California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

We Need a Department of Peace to Balance and Offset our War Department

by John Lawrence

Let's face it. the Department of Defense is a euphemism. It was called the Department of War until 1949. So let's call it what it really is. Don't get me wrong. There are times when war is necessary as occurred in WW II. However, we spend about $1 trillion on our War Department while spending little or nothing on peace. Is there really a Peace Corps? Yes, and its budget is about $400 million. That's about 4 ten thousandths of the War Department budget. My point is that we should be making at least the same effort towards peace as we're making towards war, and we should be putting our money where our mouth is. This doesn't mean we totally disarm ourselves. It means that we are making an effort towards creating peace in the world if at all possible and are willing to devote an equal amount of resources towards it. In our present state it's all about threatening war in order to to create a state of peace. It's Pax Americana similar to the Pax Romana which meant that you didn't mess with Rome or else you were threatened with violence. Instead of creating peace by means of a threat of war, we should be actively pursuing a peaceful world instead.

What would a Department of Peace actually do? Well, diplomacy would be under this department instead of the State Department for starters. Second, the American equivalent of China's Belt and Road initiative. Building infrastructure around the world just as China is doing. But what's most important at the present time is converting the world to green infrastructure. The middle class in India is growing. They want to live just like Americans. As more Indians enter the middle class they are consuming more fossil fuels to provide the energy to do so. This is contributing to the looming climate disaster. Just what we don't need is more carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere as a result of more people gentrifying into the middle class. Therefore, a Department of Peace, which should include the Peace Corps, would step up the efforts not only to change the fossil fuel habit in the US, but to actively change it around the world. About a half a trillion dollar budget would be about right while decreasing the War (Defense) budget which is 10 times the combined budgets of the rest of the world to half a trillion.

President Biden wants a Civilian Climate Corps reminiscent of the Civilian Conservation Corps which President Roosevelt established to build parks and plant trees during the Great Depression. An excellent idea in view of the fact that planting a trillion trees would suck the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Unless we do that there is already enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 410 ppm to melt both poles. Why not require participation in the Civilian Conservation Corps for people receiving welfare benefits who aren't otherwise employed or who are unemployable in the prevailing economy. I'm thinking about the homeless and others for whom this might be a first step to getting back on their feet in the so-called real world. I'm in favor of the government being the employer of last resort, and employment in a Civilian Climate Corps is the perfect solution both for them and for the environment.

Building the elements of peace around the world would entail looking out for the health care needs of people outside the US in our era of pandemics. This is also good sense in a selfish way since viruses can transmit world wide in a matter of days if not hours. They don't respect national boundaries. People to people cultural contacts with people of other nations brings about understanding and the realization that, no matter what the religious or ethnic differences seem to be, human beings are all essentially the same deep down and all have the same needs and aspirations. Helping others to realize their aspirations creates peace in the world. Cultural and educational exchanges are an important way to increase mutual understanding. There are many ways to create peace in the world. The US shouldn't be always taking the stance of trying to put down those peoples and countries who don't follow the US way of life. Others might have a different way of setting up their societies, but rather than taking this as a threat, we should engage diplomatically and peacefully if at all possible knowing that in the final analysis, if push came to shove, we also have the means to defend ourselves. A Department of Peace and a Department of War should go hand in hand. Today it is lopsided in favor of war.

Off the Top of My Head

Biden Alternately Fights, Fuels Inflation

by John Lawrence

Normally the government spending money into the economy is a good thing. It promotes economic growth and prosperity. But when the economy overheats causing inflation, the government needs to extract money from the economy. It does that by, among other things, raising taxes. Also the Fed, like it's doing now, raises interest rates. This puts a damper on major purchases because of interest costs. The American Rescue Plan injected a lot of money into the economy that kept the wheels turning during the worst parts of the pandemic. That was a good thing, but too much of a good thing is a bad thing. The traditional way the Fed controls inflation is to squeeze the economy in such a way as to cause higher unemployment. The Phillips curve is a theoretical economic tool that shows the relationship between inflation and unemployment, the higher unemployment, the lower inflation and vice versa. At present, however, businesses are begging for workers, not laying them off. This is good news for workers, bad news for inflation.

Biden is trying to blunt the cost of inflation to low wage workers by getting Congress to pass some of the remnants of his Build Back Better plan. However, some of these items would cause the government to spend more money into the economy causing even more inflation. Biden doesn't want to tell the truth about inflation which is that the traditional solution is to cause even more pain for low wage workers by squeezing the economy to the point that they will lose their jobs thus increasing unemployment as the Phillips curve dictates. So basically there is nothing Biden can do except to decrease government spending. Republicans would cut programs that benefit the poor and raise taxes on the middle class to do just that.

Biden is continuing to spend money into the economy by purchasing billions of dollars worth of weapons which are then sent to Ukraine. This is inflationary in and of itself. As of May 20, 2022, the US has spent $54 billion on Ukraine, and, evidently, even more will be allocated. Ukraine has become a ward of the US with the US taking responsibility not only for supplying weapons but also for keeping the whole economy afloat. All this money spent on Ukraine is money not spent on programs for the American people unless you are an employee of the military-industrial complex for which Ukraine spending has become a bonanza. Of course there are other causes of inflation than too much government spending. The loss of Russian oil is causing gas prices to rise. Chinese COVID lockdowns are exacerbating the supply chain crisis. This is not a traditional inflation, but too much government spending is certainly a part of it. Biden's good intentions of protecting the American people during the COVID pandemic by flooding the economy with money had the concomitant effect of also causing inflation. Biden will never, of course, tell Americans the truth which is that in order to fight inflation the government will have to turn around and cause them more pain especially low wage workers.

Off the Top of My Head

Almost as Many Have Died During the Covid Pandemic as in All American Wars

by John Lawrence

Maybe we should have invested more in public health than we have in the military. Compared to the trillions spent on the military, only a pittance has been spent on public health, let alone on promoting peace in the world. 1.1 million have died in all American wars since the founding of the republic. About 927,000 and counting have died from the current pandemic even though a revolutionary mRNA vaccine is available. 675,000 died during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 sans vaccine. So many more people have died from pandemics in the US than have been killed in wars. Yet war and the preparations for war are pursued relentlessly while efforts for peace languish. This is not only dumb; it's sick. It goes to show that homo sapiens is one of the stupidest and least empathetic species that has ever evolved. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but the human race is right on course fiddling while the earth burns due to climate change. We will continue to fiddle and equivocate playing one upsmanship with each other as the earth deteriorates into an uninhabitable planet. No wonder the billionaires are making plans to get off.

