The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) has been the keeper of U.S. wildfire data for decades, tracking both the number of wildfires and acreage burned all the way back to 1926. After making the entire dataset public for decades, in a blatant act of cherry-picking, NIFC “disappeared” a vast portion of it. Now, NIFC only shows wildfire data from 1983.

Fortunately, the internet never forgets, which means the entire dataset is preserved on the world wide web. Data prior to 1983 show U.S. wildfires were far worse 100 years ago, both in frequency and total acreage burned, than they are today.

By disappearing all data prior to 1983, which just happens to be the lowest point in the dataset for the number of fires, NIFC data now show a positive slope of worsening wildfire aligning with increased global temperatures. This truncated dataset is convenient for claiming “climate change is making wildfires worse,” but flawed because it lacks the context of the full dataset.

In June 2011 when this data was first made publicly available by NIFC, the agency said, “Figures prior to 1983 may be revised as NIFC verifies historical data.”

In December 2017, I published an article titled “Is climate change REALLY the culprit causing California’s wildfires?” pointing out the federal government’s own data showed wildfires had declined significantly since the early 1900s. Of course, that undermined claims made by the media that climate change was making wildfires more frequent and severe. Curiously, sometime between January 14 and March 7, 2018, shortly after that article appeared, NIFC added a new caveat on its data page.

According to NIFC, “NIFC compiles annual wildland fire statistics for federal and state agencies. This information is provided through Situation Reports, which have been in use for several decades. Prior to 1983, sources of these figures are not known, or cannot be confirmed, and were not derived from the current situation reporting process. As a result, the figures prior to 1983 should not be compared to later data.”

With the Biden administration now in control of NIFC, the agency now says, “Prior to 1983, the federal wildland fire agencies did not track official wildfire data using current reporting processes. As a result, there is no official data prior to 1983 posted on this site.” //

The NIFC decision to declare data prior to 1983 “unreliable” and remove it is not just hiding important wildfire history, but cherry-picking a dataset starting point that is the lowest in the entire record to ensure that an upward trend exists from that point. //

It seems NIFC has caved to political pressure to disappear inconvenient wildfire data. This action is unscientific, dishonest, manipulative, and possibly fraudulent. With this action, NIFC is no longer trustworthy as a source of reliable information on wildfires.

Anthony Watts (awatts@heartland.org) is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute.

The government report on inflation has been released, and it’s not good. Inflation hit 4.2% in April, a crushing blow to the poor and middle class especially. This followed on the heels of stagnating hiring shown by last week’s jobs report (see New Jobs Report Is the Worst Miss in History as Biden Administration Failures Mount). //

Remember, the consumer price index doesn’t even include things like lumber so this number is likely lower than reality despite still showing an out-of-control rise. That rise is directly timed with Biden passing his COVID “relief” act that printed trillions of largely unnecessary dollars. //

This is the result of Democrat economic policies. We tried to warn the cocktail-sipping establishment class that thought Trump was too icky. Policies have consequences, and they matter a lot more than mean tweets and disagreements about rhetoric. Real people are now getting smoked while Joe Biden is nowhere to be found (see We Don’t Have a President).

Of course, you can expect the media to spin this.

Paul Krugman
@paulkrugman
So, the inflation report wasn't a nothingburger, but it was sort of a White Castle slider — not a very big deal. //

These people live in a bubble, and they aren’t going to leave it. They truly believe you don’t matter. Vote accordingly.

As the battle was in full swing in 2017, the FCC received over 22 million public comments for and against the repeal, but as it turns out, millions of those comments were not individual communications but spam blasts. A new report from the Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, has found that 7.7 million comments in support of net neutrality were generated by just one person, a 19-year-old college student.

And it wasn’t just the pro-net neutrality comments that were found to fraudulent. James’ investigation also discovered a “broadband industry group” spent a lot of money to generate nearly 8.5 million comments in favor of repealing the FCC policy. //

James‘ report generated some recommendations to shore up the public comment process for federal legislation, and (and this part is hilarious) verify the identity of commenters to make sure they come from real people and not spam programs.

The report also outlines recommendations to improve the transparency and accountability of FCC rulemaking proceedings, which allow the public to weigh in on draft proposals of regulation changes. For instance, it suggests mandating that lead generation vendors receive express, informed consent before submitting a public comment on someone’s behalf.

