MARH 5, 20202020/03/05 · my student Riswanda said, ‘teaches us that we must help others, even...

Penny PressNevada, USA Volume 17 Number 26\ MARH 5, 2020

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THE PENNY PRESS,MARH 5, 2020PAGE 2

By BYRON BERGERONContributing Editor

I don’t care, I don’t even like to talk politics. I remarked to two individuals, who are public employees, as was I for 6 years,

that there is not much to choose from with regard to the Democrat presidential candidates in 2020. Again. I did not want to talk politics. I just meant to say there are not too many serious candidates. Both simple minded individuals remarked, simultaneously “anyone but Trump”. Seriously, “anyone but Trump”? They wear their ignorance on their sleeve and do not even

know it. They do not hide it. They are lost and indoctrinated,

which made me think I wanted to talk politics with them even less. I knew I was going to vote for President Trump in 2020 regardless of their worthless opinions. Make no mistake their opinions are worthless opinions. President Trump is doing a great job and he deserves my vote. They are donkeys, but I do not want to insult donkeys.

Both looked like two cows wondering which clump of grass they wanted to chomp on next. If you have ever seen a cow chew on cud, then you know what I mean. They looked like they had dried peas for brains and I was certain if they turned their head to the right or the left too quickly, I might hear a rattle. I wanted to say water those dried peas. But, alas I knew it was

a waste of time, they would not water their dried peas. They were a lost cause. “Anyone but Trump, means they are not willing to listen. They are gone. They do not know the issues and any attempt to educate them would not be heard. It would be futile and a waste of my time. There would be no bilateral communication. There would be no mutual intellectual growth. The object of bilateral communication is that we both talk but more importantly we both listen. They don’t.

It does not matter that the KKK was the terrorist arm of the Democratic party, it does not matter that George Wallace prevented two black adults from entering the University of Alabama and we had to send in the national guard to make sure that the democratic governor

of Alabama did not continue his educational blockade. They were adults not children. It does not matter to them that Bull Connor was the democrat sheriff that lynched three civil rights workers, two were Caucasian. It does not matter that the South Carolina nine were deprived by democrats. It does not matter that Republicans passed the 1964 Civil Rights act and forced Lyndon B. Johnson to sign. It does not matter that Lyndon B. Johnson declared he will have those N’s voting Democrat for the next 200 years, while referring to the Great Society (disgusting).

Lyndon B. Johnson was a racist and a democrat. He referred to the Great Society as a modern day plantation. It was the birth of the welfare state. It does not matter that Hillary Clinton called Robert Byrd

Penny PressNEVADA USA 16 PAGES VOLUME 17 NUMBER 26 MARH 5, 2020

Penny WisdomHe (Mike Bloomberg) consid-ers himself so much smarter than Trump and so much richer than Trump. And Trump is sitting in his chair. Bloomberg hates him. — John Catsimatidis

The Conservative Weekly Voice Of NevadaInsideTrump Could Have Won Viet Nam

See Editorial Page 6

RON KNECHT PAGE 5FRED WEINBERG PAGE 6DOUG FRENCH PAGE 7KERRY McDONALD PAGE 9DANIEL KOWALSKI PAGE 10ROBERT ROMANO PAGE 11CHUCK MUTH PAGE 14

Anybody But Trump? Seriously?

Commentary

Continued on page4


her idol, a man that started the first KKK chapter in West Virginia who remarked I would rather see “old glory stomped in the dirt than fight along side a mongrel” (referring to black people). Strom Thurmond’s record does not matter to them because they are unwilling to listen and learn.

It does not matter that our own Harry Reid said the only reason Obama got elected was because he was a “light skinned negro with no negro dialect”. It does not matter that the Republican party was started by Frederick Douglas an emancipated slave with the specified purpose of abolishing slavery. It does not matter that Republicans stood for women’s suffrage. It does not matter that Senator Ted Cruz was depicted as a monkey grinder and his two beautiful daughters were depicted as his monkeys.

They do not realize that Abraham Lincoln was Republican. They do not realize that Harriet Tubman was a Republican. They do not realize that Martin Luther King Sr. was a Republican. They do not realize that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican in belief. They do not realize that Susan B. Anthony was a Republican. They are a disgrace to equal rights. They are guilty of more than an ugly history, they are also guilty of blaming Republicans for their sins. I could go on but, there are too many to list. They re-write history to place the blame on conservatives for their own evils. We did not just change sides. That is immature and juvenile. There are some that know history. But not Democrats.

We have been called racist, bigots, Islama-phobes (not even a word), deplorables, debased, homophobes, and everything else. It is too bad that it is they who are deserving of all of those insults and they only deflect so they are not recognized as themselves. It took Donald Trump to be an unapologetic American who refused to apologize to get elected. He is a great president and he is none of those things. Only fools believe he is guilty. He has many accomplishments, and the left refuses to acknowledge any of them. It is a disgrace. He exposes them day after day and they still do not have the self-awareness to realize the reality. These fools just say, “anyone but Trump”. One can almost picture the drool dripping from their chins. They do not water their peas that they call brains, they just look around wondering what clump of grass to chomp on next.

What concerns this author is that they despise conservatives. They have had power for many decades. So much power that if they gained

even more power, I am not sure they would treat us fairly. They might treat conservatives as dissidents the same way all socialists throughout history have treated dissidents. They would dehumanize us and the unimaginable would occur next. This is evident in the federal judiciary.