Of course the power structure doesn't really care what happens on planet earth after they die. They will miss by virtue of their own natural deaths the worst of it. They will have lived the American Dream while bequeathing to their grandchildren the American Nightmare. As we continue to pour billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we are more concerned about the economy that we are about human survival and what sacrifices that will mean. In November, researchers at the Global Carbon Project estimated that global carbon-dioxide emissions from energy and industry rose 4.9 percent in 2021, after a 5.4 percent decline in 2020. China, India and the European Union all had major increases, suggesting that any climate effect from the pandemic was fleeting. So not even a worldwide pandemic can significantly alter the relentless pursuit of economic growth which produces mega tons of carbon dioxide. Residents of planet earth refuse to change their lifestyles and their aspirations for what they conceive to be a "better life."

In the US consumerism is force fed through advertising just like in France ducks are forced fed to produce foie gras. Facebook makes billions of dollars not selling a product but selling advertising. Amazon at least provides products and the service of delivering those products. The advertising industry is the equivalent of the forced feeding of ducks only the ducks are American consumers who would rather not change their lifestyles of accumulation even if it means that their grandchildren will die a miserable death on a burned out planet. Meanwhile, nations exacerbate tensions among each other and foment wars, the preparations for which cost trillions of dollars which, therefore, are not spent on climate mitigation.

Lifestyles not only of the rich but of the middle class would have to change if the earth is to survive climate change. The production of steel and concrete by current methods produce tons of carbon dioxide. The generation of electricity by coal and gas produces tons of carbon dioxide. Agriculture, mainly cow farts, produces tons of methane. As the earth warms sea levels rise, the Arctic thaws and even more methane is released. It's so anthropogenic! We would be better off going back to the horse and buggy days. The American fetish for progress has produced an ecological disaster. The American lifestyle is an environmental disaster. Meanwhile, the power structure in the US and elsewhere seems bound and determined to accelerate the process of environmental destruction while extreme weather events are passed off as "seen nothing like it but vowing to rebuild." That's the American can-do spirit!

Off the Top of My Head

Trump Reverses Advice on COVID Vaccinations

by John Lawrence

Since most of the anti-vaxxers are Trump voters and mostly the unvaccinated are the ones who are dying, Trump voters are dying off faster than Biden votes. Sensing this, Trump has recently reversed course and told people to get vaccinated. However, Trump was booed when he suggested getting vaccinated which goes to prove that once you've invested heavily in a particular point of view, it's not easy to all of a sudden do a 180 and tell people something different. So as the pandemic gets drawn out mainly due to Trump's base not getting vaccinated,Trump is sweating it that so many of his supporters are dying from COVID. Of course Democrats aren't too chagrined when another Trump voter bites the dust. They are keeping up their steady drumbeat of investigating the January 6 insurrection and compiling damning evidence that Trump and many of his henchmen were complicit in it. It didn't just happen spontaneously. It seems that much planning went into it.

At the same time the southern district of New York is looking into the dealings of the Trump business empire. They are finding the shocking revelations that it was based on defrauding both investors and the IRS. When it came to a valuation of a particular property, Trump told the IRS that it was practically worthless while inflating its value when it came to getting loans from a bank with that property as collateral. That's a pretty neat trick if you can pull it off, but it seems that now the chickens are coming home to roost, and Trump's main hope is that his base will continue to send him money. Fundraising is of the essence when all else fails. It leaves me wondering if all of Trump's shenanigans could land him in jail. He seems to have more escapes hatches than a cat has lives. He is a slippery eel indeed. Even though he has done this dastardly deed and that dastardly deed, it is as though none of them come with criminal penalties. The crucial question is "Can he go to jail for that?" After decrying to the max something Trump has done, when asked, the same pundit is apt to reply "No" with a bemused look on his or her face.

Evidently, defrauding investors and underpaying taxes is so routine with the Trump organization that it has ceased to be a bombshell revelation. It has become so normalized that nobody goes to jail for it especially an ex-President of the United States. As Nixon said, "When you're President, it's not a crime." The Nixon interviews were a series of conversations between former American president Richard Nixon and British journalist David Frost. They were recorded and broadcast on television and radio in four programs in 1977. In part 3, Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal". The criminal implications of Trump's misdeeds seem to fall into the same category. If the President of the United States does it, you can't send him to jail.

The question is could Trump run for President in 2024 if he is sitting in jail or convicted of a felony? There seems to be nothing in the Constitution that forbids it. So it's possible that the American people and indeed the people of the world could be treated to the spectacle that an elected President could be commander-in-chief while presiding from a jail cell.

Off the Top of My Head

Omigod, Omicron

by John Lawrence

Omicron is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. This means that there have been 14 variants of COVID starting with alpha, right? Well, almost right. They left out two letters - "nu" and "xi." "Nu" because COVID is anything but new after two years of infectiousness and "xi" because, well, you can't offend one of the leaders of a major country. So starting off the year of our Lord 2022, the people of the world are in worse shape than when we started 2021. There have been too many false starts at a return to normalcy. Just when we were told it was safe for grandparents to hug their grandchildren again, grandchildren gave their grandparents COVID, and they died. It's mainly the old who are doing the dying. Nothing new there. First we were all supposed to look forward to last July 4 when we could gather safely. Then it was Christmas. If there's anything that's a safe bet, it's that there aren't any safe bets when it comes to predicting when COVID will be over.

Two things can be said without controversy. 1) Those who are vaccinated and boosted are in better shape than those who aren't. It's mainly the unvaccinated, in addition to the elderly, who are doing the dying. 2) The worst may be yet to come. We don't know how many more variants are potentially out there waiting in the wings to do havoc to the human race. It's the unvaccinated of the world - not just the US - who are the petri dish where COVID is experimenting with even more deadly and contagious variants. Make no mistake. The virus wants to kill as many humans as it can. So buckle up. As Yogi Berra famously said, "It ain't over till it's over."

I think back to Steve Martin's famous SNL Christmas skit. If I had 3 wishes, the first would be that all the children of the world would join hands in the spirit of peace and love and sing "We are the world." My second wish would be that the world is rid of the COVID pandemic. My third wish is that Trump would be convicted of a crime and go to jail so that he would never be President again. No, wait. There is nothing in the Constitution which prevents a convicted felon from being President of the US. My third wish would be that Congress would pass a law that Trump could never be President again. That ought to do it. But what if a new Republican Congress takes over? They could even change the law! Trump could even conceivably run for President from jail. Then when he won the Presidency, he could pardon himself and get out to wreak havoc on the world again. My first wish, however, remains that all the children of the world would join hands in the spirit of peace and love and sing "We are the world." If I had another wish it would be that all the children of the world could solve the problem of climate change so that they could live in a habitable world and not lose their lives and material possessions in wildfires, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters.

