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Follow the Science and Burn Your Mask

By John R Guardiano on June 6, 2021

After more than a year of mask mandates and mask fetishization, the results of Uncle Sam’s latest scientific experiment are in. Masks failed.

Now that mask mandates have been lifted just about everywhere in the United States save for airlines, trains, buses, and other forms of public transportation, it’s a good time to revisit whether masks ever made much sense, did any good, or caused any harm.

The rationale for masks was always weak to begin with. Masks failed to stop the spread of the influenza virus during the 1918 pandemic and they fared no better in the subsequent decades. The New York Times reports that, according two Nancy Leung, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong:

There has been no clear evidence from randomized controlled trials—the gold standard in scientific research—that masking reduced transmission of influenza viruses in a community.

The evidence for the efficacy of masks to stop or slow the spread of the coronavirus is also sorely lacking.

“There are several case studies of Covid-19 outbreaks in confined spaces despite good mask adherence, reports Connor Harris in the City Journal. Marine Corps recruits in 2020, for instance, suffered an outbreak of COIVD despite wearing cloth masks almost constantly.

Michigan v. Texas. When Texas rescinded its mask mandate March 10, 2021, COVID cases fell by 17 percent two weeks later. In Michigan, meanwhile, where masks continued to be required, COVID cases spiked by 133 percent during that same two-week period, reports Philip Klein.

Michigan did not (mostly) lift its mask requirement until June 1—almost three months later than Texas. Yet, comparative data does not show that Michigan benefited as a result.

Indeed, the incidence of COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths either roughly corresponds with the difference in population between these two states or is clearly in Texas’s favor.

Texas’ population is about three times that of Michigan, and the state has had 2.9 times as many COVID cases and 2.5 times as many COVID deaths. As of June 5, Texas is averaging about twice as many COVID hospitalizations and 3.1 times as many COVID cases in the preceding two-week period.

As Michael Betrus reports at Rational Ground:

California issued a statewide mask mandate in June 2020. Rhode Island issued its mandate back in May 2020, as did neighboring Connecticut in April 2020. What else do these states have in common?

They were among leaders in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths long after implementing their mandates. Were they infected by nearby states? New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon, and many counties in Nevada and Arizona also had mask mandates.

Florida did not have a statewide mask mandate. Nor did Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, Iowa, Missouri, or Oklahoma. Other states like North Dakota, Arizona, and Indiana issued short-term mask mandates.

These states fared no worse and in most cases fared far better than states with mask mandates. Why would this be, if face masks work?

“It would be an overstatement to say that cloth and surgical masks are unambiguously ineffective or harmful,” Harris writes. “But neither is there a firm case that they provide any meaningful benefit.”

The harmful effects of masks are typically ignored or downplayed; but these harmful effects are real and should give us serious pause when, during the next pandemic, government officials try to enforce new mask mandates—especially on children, who are less able to cope with mask-induced problems.

Face rashes, headaches, bacterial infections, dental problems (cavities and gingivitis), and fiber inhalation are all problems, Harris notes, associated with masks during this pandemic.

“Potential harms to children,” he adds, “deserve special mention.

Two Italian professors of plastic surgery, for instance, have hypothesized that the pressure of elastic ear straps may give children permanently protruding ears.

Some child development researchers also worr y that widespread mask-wearing may hamper children’s linguistic and emotional development.

There may even be ways by which masks might worsen Covid-19 itself. The basic reason is simple: germs caught by a mask do not simply disappear.

The evidence for these is spotty or speculative but concerning enough to merit attention. In any case, the evidence justifying mask mandates is often equally speculative.

Children. One thing that is not speculative is the educational and social damage that masks inflict on children. Non-verbal communication involving facial expressions—especially in the classroom—is one of the primary ways that teachers communicate with their students.

Social interaction between and among students, likewise, is integral to a child’s development. Yet, masks induce in children social isolation.

They signal, clearly, that social interaction is risky because it can result in contraction of the coronavirus. But the data has shown all along that children are at extraordinarily low risk of getting COVID and at even less risk of suffering serious ailments even if they do.

In short, if we are, indeed, to “follow the science,” then we must abandon the fetishization of masks. They never made much sense to begin with; they demonstrably did not do any good; and they actually inflicted serious harm on people, especially children. Good riddance.

Feature photo credit: Americans, free at last of the onerous and counterproductive mask mandate, celebrate their newfound freedom and independence, courtesy of MedPage Today.

Now That the Market Has Suffered an Historic Collapse, Should You Start Buying Stocks Again?

Now That the Market Has Suffered an Historic Collapse, Should You Start Buying Stocks Again?

By John R Guardiano on March 19, 2020

On Feb. 29, 2020, I argued that “the stock market correction was overdue irrespective of the coronavirus and is nothing to fear.” At the time, U.S. equities had lost more than $3.18 trillion in the worst weekly sell-off since the 2008 financial crisis.

“Should you divest yourself of all stocks and hide your money under the mattress until the panic subsides? No, of course not,” I wrote. “Stock market corrections occur with some regularity and are to be expected.”

Since then, of course, the market has continued to crater. Why? Because the U.S. economy is shutting down as a result of the coronavirus. Thus a healthy and inevitable market pullback has now been exacerbated in the extreme by a “black swan” event that traders did not foresee.

It happens, or at least it happened. The question now is: what should you do?

History Lesson. Well, first off, let’s learn from history, so that we don’t repeat the same mistake next time the market skyrockets.

A sage bit of investing advice says: “Bulls make money; bears make money; but pigs get slaughtered.” For this reason, it is always a good idea to take some of money off of the table, or out of the market, after a big bull run.

We noted here at ResCon1 that, just before late Feb. sell-off,

the major stock indexes—the SPY, QQQ, and DIA, for instance—had all hit 52-week highs.

The market had been climbing higher and higher almost without interruption for some time. We were due for a pullback. It was inevitable.

For this reason, cashing in at least in part after the market indexes hit 52-week highs on the strength of a long and sustained bull run would have been the wise and prudent thing to do.

That’s Investing 101. But if you failed to do that, don’t fret or worry. You are where you are and time can heal all financial wounds.

In truth, it is exceedingly difficult to predict a market bottom. However, the market has dropped so far so fast that there is good reason to think we may have hit a bottom, if not the bottom. So now may be a good time to begin buying stocks again.

Investor Bill Miller, for instance, told CNBC that “this is an exceptional buying opportunity.

“There have been four great buying opportunities in my adult lifetime,” he said.

“The first was in 1973 and ’74, the second was in 1982, the third was in 1987 and the fourth was in 2008 and 2009. And this is the fifth one.”

Miller said these historic opportunities were mainly event-driven.

In 1973, there was the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East. A severe recession crashed the U.S. economy in 1982. There was a dramatic, albeit short-lived, stock market crash in 1987. And of course, in 2008 and 2009 there was the Great Recession.

“Those are the sorts of events that you see when markets are making historic lows. The news is just bleak all around,” Miller added.

Miller, CNBC’s Maggie Fitzgerald reports, is

chairman and chief investment officer of Miller Value Partners… [He] beat the market for 15 straight years while working at Legg Mason…

[His] firm posted a return of 119.5% last year net of fees… Those gains more than made up for the firm’s 33.8% loss in 2018.”

Moreover, CNBC’s Brian Sullivan observes that, according to InsiderScore.com, corporate executives have “started buying their own company’s stock either at, or nearly at, record levels.” Last week, for instance,

more than 1,300 top executives got into the market. Small caps, energy, financial company executives—they [all] had more buyers than at any time in their history, even more than at the depths of the [2008] financial crisis.

