Search Results for: Corona

Corona: Victory for Swedish Hands-Off Policy

Sweden – Number of Covid deaths plummeting even as the number cases rises

 by 

Similar pattern in the United States! Number of deaths declining rapidly.

 

________

In case you weren’t aware of this, Sweden refused to go into a lockdown mode. Restaurants remained open, bars remained open, the entire country remained open, all because Swedish authorities decided to let the virus run its course. They expected the country to reach what is known as “herd immunity.” And they succeeded!

At first, coronavirus cases rose quite rapidly, as expected. But even as the number of new cases continued climbing, the number deaths began declining. I don’t know that the proper word is “plummeting,” but as you can see from the graph below, the decline is very pronounced.

“Over the past ten weeks, the number of daily reported COVID-19 cases in Sweden has more than doubled, yet the number of deaths has plummeted,” writes Tony Heller. “The vast majority of deaths in Sweden were the result of nursing homes getting infected.”

“Their strategy has been to get the low risk population exposed so that they can reach herd immunity, so more cases is to be expected.”

Sweden Coronavirus: 67,667 Cases and 5,310 Deaths – Worldometer

“The same pattern is occurring in the US,” says Tony. The number of daily deaths is declining markedly.

United States Coronavirus: 2,681,811 Cases and 128,783 Deaths – Worldometer

The point here is that the number of new cases is meaningless propaganda. Many of those new cases came as a result of more testing, and many more came from what I consider fraudulent reporting.

And, as reader Michael Jenkins correctly points out, “even the death rate reported is, in all likelihood, grossly exaggerated.”

Forget the number of “new cases.” What we need to keep our eyes on is the death rate.

See more from Tony Heller:
https://realclimatescience.com/2020/06/no-correlation-between-covid-cases-and-deaths/

Thanks to Penelope for this link

From Ice Age Now, here.

Walter Block: Stop the Corona Cash Giveaways!

Universal Basic Income: A Critique

By 

July 3, 2020

Due to the pandemic, the government is giving out $1,000 to all who qualify for it. This program is the equivalent of a temporary Universal Basic Income program. If Covid 19 continues, the Trump administration’s policy will more and more come to resemble UBI. What is the permanent version of this program? UBI has the advantage of simplicity: $12,000 per year to all, from the richest to the poorest. Even some erstwhile supporters of the free enterprise system have been taken in by the siren song of this proposal.

It is time, then, for a critical review of this initiative.

First, it will promote laziness and reduce labor force participation. If people can scrape by with this relatively modest amount of money in their pockets, why go to work so as to help others? Why become a dishwasher or house-cleaner when you can indulge yourself in poetry, tv watching, computer gaming or day-dreaming? Investment in human capital, the be-all and end-all for rising to the middle class, will have taken a shot to the solar plexus.

Second. it will increase immigration on the part of poor and thus presumably not very productive folks. A highly skilled worker from abroad is not likely to line up at our borders for this amount of money, but to a poverty stricken person on the fence, this offer is likely to tip him over into crossing our borders.

Third, while the UBI is pegged at a low level, experience suggests it can be radically raised. The income tax was introduced at 3% of earnings, and look at it now. There is at present a group supporting so-called “welfare rights.” A UBI “rights” organization is sure to follow. How can we be so callous as to offer everyone such a pittance? The voting bloc for expanding its scope will be immense. It will include all “low information” voters who do not realize that the money has to come from somewhere.

Fourth, while these funds are now promised to all and sundry, it can always in future be taken away from dis-favored groups. This possibility, even if not carried out, gives the government more and more power over the populace, at a time when a move in the very opposite direction is more in keeping with economic freedom. Do we really need more people dependent upon the largesse of the all-loving state?

Fifth, some argue that the UBI is an improvement over the present system. It penalizes no one from obtaining a job. True enough. But the extreme likelihood is that it will not replace welfare as we know it, but, rather, be added to present disastrous policies.

Sixth, given that this new “rag in the bag” will raise taxes (or further enhance deficits) some of our most productive citizens will migrate to other countries. It is no accident that people are leaving the likes of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, California, etc., and moving to low tax states such as Florida, Texas, Arizona. Do we really want to introduce this tendency on the national level?