In the meantime the only thing that is guaranteed to prevent COVID is not masks, not tests, not social distancing, not even vaccinations. It is to isolate yourself completely. Happy New Year!

Off the Top of My Head

3 Generals: US Military Could Aid and Abet Next Insurrection

by John Lawrence

A large number of the January 6 insurrectionists were active or former members of the military. Fox News is ubiquitous on military bases and VA hospitals. Now even Generals are worried about the next insurrection fueled by right wing extremist media. The chickens are coming home to roost. The US' bloated military and military-industrial complex budgets have turned the lemmings into potential insurrectionists. Fox News is not only ubiquitous on military bases. It is playing on almost every public TV. Places like airports, car dealerships, bars - you name it. Everywhere a public TV is on, it's usually tuned to Fox News. What - is CNN too intellectual for public display? You'd lose too many customers? Are real Americans consumers of Fox News? What kind of person is a patriot? What's the definition of patriotism? Were the January 6 insurrectionists true American patriots? They thought so. Maybe a jail sentence will disabuse them of that notion.

I wrote on November 5, 2021:

"It seems that about half the American people want rational, competent government which advances the interests of the American people and plays a constructive role on the world stage. The other half wants a government based on their pet peeves. They are amenable to being swayed by conspiracy theories and misinformation. The former are mainly Democrats; the latter, Republicans. This is nowhere better exemplified than the 2016 election in which competence and experience in the form of Hillary Clinton was defeated by resentment and lies in the form of Donald Trump. In contrast to China which promotes the best and brightest to high positions in its government, the US form of democracy allows for politicians to appeal to the lowest common denominator which has no knowledge or information about anything beyond the worship of symbols like the American flag. This is clear from the visuals of the January 6 insurrection in which the American flag was displayed ad infinitum as if that is what made these people true patriots who could demand that their hero, Donald Trump, should be President in defiance of every provision of American constitutional democracy."

About half the American people have a military related consciousness about patriotism. A patriot is someone who doesn't let other people mess with him. A patriot is a dominant person and demands that the US dominates the rest of the world because we know better, we are stronger and we are better. Some others might think that a patriot is someone who tries to make the US and the world a better place, someone who seeks to alleviate sickness and poverty, someone who has compassion for others, not someone who thinks we're number 1. A true patriot might be someone like Dr. Fauci who has spent his life trying to heal the sick and end the pandemic. There are true patriots and false patriots just like there are true gods and false gods. It all depends on your values.

The 3 Generals wrote in the Washington Post:

"As we approach the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, we — all of us former senior military officials — are increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would put all Americans at severe risk.

"In short: We are chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time."

The Biden administration and the January 6 committee has been moving in the right direction. A further move might be to require a rotation of TV channels on military bases so that military personnel weren't fed a steady diet of Fox News. Right wing propaganda in news and social media is fueling chauvinistic and jjngoistic values. The values of healing, supporting, teaching, charity and compassion for others should be emphasized instead. If these are feminine as opposed to masculine values, so be it. Maybe the world won't ever be at peace until women run it. These are the values of peace and love and true patriotism. If we want a world at peace and not at war, we need to inculcate these values in the American people, not the values of Fox News.

Off the Top of My Head

China Takes Vaccine Mandates to a Whole New Level

by John Lawrence

If you think that it's a good idea to get the pandemic over ASAP, then you want everybody to get vaccinated. If you want the economy to get running full steam ahead, then you want everybody to get vaccinated. While in the US population, there is a lot of vaccine hesitancy thus prolonging the pandemic, in China, if you don't get vaccinated voluntarily, they'll hold you down and jab you whether you like it or not. In China the public good supersedes private good. People are free up until the point that their actions harm society as a whole! What a revolutionary idea! In the US people are free even if their actions or lack thereof harm society as a whole.  In the US there is lawsuit after lawsuit and court after court dealing with Joe Biden's mandates, and those mandates are very carefully nuanced. They certainly do not apply to every citizen. China says in effect to hell with this shit everybody needs to get vaccinated or else. No wishy washing around.

The LA Times reported:

"At the end of August, police in China’s Hunan province came to the home of Zhang Jianping. They questioned him about why he had not been vaccinated against COVID-19, and took him by car to a hospital.

"In a social media post that included photos and videos to back up his story, Zhang said he was very clear that he did not want to be immunized. “I am not informed. I do not consent,” he says he told the authorities. But they held down his arms and legs and forcibly injected him.

"According to Yaqiu Wang, the researcher at Human Rights Watch who saw Zhang’s post, the local police and healthcare officials were acting in response to President Xi Jinping’s call for the vaccination of 80% of the country’s population by the end of October. Even though the central government in Beijing says that “informed consent” is the rule and injections must be voluntary, Wang says many such complaints of compelled vaccination have appeared on social media."

Many Americans cry crocodile tears over forcing anyone to get vaccinated. But they didn't cry crocodile tears or file lawsuit after lawsuit when young men were drafted to go to war in World War 2. There was no arguing with the government when it came to war in those days. It was compulsory and mandated. Conscientious objectors were not well tolerated. But when it comes to public health and the prevention of more deaths from COVID, well everybody has an opinion and personal freedom dictates that everyone's opinion should be heard and tolerated even if it causes more death. To date about 780,000 Americans have died from COVID. 675,000 Americans died of the flu in 1918 about 10 times as many as died in World War 1. 405,000 Americans died in World War 2. So although participation in those wars was mandatory, we don't want to infringe on anyone's personal freedom to fight a war on COVID which has already claimed more American lives than either world war or the 1918 flu pandemic for which there was no vaccine!

What fools these mortals be! And then there's global warming. Finally, I ask you - which economy will be operating full speed first? Well, obviously, the one that rids itself of the pandemic first. The other one will be mired in COVID for the foreseeable future.

G20 Summit Deemed 'Abysmal and Total Failure' on Vaccine Equity, Climate Action

People demonstrate during the G20 summit in Rome, Italy on October 30, 2021. (Photo: Andrea Ronchini/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

"The bottom line is that this summit failed to deliver much of anything for people, planet, or prosperity."

 

Jake Johnson

November 1, 2021

Leaders of the world's richest nations wrapped up the Group of 20 Summit in Rome on Sunday after taking virtually no concrete action to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and the intensifying climate crisis, drawing condemnation from human rights advocates who deemed the gathering's outcome an "abysmal and total failure."

