with a rather simple message:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Nope 
Nope 
Nope 
Nope 
Nope 
Nope 
Nope 
Nope 
Nope 
Nope 
Nope<a href="https://t.co/TV9Zy0fkBu">https</a><a href="https://t.co/TV9Zy0fkBu">://t.co/TV9Zy0fkBu</a>
&#8212; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/932504794328993797?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
In case the message got misinterpreted, he immediately followed with this:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Oh yeah, and also, nope. Nope.
&#8212; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/932505017021431810?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet"></div>
Shapiro&#8217;s dismissal of the transgender argument prompted a female editor for Reason who is a self-described &#8220;elder millennial&#8221; and writes about civil liberties and crime, to show her capacity for entertaining an argument with which she disagreed:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
People protesting Shapiro had the wrong idea. This dude needs his smug mug punched, repeatedly <a href="https://t.co/iVxWpoCQtl">https://t.co/iVxWpoCQtl</a>
&#8212; Elizabeth Nolan Brown (@ENBrown) <a href="https://twitter.com/ENBrown/status/932591035376529413?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
Shapiro replied:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
You seem nice <a href="https://t.co/8jbpPzEO94">https://t.co/8jbpPzEO94</a>
&#8212; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/932619293744775170?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
It&#8217;s weird that an associate editor at libertarian magazine <a href="https://twitter.com/reason?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@reason</a> thinks physical violence against dissenters is awesome now. Not very libertarian. <a href="https://t.co/RbLXzLisnR">https://t.co/RbLXzLisnR</a>
&#8212; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/932623743720964096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
As another conservative noted:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Not just that, but the threat is made to discourage you from speaking the truth. Scary. <a href="https://t.co/ybbNoradcw">https://t.co/ybbNoradcw</a>
&#8212; Mollie (@MZHemingway) <a href="https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/932645668262363136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
Shapiro added:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Also, I&#8217;m going to have to seriously consider now offering a &#8220;Smug Mug&#8221; at the upcoming Shapiro Store. <a href="https://t.co/RbLXzLisnR">https://t.co/RbLXzLisnR</a>
&#8212; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/932624591675039744?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
Brown&#8217;s tweet prompted some swift responses:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Or you could try defeating him in debate, which is what adults do.
&#8212; Gene Killian (@genethelawyer) <a href="https://twitter.com/genethelawyer/status/932614240761982976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
How dare someone say something manifestly true and not be beaten for it because you don&#8217;t like it. 
I keep warning people about making new rules and they just won&#8217;t listen.<a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@benshapiro</a>
&#8212; Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) <a href="https://twitter.com/KurtSchlichter/status/932647136356737024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Expert on crime and civil liberties advocates crime against someone for exercising his civil liberties. <a href="https://t.co/e6dQURSMah">https://t.co/e6dQURSMah</a>
&#8212; Razor (@hale_razor) <a href="https://twitter.com/hale_razor/status/932648072567431168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Don&#8217;t worry, <a href="https://twitter.com/ENBrown?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ENBrown</a>. Calling on people to punch <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@benshapiro</a> in the face directly violates Twitter&#8217;s policy against inciting targeted violence, but it doesn&#8217;t violate the SPIRIT of the policy; which is precisely to malign easy targets on the Right.
But you knew that. <a href="https://t.co/1OvJCuUr4r">pic.twitter.com/1OvJCuUr4r</a>
&#8212; Stephen Herreid (@StephenHerreid) <a href="https://twitter.com/StephenHerreid/status/932599748233760768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@benshapiro</a> It seems unhelpful to call for violence in a time where people are actually attacked on the street for their beliefs.
&#8212; Mark Gleason (@LevelToPower) <a href="https://twitter.com/LevelToPower/status/932602551194869762?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
a punch to the face is lethal force, multiple punches even more dangerous. you can get shot doing that sort of thing. do you ever think this shit through before you spew it?
&#8212; red seewun (@redc1c4) <a href="https://twitter.com/redc1c4/status/932661888176963584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
[[{&#8220;fid&#8221;:&#8221;27199&#8243;,&#8221;view_mode&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;fields&#8221;:{&#8220;format&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:false,&#8221;field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:&#8221;screenshot from Twitter&#8221;},&#8221;type&#8221;:&#8221;media&#8221;,&#8221;field_deltas&#8221;:{&#8220;2&#8221;:{&#8220;format&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:false,&#8221;field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:&#8221;screenshot from Twitter&#8221;}},&#8221;attributes&#8221;:{&#8220;title&#8221;:&#8221;screenshot from Twitter&#8221;,&#8221;class&#8221;:&#8221;media-element file-default&#8221;,&#8221;data-delta&#8221;:&#8221;2&#8243;}}]]
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Guess you lost a debate to <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@benshapiro</a>. Sorry.
&#8212; Erin Murray (@MsErinMurray) <a href="https://twitter.com/MsErinMurray/status/932647393077719041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>

Leftist Demands Americans Say ‘Trans Women Are Women.’ Shapiro Refuses. Magazine Editor Says People Should Punch Shapiro.