Seventh, UBI will not cure poverty, as claimed by its adherents. The way to enrich ourselves, says Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations, is through more capital goods, based, in turn, on savings, based, in further turn, on economic freedom. This program leads us in the very opposite direction.

Eighth, what’s the point of taxing millionaires like Bernie Sanders and Bill Gates, and then turning around and giving them back some of their cash? These transfers are costly. More money will thus flow into the pockets of those living in the very richest counties in the U.S., near Washington D.C. The only benefit is publicity.

UBI will further rend the fabric of the social order, not improve it. As for the present scheme, according to Milton Friedman, there is nothing as permanent as a temporary government program. Better to phase this out as soon as possible, now that it has begun, which never should have been the case in the first place.

Sources:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/;

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrDQqO8OiZevfkAhAIPxQt.;_ylc=X1MDMjExNDcwMDU1OQRfcgMyBGZyA3locy1pdG0tMDAxBGdwcmlkAzhhTU1tU1ZkUy5LQjRLekhpZnY0bUEEbl9yc2x0AzAEbl9zdWdnAzQEb3JpZ2luA3VzLnNlYXJjaC55YWhvby5jb20EcG9zAzIEcHFzdHIDYXQgd2hhdCBsZXZlbCB3YXMgdGhlIGluY29tZSB0YXggZmlyc3QgaW50cm9kdWNlZD8EcHFzdHJsAzUwBHFzdHJsAzUyBHF1ZXJ5A2F0JTIwd2hhdCUyMGxldmVsJTIwd2FzJTIwdGhlJTIwaW5jb21lJTIwdGF4JTIwZmlyc3QlMjBpbnRyb2R1Y2VkJTIwdXMEdF9zdG1wAzE1Nzk1NjM3NDMEdXNlX2Nhc2UD?p=at+what+level+was+the+income+tax+first+introduced+us&fr2=sa-gp-search&hspart=itm&hsimp=yhs-001&param1=1&param2=f%3D4%26b%3Dchrome%26ip%3D141.164.29.80%26pa%3Dpdfconverterds%26type%3Dpds_sjiqmxum1acegikmuebkmoqsuwl96p7j8qmodg_19_45_ssg10%26cat%3Dweb%26a%3Dpds_sjiqmxum1acegikmuebkmoqsuwl96p7j8qmodg_19_45_ssg10%26xlp_pers_guid%3Dgclid_eaiaiqobchmixflg9_pr5qivyqt9ch2onq8eeaeyasaaegly5_d_bwe%26xlp_sess_guid%3Dgclid_eaiaiqobchmixflg9_pr5qivyqt9ch2onq8eeaeyasaaegly5_d_bwe-9fc3-29c00f804e86%26uref%3D%26abid%3D%26xt_abg%3D%26xt_ver%3D10.1.4.57%26ls_ts

From LRC, here.

Anti-Corona Masks – Possible Side Effects

Warning About Danger of Masks!

A flyer being distributed in Arizona

July 1, 2020

Mask use can be very dangerous to your health because of:

1) Reduced blood-oxygen levels leading to reduced mental clarity, lethargy, and reduced immunities. This condition, known as “hypoxia,” can cause persons to lose focus and make bad decisions which can be dangerous to others. People are already falling asleep and fainting when doing routine tasks while wearing masks. The result could range from physical injury to self or others due to inattentiveness all the way to a social tragedy such as a rushed inaccurate verdict rendered by an oxygen-deprived masked jury that was unable to fully focus on and comprehend evidence and arguments in a case.  The likelihood of viral infections increases with hypoxia because the body’s natural defenses are degraded.

2) Carbon-dioxide toxicity from reduced ability of body to expel carbon dioxide (a waste product from all cellular activity).

3) Moisture retention in lungs due to the mask’s retention of water vapor in the lungs. Moisture retention in lungs is a leading factor associated with pneumonia, bronchitis, viral and bacterial infections, asthma, and other respiratory ailments. Fluid build-up in the lungs can be very hard to treat and can result in death in serious cases of pneumonia and other ailments. If the lungs cannot take in dry air and expel humid air, then serious congestion may develop in the lungs.