And insider buying across the entire market is getting close to that level as well. it is now at its highest level since November 2008…

InsiderScore.com notes that they’re not calling a market bottom. CEOs aren’t perfect market timers. But they do note CEO buying peaked in late 2008. Maybe a little good news on the market front.

Indeed, CNBC’s Jim Cramer thinks the doom and gloom about the U.S. economy and the markets is excessive and overwrought.

“Given the beating the market’s taken over the last couple of months, I think this it the wrong time to go full doom and gloom,” he said tonight on Mad Money.

I know the situation [with the U.S. economy] will get worse, probably a lot worse, before it gets better; but it will get better. And sometimes the stocks reflect that before we get to where it gets better.

We’re not some pitiless, helpless giant that’s powerless in the face of this pandemic…

The 1987 crash turned out to be a fabulous buying opportunity, not a selling opportunity. It could happen again.”

Williams Indicators. Cramer observes that, according to the legendary market technician, Larry Williams, the market has hit an extreme panic level. This is “the single most reliable indicator of a trend shift from bearish to bullish that there is.”

Cramer quotes Williams:

None of the tools of the trade that I have in my arsenal have done this good a job of calling major stock market lows. For almost 90 years we have seen bull markets begin at these times of extreme panic.

According to Williams, there have been 24 “extreme panic” signals in the last 87 years, and 18 of these 24 times the market has bottomed within three weeks. In 16 of these 24 times the market has bottomed within one week.

Cramer finds Williams’ analysis convincing and says that he likes these odds.

On the other hand, as Fast Money analyst Dan Nathan points out, there typically are “fierce bear market rallies off of lows.”

In 2001, he says, there were two 20 percent rallies that failed before we made new lows. In 2002 there was a failed 20 percent rally that gave way to a new low. And, in 2008, there was similar price action.

“It took two years,” Nathan says, “for the market to bottom.”

Nathan acknowledges that this latest downturn is notable for its speed and velocity. Still, he says, it will take some time for the market to bottom.

So, if you’re buying now, understand that there likely will be lower lows, and be “comfortable with further losses,” he says.

The bottom line: know yourself. Know your appetite and tolerance for risk and act accordingly.

Realize that while no one can foresee the future, our investment decisions should, nonetheless, be guided by historical experience: because there are clear and discernible patterns that repeat themselves in the market each and every day, week, month, year, and decade.

Thus it is OK to take money out of the market when new highs are reached, and it is OK to reinvest when new lows are plumbed. It also is OK to make short-term trades rather than long-term investments.

You do not, after all, want to be the passive victim of financial conditions, market downturns, and “black swan” events.

Instead, you want to take (financial) advantage of market conditions and market-moving events, and now may be an especially good time to begin doing so.

Feature photo credit: Jim Cramer in Rocket News.

No, Central Planning Did Not Help America to Win World War I, and It Won’t Help Us Win the War Against the Coronavirus

No, Central Planning Did Not Help America to Win World War I, and It Won’t Help Us Win the War Against the Coronavirus

By John R Guardiano on March 30, 2020

David Greenberg, a professor of history at Rutgers, has a piece in Politico today lauding the Progressive Era wartime economic planning of Woodrow Wilson.

Greenberg specifically credits the War Industries Board and a cluster of other federal agencies with marshaling the resources needed by the U.S. and its allies to win World War I.

More generally, he says the War Industries Board “helped vault the U.S. into its preeminent role in the world.”

If the War Industries Board failed to mobilize business as effectively as it might have, it did demonstrate clearly that only the government, and not the private sector, has both the authority and the size to direct and coordinate any industrial mobilization on a national scale.

Greenberg’s implication is clear:

President Trump needs to stop dragging his feet and use whatever federal powers might be necessary—including, but not limited to. invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950—to force General Motors and other big businesses to provide critically needed medical supplies to our hospitals and healthcare workers on the frontlines in the war against the coronavirus.

Greenberg is wrong. He is wrong about the history of the War Industries Board and central planning; he is wrong about the economics of the private sector versus central planning; and he is wrong about the public policy implications for today.

First the history and economics. America won World War I and became a preeminent world power in spite of President Woodrow Wilson’s “war socialism,” not because of it.

America, in fact, had been rapidly industrializing, and its economy growing, well before Wilson’s central planners began to gum up the works with their fascistic ideas of government control and coercion.

The Economic Historian Association’s Hugh Rockoff notes, for instance, that production of steel ingots and “total industrial production’—an index of steel, copper, rubber, petroleum, and so on”—was growing years before establishment (on July 28, 1917) of the War Industries Board.

“It is evident,” Rockoff observes,

that the United States built up its capacity to turn out these basic raw materials during the years of U.S. neutrality when Britain and France were buying its supplies and the United States was beginning its own tentative build-up.

Moreover, despite their dangerously fascistic aspirations—and despite causing considerable economic mischief, damage, and dislocation by effectively discriminating against small-scale entrepreneurs who lacked political clout—the central planners at the War Industries Board were seriously hemmed in, and, as Greenberg himself admits, unable to implement their plans in full.

Their fascistic rhetoric far outpaced the reality of Wilson administration actions.

In Greenberg’s view, this was precisely the problem. The War Industries Board “could cajole companies to act but had little ability to command them,” he writes.

In truth, though, the board’s limited power of command was our saving grace, and the very reason American industry was able to produce a vast amount of raw materials and munitions (aircraft especially) that proved decisive for the Allied war effort.

As historian Francis J. Munch succinctly put it in a 1973 review of Robert D. Cuff’s book, The War Industries Board: Business-Government Relations:

The WIB simply maintained the symbol and myth of an integrated system which in reality lay beyond its grasp. The agency was severely circumscribed by private interest groups, the military, and ideological assumptions of the mobilizers themselves…

The obstacles to wartime coordination and control (institutional factors and political conditions) were omnipresent…

In sum, the effectiveness of the WIB as a public symbol helped protect businessmen from traditional political pressure, while the ineffectiveness of the WIB as a bureaucratic power save them from undue intrusion by the state.

Greenberg also fails to mention that Wilson’s disastrous economic policies, rooted as they were in central planning and government control, led to “very high inflation… and a severe depression in his last year in office.

“[Indeed], industrial production,” writes economist Scott Sumner, “had fallen by 32.5% by March 1921,” when conservative Republican Warren G. Harding became president. Harding “cut income tax rates sharply” and the economy quickly recovered, surpassing its previous cyclical peak, Sumner notes.

As to the public policy implications for today, Greenberg insists that if Trump had used the Cold War-era Defense Production Act six weeks ago “to force General Motors to build the life-saving ventilators that are in short supply around the nation… those ventilators would probably be en route to hospitals today.”

No, that’s not true.

To be sure, Greenberg is right to fault Trump for being slow to recognize the magnitude of the danger presented by the coronavirus. Trump continually downplayed the problem when, in fact, he should have been rallying the nation to confront the problem.

That’s a fair and legit criticism, and one that we’ve made here at ResCon1.

And, truth be told, had Trump done so, it’s certainly the case that all Americans—private industry included—would have been more quick to recognize that we need many more masks, ventilators, respirators, and other crucial medical gear sooner rather than later.

But the question becomes means—or how, exactly, do we meet this unprecedented demand?