"G20 leaders could have taken urgent action to dramatically scale up manufacturing and access to Covid-19 vaccines around the world, promote a fair economic recovery, lower dangerous greenhouse gas emissions, and help the poorest countries adapt to the climate change already happening," Jörn Kalinski, senior adviser at Oxfam International, said in a statement. "The bottom line is that this summit failed to deliver much of anything for people, planet, or prosperity.”

"If we continue down our current path, the end of the pandemic will remain a glimmer on the horizon."

The weekend summit drew to a close as the global death toll from Covid-19 topped a staggering 5 million, a figure that's likely to continue growing by thousands each day as billions of people worldwide are denied access to lifesaving vaccines.

G20 nations constitute 62% of the global population but have used 82% of the world's Covid-19 vaccines, according to the London-based advocacy group Global Justice Now. Just 3.6% of people in low-income countries have received at least one coronavirus vaccine dose—inequity that threatens to prolong the pandemic and leave the door open to devastating new variants.

A recent analysis by the science data firm Airfinity showed that G20 countries have received 15 times more coronavirus vaccine doses per capita than countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The United States, the European Union, Britain, and Canada are currently hoarding roughly 240 million surplus Covid-19 vaccines as they begin offering booster shots to certain segments of their populations, ignoring the World Health Organization's pleas for a moratorium on boosters.

"It's an absolute scandal that the G20 has wasted a year ignoring a proposal, backed by the majority of its members, to break vaccine monopolies and ensure the lifesaving vaccines can be made around the world to save countless lives," said People's Vaccine Alliance policy lead Anna Marriot, referring to a stalled patent waiver at the World Trade Organization.

At the end of the two-day Rome summit, G20 leaders adopted a declaration pledging to "enhance our efforts to ensure the transparent, rapid, and predictable delivery and uptake of vaccines where they are needed" and endorsed the WHO's modest goal of "vaccinating at least 40% of the population in all countries by the end of 2021." The document does not mention vaccine-related intellectual property rules, which activists view as key barriers to ramping up production, closing distribution gaps, and ending the pandemic.

Tamaryn Nelson, a health adviser at Amnesty International, said Sunday that the "vague promises" issued by the heads of the richest countries in the world are "an affront to those who have died, and to everyone still living in fear, of Covid-19."

"With just two months left of this year, only a radical change in approach will close the shameful vaccine gap," Nelson argued. "If we continue down our current path, the end of the pandemic will remain a glimmer on the horizon."

Environmentalists offered similarly scathing rebukes of the climate rhetoric and commitments that emerged from the G20 gathering, which concluded just ahead of the pivotal COP26 talks in Glasgow, Scotland.

In their final communique, G20 leaders—whose countries are responsible for more than 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions—"acknowledge the close link between climate and energy and commit to reduce emission intensity, as part of mitigation efforts, in the energy sector to meet timeframes aligned with the Paris temperature goal."

The declaration also includes a vow to "put an end to the provision of international public finance for new unabated coal power generation abroad by the end of 2021." However, to the dismay of climate campaigners, G20 leaders did not agree to a specific target date to end the use of coal as Australia and other countries stood in the way.

"Heads of state from the world's richest—and therefore most powerful—countries had the opportunity to radically reset multilateral politics and generate the commitments necessary to keep global heating below 1.5°C," said Namrata Chowdhary, chief of public engagement at 350.org. "Instead, they've made a contradictory and empty statement on climate: they've restated their commitment to keeping global heating below 1.5°C, but failed to commit to any action themselves, not even agreeing that their national climate plans must be improved. Right now, they have us on a path to nearly 3 degrees of heating. These so-called leaders need to do better."

Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, echoed that sentiment, saying in a statement that "if the G20 was a dress rehearsal for COP26, then world leaders fluffed their lines."

"Governments must respond to the deadly warnings the planet is giving us and cut emissions drastically right now to stay in line with 1.5°C, and that requires stopping any new fossil fuel development," said Morgan. "At COP26, we will not let up and continue to push for more climate ambition, as well as the rules and actions to back it up. We need to stop all new fossil fuel projects immediately."

---

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Off the Top of My Head

Social Responsibility Was Not Written into the Constitution

by John Lawrence

The French demanded Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite in their revolutionary Constitution. Fraternite, social responsibility, was left out of the American Constitution. So now there are people who feel no social responsibility to get a vaccination so that they won't spread COVID to others, let alone protect themselves. A pandemic requires social cohesion, something that is unheard of in American society. Americans are extremely selfish and self-centered, something encouraged and exemplified by Republican Presidents like Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan and George W Bush and also by Ayn Rand and her advocates like Republican leader Paul Ryan and Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. Greenspan, who served 4 terms as Federal Reserve Chairman, was a devoted Ayn Rand fan. He even took a six foot high floral arrangement shaped as a dollar sign to her funeral.  Rand’s conception was to create an individualist morality. Rand took traditional Christian morality, which said it was good to act in the interest of others—not in your own selfish interest—and she flipped that. She said selfishness is a virtue, and the goal of life is to grow and develop as an individual, and that a moral social system supports the rights of the individual above all. One of her books was called "The Virtue of Selfishness."

Service to our fellow man has been redefined in military terms. You serve American society by joining the military and killing other people who are not Americans. There is no conception of serving American society by joining the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps or doing anything that helps the weakest and most vulnerable among us let alone to plant trees or do anything to forestall climate change and benefit the environment. This culture of militarism, as the only way to exhibit patriotism, is what led to the January 6th insurrection. Militarism promotes the waving of flags and jingoism of "we're number one." Not only is there no conception of service to our fellow Americans, there is no conception of service to our fellow man. There is only pride in domination over those who are not American and people who are suspect of being weak or not American like Barack Obama, for instance. Dominance and selfishness are considered to be paramount virtues. Ask Donald Trump. Being number 2 or 3 or whatever is seen as being weak. Being a loser is weakness personified.

Long before Ayn Rand developed her ideas, Friedrich Nietsche set out more or less the same philosophy. His was about "the emergence of the superman." Nietzsche’s idea of the superman and its religious implications, was an attack upon and a rejection of Christian religion. His attack on religious moral ideals, using the concept of the superman, sought to strip humanity/man of his religious nature. Nietzsche’s superman represents the highest principle of the development of humanity and the affirmation of man’s full potentialities. He posits the superman as a critique on Christian religion and the crisis of modernity. This is because, according to him, the Christian morality stifles the development, freedom and creativity of humanity/man, as well as making him dependent on faith. Consequently, he advocates for the total rejection and abolition of the Christian moral ideals in order to make way for the freedom of humanity/man and consequently the emergence of super-humanity. Both Hitler and Donald Trump (an Ayn Rand superfan) represented the superman that both Nietsche and Ayn Rand argued was the highest form of humanity. The January 6 insurrection illustrated how far some will go to place their superman in power. The antivaxxers represent how far some will go to maintain that they have no responsibility to their fellow man, only to themselves.