4) Increased facial touching resulting in viral / bacterial spread. Persons who wear masks are five times more likely to touch their faces continually throughout the day. They continue to adjust the mask with their hands and touch their faces in the process.  It is widely known that repeatedly touching the face and touching other surfaces is a major cause of viral and bacterial spread. This increased spread of infection can go from either the mask wearer to others or from others to the wearer. Even if a person wears gloves and then touches his face and other surfaces, the result is the same.

5) More effort to breathe means additional respiratory distress especially with individuals who are tired, elderly, sick, or immunity compromised. Most legitimate medical efforts aimed at reducing respiratory ailments seek to improve the individual’s ability to breathe, not block it, impede it, or make it more labored.

Surgeon General. U.S. officials, including the Surgeon General of the United States, Jerome Adams, initially urged people to not buy and wear masks in an effort to protect themselves from COVID-19. In an interview, Adams said that wearing face masks could actually increase a person’s risk of contracting the coronavirus. “You can increase your risk of getting it by wearing a mask if you are not a health care provider,” Adams said. “Folks who don’t know how to wear them properly tend to touch their faces a lot and actually can increase the spread of coronavirus,” he added.  Although he later relented to public pressure, Surgeon General Jerome initially tweeted, “Seriously people – STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus.”

From LRC, here.

Should You Wear a Corona Mask? The Unsettled Science

Excerpted from “In This Together”:

The Science Behind Wearing A Face Mask.

The final reason you might elect to wear a face mask is that you are convinced by the scientific evidence. You believe that donning a cheap or homemade face mask will protect you and others from a disease which you have a 0.45% chance of contracting and a 99.94% chance of surviving.

On the 4th March the State’s Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, said:Why you would imagine that the science shows that wearing a face mask will stave off the minuscule threat of infection is difficult to say. For many, perhaps it is because that is what the mainstream media (an organ of the State) told them. However, the State has said other things at other times.

“In terms of wearing a mask our advice is clear, that wearing a mask if you don’t have an infection really reduces the risk almost not at all.”

On the 23rd April the State’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Patrick Vallance said:

“The evidence on face masks has always been quite variable, quite weak.  It’s quite difficult to know exactly, there’s no real trials on it.”

On the 24th April the State’s Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, said:

“The evidence around the use of masks by the general public, especially outdoors, is extremely weak.”

On the 28th April the State’s Ministry of Defence Chief Scientific Adviser, Dame Angela McLean, representing the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said:

“The recommendation from SAGE is completely clear, which is there is weak evidence of a small effect in which a face mask can prevent a source of infection going from somebody who is infected to the people around them.”

An unusually clear and consistent message from the State. On the 4th of June the UK State’s Secretary of Transport, Grant Shapps, told the English that we did have to wear face-masks on public transport? Shapps said:

“That doesn’t mean surgical masks, which we must keep for clinical settings. It means the kind of face covering you can easily make at home….wearing a face covering offers some – albeit limited – protection against the spread of the virus.”

Wearing a clinical N95 face mask is frowned upon by the State. Better to wrap a scalf around your head, a bandanna, old handkerchief or one of those paper face masks you used to be able to buy from the market before the State put all the stall holders out of business.

Begging the question, what new scientific breakthrough emerged between the 29th April and 4th June to convince the State that wearing a torn T shirt on your face will save you and others from COVID 19? Albeit limited.

Obviously N95 standard face masks are better suited to the task than a bit of rag. So what is the scientific evidence that N95 masks could protect you, or someone else, from a viral respiratory infection.

Jacobs, J. L. et al. (2009) concluded:

“N95-masked health-care workers (HCW) were significantly more likely to experience headaches. Face mask use in HCW was not demonstrated to provide benefit in terms of cold symptoms or getting colds.”

Cowling, B. et al. (2010) found:

“None of the studies reviewed showed a benefit from wearing a mask, in either HCW or community members in households (H).”

bin-Reza et al. (2012) meta analysis discovered:

“There were 17 eligible studies. … None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection.”