The New York AG report includes comments from people whose names were used without their permission. One expressed disgust “that somebody stole [their] identity and used it to push a viewpoint that [they] do not hold.” One 10-year-old boy’s name, address, and valid e-mail was used without his or his parents’ permission. One other victim may have summed it up best: “These are the kinds of actions that make the population lose faith in the system.”

Yes, you read that right. Democrats think verifying a voter’s identity is racist, but verifying a public comment is absolutely necessary so that people don’t “lose faith in the system.”

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission has said an encrypted communication platform is not something a law-abiding member of the community would use.

A bill that will create the largest licensing program in Denver passed in a unanimous vote at a city council meeting Monday night.

Rental property owners will now be required to have a license – the requirement goes into effect in a phasing process – multi-family rental property owners have until Jan. 1, 2023, to secure a license and single-family rental property owners have until Jan. 1, 2024.

So again, in Denver, I will be required to obtain a license to enter into a private agreement with another private individual on my own private property. //

. As is the case with many good-intentioned government regulations, its only forte is the impeccable construction quality of the road to hell. The per-unit increased cost of this atrocity for landlords is estimated to run from $50-$500. Of course, landlords will have challenges in passing that cost along to renters as the city will likely resort to rent control measures that prevent them from doing so. Unsurprisingly, government action increases costs.

The fallout from this action will likely lead to a significant sell-off of rental properties in the City of Denver, reducing rental availability. Anyone who can fog a mirror would know that the subsequent reduction in the supply of available rentals will ultimately increase the cost of the available properties. The city will then be forced to further impede on private property rights to “protect” “vulnerable” renters. Again, as is the case when it comes to government, the proposed solution to “problems” is inevitably a more restrictive government.

Yet when I asked him why of the top 10, the top 9 all had mask mandates, he pivoted to the final argument:

“I get what those numbers say, but I am still going to wear a mask to help other people feel more comfortable.”

The trap was sprung.

He knew at that moment he had screwed up. Mask-mandates do nothing to stop the spread of COVID-19, full-stop. The data shows it, the numbers coming out of these states show it, and any state that has lifted their mask-mandates has not seen an increase in cases or deaths (aside from the predicted second wave) after the action was taken. Masks are worthless, aside from the performative relief it provides certain people. If you are fully vaccinated (that is, two weeks after the second shot), you have even less of a reason to wear a mask. This isn’t a directive that people should ignore mask-mandates on private property, rather it is an argument against government forced mask-mandates. //

It is the basis for 95% of my arguments. Government is a failure at every turn. More government control almost exclusively ends with disaster. People say that government is here to protect us. The truth of it is, government is here to protect itself and expand its own tentacles of control into anything into which it can. Government inherently grows. No government has ever willfully retracted power it has asserted. As Ronald Reagan said, “There’s nothing more permanent than a temporary government program.”

Municipal police departments have what amounts to tanks. In 1985, the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a bomb on a home from a helicopter. The sieges at Waco and Ruby Ridge have shown us that the government not only will use the power they have, but they will use that power even if it means killing unarmed children. “Oh come on, those were cults and anti-government holdouts. What else was the government supposed to do?”

Now, out of California, we know that the answer to the question includes fighter jets. //

In March of last year, California National Guard members awaited orders from Sacramento headquarters to make preparations for any civil unrest that might arise from the outbreak of the coronavirus. //

But then came an unusual order: The air branch of the Guard was told to place an F-15C fighter jet on an alert status for a possible domestic mission, according to four Guard sources with direct knowledge of the matter. //

they understood it to mean the plane could be deployed to terrify and disperse protesters by flying low over them at window-rattling speeds, with its afterburners streaming columns of flames. Fighter jets have been used occasionally in that manner in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, they said

Deploying an F-15C, an air-to-air combat jet based at the Guard’s 144th Fighter Wing in Fresno, to frighten demonstrators in this country would have been an inappropriate use of the military against U.S. civilians, the sources said. //

The argument isn’t about whether or not the fighter was armed or could have been used against those citizens; rather whether or not a fighter could be armed for that same mission. The government clearly has shown the interest and desire of implementing such a strategy, so why would we think they would stop there? What if the citizens didn’t respond to the window-rattling flyovers? Would they further escalate to strafing the offenders or using small-scale ordnance? For anyone to argue they wouldn’t have used force other than low flyovers, would then have to justify the use of a fighter jet against American Citizens in the first place.
The debate for safety and protection from government violence shouldn’t be about whether or not the government would use that power but rather whether or not it is capable of it. If the answer to that question is yes, then we must make sure we elect people who will restrain government with the law and procedures, rather than empower it. //

We shouldn’t be cheering on the sidelines when government abuses power against one side or the other. The problem isn’t necessarily our differences, but rather the fact that the government isn’t only capable of using a fighter jet against us, they attempted to.
I am sure they would think twice if they knew we were willing to intimidate in return.