Ben Shapiro

Leftism

Transgender

ReasonTV released a new video on Monday regarding the way the government regulates the sugar industry.
While such an issue may seem peripheral or even irrelevant in light of numerous other problems the United States faces today, the way in which the federal government regulates and subsidizes sugar is a microcosm of a much more insidious system that permeates Washington D.C. &#8212; cronyism.
Sugar is just one industry that is tightly controlled. Cronyists in Washington waste taxpayer dollars on subsidies for numerous other industries like solar power, oil, dairy, corn, and manufacturing.
Here are some other sugary nuggets from ReasonTV&#8217;s salvo against cronyism in the sugar industry:
<blockquote>
&#8220;Sugar costs are why Chicago is no longer the candy capital of the world [and] why Oreo and York Peppermint Patty and Hershey&#8217;s have moved out of the country.&#8221;
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
&#8220;A report from the International Trade Administration found that nearly three jobs in candy-making were lost for every one sugar-growing job protected.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Check out the surprisingly fascinating video here:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" gesture="media" height="385" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xlaNWD5ofWU" width="720"></iframe></div>

ReasonTV: ‘How Sugar Subsidies Ruin Halloween’

Halloween

Recently fired Google engineer James Damore told Reason Magazine that the internet company sent regular &#8220;microaggression&#8221; memos to employees, citing examples of non-compliant behavior in the workplace.
Until a few weeks ago, James Damore was a Google software engineer, but he made a critical error, according to the company, when he authored a &#8216;diversity&#8217; memo criticizing the internet company&#8217;s hiring policies with regard to gender, suggesting that they celebrate the biological differences between men and women, and insinuating that the company had fallen victim to a censorious culture of political correctness.
He was fired the day after the memo went public. Google claims they let him go because of a violation of internal company policy.
Damore <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlSL6VH7L58">recently did an in-depth interview about his ordeal</a> with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro.
<a href="http://reason.com/archives/2017/08/14/an-interview-with-james-damore/1">In a </a><a href="https://reason.com/archives/2017/08/14/an-interview-with-james-damore/1">o</a><a href="http://reason.com/archives/2017/08/14/an-interview-with-james-damore/1">ne-on-one</a> with Reason columnist Cathy Young, Damore said that Google would regularly call out its own employees for minor incidents that the company claimed were harming the tender sensibilities of its workforce, like using politically incorrect pronouns or &#8220;offensive&#8221; photos of physically attractive women.
Young asks, &#8220;You also mentioned the policing of &#8220;microaggressions.&#8221; In the published responses to your memo in internal Google discussions, someone mentioned people being shamed for using the phrase &#8220;guys&#8221; for a mixed group. Was there a lot of that going on?&#8221;
&#8220;Yes, &#8216;microaggressions&#8217; are being taught and compared to actual violence,&#8221; Damore responded. &#8220;There&#8217;s also a weekly email that goes out to about 20,000 Googlers where people submit examples of these.&#8221;
When asked if the alleged perpetrators are ever identified, Damore replied, &#8220;Sometimes they are, and other times it&#8217;s obvious to whoever reads it.&#8221; 
It is incredible that the company would attempt to put pressure on these politically incorrect offenders, shaming them into making complete changes to their behavior. What is even more astonishing is the type of infractions that would earn the ire of the Google <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/19702/valerie-jarrett-google-stepped-firing-damore-hank-berrien">managers</a>, forcing them to issue the corrective memos.
Damore recalls a single instance, &#8220;One was complaining about someone suggesting to use a picture of an attractive person on an ad to increase the number of clicks. Which is apparently a case of &#8216;lookism.&#8217;&#8221;
&#8220;Lookism,&#8221; if you&#8217;re wondering, is a new buzzword coined by social justice warriors to identify &#8220;discrimination&#8221; based on objective physical attractiveness. It refers to preferring people who look pretty over people who are less attractive. Not only is calling a choice of photo a &#8220;microaggression&#8221; censorship, but it flies in the face of basic marketing: humans prefer to look at photos of other pretty humans.
Young then asked Damore, &#8220;Were the diversity initiatives already in place when you joined, or did they begin (or intensify) sometime after?&#8221;
He emphasized, &#8220;I think they intensified.&#8221;
If Damore&#8217;s allegations are true, it means Google, a public company, intentionally embarrasses and harasses its own employees with emails in the name of political correctness. It&#8217;s no surprise, then, that <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/19950/google-now-working-liberal-groups-shut-out-joseph-curl">conservative</a> content creators are suspicious that Google may be censoring them through their search engine, social media platforms, and of course, on YouTube.
When a company publicly shames their own employees in the name of political correctness, they are promoting a culture of intimidation and censorship, and that will no doubt leak into how it enforces its policies against its users.