Smith, J.D. et al. (2016) undertook further meta-analysis of the available studies on face masks. They stated:

“We identified 6 clinical studies … In the meta-analysis of the clinical studies, we found no significant difference between N95 respirators and surgical masks in associated risk of (a) laboratory-confirmed respiratory infection, (b) influenza-like illness, or (c) reported work-place absenteeism.”

Radonovich, L.J. et al. (2019) undertook a study of healthcare workers to assess the relative effectiveness of face masks and respirators:

“Among 2862 randomized participants, 2371 completed the study and accounted for 5180 HCW-seasons. … Among outpatient health care personnel, N95 respirators vs medical masks as worn by participants in this trial resulted in no significant difference in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”

Long, Y. et al. (2020) looked at six randomised clinical trials (RCT’s) of face masks to ascertain if they protected either the wearer or others around them from any viral respiratory illness. They didn’t:

“A total of six RCTs involving 9171 participants were included. There were no statistically significant differences in preventing laboratory-confirmed influenza, laboratory-confirmed respiratory viral infections, laboratory-confirmed respiratory infection and influenza-like illness using N95 respirators and surgical masks….The 4 use of N95 respirators compared with surgical masks is not associated with a lower risk of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”

Face masks work well for surgeons who want to avoid dribbling or sneezing into their patients, but are useless when it comes to stopping viral infections. In terms of preventing the spread of COVID 19, there is no evidence that they achieve anything at all.

As far as anyone knows viruses spread through tiny long residence time aerosol particles. The virions – the spiky ball we are all now familiar with – are much, much, smaller than the weave in the fabric, even of N95 clinical face masks.

If your hope is to protect yourself against a viral respiratory infection, covering your face with with a face mask you bought online is about as useful as concrete lifebuoy. So how does the State justify their silly policy? It seems analysis released by the Royal Society DELVE Initiative on 4th May, convinced SAGE to change their advice.

There are no RCT studies anywhere in the analysis which show any protective benefit of face masks for stopping viral respiratory infections. This is because there aren’t any.

However, it does cite some MSM articles, a number of studies about water droplets spread when you exhale, which are obviously stopped when you cover your face and some statements from the U.S. Center for Disease Control. None of which is relevant to demonstrating that face masks protect against viral respiratory infections.

It also cites some studies which again found no benefit from face masks.

Brainard et al. (2020) stated:

“The evidence is not sufficiently strong to support widespread use of face masks as a protective measure against COVID-19.”

The Royal DELVE also cite studies with no conclusions:

Canini et al. (2010)

“The lack of statistical power prevents us to draw formal conclusion regarding effectiveness of face masks in the context of a seasonal epidemic.”

It is impossible to see how the Royal Society concluded from their analysis that face masks should be widely worn. Which is probably why they didn’t. Ultimately they offered no conclusion at all:

“Face masks could offer an important tool for contributing to the management of community transmission of Covid19.” 

They could, but they almost certainly don’t. Nor is there any reason to think they will.

Read the rest here (libertarian philosophy)…

Thanks to a dear reader for the link!

The Two-Tiered Corona Laws, One for Each Caste

We’re Not All In This Together

Daniel Greenfield – June 14, 2020
“We’re All In This Together,” the sappy title of one of several bad songs, has become the Ministry of Information slogan of the pandemic. You hear it while shopping for groceries at the supermarket, see it on billboards that tell you to social distance your way off the street, and in every single ad on TV.

And then, after months of being locked indoors and that we were out to kill grandma if we left the house, the same media lauded massive numbers of rioters crowding together to curse the cops.

The political fiction of the pandemic died once its administrators found a shiny new fascist object.

Mayor Bill de Blasio went from threatening the Orthodox Jewish community for holding a funeral to appearing without a mask at an anti-police rally even as much of New York City is still shut down.

“Mr. Mayor, are we in a pandemic or not? And do we have one set of rules for protesters and another for everyone else?” Hamodia, an Orthodox Jewish publication, asked De Blasio.

“When you see a nation… grappling with… 400 years of American racism, I’m sorry, that is not the same question as… the devout religious person who wants to go back to services,” he snapped back.

Governor Murphy described anti-lockdown and anti-police protests as being in “different orbits”.

Just to be clear, we’re not all in this together. And we never were. Social distancing doesn’t apply when you’re burning down cities, you can only get sick when you’re praying to G-d or burying your dead.