The county even regulates what meets the standard of a 'bonafide meal' each group of customers is required to buy if they would like to order beer. All this, we're told, fights COVID.

“As we saw last summer, some of the local governments are actually telling, not necessarily in Florida but throughout the country, basically telling these folks to stand down, telling police to stand down while cities burnt, while businesses were burnt, while people were being harmed,” the governor said. “That’s a dereliction of duty.”

He continued:

What our bill says, and what I’ll sign into law today, is that if you’re derelict in your duty as a local government, if you tell law enforcement to stand down, then you’re responsible for the damage that ensues. And if someone’s been harmed, or their property has been destroyed, then they can sue you for compensation.

The measure defines a riot as a violent demonstration involving three or more individuals engaging in activity that causes injury to others, damage to property, or threat of both. According to Newsmax, “the law also created a new second-degree felony called an ‘aggravated riot,’ when the riot has more than 25 participants, causes great bodily harm or more than $5,000 in property damage, uses or threatens to use a deadly weapon, or blocks roadways by force or threat of force.”

The line our society must draw is at protecting citizens from medical coercion in order to conduct business. Some might worry this would constitute a mandate on businesses, but it isn’t. Mandates compel action.

States and private firms that demand vaccination are the ones leveling mandates: businesses like a lobbying firm in DC that has informed a mother who intends to have more children soon that she must get a new, emergency vaccine with unknown affects on fertility and pregnancy if she would like to travel — and thereby succeed — at the company. //

On the other hand, denying activity that strips choice and dehumanizes citizens and families fits neatly into traditional conservative governance. “You may not compel abortion,” “you may not marry a child,” “you may not have multiple spouses” — these are bans based on traditional values we can confidently defend. “You may not mandate a novel injection for customers to engage in commerce” fits cleanly into this tradition. //

Government-corporate databases are both a dream for hackers and a quick path to a social credit system, and the only way to retard that kind of power is to make medical mandates a terrible burden to the states and businesses that demand them. The way to do this is a patchwork of states that resist by banning them. Do corporations want to do business in states like Texas, Florida, and Montana? Do airlines want to maintain hubs in states that say no? Are companies willing to write off that much market share?

This patchwork of resistance will also bring on reluctant allies who otherwise would happily join the new regime. //

“I don’t care if Google is a private company because it has too much power,” J.D. Vance, bestselling author of “Hillbilly Elegy” and a possible 2022 Ohio candidate for senator, told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson on his podcast. “And if you want to have a country where people can live their lives freely you have to be concerned about power, whether it’s concentrated in the government or concentrated in big corporations.”

Vance is right. While the past year has revealed that a depressing number of Americans will yield to arbitrary power wielded in the name of COVID-19, and will surely submit to both novel medical procedures and invasive private databases just for a chance to return to normalcy, moral governance ought to protect them from being coerced into that choice at all — and should protect those who still refuse from being treated as second-class citizens. //

To stop COVID vaccine passports, legislators concerned must target the databases. The databases are going to have to be digital to make sense, for speed, for efficiency, and because people will otherwise forge paperwork. The only effective way to go after them will be to prohibit any sort of digital database that collects or distributes personal medical data, and to make it a crime for organizations not covered by HIPAA to make services conditional on a customer granting access to medical data.

Organizations that are covered by HIPAA include doctors, clinics, pharmacies, nursing homes, and health-care plans, among others. If a business is not among those then it is not allowed to ask for access to your medical records. This will both protect privacy and prevent medical coercion, and when added to executive orders like those in Florida and Texas, will deal a death blow to the plan to force the COVID regime of the past year onto American citizens for years and decades to come.

The setup is that Jordan asks Fauci for the metrics he will use to reopen the country. This is a reasonable question given the damage the Insane Clown Posse at NIH/NIAID/CDC has inflicted on our economy and society. The question is at the 0:58 mark on the first video.

Jordan: What…what measure? What I mean are we just going to continue this forever? When does wind doesn’t when do we get to the point? What measure, what standard, what objective outcome do we have to reach before Americans get their liberty and freedoms back?

Fauci: You know you’re indicating liberty and freedom, I look at it as a public health measure to prevent people from dying and going to the hospital.

