Three Things I Learned… May 7

“News is what powerful people want to keep hidden. Everything else is just publicity.” Bill Moyers

1. In 1950, Congress created the National Science Board to insulate America’s basic-science funding from political pressure. A couple weeks ago, the presidential personnel office sent termination notices to members of the National Science Board in brief emails with no explanation. Then, “MMWR – the journal that on 5 June 1981, published the first five cases of what would become Aids – rejected a peer-reviewed paper on Covid-19 vaccine effectiveness after it had cleared scientific review and been scheduled for publication.” The regime believes if it controls all information, it will be insulated from blame for all the harm and destruction it is causing. That will, I cling to the hope, be harder here, where despite their desire to do so, the regime does not control all of the media and all of the flow of information. Still, a lot of people only get propaganda (we can’t call it news) from Fox and the like, and they’ll never hear about the Covid-19 vaccine’s effectiveness.

2. “The Justice Department has identified 384 foreign-born Americans whose citizenship it wants to revoke, part of a push to increase the pace of denaturalizations by assigning the cases to prosecutors in dozens of U.S. attorney’s offices across the country.” Lest anyone might think for a moment that the regime cares about the constitution orany of that inconvenient stuff, they keep making it clear they believe they are a law unto themselves. Thank God they’re too incompetent to keep gas prices low or stay out of unnecessary wars—because then they might get away with it. They only know how to use the stick, not the carrot. They are Orwellian, not Huxleyan, for any who might get an old Neil Postman reference, from his great 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Sadly, rather than going out of style, it has only become more relevant.

3. Also in the “We don’t good do, we only harm do” (yes, I’m paraphrasing the felon), the farm bill is again up for renewal. The farm bill, which Congress has to renew every five years or so, is an omnibus bill that covers agriculture and food policy. Why Hunger has a good summary of the damage the new version will do. It is terrible for farmers and anyone who, you know, eats food. Among the damaging things it will do, “It limits states’ ability to advance protections for local food systems or regulate pesticides, putting communities, the environment and farmworkers already facing dangerous conditions further at risk. It lacks robust investment in sustainable and small-scale agriculture, prioritizing further corporate consolidation.” On April 30 the new bill passed the Houseand is now being considered by the senate. Democrats will try to stop it, of course, and being in the minority, won’t succeed, of course. So make sure you vote! Unless you think it’s a good thing that Americans don’t get to eat. In that case, please stay home and don’t vote.