All of our historical experience, and everything that we know about economics, and the incontrovertible laws of supply and demand, tells us that far from the government needing to “command” or direct private-sector business decisions, we instead need to allow open and competitive markets to function and work.

Trump has been wildly inconsistent about whether he is or is not invoking the Defense Production Act to force General Motors to produce more ventilators.

One day he is throwing stones at GM and saying he will invoke the act; the next day he is saying that GM is being responsive and that invoking the act is unnecessary.

Regardless, one thing is crystal clear: private sector companies, including GM, are making heroic and herculean efforts to meet this unprecedented demand, and they are doing so irrespective of what Trump and the feds are or are not doing.

Why? Because they recognize that there is a severe need for this under-supplied medical gear, and they are rushing to meet that need, both to do good and to make money.

Price Signals. Greenberg echoes New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s complaint that states are in a bidding war for ventilators; and that, therefore, the federal government needs to intervene to hold down prices.

But again, this betrays a serious lack of understanding of how markets work—and specifically, a lack of understanding of the importance of price signals as the means by which private sector producers identity and meet market demand.

As Alex Tabarrok, a professor of economics at George Mason University, explains at Marginal Revolution:

A price is a signal wrapped up in an incentive, as Tyler [Cowen] and I write in Modern Principles.

Compare the price system with command and control. We need ventilators. The federal government could order ventilator firms to make more but they are already doing so.

The government could order other firms to get into the ventilator business but does the federal government have a good idea which firms have the right technology, or which firms have the right technology that could be repurposed to ventilator production at low cost, that is without causing shortages and disruption in other fields?

Can they do better than a decentralized process in which millions of entrepreneurs respond to price signals. No.

Government’s Role. To be sure, this doesn’t mean that there isn’t a role for government in ensuring the prioritization and distribution of ventilators among the 50 states and regions.

Which is precisely, it seems, what former Clinton administration official Joshua Gotbaum is getting at when he argues, in the Washington Post, that Trump should involve the Defense Production Act.

“The act,” he writes, “allows federal agencies to collaborate with business to get critical supplies during emergencies—by encouraging investment and speeding production—and direct them to where they’re most needed [emphasis added].”

Okay, but prioritization and distribution of goods manufactured and produced by private sector companies responding to market signals is very different from the sort of state-run war planning scheme pushed by Greenberg as he harkens back to Woodrow Wilson’s War Industries Board.

Again, as Tabarrok explains:

If all the trucks are fleeing from the front, we want the army to be able to requisition vehicles to move in the opposite direction.

Private and social incentives do not always align and when time and certainty are of the essence command and control may be superior (as Tyler and I discuss in Modern Principles in the chapter on externalities).

For the most part, however, that is not the situation we are in now. Private incentives are all pushing in the right direction of greater production.

Let the market respond. The federal government is not good at command and control, but it does have a role to play in redistribution for need.

Bad History. In short, when it comes to history, “it ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Greenberg purports to know something that just ain’t so—to wit: that Progressive Era wartime economic planning by Woodrow Wilson and the War Industries Board was a great success—or at least a template or model that future American presidents should learn from and adapt to present circumstances.

In truth, the government’s attempt to commandeer and command private industry was misguided to begin with; it caused considerable economic mischief, damage, and dislocation; and America succeeded in spite of it, not because of it.

And it is a mistake we should not repeat any time soon, at least not if we wish to defeat the coronavirus and save American lives.

Feature photo credit: Woodrow Wilson, arguably the worst president in American history, courtesy of History.com.

Will Bernie and the Woke Progressives Lead the Democrats to Certain Defeat in November?

Will Bernie and the Woke Progressives Lead the Democrats to Certain Defeat in November?

By John R Guardiano on January 27, 2020

Are the Democrats blowing it? Are they about to hand the election to the one man they despise above all else, Donald J. Trump? That’s the fear of David Frum, who makes precisely that case in a brilliant and insightful essay in The Atlantic.

Frum, of course, is the intellectual leader of the Never Trump movement and someone who’s moved left politically in the past 15 years, ever since warning of the “axis of evil” as a speechwriter for George W. Bush in 2003. Still, he is a keen observer of the political scene and someone well worth listening to.

Frum focuses his firepower on Bernie Sanders, who continues to surge in the polls. Bernie, Frum argues, can’t win. His positions on matters of economic and foreign policy are too extreme and too easily caricatured and attacked to prevail against Trump.

Plus: he has real trouble appealing to suburban women and African Americans, “the two groups whose greater or lesser enthusiasm will make the difference for a Trump challenger in November,” Frum argues.

Equally worrisome: Bernie has something of a glass jaw. He “is a fragile candidate… [who has never] had to face serious personal scrutiny.” He and his team

“are experts in Democratic Party factional infighting. Few have dealt with people who do not play by the rules of the mainstream Democratic Party. They have always been the rule breakers, the people who got inside the other team’s decision cycle.

“They have been the Minutemen fighting the Redcoats, picking off the other side’s regulars from behind trees and fences. Now they are about to experience what happens when a militia faces off on an open field against a ruthless modern army with cluster bombs and napalm. They will be shredded and torched.”

But if Bernie is the Democrats’ weakest candidate and a surefire loser in a general election matchup against Trump, the source of his political appeal is nonetheless instructive, says Frum, and something that Dems need to understand, internalize and embrace.

Simply put, Bernie is an old-fashioned socialist who focuses on bread-and-butter economic issues—jobs, healthcare, education, student debt relief, the social-safety net, et al. Other left-wing progressives running for president—Elizabeth Warren most notably—focus more on identity politics and on being “woke” or politically correct.

Frum is too polite to explicitly say it (especially in the pages of The Atlantic, which caters to woke, upscale progressives), but identity politics, left-wing cultural grievances, and PC purity tests are a real turnoff to most ordinary, working- and middle-class voters, black and white.

In fact, I believe that Trump’s 2016 win is far more attributable to the Democrats’ increasing embrace of cultural Marxism than it is to Trump’s embrace of economic populism.

Frum rightly fears that if the Dems continue to lean forward where they are weakest, on matters of culture and identity politics, they will lose in November to Trump. Thus he implores Democrats to lay off of their obsession with woke, identity politics, and, instead, to embrace Bernie’s more universal, broad-based, populist appeal.

It’s sound political advice, but will Democrats accept it?

Frum points to the fundamental divide within the Democratic Party: between the mostly white, affluent, upscale, college-educated progressives, for whom being woke is everything; and less affluent working- and middle-class blacks, who care more about the practical bread-and-butter issues that are at the heart of the Sanders’ campaign.

The white, affluent elite dominate the political dialogue and discussion and are the Dem’s donor class. However, the less affluent middle- and working class blacks are “in many ways the true base of the Democratic Party,” Frum says. They are the voters who will make all the difference in the South Carolina primary and, on Super Tuesday, in the South and industrial Midwest.

Ironically, Sanders has had real difficulty appealing to black voters; but Frum sees evidence that this is changing. “The latest CNN poll,” he notes, “showed Sanders erasing Biden’s lead among nonwhite voters—perhaps in spite of Sanders’s indifference to identity politics, or maybe, just maybe, because of that indifference” (though Frum acknowledges that this CNN poll may be an outlier).

If the polls are correct, then Biden is Frum’s only real hope for stopping Sanders and beating Trump. Biden has held up well, but he is still 77 years old and clearly not the man or candidate he was 10 or 20 years ago. He’s lost a step, and father time can be unkind.