 

'Indefensible': US Billionaires Became $2.1 Trillion Richer in 19 Months of Pandemic

Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, stands at a press event on the grounds of the Tesla Gigafactory in Brandenburg, Germany. Musk has rocketed past  Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos to become the world's richest man. Nineteen months ago, Bezos was nearly five times richer than Musk. Now, after a meteoric eight-fold increase in his wealth, Musk is worth $209 billion while Bezos is worth $192 billion. (Photo: Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images)

 

New analysis shows that just 745 individuals have combined $5 trillion in wealth—most of which will never be taxed—as nations reels from pain inflicted by Covid-19.

 

Jon Queally

October 18, 2021, from Common Dreams

American billionaires grew in number and expanded their collective fortunes by $2.1 trillion since Covid-19 sparked a worldwide pandemic nineteen months ago, according to a new analysis unveiled Monday.

"Targeted tax increases on billionaires, including the proposed Billionaire Income Tax, would rebalance the tax code and reduce these glaring abuses in who pays for the services we all depend on."

An overall 70% surge of wealth among the nation's richest individuals since March of 2020 has resulted in approximately 130 new billionaires, found the new report released by Americans for Tax Fairness  (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). In a statement, the groups noted that there are now 745 people with "10-figure bank accounts" compared to the 614 that existed when the pandemic first hit.

In total, those 745 billionaires now hold $5 trillion in collective wealth, which the groups note is "two-thirds more than the $3 trillion in wealth held by the bottom 50% of U.S. households."

While ATF and IPS have been tracking the explosive growth of the uber-wealthy throughout the pandemic, the latest figures come as Democrats in Congress continue to negotiate with themselves over the cost and scope of President Joe Biden's 'Build Back Better' agenda which aims to provide expanded Medicare, paid family leave, universal childcare and pre-K, bold climate action, and an expanded childhood tax credit to alleviate childhood poverty and provide a more robust economic foundation for millions of working American families.

According to IPS/ATF:

The great good fortune of these billionaires over the past 19 months is all the more stark when contrasted with the devastating impact of coronavirus on working people. Almost 89 million Americans have lost jobs, over 44.9 million have been sickened by the virus, and over 724,000 have died from it. 

To put this extraordinary wealth growth in perspective, the $2.1 trillion gain over 19 months by U.S. billionaires is equal to:

• 60% of the $3.5 trillion ten-year cost of President Biden’s Build Back Better plan. 
• The entire $2.1 trillion in new revenues over ten years approved by the House Ways and Means Committee to help pay for President Biden’s Build Back Better (BBB) investment plan.

At the heart of their latest analysis, said ATF executive director Frank Clemente, is the failure to adequately tax these outrageous and growing fortunes.

"This growth of billionaire wealth is unfathomable, immoral, and indefensible in good times let alone during a pandemic when so many have struggled with unemployment, illness, and death," said Clemente. "For practical and moral reasons, Congress must start effectively taxing the outsized gains of billionaires."

Like other advocates, IPS and ATF are calling for much higher and stricter taxation on the windfall profits of the billionaire class—especially in light of the social needs that the pandemic has made so apparent.

Currently under consideration in Congress is the Billionaires Income Tax (BIT) bill, spearheaded by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oreg.), chairman of the Finance Committee, which Clemente and Chuck Collins, director of IPS' Program on Inequality and the Common Good, say is the best piece of legislation to target the wealth of the super-rich. As the new analysis notes:

Most of these huge billionaires’ gains will go untaxed under current rules and will disappear entirely for tax purposes when they’re passed onto the next generation. Under Wyden’s BIT, billionaires will start paying taxes on their increased wealth each year just like workers pay taxes on their paychecks each year. 

The tax will apply only to taxpayers whose wealth exceeds $1 billion: about 700 households. It will be assessed annually on tradable assets, such as stocks, where the value of the asset is known at the beginning and end of the year. For non-tradable assets, such as ownership in a business or real estate holdings, taxes will be deferred until the asset is sold. 

"Billionaires are undertaxed and playing hide-and-seek with their substantial wealth," said Collins. "Targeted tax increases on billionaires, including the proposed Billionaire Income Tax, would rebalance the tax code and reduce these glaring abuses in who pays for the services we all depend on."

In a statement last month following the release of a White House report on the average income tax rate of U.S. billionaires, Wyden said that it's shameful for the nation's wealthiest to pay lower tax rates than most working Americans.

"Billionaires are paying a mere 8 percent tax rate, lower than millions of working Americans," said Wyden.

"It's time for a Billionaire's Income Tax that ensures billionaires pay taxes just like the nurses and firefighters," he added. "Nurses treating Covid-19 patients pay their taxes with every paycheck, and they know it's fundamentally unfair that billionaires and their heirs may never pay tax on billions in stock gains. Instituting a Billionaire's Income Tax would go a long way toward creating one fair tax code, rather than one that's mandatory for working people and another that's optional for the fortunate few."

---

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Off the Top of My Head

Why is GDP the Best Measure of a Healthy Economy?

by John Lawrence

GDP measures the amount of money spent on goods and services. The implication is that the more money spent, the better for the economy. GDP does not take into account money spent paying down debt which is something many Americans need to do rather than to consume more goods and services. So what if you devised a more general measure of economic activity including money spent to pay down debt and beyond that money saved. Traditional GDP would then be much less. Horrors, say the politicians and businessmen. People actually being encouraged to save and pay down debts? How unAmerican! You see only the wealthy are supposed to create and maintain wealth. The average slob is supposed to pay up to the limit of their paycheck and beyond. The average slob is supposed to go into debt. How else would Moneytree and other payday lenders make money?

All this talk about getting the economy back to normal. Why get a sick economy back to normal. Better to consume less and save the money. But economists, politicians and corporations don't want you to do that. The only measure they think of in terms of a healthy economy is maximizing GDP which means maximizing corporate profits. The American economy consists of 70% consumer purchases. Now economists are upset that the pandemic has made Americans spend less going to concerts, restaurants, baseball games and cruise ships. They are spending less on tourism and other services. Well, maybe that's a good thing. You can eat a lot healthier by cooking at home. Restaurant foods are loaded with sugar, salt and God knows what else to make them taste better. Taste is the ultimate value, not how the food contributes to your health or ill health.