Jordan: You don’t think Americans’ liberties have been threatened last year Dr. Fauci? They’ve been assaulted, their liberties have.

Fauci: I don’t look at this as a liberty thing, Congressman Jordan…

Jordan: Well, that’s obvious.

Fauci: …as a public health thing but I disagree with you on that completely…

Jordan You think the constitution is suspended during a virus, during a pandemic? It’s certainly not.

It is hard to conceive of a more tone-deaf and hubristic answer. //

Jordan: And I’m asking a question: what measures have to be attained before Americans get their First Amendment liberties back?

Fauci: I just told you that.

Jordan: You haven’t given anything specific. You said we hope when this certain…tell me specifically…

Fauci: Right now, right now we have about 60 000 infections a day which is a very large risk for a surge. We’re not talking about liberties; we’re talking about a pandemic that has killed five hundred and sixty thousand Americans. That’s what we’re talking about. //

He can’t answer the real question, so he goes for the “higher purpose” argument. He seems to want to say, “I don’t care about your rights and your families; I’m busy doing God’s work.” We actually aren’t talking about whatever number of Americans had died from the virus. We can do nothing for them, and, more to the point, nothing Fauci and Friends did helped them. They are dead, and our focus has to be on the living. Having demonstrated empirically that nothing that the CDC recommended has had any measurable impact, the real question Fauci needs to be wrestling with is how to detach himself from this tar baby with a shred of credibility.

The recall qualification process is so rigorous that, as the Orange County Register reports, “Since California voters approved the recall process in 1911, there have been 179 recall attempts. Only 10 got enough signatures to make the ballot, and just six succeeded.” Just 3.3 percent of recall attempts have succeeded, yet Newman feels it necessary to chill that exercise of free speech?

Newman believes that votes should be secret but that signing a petition is political advocacy that should be reportable, and that voters have nothing to fear. //

skeptic62
2 hours ago
Let me get this straight. The Dems would prohibit any investigation into voter fraud but want a list of those who would vote against them. Is that really what they are asking for? How very Marxist of them.

Neither Side is Winning
23 minutes ago
"19 Republicans still voted to confirm him because the GOP remains a mostly useless vestige."

You fail to understand the truth about the 2 party system... Both sides of the same coin will never change the coin...

Red/Blue game theory

"The power structure needs people to believe that the way to solve problems is within the system. That is the KEY to the whole puzzle. The system is run on game theory. The status QUO know that as long as people are working in the system, nothing fundamental can ever change.

The primary method they use to distract people is with the two party red/blue system that gives you a “right” to vote. Do you want red or blue? As long as you are trying to “get back to the constitution” or get someone on the supreme court, you will lose “the game“. Period. How much evidence has to be accumulated? The government never shrinks. The people are ignored. The debt just grows.

The entire red/blue system is the heartbeat. Countless hours are drained off arguing about things that make no difference. The whole industry of Red radio, Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, et. al are doing a great job. They just can’t see that the job they are REALLY doing is not what they think. Some are truly genius in the way they have learned to parse the liberal agenda’s hypocrisy. If they turned that genius on the right target we might actually GET somewhere.

But do we actually ever GET anywhere? No. Just look around. Nothing ever changes. Conservatives. Nothing. Tea party, nothing. Libertarians, nothing. Patriots, nothing. Why? Because the people in these movements don’t understand the real LEGAL GAME. These movements are serving as pointless time drains when they could otherwise be a useful asset for REAL change.

The red/blue game keeps people parsing distinctions and issues that don’t matter! The candidates are never going to change the system. No party will ever “change the system”. The Parties ARE THE SYSTEM. GET IT?

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers. –Thomas Pynchon

Power to the people! And it’s true. You just misunderstand WHICH people.

Still don’t believe me? Then answer this one question. We have had both republican/red and democrat/blue guys running the country alternating since the end of the “great depression”, right? And has there ever been a 20 year period where the government shrank? How bout a 10 year period? how bout just a 5 year period? Get it? The red/blue game is a distraction. It will never work. It can’t. It’s game theory."

source: http://www.thetruthaboutthelaw.COM/rush-limbaugh-is-right-hes-just-analyzing-the-wrong-problems/ //

edintexas
an hour ago
' It’s an easy political cudgel that doesn’t actually do anything which makes it right up Biden’s alley."