The lockdowns existed at the pleasure of the politicians implementing them. And when the politicians found a lefty cause that they really liked, the rioters and looters were exempted from social distancing like kids told that they can leave algebra class early on Tuesday to go protest for the environment.

Lockdowns were always for little people. Not for celebrities, politicians or political radicals.

Martha Stewart is quarantining with her driver, housekeeper, and gardener. Lefty author Neil Gaiman decided that he needed to get away from his wife and flew from New Zealand to Scotland. David Geffen, the Hollywood billionaire tycoon who helped finance Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, tweeted, “Isolated in the Grenadines avoiding the virus” from his $590 million yacht which boasts a staff of 55.

The riots just applied to the rioters and looters the same privilege that politicians had enjoyed.

Governor J.B. Pritzker’s wife and daughter enjoyed the lockdown far from Illinois on their equestrian estate near Palm Beach, and then headed to the 230-acre horse farm in Wisconsin that the Illinois boss had bought his wife as an anniversary present. After claiming that his family deserved privacy and was being endangered by reports of his hypocrisy, the billionaire contended that their travel was essential.

“We have a working farm. They’re there now. There are animals on that farm, that it’s an essential function to take care of animals at a farm, so that’s what they’re doing,” he argued.

He didn’t explain who was taking care of the horses once his wife and daughter went on to Wisconsin.

Then he banned a reporter who had first tweeted about it from his press conferences.

The same media which had howled in outrage when President Trump had dumped CNN and Playboy correspondents for egregious behavior, including assault, had nothing to say about a free press.

Not only was it essential for Pritzker’s family to vacation on one massive horse ranch and then another, but it was essential for Illinois workers to travel to Wisconsin to help build a huge home on the ranch. Local residents reported 20 to 30 trucks a day coming from Chicago to labor on this essential project.

“They’re operating an essential function. Construction is an essential function,” Pritzker whined.

Around the same time, Pritzker was using the slogan, “We’re all in this together” to promote his, “All in Illinois” initiative to tell everyone to stay home. “‘All in’ is our anthem and point of pride,” Pritzker had falsely claimed. “Illinoisans staying home for the good of each other and the good of our state.”

Unless it’s to work on the billionaire governor’s latest mansion. Or loot some Chicago pharmacies.

The difference between essential and non-essential was always a political fiction. The protesters who were told that their protest was non-essential were just protesting for the wrong cause. Going to church or synagogue, burying your dead, or protesting for your rights was non-essential in the same way that Pritzker’s mansion and family vacations were essential. What was essential was who was in charge.

We’re not all in this together. Ask New York Governor Cuomo’s brother Chris, who casually violated quarantine, and then starred in a fake news CNN video of leaving quarantine for his coronavirus infection. Ask Virginia’s Governor Northam who didn’t wear a mask to the beach before ordering everyone to wear masks. Ask Wisconsin’s Justice Rebecca Dallet who opposed the court decision ending the state lockdown, warning, “Wisconsinites will pay the price”, before allegedly going on a boat trip.

Ask New Mexico’s Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham who told non-essential businesses they had to shut down and then had a non-essential business open up so she could get some expensive jewelry.

Ask Professor Neil Ferguson of the Imperial College Model who was caught sneaking out for an affair or Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot who got a haircut after shutting down salons and barbershops. Or ask Dr. Richard (Rachel) Levine whose policies at the Pennsylvania Department of Health introduced coronavirus patients into nursing homes, but made sure to remove his mother from her nursing home.

Michigan’s Governor Whitmer had issued orders banning just about everything. And then a marina operator got a call from her husband about getting their boat in the water for Memorial Day.

“I am the husband to the governor; will this make a difference?” Whitmer’s husband asked.

Governor Whitmer claimed that her husband was joking and that he only traveled to a second home to rake leaves. That comes from the same tyrannical termagant whose bans had extended to yardwork.

We’re not all in this together. We never were.

The coronavirus touched Manhattan only lightly. That was partly because its residents could afford to get away.