The new post pandemic economy should look a lot different. Instead of consume, consume, consume, more thought should be taken about what to consume. Americans are privileged so much compared to the rest of the world where many people are barely eking out a living. Every day the ranks of refugees due to climate disasters and war grows by leaps and bounds. Every day more CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere due to Americans' propensity to consume. Americans binge on consumer products, contribute mightily to global warming and complain if they can't have what they want when they want it. In order to decrease global warming we need to consume less, manufacture less and plant more trees. In fact this would be a great idea to occupy the homeless and give them something to do in return for basic food and shelter. The Civilian Conservation Corps organized during the Great Depression did just that. It gave many people a constructive purpose in life in return for a modest paycheck. They planted trees, built camp grounds, trails and national parks and otherwise contributed to the betterment of society.

Today we have to orient ourselves away from consumerism and towards an economy of restoration of the planet. CO2 emissions and the buildup of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are never going to decrease until we consume less and focus our energies on mitigation of climate change instead of just selling products and services. It is time to stop going to Disneyland and to get serious about converting to a green economy before it's too late for our children and grandchildren to enjoy living on a habitable planet.

Off the Top of My Head

Wanted: A Billionaire to Run Ads Directed at Anti-Vaxxers

by John Lawrence

Interview unvaccinated patients dying with COVID, then interview the Moms, Dads and Children left behind after their Mom, Dad or Child has died from COVID. Put together a powerful ad of people who believed the anti-VAXX lies and then got COVID and died and/or were left behind to grieve. Spend millions running these ads, and pretty soon no one will believe the lies and misinformation any more. These ads should be run on all the channels and social media that anti-Vaxxers and Trump supporters watch. So many of the ads running currently are superfluous, their only purpose being to get you to buy more stuff. Instead of spending billions on private space missions, spend some money where it really influences people to do the right thing - TV and social media advertising oriented toward getting people vaccinated.

Advertising could be transformed into a socially meaningful operation. I don't need to see ads telling me to buy more stuff. Force feeding Americans ads to buy more stuff is part of the problem. Americans are over consuming while the rest of the world is barely eating. Americans need to consume less, but advertising could also have a socially redeeming purpose. I don't know what the ethics are of the government itself running ads on TV and social media, but for sure a private party can run ads of any type and description. So why don't they? Powerful ads could be put together to get people to do the right thing and get the vaccine. Dying parents and crying children might convince people not to follow in the footsteps of the unvaccinated. We need that to get the pandemic under control.

Advertise on all the anti-vaxxers' favorite social media platforms. Facebook will target ads for you. So the buys for pro-Vax ads could be targeted at all the anti-vaxxers. This is not only completely ethical; it will save lives. In fact it would be unethical not to do it since Facebook's algorithms are set up to link anti-vaxxrs together. It should be a no brainer to target antivaxxers with pro vaccination material, and the most powerful and poignant material is the remorse of the dying for not getting the COVID shots and the grief of distraucght wives and children at the loss of their husband and parent. Michael Bloomberg and the Gates Foundation, where are you?

Off the Top of My Head

American Troops Have Left Afghanistan. So Has American Money - $300 Million Per Day

by John Lawrence

Afghanistan's economy must be in freefall. The US was spending $300 million a day each and every day there for 20 years! Now the US is spending nothing. American troops have left and, more importantly, American money has left. So can we now cut the defense budget? It would have been better if, instead of sending in American troops 20 years ago, we had sent in the Peace Corps for a fraction of the money the American military presence has cost. By now much could have been accomplished like roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, water and sewage systems and other critical infrastructure. Instead we spent $300 million a day for 20 years blowing things up and getting blown up ourselves. It's a testament to the folly of warfare. Now, hopefully, diplomacy and resettlement of refugees and building infrastructure will take place both there and here at home where efforts in the domain of Peace are badly in need as well. The US has infrastructure needs, resettlement of refugee needs (think the growing homeless population), both hard and human infrastructure needs, building things up instead of blowing things up.

All the generals who were shuffled in and out of Afghanistan couldn't think of what we could have done better there because all they could think was in military terms. They couldn't conceive of the possibility that the reason they were all so unsuccessful was precisely because any and all military solutions were not the right ones. They could not conceive of building peace there, only fighting an enemy. Well, it got them substantial pay raises, and it made money for the military-industrial complex. Now we need a peace-industrial complex. If we want to save the planet and not just indulge the present American inhabitants of planet earth to the max, we need to build green infrastructure all over the world. But even before we do that, we need to solve the worldwide pandemic which we can not seem to solve even here at home because there are so many people who won't believe in the obvious solution until one of their family members dies.

Forever wars have stunted the mindsets of the American people leading them to embracing far right jingoistic and chauvinistic militarism. The mindset would be considerably different if the US had put as much energy as it has put into militarism into peace activities, if peace had even been given due consideration as an alternative to war. In fact it's not too much of a stretch to say War is Us. This mindset came to fruition on January 6 with the insurrection. Biden is trying to turn the corner but he can only do so much per unit time. He has done considerable so far ending the war in Afghanistan and doing everything humanly possible to end the pandemic. His human and hard infrastructure agenda is still pending, but I believe it will eventually pass because it has been set up in such a way that either everybody wins if it passes or everybody loses if it doesn't. The way the twin bills were constructed, one that will pass by budget reconciliation and one bipartisan, represents political ingenuity. It's making the most of the slim Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress. Even after those twin bills pass and get made into law, there is much to be done, voting rights reform in particular. I think Biden will get the major part of his agenda accomplished - probably in 2 years. After that who knows what will happen if Republicans win one or both Houses in the midterm elections.

Off the Top of My Head

Mandate, Mandate, Mandate

by John Lawrence

President Biden has lost his patience with those who choose not to get vaccinated and don't give a damn about putting their families, neighbors and hospital workers at risk. He should have taken these measures a long time ago, and not given them the choice between vaccination or weekly testing. It's only vaccinations that will get the pandemic under control. Would Xi Jinping have hesitated in mandating that all Chinese be vaccinated ... or else? He would have dragged them kicking and screaming into the vaccination booth. That's why China is way ahead of us in controlling the pandemic and most everything else. Finally, Biden is standing up to the anti-Vaxxers and all the right wing misinformation purveyors and even red state governors. So now the Labor Department will mandate that all businesses with 100 employees or more will have to have their employees vaccinated or tested weekly. The door is open for blue state Governors to mandate all businesses that do business with their individual states do the same.

With the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, Congress created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for workers by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance. The OSH Act covers most private sector employers and their workers, in addition to some public sector employers and workers in the 50 states and certain territories and jurisdictions under federal authority. That means that Biden didn't have to limit his mandates that all businesses with 100 employees or more have to have their employees vaccinated. He could have mandated that all businesses have their employees vaccinated. Maybe that will come next.