But it does do something. The premise that "gun control" is about firearms is completely mistaken. It is about "control", the firearms are almost superfluous. Take away people's ability to protect themselves and their families, bit by bit, and the criminals and the government will have control of the people. Today it is attacking the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle (and "pistol") when rifles of all types were the weapon in fewer than 600 homicides out of fewer than 11,000. As we've noted time and again, rifles of all types were used to commit homicide less frequently than knives, less frequently than "personal weapons" (hands, feet, elbows, etc.) and most assuredly less frequently than the criminal's firearm of choice, the handgun. So this isn't about crime, it isn't about firearms. It is about control. As long as we are an armed nation the Socialist/Communists can't do as they please without any fear of retribution.

tomferal sgtcornflake
15 hours ago
It's too late for that which you can't advocate in this forum as the US Army is now Woke and will soon be even more Woke when they finish their Wrong Thing Purge of their own troops. Then it will be as our Founding Fathers feared.

When a government wishes to deprive its citizens of freedom, and reduce them to slavery, it generally makes use of a standing army.

• Luther Martin, Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention

A standing army is one of the greatest mischief that can possibly happen. Without standing armies liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe
-James Madison ("The Father of the United States Constitution", the Constitution that the Pentagon is now at war with)

There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation, and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors, that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot, but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army.

• Thomas Jefferson

In the days following the American Revolution, Jefferson became increasingly concerned about two tendencies he believed were intrinsically connected: the concentration of power in a centralized government, and the establishment of a standing army [especially a career class one].

I draw my line in the sand here. I am not your enemy just because I am breathing. I am not your enemy just because I am walking or eating. I do not deserve to be marked as a “problem” for not participating in a medical treatment. Whether or not I take a vaccine is my business. If you’ve taken your vaccine, it should be of no worry if I do or not. We don’t require people to prove they’ve gotten their flu vaccine every year. You get yours and then get on with your life, assuming you have inoculated yourself. What is the difference with a COVID vaccine?

It is about control. If you can be required to show your medical history to get on a bus or go to a concert, where does it stop?

A lot of people on the left think that “where does it stop” question is a bit hysterical or paranoid. These are the same people who scream all day long about how oppressive and racist the American government is and has been since our founding. Where does it stop? Ask Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman or any American slave or victim of Democrat Jim Crow laws during the Civil Rights Era. The government never stops. If we can’t trust them when it comes to minorities, why would we trust them when it comes to our private health information? //

I expect the government to protect my right to move about my country and participate in commerce freely, regardless of my medical history. This is my line. Here and farther. It is only a hop, skip, and a sew-on patch to complete fascism.

Biden is a classic BS artist. He’s the kind of guy who just says things and hopes people don’t hold him to anything that comes out of his mouth down the road. His infrastructure bill is not going to deliver a nationwide, high-speed rail system that travels as fast as an airliner no matter how much we “imagine” it. Selling this kind of snake oil to push through legislation loaded with pork that will further bankrupt future generations isn’t laudable. It’s stupid and manipulative. //

writeofcenter
7 hours ago edited
Most modern Presidents have extolled the virtues and performance goals of sub-orbital passenger rockets and vehicles. Instead of looking to the future.....

Biden's still stuck in the 1950's.

P.S. The railed foundations and beddings have to be completely rebuilt for these trains to operate. We all know where that is going..... FAILED ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENTS.

This is "make work" for campaign contributors, //

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nmABaca
35 minutes ago
True story:
On vacation in Mexico, rode around the resort on a bicycle every day. Kept seeing a crew digging a drainage ditch by hand while a new backhoe was parked nearby. I am bilingual and on the last day, I stopped and asked the foreman why they didn't use the backhoe. "Then, what would the men be doing" he answered.
Welcome to Joe Biden's infrastructure development program, hope you know how to use a pick and shovel!
(My Dad once told me that in the 1930s, the men called FDR's WPA "We piddle around" because it was a lot of men doing almost nothing.)

“Today I issued an executive order prohibiting the use of so-called COVID-19 vaccine passports, Gov. DeSantis announced in a tweet linking to his executive order, which he says serves as a stop-gap measure while Florida’s legislature crafts legislation to codify the elements of his order.

The order prohibits Florida’s government from issuing “standardized documentation” certifying, and from publishing, a person’s vaccine status: //

Likewise, businesses are prohibited from denying access and service to patrons who do not provide proof they’ve been vaccinated: //

But it goes past the practical aspects of all this. Privacy issues are a big concern. Why should a business be able to demand protected, private medical information in order to sell you a product, especially when there a myriad of reasons why you might be “safe” but still not have the vaccine? That’s not allowed on any other front, and it should not be allowed here. ///

It is problematic to be requiring a vaccine that is still regarded as "experimental" and has only been given an "emergency use authorization", not full FDA approval. The initial study that was the foundation for the EUA still has 18-20 months yet before it is completed.