Yet, as Frum observes, “the left-but-not-woke idea does have power—including with many members of racial minorities.” What we don’t yet know is whether that idea has enough power to overcome the Democratic Party’s woke brigades, or whether, instead, that idea will become their latest victim. All eyes are on Iowa, New Hampshire, and especially more racially and ethnically diverse South Carolina and Nevada. Stay tuned.

Feature photo credit: Associated Press via VOA News.

Chris Christie’s WSJ COVID Op-Ed Leaves Too Much Fat on the Bone

Chris Christie’s WSJ COVID Op-Ed Leaves Too Much Fat on the Bone

By John R Guardiano on October 25, 2020

Chris Christie wants desperately to get back in the good graces of the media and political elite. So he wrote a self-serving op-ed that misleads the public about masks, while failing to tell the truth about what really must be done to combat COVID.

Chris Christie thinks he erred by not wearing a mask. I’m here to tell you that his real problem is gross obesity; and that if he cares about his health, he needs to go on a diet and exercise, and worry less about wearing a mask.

And what is true of Christie is true of most Americans: Our biggest health risk, by far, is not that we fail to cover up (our faces); it is that we fail to cut back (on our consumption of food).

Christie, of course, is the former Republican governor of New Jersey. He contracted the coronavirus after huddling in close quarters with President Trump and other advisers as they prepared Trump for his Sept. 29, 2020, presidential debate with Joe Biden.

“I should have worn a mask,” Christie writes in the Wall Street Journal.

It was a serious failure for me, as a public figure, to go maskless at the White House. I paid for it, and I hope Americans can learn from my experience. I am lucky to be alive. It could easily have been otherwise.

Evidence and Data. In truth, there is no real evidence or data to demonstrate that a mask would have prevented Christie from contracting the coronavirus. His problem was not that he failed to wear a mask; it was that he failed to social distance by going to the White House in the first place. (Have you heard of Zoom or FaceTime, governor?)

And, as far as being “lucky to be alive,” this is hyperbolic. Again, the data show otherwise: According to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, the case fatality rate in the United States for COVID19 is 2.6 percent.

In other words, more than 97 percent of those who get the virus here (confirmed cases) do not die as a result.

In fact, because physicians and patients understand the virus better and have developed better therapeutics and better treatment regimens, increasing numbers of Americans—including, for instance, President Trump—are recovering remarkably quickly and with fewer side effects and complications.

Obesity. But if you’re obese—as millions of Americans are—you are at heightened risk not only of contracting the virus, but of suffering serious complications as a result, including death. As Yale Medicine reports:

“We all know that older age is the greatest risk factor. But obesity is emerging as one of the next most important ones,” says Dr. Ania Jastreboff, MD, PhD, a Yale Medicine endocrinologist and obesity medicine physician.

“Additionally, if you consider other diseases implicated with COVID-19 severity such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or hypertension, obesity is a common contributor underlying all of them.”

And it looks like the excess weight itself is problematic, not just the other health conditions it causes.

“Early data support that obesity is an independent risk factor, meaning that if you control for diabetes, heart problems, hypertension, and other medical conditions, obesity—itself a chronic disease—may potentially be the unifying disease involved in exacerbating COVID-19,” Dr. Jastreboff says.

In fact, one study out of New York City showed obesity was a stronger factor predicting hospitalization for COVID-19 than high blood pressure, diabetes, or cancer—or even pulmonary, kidney, or coronary disease.

Another study, which looked at hospitalized COVID-19 patients under age 60 in New York City, found that individuals who have obesity were twice as likely to be hospitalized and even more likely to require critical care than those who do not have it.

This matters because obesity is an epidemic problem in America. Some 42.4 percent of adults, and 20.6 percent of adolescents (12-19 year-olds), are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Christie is one of them. He has been chronically obese his entire adult life. Yet, nowhere in his Wall Street Journal mea culpa does Christie mention his weight—or obesity in general—as a problem or risk factor for COVID. But doing so, obviously, would have been a real public health service.

Nor does Christie mention the fact that patients who have taken Vitamin D and Zinc supplements have averted the worst outbreaks of the virus. But again, doing so would have been a real public health service.

Instead, Christie gratuitously attacks a straw man: people who don’t wear a mask because they supposedly think a mask is a sign of weakness or political virtue signaling.

Unmasked. In truth, there are perfectly legitimate reasons not to wear a mask. These include:

the fact that there are no valid scientific studies or data to demonstrate that masks are effective at stopping the spread of the coronavirus or any other virus;
masks instill in many people a false sense of confidence that they are safe and protected by a mask, worn either by themself or by others; and that they can refrain, therefore, from social distancing;
masks inhibit effective communication—including, importantly, non-verbal, facial communication; and
in places that have good ventilation, and which allow for social distancing, masks are, at best, superfluous, redundant, and unnecessary.

Polarization. Christie also laments the “polarization of something as practical as a mask.” But who has polarized the mask and made it a symbol of seriousness about COVID19?

The media and political elite, who have been on hair-trigger alert for whenever a political or public figure—especially President Trump—is or is not wearing a mask.

The President, by contrast, has been a model of tolerance and open-mindedness: by choosing sometimes to wear a mask and other times not to wear a mask. Trump, moreover, has allowed his staff to don masks without judgment or pressure from him either to do so or not to do so.

In short, Christie’s complaint about the polarization of the mask is misplaced; and his focus on the mask as the critical public health measure that we all should embrace is equally misplaced.

And Christie’s focus is deliberately misplaced because he is less interested in performing a genuine public health service than he is in getting back in the good graces of the media and political elite.

In truth, if you want to avoid coming down with a bad case of the coronavirus, go on a diet, exercise, and lose weight. Take Vitamin D and Zinc supplements. Social distance and avoid crowds.

Wear a mask if it makes you feel better, but as the data clearly shows: wearing a mask is the very last thing you should worry about.

Just don’t ask Chris Christie. He’s too interested in what the media and political elite think than in what the science demonstrates.

Feature photo credit: Chris Christie courtesy of Chance Dagger’s Notes on Contemporary Life.

Bernie’s Charmed Political Life Masks His Ideological Extremism

Bernie’s Charmed Political Life Masks His Ideological Extremism

By John R Guardiano on January 13, 2020

Bernie’s surge in Iowa and his steadfast core of support nationwide mask his extreme left-wing views. Most political reporting, after all, is focused on the competitive horserace and not on matters of substantive public policy. This has resulted in the norming or legitimization of Bernie’s far-left ideas, as voters are led to believe that the Vermont senator is just the latest in a long line of conventional Democratic presidential frontrunners.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Bernie, remember, is an avowed socialist fully committed to the redistribution of wealth, punishing and punitive rates of taxation, government control and coercion, public-sector monopolies, and American military withdrawal and retreat.

In short, Bernie is no JFK. He isn’t even Jimmy Carter or Barack Obama. How, then, did we arrive at this improbable and frightening moment where Bernie has become a bona fide presidential frontrunner who might well capture the Democratic presidential nomination and perhaps even the Presidency of the United States?

In an illuminating piece published today, National Review’s Jim Geraghty helps answer this question. Bernie, Geraghty points out, has led a charmed political life marked by incredible luck and a series of one unlikely success after another.

For example, Bernie first ran for office “in late 1971 because he volunteered and no one else did… He received one percent of the vote,” but gained valuable political experience. “In 1980, when he first ran for mayor of the town [of Burlington, Vermont, Bernie] won by 10 votes over a wildly overconfident five-term incumbent who ‘hardly bothered to campaign.’