How does anyone rationalize not getting vaccinated when it puts those around them including their own loved ones at risk? These people clearly don't give a damn about anyone other than themselves. Also they are hiding their heads in the sand about reality. Their stupidity and ignorance is appalling. How could a group of people ever be so dumb? But then people do a lot of stupid things and they do them in groups. They join cults and commit mass suicide, for example. It seems that, when they are dying from COVID, all of a sudden they have a revelation that they should have gotten the vaccination. In the meantime they think they are impervious to COVID because they are young and healthy with no underlying conditions. They could care less about transmitting the virus to those that aren't.

Off the Top of My Head

People Will Not Even Get a Vaccination to Fight the Pandemic. Would They Put Up With Rationing to Fight Climate Change?

by John Lawrence

In World War II, Americans sacrificed for the common good. Today some will not even get a free vaccination for the common good. On August 28, 1941, President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8875 created the Office of Price Administration (OPA). The OPA’s main responsibility was to place a ceiling on prices of most goods, and to limit consumption by rationing. The OPA rationed automobiles, tires, gasoline, fuel oil, coal, firewood, nylon, silk, and shoes. Americans used their ration cards and stamps to take their meager share of household staples including meat, dairy, coffee, dried fruits, jams, jellies, lard, shortening, and oils. Resources were devoted to the war effort and not to Americans' consumption. Today we live in a consumer society. Would Americans resist if they lost their freedom to consume? That's what freedom means to most Americans. What if those resources were needed in the fight against climate change?

Would Americans put up with a shift from a consumer society to an all hands on deck building infrastructure to mitigate climate change society? Advertising budgets would dry up because the purpose of advertising is to get you to buy more stuff. What if your consumption was limited to essentials as it was during WW II? Freedom in America is the freedom to consume whatever you have the money to buy. What if you couldn't do that any more? What if the purveyors of nonessential products didn't have the freedom to sell you stuff that you really don't need in order to devote resources both human and material to Biden's building back better agenda? Is it some people's right to consume while other people are wiped out due to extreme weather events like fires and flooding? Should the rich be restricted from spending their money on luxury items like private jets and yachts? Should they be taxed heavily to provide the financial resources for mitigation and adaptation to global warming? Would billionaires have to give up their rocket ships? Do thy even care about the world that our children and grandchildren will inherit?

So if people are protesting that getting a free vaccination is against their concept of what being a free American is, how much more are they going to complain if they had to go without some consumer activity that they have become accustomed to? They are just not the type to roll up their sleeves and pitch in to do their part to mitigate or adapt to global warming. Just as the dying unvaccinated finally wish that they had heeded the warnings and got vaccinated, as long as some extreme weather event hasn't destroyed their home or impacted them in any way, they will continue to stick their heads in the sand and deny that global warming really exists. For them it will just be another government conspiracy theory while they will find charlatans in social media who will reassure them that global warming is still a hoax.

Off the Top of My Head

Now the Unvaccinated Will Pay

by John Lawrence

Just as smokers pay more for health insurance, the unvaccinated, who are imposing costs on the rest of us, will have to pay more for health insurance. Starting Nov. 1, unvaccinated Delta employees who have health insurance from the company will face $200 monthly surcharges. This is as it should be. To boot, if they get COVID and have to be hospitalized, they need to pay the doctors and nurses directly for the overwork they are causing them to provide. Imposing costs on the unvaccinated can be even more effective than mandates. Why should medical personnel have to work overtime because some people refuse to get vaccinated? I would go even further. The unvaccinated who are hospitalized are taking a bed away from those who get sick or need emergency care through no fault of their own. They are taking beds away from accident victims, from cancer and dialysis patients, from patients who need elective surgery who are forced to postpone it.

Don Lemon of CNN visited some of the very sick patients in hospital with COVID. He asked one point blank why he hadn't gotten a vaccination. He said he didn't have time. The next day he was dead. Didn't have time? What was more important? Drinking beer and watching football? It's amazing how many ignorant people there are in this country where, supposedly, everyone has at least a high school education. Maybe Biden's human infrastructure bill which will give everyone two free years of community college education should also require that. This might make the American people marginally smarter. Probably a course in civics should be required. Maybe they should be required to read the New York Times or the Washington Post instead of getting their news from social media. But in America you are free to be dumb. You are free to be uninformed. You are free to be misinformed. You are free to consume edutainment. You are free to be ignorant.

The pandemic at this point in time is mainly a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Unfortunately, the next group to die without a vaccination are children under 12 who can't get vaccinated at this point. Adults who refuse to get vaccinated are infecting them. Sometimes they are infecting their own children. Sometimes they are infecting other peoples' children. Their freedom amounts to the right to infect others, and they don't seem to have any qualms about it. Their freedom is more important than their responsibility to end the pandemic with a minimum amount of future deaths and hospitalizations. They are imposing their values on those around them including children who can't get vaccinated and doctors and nurses whom they are demanding treatment from when they get sick. This country can impose a mandate that every car be registered and licensed including paying the Department of Motor Vehicles for their services, but it can't mandate that people get vaccinated in order to end a pandemic. So it is left in the situation that only private companies can mandate vaccinations from their employees or impose additional costs for health insurance like Delta Airlines. I hope more companies follow suit.

Off the Top of My Head

Just When We Thought the War Was Won, the Enemy Surprised Us With a Blitzkrieg

by John Lawrence

Reminiscent of the blitzkrieg in the Second World War when Germany overwhelmed France in just a few days, Americans had been led to believe that the war with COVID was winding down. Just then COVID mutated and launched a surprise attack. Americans were taken by surprise. Like Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over till it's over." So now we have to pivot and take on the enemy again just as we were starting to relax and go back to our privileged lifestyles. The problem has been exacerbated by so many Americans not doing their patriotic duty and getting vaccinated. It's a sad commentary on American culture when President Biden has to offer the unvaccinated $100 to get vaccinated. It's not just about your freedom, it's about saving the nation from an unmitigated disaster.

The Delta variant is a game changer and not in a good direction. Americans who haven't gotten vaccinated have been far too casual about it. And uninformed and downright stupid. In a war some people are going to be sacrificed for the greater good of winning the war. When the General sends people into battle he knows that some of his troops are going to be killed. The Civil War was a war of attrition. The North won because they could afford to sacrifice so many more of their troops than the South could. By contrast the war against COVID doesn't require much if anything in terms of sacrifice. Getting vaccinated doesn't mean that you're taking a chance of being killed or harmed by the vaccine. It means that you are increasing your chances of staying alive. Sure some people will die despite the fact of being fully vaccinated, but the vast majority of vaccinated people will live while the vast majority of unvaccinated people will die. It's as simple as that.