On top of that, requiring individuals to provide private health details to private citizens or businesses against their will is a violation of HIPAA law and regulations.

One of the main objectives of the great American experiment was to move away from a system of top-down rule by the powerful elite over the powerless. Instead, our Founders understood that power belonged to the people, and was entrusted by the people to those elected to govern.

Recognizing humanity’s fallible nature, the Framers structured our constitutional republic based on the consent of the governed with the hopes that a virtuous civic society would limit the corruption often born of power.

The Constitution gives Congress defined authority to perform certain functions, like regulate commerce and engage with foreign nations—for example, through trade treaties, forging alliances, defending our borders, and—when necessary—declare war. These powers are specifically designed for a national authority.

However, in many ways, the federal government that we have today is a far cry from the one envisioned in the Constitution. Judicial overreach and the growth of the administrative state through extraneous departments and independent agencies have overtaken the Founders’ original intent. //

The result of this change is a government that relies less and less on the will of the people and more and more on decisions made by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.

The growth of bureaucracy and the administrative state is a bipartisan problem, and restoring the will of the people requires a bipartisan solution. One potential solution is to establish a federal “sunset commission,” a legislative proposal I introduced in the last Congress and again this Congress with Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.

A sunset commission would evaluate government agencies and programs and make recommendations to Congress as to whether or not those programs should continue.

Are Americans supposed to accept that the government, private employers, and businesses such as airlines and Costco may stop you and demand that you show your COVID-19 papers? //

Currently, the COVID-19 vaccines are not U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved, but authorized only for emergency use. As an investigational product, the statute governing emergency use authorizations provides that the recipient be advised of his or her option to accept or refuse administration of the vaccine, something a DC District court considered in a 2003 case that ruled against forcing soldiers to take the then-experimental anthrax vaccine //

We have a constitutionally implied fundamental right to privacy; various guarantees in the Bill of Rights “have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance…creat[ing] “zones of privacy.” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 484 (1965). The right to privacy encompasses everything from what we do in the privacy of our own bedrooms, to how we educate our children, and to what we choose to insert into our bodies.

The right to privacy also incorporates a right to be left alone, a concept dating as far back as an 1890 Harvard Law Review Article by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, in which they noted that our laws are universal and eternal, “grow[ing] to meet the new demands of society.” As time passed, “[g]radually the scope of [] legal rights broadened; and now the right to life has come to mean the right to enjoy life, — the right to be let alone; the right to liberty secures the exercise of extensive civil privileges…” //

Even the World Health Organization resists a COVID-19 vaccination passport, saying that “At the present time, do not introduce requirements of proof of vaccination or immunity for international travel as a condition of entry as there are still critical unknowns regarding the efficacy of vaccination in reducing transmission and limited availability of vaccines. Proof of vaccination should not exempt international travelers from complying with other travel risk reduction measures.”

And what of HIPAA? The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act applies to “covered entities” such as health-care providers, health-care clearinghouses, or other organizations that would be involved in the transmission of protected health information, or PHI. Covered entities cannot share your information — but you can. //

COVID-19 passports are government surveillance on steroids. COVID-19 has seen courts sanction unprecedented abrogation of our fundamental civil rights, in some ways that may leave permanent scars. September 11, 2001 led to the PATRIOT Act, which in retrospect a growing number of constitutional conservatives now decry, for its expansions have been monstrous.

Americans should not so lightly give up their liberty for commercial expediency, elite orthodoxy, or even illusory notions of safety. If we do, what downward ratchet on liberty will the next crisis bring?

Chris Cuomo and Leana Wen appeared together to bat around an absolutely insane idea, and it shows just how far the left in this country are willing to go to exact their will. In this case, Wen says that vaccinations should be tied to “freedoms,” denying them to those who haven’t yet gotten the shot.

I think they call this saying the quiet part out loud.

“We have a very narrow window to tie reopening policy to vaccination status because otherwise if everything is reopened, then what is the carrot going to be...Biden admin needs to come out a lot bolder & say if you’re vaccinated... here’s all these freedoms that you have..” //

There’s a lot of irony in a “my body, my choice” proponent saying this. Remember, Wen is the former head of Planned Parenthood. Her entire schtick is that people should have such bodily autonomy that they can kill their own child if they want.