from Viva Frei
Covid Response Sparks Spike in Americans’ Anxiety & Depression
from Zero Hedge
Aside from killing nearly 400,000 Americans to date and wreaking havoc on the country’s economy, Statista’s Felix Richter notes that the COVID-19 pandemic is also taking a heavy toll on mental health.
That’s according to data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics, showing that more than 4 in 10 U.S. adults had developed symptoms of depression or anxiety by the end of 2020, a sharp increase over the results of a comparable survey conducted in the first half of 2019.
California’s Ballooning Unemployment Fraud: 95% is Under Federal PUA Program. PUA Fraud is a “National Problem”
by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
Fraudulent payments by California could exceed $20 billion. New security measures to prevent fraud cause delays in payments that triggered a new hullabaloo.
The unemployment crisis in California continues to be huge. The state is still down 1.4 million “payroll jobs,” not including work for gig workers, from December 2019. The amount the state has paid in unemployment benefits is also huge: $114 billion between March 2020 and January 16, 2021. The state processed 19.5 million claims during that time, compared to 3.8 million claims in all of 2010, the unemployment peak of the Great Recession.
To top it off, a new federal unemployment program for gig workers was thrown into the chaos with little guidance and no preparation and no instant way of verifying even the identity of the claimants – and fraud was also huge, and getting huger with each report.
The Dumbest Argument I’ve Ever Heard Against Cryptocurrency
by Simon Black
Sovereign Man
Two decades ago, General Tommy Franks– commander of the original US invasion of Afghanistan back in 2001– was asked his opinion about a civilian bureaucrat named Doug Feith.
Feith was an academic policy wonk who, despite never having served in the military, was a staunch warmonger who was happy for other people to go fight and die in foreign lands.
General Franks was a straight-talking Texan who wasted no words in his opinion that Feith was “the dumbest fucking guy on the planet.”
Over the years of this publication, I have, from time to time, submitted some candidates for what I call the ‘Tommy Franks Award’.
Schools Might Not Reopen for ‘Maybe Another Year,’ Says N.J. Teachers Union
Montclair cancellation of K-12 reopening is yet another reminder that unions are putting students last.
by Matt Welch
Reason.com
Another day, another set of parents who discovered at the last minute that the planned reopening of their kids’ long-shuttered elementary schools was being thwarted by a politically powerful teachers union.
This time it was in the wealthy, New York City-adjacent suburb of Montclair, New Jersey, where Superintendent Jonathan Ponds announced late Friday “with deep regret” that the schools, closed for the past 319 days, wouldn’t even be reopening on a hybrid basis (half-in, half-remote), because negotiations with the Montclair Education Association (MEA) broke down. “I realize how unsettling this news is,” Ponds added.
The union seeks Plexiglass barriers, millions of dollars in ventilation upgrades, and for teachers to be vaccinated (New Jersey, unlike New York, does not as yet prioritize teachers for vaccines). MEA President Petal Robertson said in a statement, “It is our duty to ensure a safe and healthy workplace for our staff and a sound educational plan for our students.”
The Senate’s Impeachment Trial is Illegal and a Sham
by Senator Rand Paul
Washington Examiner
Democrats claim to want to unify the country, but impeaching a former president, a private citizen, is the antithesis of unity. This impeachment is nothing more than a partisan exercise designed to divide the country further.
They have brazenly appointed an openly pro-impeachment Democrat to preside over the trial. This is not fair or impartial, and it hardly encourages any kind of unity for the country.
If we are about to try to impeach a president, then where is the chief justice? If the accused is no longer president, then where is the constitutional power to impeach him?
Private citizens don’t get impeached. Impeachment is for removal from office, and the accused here has already left office.
Oregon Considers Giving Vaccine Preference Based on Race
by Damjan Tutarkov
LaCorte News
An Oregon committee has reportedly proposed distributing Covid-19 vaccines based on race to combat racial inequalities.
The proposal was made by Oregon’s COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Committee, composed of 27 members from health providers and community organizations including the Oregon Pacific Islander Coalition and the Somali American Council of Oregon, The Oregonian reported.
The committee is tasked with forming “a vaccine sequencing plan focused on health equity to ensure the needs of systemically affected populations, including communities of color, tribal communities and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, are met,” according to its website.
Though the final decision rests with the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) and Governor Kate Brown, state leaders have said they will take into account the committee’s recommendations.
The ‘Ice is Cracking’ on the Bull Market, One Stock-Market Analyst Warns
by Mark DeCambre
Market Watch
The biggest breakdowns in the positive trend for markets tend to come when fewer stocks are helping to drag benchmarks toward fresh records, the analysts say
“The biggest issues have come when underlying momentum wanes and we see cracks under the surface,” wrote Jason Goepfert, head of SentimentTrader and founder of independent investment research firm Sundial Capital Research, in a research note published Tuesday.
“That’s what’s happening now,” he wrote.