The Delta variant is the virus equivalent of a blitzkrieg. It's military potential is far mightier than the US defenses which rely on convincing people rather than mandating people to get vaccinated.  It's like a war in which people are free to decide whether or not they want to join the battle. Some are saying, "I don't give a fuck whether I die or I infect those around me and they die. My freedom of choice is more important. Isn't that my right according to the Constitution?" With this attitude Germany would have won the Second World War. Oh I have to wear a mask. Boo Hoo! What babies! What selfish A holes. No wonder so many of them are following the former A hole in Chief who only thought of his own selfish interests. They are a perfect reflection of his values.

Even the best guidance from the doctors and scientists was too rosy glowed compared to the situation on the ground. They never emphasized the fact that, even if you are fully vaccinated, you can still get infected with the virus. They told us that, if you were fully vaccinated, you could go anywhere, do anything unmasked and unsocially distanced and never have to worry about getting COVID, This was too pollyannish. Yes, chances are you won't die fom COVID, but it was never emphasized enough that the vaccines were 90% effective - not 100%. That means that 10% of the fully vaccinated could still get COVID and potentially even die. Now with the Delta variant being COVID on steroids, even though statistically you are much better off, it's still a statistical possibility you could die, and the best way to prevent yourself from being a statistic is to stay away from large gatherings of people especially when some of them might not be vaccinated.

We know children can get the virus. Those summer camps where a lot of them got it are a case in point. So now we are sending them back to school unvaccinated which is a disaster in the making. Why are we doing this? Because we had planned to do it thinking the pandemic would be over by the time children went back to school? Well now the situation has changed. We can't pivot because we had promised that children would be back in school sans masks? This is ridiculous. Sure vaccinations are super important, but children under 12 cannot be vaccinated due to the fact that the authorities haven't cleared them for vaccinations. So now, since they were promised it, we have to go ahead and send the largest unvaccinated group into a situation where they are most likely to get infected? Does this make any sense at all? Even if the adult population were 100% vaccinated, the children would still be at risk. Ironically, we have the capability of remotely educating them at home. Parents can even home school them. But the American people are being told that their children should go back to school masked or unmasked. They still insist on children going back into the classroom. The Delta variant is watching and waiting. And then comes the blitzkrieg.

Off the Top of My Head

Y'all Better Haul Y'all's Asses Down to the Wiggly Piggly and Get Y'all's Vaccination, Y' Heah?

by John Lawrence

Even Fox News is getting worried that they might be sued for causing unnecessary death as that is exactly what discouraging vaccinations for COVID is. Get serious, folks. Get your F-ing politics out of a public health issue. It's one thing not wanting to be absorbed into a rational society. It's another to put your own, your family's and your neighbor's life at risk. Has it come down to a war between rational people and irrational people? People who trust science and people who don't trust science? There has been this undercurrent of optimism that the pandemic would be over soon and we could all get back to a normal life mainly perpetrated by Republicans but also recently by Joe Biden who just assumed that everyone would take advantage of the vaccine when it became available. WRONG. Republicans want to give Joe a defeat on this even if they have to sacrifice their own lives and the lives of others to do it. They want his Presidency to be a failure, and they are willing to put their lives on the line to do so.

Facebook should have a responsibility to get the anti-vaxers off their social media. Researchers have found just 12 people are responsible for the bulk of the misleading claims and outright lies about COVID-19 vaccines that proliferate on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. So why isn't Facebook and Twitter just canceling their accounts? Free speech isn't the issue here. Free speech shouldn't apply to speech that can play a significant part in getting people killed. A pandemic that has caused more deaths than all of the US' wars put together is not s trivial issue. If someone advocated a terrorist attack on social media, they would be taken off right away ad probably arrested. This issue is many, many times more deadly but people are pussy footing around it as a free speech issue. It's not. Problem is Facebook makes most of its money from conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and other assorted nut cases. If it takes a government board to censor Facebook, I'd be for it. Facebook is not a benign operation. It has done more harm than good all the while making billions for a very few people.

NPR reported:

"The 'Disinformation Dozen' produce 65% of the shares of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms," said Imran Ahmed, chief executive officer of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which identified the accounts.

Now the vaccine rollout is reaching a critical stage in which most adults who want the vaccine have gotten it, but many others are holding out, these 12 influential social media users stand to have an outsize impact on the outcome.

After this story published on Thursday, Facebook said it had taken down more of the accounts run by these 12 individuals.

These figures are well-known to both researchers and the social networks. They include anti-vaccine activists, alternative health entrepreneurs and physicians. Some of them run multiple accounts across the different platforms. They often promote "natural health." Some even sell supplements and books.

Many of the messages about the COVID-19 vaccines being widely spread online mirror what's been said in the past about other vaccines by peddlers of health misinformation.

This is a transcript with Jim Sciutto and Elizabeth Cohen on CNN:

SCIUTTO: Yes, here are some those numbers. Last week more than 23,000 children caught COVID-19. That is nearly double what was reported at the end of June. It comes as children in some major school district are now heading back to class this month or in a couple of weeks. Let's begin with CNN's Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. Listen, the data doesn't lie, right. I mean it's clearly coming back principally in unvaccinated areas. Tell us what the numbers tell you.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Jim, you know, we thought we were done with this and now here we are and there are two reasons for this. One this Delta variant, which has been called the variant on steroids. And also that so many, half the country is still not fully vaccinated allowing this variant to do its thing which is does so well.

So let's take a look at the growth of the Delta variant. If you look at this graph, on the far left, that was where we were in late May, 3 percent of the COVID out there was the Delta variant. Now look, less than two months, this Delta variant went from being 3 percent of the COVID that's out there to being 83 percent of the COVID that's out there. It just shows you how fast it took over.

And why was it so fast? Well number one it replicates fast in the body. It just knows how to do what viruses are supposed to do. It gets in there and just makes copies and copies and copies of itself very quickly. So in one study they took nasal swabs and they looked at the viral load, for Delta the viral load in the nose was 1,000 times higher than when they looked in the noses of people who had the original strains. So that just tells you right there that it is so much more transmissible.

Children going back to school are the ones most at risk now. It's the stupidest decision ever to send them back to school just as the most dangerous variant is spreading like wildfire. They did remote learning from home last year when the danger was far less great. Now just because some politicians have decided that we must have children back in schools this fall regardless of what is happening with COVID, they are all being put at risk. Smart and caring parents won't put their children in that situation and will keep them home, home schooling them or studying remotely. Sending unvaccinated children to school in a war zone is the height of stupidity and irresponsibility.