Ousted Google Engineer Claims Company Sent ‘Microaggression’ Memos Every Week

Censorship

Diversity

Feminism

Gender

Gender Pronouns

Google

Do you want to laugh at the Democrats in the Senate? The good folks at Reason just uploaded a new rap video by Remy Munasifi in which he skewers Democratic politicians&#8217; insane hyperbole over the GOP&#8217;s health care bill &#8212; and it&#8217;s a delight.
A sample verse: &#8220;These cuts are blood money. People will die!&#8221; Oh, wait &#8212; that was Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
Just watch the video:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eXWhbUUE4ko" width="560"></iframe></div>

WATCH: Latest Remy Music Video Slays Democratic Hyperbole: ‘People Will Die!’

Elizabeth Warren

Self-loathing professors and faculty members at Occidental College are voting on a system that will allow students to report them for &#8220;microaggressions,&#8221; according to <a href="https://reason.com/blog/2015/11/23/exclusive-occidental-faculty-voting-to-g">Reason.</a>
The proposed system is a response to the black student solidarity movement at the college campus which had resulted in student <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/occidental-occupation-president_564e2fc4e4b031745cf07a51">protests against alleged racism by faculty members</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=newssearch&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjAtInEhKrJAhVXKogKHZRJCPAQ-AsIHigCMAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scpr.org%2Fnews%2F2015%2F11%2F18%2F55723%2Foccidental-college-president-says-he-wont-resign%2F&amp;usg=AFQjCNFPJNi_pLTHe-nkca5TZyP3mHxUVA&amp;sig2=Kl8cbiinOIbbfIG6U-gjWg&amp;bvm=bv.108194040,d.cGU">demands that the president of the school resign</a>, and is scheduled to be introduced by the school&#8217;s Faculty Council at a faculty meeting on December 1.
&#8220;We recognize and are inspired by the leadership of Oxy United for Black Liberation and their call for widespread institutional change in the culture of the College,&#8221; the sob letter/&#8221;microaggressions&#8221; draft begins. &#8220;We affirm that Black lives matter and also affirm the broader ideals of social justice to which their call speaks. We recognize that the structural racism and other forms of oppression of the College violate our commitment to ensuring equity and excellence in our educational programs for all of our students. We also acknowledge that our collective inaction as a faculty body makes us complicit in the failures of the College to make our Mission a lived reality. For this, we apologize for failing you, our students.&#8221;
In addition to its <a href="https://d1ai9qtk9p41kl.cloudfront.net/assets/db/14483049745316.pdf">&#8220;microaggressions&#8221; reporting system</a>, the plan calls for mandatory diversity training for faculty members and a requirement that all academic departments at the school include &#8220;issues of cultural and racial identity and diversity&#8221; in the curriculum.
According to the plan, the creation of a &#8220;microaggression&#8221;-reporting system would help to acknowledge &#8220;the power imbalance between faculty and students.&#8221; One example of such atrocious power imbalance would likely be the inability of students to choose their own grades, which forces them to have to study for their exams instead of participate in day-long peace rallies.
Despite the proposed resolution&#8217;s alleged focus to reduce inequality by keeping students and faculty on a level playing field, it makes an exception for race by saying it will especially &#8220;prioritize&#8221; the success of students of color over other students.
<blockquote>
External reviews of academic departments and programs will prioritize the manner and extent to which departments promote the success of a diverse group of students and in particular, historically underrepresented students of color.&#8203;
</blockquote>
Greg Lukianoff, the president at the <a href="https://www.thefire.org/">Foundation for Individual Rights in Education</a>, said that he is &#8220;troubled&#8221; by the proposed faculty resolution, vowing to challenge the resolution if it is adopted by the faculty.
<blockquote>
We are troubled by the new proposed faculty resolution at Occidental College as it requires speech policing, substitutes academic freedom and judgment with top-down ideological commitments, and stifles diversity of opinion in the favor of imposed orthodoxy.
Given that microaggressions can be unconscious and often exist in the eye of the beholder, the call to &#8220;address and report&#8221; professors&#8217; microaggressions creates a bottomless pit of speech policing.
Mandatory diversity training of all faculty puts even seasoned professors in the position of being told what ideological assumptions they should or even must have. Academic freedom requires professors to follow their own research where it takes them regardless of the opinions of paid consultants.
Finally the requirement that all professors, even hard science professors, incorporate &#8220;issues of cultural and racial identity and diversity in their curricula,&#8221; violates basic tenets of academic freedom and scholarly independence.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
&#8220;We also acknowledge that our collective inaction as a faculty body makes us complicit in the failures of the College to make our Mission a lived reality. For this, we apologize for failing you, our students.&#8221;
The pantywaist professors at Occidental College
</blockquote>
Reason said that it had not received requested comment from Occidental College or Faculty Council Chair Anthony Chase.

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