The Universe is Pushing People to Wake Up, and Will Mock and Impoverish Them if They Don’t
by Jeff Berwick
Dollar Vigilante
So Joe Biden’s first campaign as the new scary hand puppet-in-charge is to BUILD BACK BETTER!
Huh?
Is that even English? Although I suppose it is slightly more intelligible than the gibberish drooled so far by the #fakepresident. And guess who else is Building Back Better? Oh, just the World Hell Organization, the United Nations, BoJo – England’s favorite clown, and Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Murder of New Zealand. So far…
Surprised? Don’t be.
Let’s see what SlowJo has built back better in his first 48-hours on the throne:
Fourth Turning Detonation (Part Two)
by James Quinn
The Burning Platform
In Part One of this article, I discussed the dramatic events that shaped 2020 and will continue to have a major influence on the direction of this Fourth Turning moving forward. The immense power of Mordor on the Potomac seems to be unassailable, but the little people still have a chance if they utilize their skills and intelligence to the utmost.
Now that Trump has been defeated and cast into oblivion by the forces of Mordor on the Potomac, those who have some knowledge about generational theory and the course of previous Fourth Turnings have lamented Trump is not the Grey Champion and they were misled by believing he was their hero. How could he be the Grey Champion if he lost? I do not profess to be an expert, as I am just trying to understand the underlying forces driving this Fourth Turning towards its climax, but losing a battle in a long war does not disqualify Trump as a Grey Champion. The Grey Champion character was born from the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Another Day, Another Stunning Display of AOC’s Ignorance
by William Sullivan
American Thinker
CNN’s Chris Cuomo interviewed left-wing darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and naturally asked why she didn’t attend Biden’s inauguration. Her reason, she said, was that she and some of her colleagues “don’t yet feel safe around other Members of Congress.”
Cuomo, making an awkward attempt to speak in her generational tongue, asked for her to clarify. “You really think that colleagues of yours in Congress may do you dirty?”
Of course, she said. After all, people have guns there, which is just unacceptable in the District of Columbia. “For individuals who don’t know,” she says, “guns are not allowed in the District of Columbia.”
We’ve become accustomed to such displays of pure ignorance from the young bartender/taco waitress–turned-congresswoman, but there’s something in this exchange that seems particularly instructive.
King Midas and Bitcoin
by George Gilder
Daily Reckoning
Bitcoin (BTC), quite possibly the world’s best “investment” over the last decade, is on a roll. But is it money? What are its prospects as digital gold?
Perhaps you don’t care. Bitcoin is a lucrative trading vehicle. Why does it matter if it is going anywhere?
By the measure of “coin market cap” at the end of 2020, it peaked at a level of $42,000 or verging on a trillion dollars of market cap. That’s around a tenth of the level of gold.
Now early in 2021, it is down to $34,000 and $650 billion, or 6.5% of the gold level.
As time passes, bitcoin behaves less like gold and more like a swashbuckling speculative asset.
Protect Your Wealth Amid a Surge in Civil Unrest
by David Forest
Casey Research
A crisis is unfolding in America.
As you know, millions of Americans have been decimated by the economic damage of the coronavirus.
To stave off total collapse, the federal government has been forced to take desperate action.
Interest rates have plummeted… evictions paused… and Congress even went so far as depositing checks directly into American bank accounts.
Yet… look around. Americans are still piling into food lines. Millions are still jobless. The country still sits on the edge, following riots and protests… the siege on the Capitol… and growing political division.
And as bad as this is, it could get much worse…
Biden Orders DOJ Not to Renew Contracts with Private Prisons as Part of Racial Equity Agenda
[Ed. Note: This is an outrageously stupid idea. Take a look at a Candace Owens video from a few years back.]
by Jeffrey Cawood
Daily Wire
As part of his promise to advance racial equity, President Joe Biden has instructed the Department of Justice not to renew private prison contracts.
The policy change was part of a fresh set of four additional executive orders the president signed on Tuesday to eliminate alleged institutional discrimination within federal agencies.
“No one should be profiteering off of our criminal justice system,” President Biden tweeted on Tuesday evening. “That’s why today, I ordered the Department of Justice to end the use of private prisons by the federal government.”
Why Mitch McConnell Backed Away from Trying to Convict Trump
by Michael Snyder
End of the American Dream
Mitch McConnell really wanted to convict Donald Trump and ban him from ever running for office again, but he was forced to back off. In fact, he just voted for a motion that declared that convicting Trump at this point would be unconstitutional. That represents a stunning reversal by McConnell, because earlier this month he was telling other Republicans that he wanted Trump gone. Putting the pieces together, it appears that McConnell really did try to get to 67 votes so that Trump would be convicted, but political reality forced him to back down in a major way. Now a weakened McConnell will try to move forward as the minority leader in the Senate, and the future of his political career is very much in doubt.
Once the riot at the U.S. Capitol happened on January 6th, McConnell decided that he was done with Trump and never wanted to speak to him again…