“…In 1988,” Geraghty notes, Bernie “ran for Vermont’s open U.S. House seat and lost, in what could have been the end of his political career.” But alas, he ran again two years later in a six-way race.

The incumbent, Republican Peter Smith, had changed his mind on the so-called assault-weapons ban, infuriating gun owners and their political leaders. This led to an endorsement of the then-independent Sanders by . . . NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre. (“The gun vote brought us down,” Smith’s campaign manager later lamented.) Thus, with the help of the nation’s most powerful gun-rights group, Sanders was first elected to Congress. He’s been there ever since.

Yes, Bernie has been incredibly lucky. But as the old adage has it, you make your own luck. “Eighty percent of success is showing up,” explained Woody Allen.

Bernie has shown up, and he has competed politically, often when no one else would. Consequently, he is today knocking on the door to the Democratic presidential nomination, and he may well push the door open in Iowa Feb. 3. We’ll see.

The Trump Resemblance. In this way, Bernie bears a striking political resemblance to Donald Trump, another extraordinarily lucky politician who won (in 2016) largely just by showing up and competing politically. But like Trump, Bernie has his own peculiar ideas that run crosscurrent to the political mainstream.

We don’t hear much about these ideas because political reporting is what it is, and because of the cult of personality that surrounds “The Bern.” But make no mistake: Bernie’s radical positions are the essence of who and what he is politically. And precisely because his ideas are ideologically moored and grounded, they threaten to radically disrupt American life in ways Trump never dreamed of or even thought possible.

Trump’s peculiarities, after all, are his utter and complete self-absorption and narcissistic personality disorder. Bernie’s peculiarities, by contrast, have nothing to do with personality and everything to do with ideology, and, for that reason, are arguably far more dangerous. We will feel the burn, indeed.

Did NATO Provoke Putin?

Did NATO Provoke Putin?

By John R Guardiano on February 23, 2022

Prominent commentators on both the Left and the Right have created a false narrative that blames America and NATO, at least in part, for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They’re wrong.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has been nothing but transparent about his objectives in Ukraine and Eastern Europe—what he seeks and why he seeks it. Frighteningly, Putin seeks the dissolution of Ukraine and other sovereign countries and their incorporation into a more expansive Russian empire.

Yet, prominent commentators—including, for instance, the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman and National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty—insist on ignoring, or at least downplaying, what Putin actually says, so that they can blame America and the West, at least in part, for Russian imperialism.

NATO Expansion. Their main charge is that by expanding NATO eastward after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States and Western Europe threatened legitimate Russian security interests and thereby “inflame[d] the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russia…”

That last quote is from George Kennan in 1997, and both Friedman and Dougherty cite Kennan as prophetic. “The mystery,” writes Friedman, “was why the U.S. …would choose to quickly push NATO into Russia’s face when it was weak.”

Because of NATO expansion, writes Dougherty, Putin’s attack on Ukraine was “not just predictable, but predicted… Putin, [consequently], has shifted his strategy of trying to deter NATO and Ukraine to one of compulsion.”

George Kennan. Kennan, of course, is the American diplomat who wisely and brilliantly devised the Western strategy of containment at the onset of the Cold War. But while he is rightly credited for that achievement, he was not infallible.

Anne Applebaum points out that “Kennan was wrong about a lot of things… [He] was somebody who saw the world through Russian eyes,” not the eyes of Europeans threatened by Soviet communism and Russian imperialism.

Thus even at the onset of the Cold War, in 1948, as the Soviets were installing puppet governments in Eastern Europe and threatening Western Europe, Kennan opposed the creation of NATO.

“He believed its creation would solidify the [European] continent’s division and put an end to the possibility of reunifying Germany and Europe,” explains Christopher Layne in a 2012 piece in the The National Interest.

Russian Aggression. In truth, as Applebaum observes, and as is plainly obvious, NATO expansion decades later was not the cause of Russian aggression.

Instead, Russian aggression precipitated an intense desire by the East Europeans to join NATO—just as it had precipitated a desire by the West Europeans to create NATO in the first place back in the late 1940s after World War II.

The East Europeans, like the West Europeans decades earlier, feared Russia, and for good reason. Thus they sought the protective umbrella of NATO.

Friedman, then, is factually and historically wrong: NATO expansion was not caused by an American desire to “push NATO into Russia’s face when it was weak.” NATO expansion was caused by the East European’s desire to push back when Russia became belligerent and threatening well after the Cold War ended in 1999 and 2004.

Hungary, Poland the Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999. The Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined the alliance in 2004.

False History. Dougherty, meanwhile, presents a falsified version of more recent history in which, he argues, Putin tried to constructively and peaceably engage Ukraine only to be stymied by a NATO hellbent on expanding eastward.

But of course, Ukraine is not a member of NATO and never has been remotely close to becoming a member of NATO. (Although in recent years, because of naked Russian aggression and Russian imperialism, Ukraine’s desire to join NATO has intensified, just as it did for the East Europeans in the late 1990’s and early aughts.)

Dougherty also ignores Putin’s own quite explicit desire to subsume Ukraine and make it an indissoluble part of Russia.

“Ukraine,” Putin said, “is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space… Modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia, more specifically the Bolshevik, communist Russia.”

In other words, Ukraine as a free, sovereign, and independent state is an historical fiction that must be erased.

As David French points out: “Vladimir Putin’s core problem with Ukraine is not with its western alliances, [or its potential membership in NATO], but with its independent existence.”

Ukraine is Not Russia. In truth, although Ukraine and Russia share deep historic roots, they are two distinct countries.

“Ukrainian identity politics and nationalism have been irritants in Russia since the feudal czarist times that predated the Russian Revolution,” observes the New York Times.

Ukraine, moreover, voted resoundingly, in a 1991 democratic referendum, to leave the Soviet Union.

How resoundingly? Well, 83 percent of Donbass residents in Eastern Ukraine bordering Russia voted for Ukrainian independence, as did 54 percent of the residents in Crimea, reports former Ukrainian official Oleksandr Danylyuk in Politico.

Today, according to a February 2022 CNN poll, two-thirds of Ukrainians reject the notion that Ukrainians and Russians are one people.

“No region of Ukraine, and no age group,” reports CNN, “has a majority where respondents say Russians and Ukrainians are one people.

Even in eastern Ukraine, which borders Russia and is partially controlled by Russian-backed separatists, fewer than half (45%) of respondents said they agree that Russians and Ukrainians are one people – a score much lower than in Russia.

More to the point:

Ukrainians overwhelmingly feel Russia and Ukraine should be two separate countries, with 85% saying so, 9% saying they should be one country, and 6% responding that they did not know.

The bottom line: Ukraine is not Russia, and NATO expansion eastward clearly and obviously did not cause Putin to invade Ukraine.

The truth is quite the opposite: Ukraine and Russia are two distinct countries with different national aspirations. And, to the extent Ukraine is looking to the West and to NATO for protection, it is because of persistent Russian threats and aggression.

In short, America and NATO are not the problem; America and NATO are the solution to the problem, which is Russian imperialism. That’s how the Ukrainians and East Europeans see it; and about that, there can be no honest debate—Friedman and Dougherty to the contrary notwithstanding.

Feature photo credit: the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman (L) and National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty (R), courtesy of a Charlie Rose YouTube video screenshot and a Breaking Points YouTube video screenshot, respectively.