When rentals were shut down, they bought houses elsewhere, sight unseen. About 5% of New Yorkers, over 400,000 people, left the city, abandoning trendy and wealthy neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The pandemic spread along their wake. Those who left included not only the elite, celebrities and billionaires, but the upscale wealthy liberals who keep the Democrats going nationwide.

The abandoned zip codes are also the ones that have been pouring money into left-wing politics.

When you hear another, “We’re All In This Together,” commercial, remember that it’s probably the brainchild of a Bernie Sanders supporter who found a second home in upstate New York or Vermont.

That includes the 10022 zip code, the top money source in the 2018 election cycle, where between 40% to 30% of the population vanished. A quarter of the population of 10075, the tenth biggest money zip code in the cycle, vanished. Ditto for the eleventh, twelfth and fifteenth top election cash zip codes.

The New York City cash that fueled the 2018 Democrat wave was not together in this with us.

The posh parts of Manhattan are being looted because they were abandoned. All the rich toys being stolen by thugs are there because the elites who would normally be buying them are out of town.

Lockdown culture was an elite scam. The politicians, the technocrats, and the ad geniuses who imposed and sold lockdown culture to the country weren’t living it.

The pandemic and lockdowns did not hit us all equally. The division of society into essential and non-essential workers made certain of that by protecting some jobs while eliminating others. This plague year experiment in the New Deal 2.0 replaced any kind of togetherness with a political class system.

The administrators of that system, like Pritzker and Whitmer, were never living under it.

“We’re All In This Together,” does not offer unity or togetherness. It demands compliance from us for our assigned roles. Like 1984’s slogans, it means the opposite of what it actually says. Freedom was slavery, ignorance was knowledge, and being in it together meant that none of us had any say in it.

The lockdowns weren’t driven by science, but by ideology. That’s why the rioters crowding in D.C. and NYC are immune from the coronavirus while the spring breakers in Florida were going to kill everyone.

Underneath the sappy ad-speak was a Maoist Confucianism worthy of the Little Red Book in whose Communist system the coronavirus pandemic had originated. It has largely gone unnoticed that the coronavirus slogans we hear are minor variations of those deployed in China by the Communist Party.

“Better to wear a mask than a ventilator; better to stay at home than in an ICU”, “this year a house visit, next year a grave visit”, or “stay in and don’t wander around, you have AC, television and Wi-Fi as your friends” should sound familiar. It’s not just our electronics that are made in China. So is our propaganda.

And, just as in China, the lockdown is applied unequally by a tyrannical leftist political system.

Togetherness, in our pandemic propaganda, is defined as being isolated members of an unseen collective, reinforced by slogans like #AloneTogether or “Stay Apart, Stay Together”. It means complying with directives, informing on the disobedient, and listening to the experts without asking any questions.

“We’re All In This Together” manufactures mass consent. The “We”, “All”, and “Together” represent a conformist mass in whose ranks the individual is only valued for his or her willingness to obey.

All of it, as Mary McCarthy said of a Communist hack, “is a lie, including ‘And’ and ‘The.’”

When the collective was told to stop watching Netflix and start burning and looting, the “We” went out and did it, while the rest of us who are mere individuals looked on in horror and bewilderment.

No one in the collective can or will note the radical shift from mandatory isolation to mass riots. Collectives don’t recognize that their herd impulse has changed. Life for the brainwashed is unchanging. Once there was always isolation and now there are permanent protests. Tomorrow there will be something else. But that is not a concept that the “We” are capable of embracing as a collective.

“We’re All In This Together” is a state of mindless and unquestioning conformity. And it’s un-American.

Americans are not a Communist collective: we are a nation of individuals. Our togetherness doesn’t come from the illusion of functioning as an undifferentiated mass, but of pursuing our own individual strivings for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Collectivism is a lie that conceals the humbug wizards behind the curtains, and the oligarchies that make the decisions. It tells us to set aside our own interests and needs, to become part of Zamyatin’s “We”, to stop thinking and believe the lies.

The lies keep changing.

Yesterday we were huddling in our homes in our togetherhood of apartness. Now we’re supposed to be rioting together and calling for the abolition of the police. Each false cause is replaced by another big lie. If you can see past the lies, you’re not “Together” with the “We”. You’re one of the last Americans.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center’s Front Page Magazine.