Stay Home - or Protest! - and Read This! A Coronavirus Reading Sampler (April 24, 2020)

We are offering our top 10 selections, probably daily,
of the best (most interesting, weirdest) articles and
podcasts on COVID-19 and American policy responses.

Overall our reading leads us to think there ARE and
SHOULD BE "libertarians in a pandemic," and that
indeed non-libertarian policies are what make
responses to the pandemic inadequate.

If we were religious, we'd wonder if coronavirus were a

biblical plague sent to punish the kind of people who are
wishing death and disease on peaceful protesters, since
they all live in jurisdictions with mass transit,
which seems to be a vector for infection.

1)  Around half of coronavirus deaths have been in nursing homes: what if we had only quarantined nursing homes and the elderly and focused most PPPE and testing on their caregivers? (Microsoft News)

2) California violates rights to free speech and assembly on public streets, parks and properties.  (DailyWire) 

3) Will coronavirus be like the 2003 SARS pandemic? (New Yorker)

4) The political economy of hydroxychloroquine. (Patrick Howley)

5) The same elites who brought you the Iraq War and Russiagate now want to respond to the coronavirus.  (The Federalist)

6) How the CDC botched coronavirus testing in the U.S., a country where anyone can go to their local drugstore chain minute clinic and get a TB test.  (MIT Technology Review)

7) Why Democrats want to bail out Blue States:  the economic lockdown is busting posh, underfunded government pension system.  (reason)

8) Falling tax revenues from lockdown may bankrupt big spending states with public sector pension liabilities.  (Bloomberg)

9) Governor Northam has been hiding in a vacation home in another state while protesters rally against his lockdown.  (Big League Politics) 

10) Is America's judicial system vigorous enough to protect us against encroaching planned-demic Stalinism?  (LewRockwell)

Stay Home! - or Protest - and Read This! A Coronavirus Reading Sampler (April 18-19, 2020 Weekend Edition)

We are offering our top 10 selections, probably daily, of the best (most interesting, weirdest) articles and podcasts on COVID-19 and American policy responses.

Overall our reading leads us to think there ARE and  SHOULD BE "libertarians in a pandemic," and that indeed non-libertarian policies are what make responses to the pandemic inadequate.


1)  Stanford University Medical Center study suggest COVID-19 lethality much like annual seasonal flu.  (reason)

2) The economic lockdown is going to kill hundreds of thousands of children globally.  (Reuters)

3) IMF:  Lockdown is greatest global recession since Great Depression. (Bloomberg)

4) Free and open Sweden continues to have low rates of coronavirus. (Daily Mail)

5) Italy, with the worst rates of coronavirus, early on produced government public service annoucements urging Italians to hug Chinese tourists to show that they were not racist.  (YouTube)

6) China sold Great Britain $20 million worth of fake coronavirus tests.  (The Hill)

7) Shutdown policies curiously and coincidentally target self-employed people and small businesses more likely to vote other than for Democrats.  (American Greatness)

9) Government failure:  contamination at CDC labs delayed rolling out coronavirus testing. (CNN)

9) The list of TV and movie productions that have been postponed.  (IndieWire)

10) Mass protest in many lockdown states began this weekend.  (KTVB)

Stay Home - or Protest! - and Read This! A Coronavirus Reading Sampler (April 15, 2020)

We are offering our top 10 selections, probably daily, of the best (most interesting, weirdest) articles and podcasts on COVID-19 and American policy responses.

Overall our reading leads us to think there ARE and  SHOULD BE "libertarians in a pandemic," and that indeed non-libertarian policies are what make responses to the pandemic inadequate.

1)  15,000 cars and trucks descend on Lansing, Michigan today to protest Governor Whitmer's fascism. (FOX News) 

2)  Oregon citizens plan April 17 protest. 

3)Recall petition for Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. (Change.org)

4)  Hilariously, YouTube promises to censor coronavirus information and direct users to the webpages of the corrupt, politicized WHO and the incompetent CDC.  (YouTube)

5) School closings and other measure government touted not effective in stopping coronavirus.  (American Council on Science and Health)

6) Boston bureaucrats prevent restaurants from selling groceries.  (reason)

7) Kim Kardashian's hair stylist shows you how to cut your hair at home,  (Fatherly)

8) Woke capital CEO denounces Wall Street bailouts.  (Common Dreams) 

9) Coronavirus has exposed hypocrisy and lies of media and political class.  (American Institute for Economic Research)

10)  Coronavirus policymakers have infected us with authoritarianism.  (National Review)

Stay Home and Read This! - A Coronavirus Reading Sampler (April 9, 2020)

We are offering our top 10 selections, probably daily, of the best articles and podcasts on COVID-19 and American policy responses.

Overall our reading leads us to think there ARE and SHOULD BE "libertarians in a pandemic," and that indeed non-libertarian policies are what make responses to the pandemic inadequate.

1) Unlinked news item:  

A friend of the owner of American Libertarian told us years ago that When Rose Law Firm attorney and First Lady of Arkansas Hillary Clinton broke the glass ceiling at Walmart by becoming their first female member of the board of directors, she became the tie-breaking vote to end their "Buy America" policy.

So the coronavirus pandemic is really her fault.

2) China (partially) owned Phoenix TV network is in White House press corp.  (Daily Caller)

3) China seizes medical supplies owned by U.S. manufacturers.  (American Military News)

4) Mainstream media in business deals (undisclosed) with China.  (American Conservative)

5) Cuomo was wrong, Trump was right, about ventilators.  (The Federalist)

6) African Americans more likely to have underlying conditions that make coronavirus dangerous. (NEWSONE)

7) Suburban Washington, D.C. county considers mandating wearing masks in public.  (FOX5DC)

8) Dennis Quaid praises Trump's handling of coronavirus.  (Breitbart)

9) How CDC and FDA regulation wrecked the economy. (reason)

10) Christians complain that religious activities are banned, but not shopping.  And note that 10 states with little mandatory closings are among those with the lowest number of infections.  (Remnant Newspaper)

Stay Home and Read This! - The COVID-19 Reading Sampler (March 27, 2020)

We are offering our top 10 selections, probably daily, of the best articles and podcasts on COVID-19 and American policy responses.

Overall our reading leads us to think there ARE and SHOULD BE "libertarians in a pandemic," and that indeed non-libertarian policies are what make responses to the pandemic inadequate.

1) Federalist editor Madeline Osburn reports that the scientist whose model had been used to predict an unprecedented pandemic is now walking his predictions back.

2) New Scientist reports that the Imperial college scientist whose model had been used for prediction has drastically lowered his predictions.

3) Federalist contributor Mollie Hemingway reports on media using debunked models and statistics in COVID-19 reporting, for political reasons.

4) Johan Norberg reports from Sweden that the Swedes are not closing businesses or schools.

5) Javier Sanchez and Willliam Hongsong Wang report from Taiwan that Taiwan is also not closing schools and businesses.

6) George Mason University economist Alex Tabborak discusses how the CDC's and FDA's attempt to centrally plan and monopolize test production worsened the pandemic.

7)  Richard Epstein revises upward his earlier prediction that COVID-19 was little worse than annual flu seasons, but maintains that the standard predictions were still wrong.

8) Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy reports on how the private sector saved the day.

9) France decides not to shut down businesses in minority immigrant neighborhoods, which would seem to raise all kinds of questions about equal treatment under the law.

10) Fifty five million public school students are now digital homeschooling.  Will they want to go back to government schools?