Trump’s Quest for Revenge Threatens to Destroy His Chances for Reelection

Trump’s Quest for Revenge Threatens to Destroy His Chances for Reelection

By John R Guardiano on February 9, 2020

Case in point: this week’s National Prayer Breakfast, White House political rally, and ‘Friday Night Massacre’

Has there ever been an American president—or any elected official for that matter—with a greater propensity to shoot himself in the foot than Donald J. Trump? He seems as eager to squander his political fortune as he did his father’s big-money inheritance.

The president this week survived impeachment and gave a masterfully written State of the Union Address. His most formidable potential general election opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, is imploding after finishing a distant fourth in the Iowa Caucuses and trailing badly in the New Hampshire primary, which takes place Tues., Feb. 11.

Any semi-functioning adult with half a brain would recognize that lady luck is shining down upon him, thank his lucky stars, and look forward, not backward.

But of course, Trump, as we all know, is not normal. He is dim-witted and seemingly hellbent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Thus he spent the latter part of the week venting his spleen and trying to exact revenge on his enemies, real and imagined.

And if Trump loses reelection, it won’t be because of the growing economy, booming stock market, historically low unemployment rate, and relative peace and prosperity that we Americans now enjoy.

Instead, it will be because of days like Thursday and Friday, when the electorate saw an angry and vindictive man who seems to care more about creating drama and settling personal scores than he does about exercising calm and steady leadership that will benefit us all.

First, there was the National Prayer Breakfast, which Trump bastardized. Then there was his rank display of anger, self-pity and resentment on display for all the world to see at a pathetic and melancholy White House rally with Republican lawmakers.

And finally, Trump had nonpartisan public servants and military officers whom he deemed responsible for his impeachment publicly fired, dismissed, and humiliated. It was, to say the least, a shameful and disgraceful exhibition of selfishness, self-absorption, and small-mindedness.

The National Prayer Breakfast, of course, is a 68-year-old national tradition in the nation’s capital. It is, obviously, supposed to be an apolitical, nonpartisan event that brings lawmakers and the country together. The intent is to call a ceasefire in our nation’s political wars and temporarily suspend partisan hostilities.

For most normal politicians, this is an easy-lift and something they look forward to doing. It gives them the chance to rise above the political fray and appear judicious and broad-minded, while appealing to apolitical, independent voters turned off by constant political warfare.

Amazingly, though, Trump managed to fumble this opportunity and turn it into an easy score for his enemies.

How? By stupidly politicizing the event and completely disregarding its purpose and intent. As Cal Thomas explains, Trump arrived late and held up two newspapers that included “acquitted” in their headline. This was an obvious reference to his impeachment acquittal by the Senate.

He conspicuously avoided shaking hands with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California); and, after Arthur Brooks, the former head of the American Enterprise Institute, gave a wonderful speech expounding upon the theme of his 2019 book, Love Your Enemies, Trump responded: “Arthur, I don’t know if I agree with you… I don’t know if Arthur’s going to like what I’m going to say.”

Well, Trump is surely right about that, because, as Michael Gerson observes in the Washington Post:

The purpose of Trump’s sermon at the Hilton was, in fact, to put his enemies on notice. Those who pursued impeachment were “very dishonest and corrupt people.” “They know what they are doing is wrong,” he continued, “but they put themselves far ahead of our great country.”

Congressional Republicans, in contrast, had the wisdom and strength “to do what everyone knows was right.”

Trump proceeded to make a thinly veiled attack against Mitt Romney of Utah, the only Republican senator to vote for the president’s removal: “I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong.”

And then a shot at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.): “Nor do I like people who say, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ when I know that is not so.”

The rest of the speech alternated between pedestrian civil religion and Trump campaign riffs. The stock market is up. Do I hear an “amen”? Gallup personal satisfaction numbers are rising. Preach it, brother!

What makes Trump’s remarks all the more stunning is that, as Gerson points out, Brooks’ argument for political forgiveness and reconciliation isn’t based on some odd or esoteric ideal.

Instead, it is based on Biblical commands and the words of Jesus Christ himself: “Love your enemies; bless those that curse you; do good to them that hate you.” It’s all there in the Sermon on the Mount.

It is understandable, of course, that, in the immediate aftermath of impeachment, Trump would be angry and disinclined to forgive and forget, let alone love his political enemies. We all understand that and Brooks understands that. Which is why, as Cal Thomas notes:

In his remarks, Brooks said that if people can’t sincerely practice forgiveness and reconciliation, they should “fake it.” His point was that reconciliation has a power all its own, even if one initially is not sincere about it. Trump clearly missed a grand opportunity. It would have cost him nothing to shake Pelosi’s hand.

Trump’s Angry Rant. But Trump rarely misses an opportunity to fumble the ball politically; and he did so again later that day in what the Washington Post’s David Nakamura describes as an “angry, raw and vindictive 62-minute White House rant:

He spoke without a teleprompter. He cursed in the East Room. He called the House speaker a “horrible person.” He lorded his power over a room full of deferential Republicans. He mocked a former GOP presidential nominee and his 2016 Democratic rival. He played the victim again and again.

Two days after President Trump delivered what aides called an “optimistic” State of the Union address that made no mention of his historic impeachment, he ranted for more than an hour at the White House on Thursday in a “celebration” of his Senate acquittal a day earlier. But the mood—at least his mood—was not particularly celebratory.

Trump was angry, raw, vindictive, aggrieved—reflecting the id of a president who has seethed for months with rage against his enemies. This was the State of Trump.

In short, it was not an attractive or winning performance. It was, as I say, an exercise in selfishness, self-absorption, and small-mindedness—and it will not win Trump any votes beyond his hardcore base in November.

‘Friday Night Massacre.’ The president concluded the week by removing Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council (NSC) and firing Gordon Sondland, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union.

Their crime: they testified truthfully before Congress about Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the pressure campaign mounted by Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani and others to force Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and Burisma.

LTC Yevgeny Vindman also was removed from the NSC, apparently because he is the twin brother of LTC Alexander Vindman. Politico, moreover, reports that others who testified truthfully before Congress—former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and former top U.S. envoy to Ukraine William Taylor—left their posts in recent days.

National Security staff, ambassadors and envoys, of course, serve at the pleasure of the president. Trump has every right to dismiss those he deems untrustworthy, unsupportive, and unhelpful. But these dismissals were clearly rooted in Trump’s desire to exact revenge and retribution on mostly apolitical and nonpartisan public servants whose only crime was to tell the truth to Congress and the American people.

Indeed, as Sen. Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) explains, “by firing Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and Ambassador Sondland like this, the Trump administration signaled it won’t tolerate people who tell tell the truth.” Max Boot notes that federal law (18 U.S. Code § 1513) protects witnesses from retaliation—“not that the president will ever be prosecuted,” he writes.

But while Trump may be technically within his rights, he is clearly violating the spirit of the law, and, as a political matter, is hurting himself and the country. No American—and certainly, no independent-minded swing voter—wants as president a man with a disdain for the truth and an intolerance for staff who tell Congress and the American people the truth.

The smart move, politically, would have been to demonstrate some magnanimity and high-mindedness, leave these officials and staff in place, and move on to matters of greater political and public policy consequence.

Trump also viciously defamed LTC Vindman in two tweets filled with lies and falsehoods about Vindman’s service on the National Security Council.

We’ll have more to say about that in a subsequent piece; but what matters here is Trump’s stupid and boneheaded political judgment. How does viciously attacking a decorated Army officer and Iraq War veteran help Trump’s political prospects and chances for reelection?

It obviously doesn’t.

Political Self-Immolation. If (when?) trump loses reelection, political analysts and historians may see the days after his acquittal as critical harbingers of his defeat. This was when Trump decided to forego any attempt to rise above the fray and try and unite the country.

Instead, he opted to indulge himself by trying to exact revenge and retribution against anyone he thinks did him wrong. Trump should learn from another president, Richard Nixon, who, although nearly impeached, actually won reelection in a landslide (albeit before he was impeached).

“Always remember,” Nixon said, “others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”

Unfortunately, at a time when everything politically is working in Trump’s favor, he has embarked upon a path that likely will destroy himself and the Republican Party, and it may be too late to stop him.

Feature Photo Credit: Market Watch.

Intellectual Intolerance and the Abandonment of Classically Liberal Values Threaten to Destroy America

Intellectual Intolerance and the Abandonment of Classically Liberal Values Threaten to Destroy America

By John R Guardiano on June 6, 2020

The New York Times’ apology for publishing Sen. Tom Cotton’s Op-Ed, and the NFL’s repudiation of Drew Brees’ commitment to honoring the American flag, are inflection points that do not bode well for the United States.

We have observed that groupthink is a serious problem in America today: that it distorts our public dialogue and debate on issues ranging from the coronavirus to law enforcement and public safety, race relations, and other matters of public policy.

Intertwined with groupthink is intellectual intolerance, closed-mindedness, and an unwillingness to allow for the legitimacy of different points of view that may not accord with our own.

Groupthink prevents people from thinking outside of the proverbial box, while intellectual intolerance and closed-mindedness punish them for even thinking about doing so.

This is, obviously, dangerous because it stifles fresh thinking, creativity and innovation. It also is completely contrary to everything that the United States of America was founded upon.

Ours is a classically liberal republic that was founded upon classically liberal values such as freedom of thought, the right to private property, and free enterprise.

The First Amendment prevents the government from abridging our freedom of speech. However, the values that underlie the First Amendment—intellectual tolerance, open-mindedness, robust and vigorous debate, et al.—have long suffused American institutions and American society more generally, especially at the elite level.

Not anymore. Increasingly, it seems, the American elite are abandoning classically liberal values for more contemporary illiberal and authoritarian values.

Thus freedom of thought no longer is seen as an unalloyed good with inherent and intrinsic worth. Instead, speech is judged by how it makes us feel—or, more importantly, how it makes politically important groups and constituencies feel.

Is the speech or thought dangerous or politically incorrect? Does it hurt or harm people? Does it promote hate? Does it violate our communal norms and sense of propriety and justice? Does it threaten our “safe space” and ability to contribute and function to the commonweal?

If so, then, I’m sorry, but your “freedom of speech” ends because it is in contradistinction to the “public good.”

Censorship. Of course, the illiberal authoritarians never admit that they are censors. They correctly note that the First Amendment applies to government, not to institutions and individuals. While this is technically true from a strictly legal perspective, it also misses the point:

The freedom that we Americans enjoy has never depended solely or even mainly on what the government does or does not do. Instead, our freedom has depended on what institutions do—especially our elite, private sector institutions in business, academia, and the media.

Indeed, these institutions serve as our cultural arbiters. They set the tone for what is and is not permissible.

And, for most of American history, they championed classically liberal values. That they increasingly refuse to do so is highly disconcerting and worrisome. Consider, for instance, two big news items that illustrate this troubling trend:

Item One. The New York Times this week published an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) arguing that, in accordance with the Insurrection Act, President Trump should deploy the active duty military or National Guard to cities and states plagued with violent rioting.

The purpose of such a deployment, the Senator explained, would be to restore domestic peace and tranquility and ensure that peaceful protesters can exercise their First Amendment rights without fear of bodily harm or injury.

Agree or disagree, this is a perfectly fair, reasonable, and legitimate argument—especially given that people have been shot, killed, beaten, and run over by violent rioters in the past week.

Yet, Cotton’s op-ed has provoked howls of outrage on social media from dozens of New York Times reporters who ludicrously assert (reportedly with a straight face) that Cotton’s argument endorses military occupation and state violence, promotes hate, and puts black Times reporters in danger.

This is absurd and nonsensical. Yet, as a result of this hullabaloo, the Times has gone to extraordinary lengths to explain and justify its decision to publish Cotton’s op-ed, while giving undue deference to its illiberal authoritarian critics and employees.

Group Think. And now, amazingly, after more than 800 of the paper’s staffers signed a letter protesting the op-ed’s publication, the Times has issued a statement saying the essay fell short of the newspaper’s standards and should not have been published.

“We’ve examined the piece and the process leading up to its publication,” Eileen Murphy, a Times spokeswoman, said in a statement.

“This review made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an op-ed that did not meet our standards. As a result, we’re planning to examine both short-term and long-term changes, to include expanding our fact-checking operation and reducing the number of op-eds we publish.”

In other words: the mob has spoken and we get it. We will appease the mob and aspire never to repeat this “mistake” by publishing “dangerous” and “wrongheaded” op-eds.

Item Two: New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees was asked by Yahoo Finance about the “take-a-knee” protests by some players in the National Football league.

These players refuse to stand for the playing of the national anthem. Instead, they take a knee, ostensibly to protest “systemic racism” and police brutality in law enforcement.

Brees’ response:

Well, that’s not an easy question to answer… God created us all equal. We all have a responsibility to love each other and to respect other. I try to live my life by two basic Christian fundamentals:

Love your Lord with all your heart, mind and soul; and love your neighbor as yourself. And I think that we accomplish greater things as a community, as a society, and as a country when we do it together…

These are trying times for our country… I think we all recognize the changes that need to take place…

We need to find ways to work together to provide opportunities for one another: to continue to move our country forward to a bigger and better place.

Brees then was a follow-up question about the “take-a-knee” protest.

“Now it’s coming back to the fore,” said Dan Roberts,

and a lot of people expect that we will see players kneeling again when the NFL season starts. I’m curious: how you think the NFL will and should respond to that… And what is your responsibility as a leader in times like this…?

Brees’ response:

Well, I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country.

Let me just tell you what I feel when the national anthem is played and when I look at the flag of the United States.

I envision my two grandfathers, who fought for this country during World War II, one in the Army and one in the Marine Corps: both risking their lives to protect our country and to try and make our country and this world a better place.

So every time [that] I stand with my hand over my heart looking at that flag and singing the national anthem, that’s what I think about.

And, in many cases, it brings me to tears, thinking about all that has been sacrificed—not just [by] those in the military, but for that matter, [by] those throughout the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point [emphasis added].

And is everything right about our country right now? No, it’s not. We still have a long way to go.

But I think what you do by standing there and showing respect for the flag with your hand over your heart is it shows unity. It shows that we are all in this together.

We can all do better. And that we are all part of the solution.

This is a perfectly reasonable and fair-minded point of view shared by millions of Americans and military veterans, black and white, who believe that the American flag and national anthem are and ought to be unifying symbols for Americans of all hues, colors, and ethnicities.

Intellectual Intolerance. Yet, Brees’ response has provoked howls of outrage—as if he had just pledged his allegiance to the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan rather than extol the example of the Civil Rights movement, which ended Jim Crow and ensured black voting rights, as well as the example of his two grandfathers who enlisted in the U.S. military to help fight World War II.

Hall of Fame tight end Shanon Sharpe, for instance, could barely contain his contempt for Brees. Sharpe issued a long filibuster-like rant on the Fox News television show Undisputed in which he called Brees’ remarks “insulting,” and said that Brees’ attitude is what has made “the black fight [for equality] so hard” or difficult.

Brees, Sharpe added, should retire from football because he no longer can command the respect of his black teammates.

Retired Pro Bowl safety and ESPN analyst Ryan Clark declared that Brees showed he “doesn’t care that black people are being killed without justice being served… I’m not surprised,” he said. “I already knew who he was.”

“He just doesn’t care,” agreed All-Pro nose tackle Damon Harrison Sr.

Brees’ teammate, Malcolm Jenkins, told him that:

People who share your sentiments, who express those, and [who] push them throughout the world, the airwaves, are the problem. And it’s unfortunate, because I considered you a friend.

I looked up to you. You’re somebody who I had a great deal of respect for. But sometimes, you should shut the f— up.

Dissent. Of course, it defies all reason and understanding to conclude from Brees’ comments that he “just doesn’t care” about the difficulties and obstacles that confront African Americans. But what’s noteworthy about the reaction from many of Brees’ peers is their rank intolerance for contrary points of view.

You either agree with them about taking a knee during the national anthem (ostensibly to protest “systemic racism” and allegedly widespread “police brutality”), or you are indifferent to, or opposed to, fairness, justice, and racial equality.

They will brook no dissent. Different perspectives are not just mistaken or misguided; they are morally repugnant and utterly beyond the pale.

Maoist-Like Recantation. Sadly, Brees has since apologized and recanted, and is now obediently reciting the left-wing, “progressive” creed—to wit: “WE ARE THE PROBLEM,” his wife dutifully wrote on Instagram, as if she had just come out of a Maoist struggle session. “We are not doing enough. I am sorry. We are sorry.”

“We must stop talking about the flag and shift our attention to the real issues of system racial injustice, economic oppression, police brutality, and judicial and prison reform,” Brees dutifully wrote.

NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, meanwhile, issued a video statement in which he felt compelled to state that the league “condemns racism and the systematic oppression of black people.

We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest.

We, the National Football League, believe Black Lives Matter.

I personally protest with you and want to be a part of the much needed change in this country.

Without black players there would be no National Football League. And the protests around the country are emblematic of the centuries of silence, inequality, and oppression of black players, coaches, fans, and staff…

The irony is that center-left elites say we need to have “an honest dialogue” about race in America, only they don’t really mean that. Because the minute the “dialogue” doesn’t proceed according to how they’ve scripted it, they browbeat the dissenters into submission.

Thus we don’t have an “honest dialogue.” Instead, we have a dishonest monologue, with the dissenters staying quiet because they don’t wish to be libeled as racists and bigots.

Shannon Sharpe, though, is right about one thing: the American flag is supposed to stand for something. It’s supposed to stand for the classically liberal values—including, notably, freedom of thought—upon which our country was founded.

Unfortunately, those values are now under assault by illiberal authoritarians who refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of points of view that differ from their own.

And when highly influential institutions such as the New York Times and National Football League abandon these values because of a zealous commitment to what they perceive to be a greater good—in this case, racial equality—they endanger not just that allegedly greater good, but the entire American experiment in (classically liberal) self-government.

A republic if you can keep it, warned Benjamin Franklin. America has survived many trials and tribulations to be sure; but increasingly, it looks like Franklin’s warning was prophetic, and not because of anything Trump or the government did or did not do.

Instead, the fault lies with us, the citizenry, and especially our elite, who are rapidly abandoning their commitment to the classically liberal, foundational values that have been our guideposts for more than two centuries.

Most republics have ended up on the ash heap of history because they rotted from within. There is no guarantee that the American republic will be any different.

Feature photo credit: CBS News (Sen. Tom Cotton) and Black Sports Online (Drew Brees).

Mask Diversion

Mask Diversion

By John R Guardiano on January 18, 2022

Mask fetishists are pushing higher-quality respirators and surgical masks to stop or slow COVID, but they don’t have a scientific leg to stand on.

Now that cloths masks have been shown to be useless at stopping the spread of viral respiratory infections, mask fetishists are pushing respirators and surgical masks (N95s and KN95s) to stop COVID. Are they right to do so?

Evidence. Let’s look at the empirical and scientific evidence.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claims that masks “are effective at reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, when worn consistently and correctly…

“Properly fitted respirators, [including N95s], provide the highest level of protection.” However, it is important, says the CDC, “to check that [your mask] fits snugly over your nose, mouth, and chin,” and therein lies the rub.

Can people—especially young school-age children—reasonably be expected to wear a tightly fitted mask all day when interacting with others?

The undesirability of being masked, especially with a tightly fitted respirator or surgical mask, is obvious. Masks are irritating and they can cause health problems, especially when worn incorrectly and for prolonged periods of time. Masks also inhibit social interaction and communication.

For these reasons, no one enjoys being masked. Which is why there is good reason to doubt that these higher-quality masks would do much to stop or slow the spread of COVID in the general population (as opposed to a tightly contained surgical room).

Michael Osterholm and his team of researchers at the University of Minnesota, for instance, found that, since the beginning of the pandemic roughly a fourth of the population has consistently worn their masks loosely and incorrectly, under their nose, with plenty of room for viral leakage.

Is there any reason to think that people would be more fastidious about how they wear respirators and surgical masks?

Mask Study. The media has trumpeted the one and only randomized controlled trial involving respirators and N95 masks; but, in fact, this study showed only a very modest reduction in the spread of COVID. And it occurred in a poor country, Bangladesh, that bears little resemblance to the United States.

“The study did not find a significant impact of masks on coronavirus spread,” writes U.C. Berkeley Professor Benjamin Recht.

My takeaway is that a complex intervention including an educational program, free masks, encouraged mask wearing, and surveillance in a poor country with low population immunity and no vaccination showed at best a modest reduction in infection

Needless to say, and as this pandemic has shown, the American people are fiercely independent and not easily led or corralled into compliance. We are a vast, diverse, and unruly continental nation.

For many of us, “live free or die” is a way of life. Good luck, then, achieving the same results here as the researchers allegedly achieved in Bangladesh with surgical masks.

And even if universal masking here were as effective as the researchers claim it was in Bangladesh, is it worth the costs and tradeoffs involved?

Unimpressive Results. As Professor Recht observes, “community masking improved an individual’s risk of infection by a factor of only 1.1x… That’s not a lot of risk reduction.” In the MRNA vaccine trials, by contrast, the risk of symptomatic infection was reduced by a factor of 20x.

Moreover, the effect size in the study is “too small to inform policymaking.” Ostensibly because of masking, only 20 fewer people out of more than 340,000 participants were found to be seronegative or free of COVID.

“The corresponding efficacy is 11%, still woefully low.” The study thus lacks “statistical significance,” Recht writes.

The bottom line: there is little reason to believe that even higher-quality respirators and surgical masks (N95s and KN95s) would do much to stop or slow the spread of COVID in the general population.

Real-world settings and everyday social interactions simply are not analogous to a surgical room. And the one randomized controlled trial involving respirators and N95 masks yielded unimpressive results that are unlikely to be replicated in the United States and other freedom-loving countries.

Instead of wasting time on masks, public health authorities should focus on what works: vaccines, social distancing, and therapeutics. Masks are a mass diversion.

Feature photo credit: a registered nurse wears an N95 mask in the acute care unit of Harborview Medical Center, Friday, Jan. 14, 2022, in Seattle, Washington (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson), courtesy of KTLA Los Angeles.