They cheer when they want to take away your ability to defend yourselves and take away our second Amendment rights. They cheer when politicians want to raise their taxes and the mush for brains clap land bark like seals. When a politician wants to contain the coronavirus they clap their fins and bark like seals. They say they want open boarders but clap and bark like seals not realizing we cannot protect against the virus if we do not protect our borders. They are against terrorism but they clap like and bark like seals but they are about open borders despite the fact that terrorism can walk across an open border. They do not think. They are not stupid, they are not dumb their minds are lazy and they choose to not think. They are unwilling to use their fully functional brain. They are a cow wondering what clump of grass to chomp on next or dried peas for brains that they refuse to water.

Amy Berman Jackson is a fraud. She is not fair. She violated her oath to be fair and impartial. U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro was not fair with regard to the Cliven Bundy trial. Until she had enough and threw out the charges entirely. The biased juror in Roger Stone’s case lied. She was not exposed at the time of her selection for jury duty but, she has been exposed at present. Amy Berman Jackson should have recused herself. The juror should have excused herself. The juror is an embarrassment. The verdict against Roger Stone should be set aside. They are activist judges. In short, the only fair judges are those that put the United States Constitution first regardless of political ideology. The vast majority of judges look at their courtroom as a fiefdom. I do not tolerate it.

The other truth is that they despise us. They dehumanize us, they want us disarmed, they want us defenseless because they are disgusted by us and given their prior political positions of power, it should frighten all of us conservatives, independents and democrats alike, that should frighten all Americans. If they de-humanize you, then who knows what they are capable of doing next. One can only be courageous in the face of fear.Byron Bergeron is a Nevada Attorney who can be reached through www.byronbergeronlaw.com

Reid: 'Light Skinned Negro...'Continued from page 3

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Another Problem in Academe: Ants and Grasshoppers

“‘The ant and the grasshopper,’ my student Riswanda said, ‘teaches us that we must help others, even if they have not made the most practical decisions.’”

So begins an article in the latest Stanford alumni magazine by Elizabeth Wallace, who spent a year teaching English at an Islamic high school in East Java. All her students missed the point of Aesop’s fable about the grasshopper who fiddled away the summer and went hungry in the winter, while the industrious ants had full bellies.

Wallace discussed the virtues of hard work and planning ahead, which only seemed to confuse some of her students. She notes that quantitative measures show the United States is the most individualistic country and Indonesia one of the most communal societies.

The communal culture showed every day to her. “My host family included two grandmothers, a widowed aunt, three cousins who tinkered with motorcycle parts all day, and a constant flux of distant and unemployed relatives.” Teachers skipped school to do favors for others. Good students shared their test answers “with those who had put in absolutely no effort.”

After class, Riswanda asked, “What’s so wrong with playing the fiddle all summer?”

Wallace muses that fiddling added beauty to a dreary world. The

cousins in the basement brought in no income but brightened the day with belly laughs. Teachers skipped class not because they were lazy, but to help others. And what seemed like academic cheating could be seen as selflessly lifting up others.

Ultimately, she says, “I’m learning to question my own fable: that you can measure people’s worth by their productivity.”

This illustrates a major problem in recent decades in academe: the display of one’s virtue – here compassion, open-mindedness, sensitivity – as a substitute for real critical thought. Academe seems unable or unwilling to embrace necessary conclusions.

Let’s be clear: Wallace isn’t talking about the coercive collectivism of Bernie Sanders and his benighted followers. She’s teeing up the merits of true voluntary communalism versus individualism and its corollary, market competition, and their resulting productivity.

A worthy debate. But not one to be decided on whether one feels noble about extending “Grace for the Grasshopper,” (her article’s title) and restraining judgment on the comparative merits of two cultures. Instead, we should evaluate the objective results of the two cultures, something that offends modern academic sensibilities.

Individualism, market competition and their resulting productivity satisfy what I consider the true public interest: maximizing aggregate human wellbeing and fairness. Aesop addresses fairness by noting the industrious ants benefited from their productivity, while the grasshopper suffered for his indolence. This is the inherent fairness of individuality and markets.

What about maximizing human wellbeing? Empirical studies have shown that societies where at

least three-fourths of the economy consists of private markets maximize economic growth. To many people, economic growth is a boring set of abstractions and numbers with little relationship to human lives.

But economic growth, not belly laughs, pretty music and generosity to others, is what provides true human wellbeing – as good as those other things are.

The day I read the article, I got an epidural to diminish serious neck and arm pains, and I’ll soon have surgery to cure my problems. Medical technology is a major result of economic growth, and thus of individualism and markets -- and of ant, not grasshopper societies.

Today, we have the benefit of early detection and numerous counter-measures for the corona virus. A century ago, hundreds of millions perished to the Spanish flu.

That evening I talked enjoyably an hour by phone to a close friend three hundred miles away. At no cost. A century ago, such a call, if even possible, would have cost three days’ wages. Economic growth versus cousins’ belly laughs in the basement.

Also a century ago, families spent one-quarter of their income on food, almost always eaten at home, with little variety, much preparation and clean up. Today, it’s one-tenth, much of it eating out, with vastly greater variety and quality and served with no dishes to wash.

Endless examples like these show the benefits of ant societies’ individualism, markets, productivity and growth. And why the choice between individualism and even voluntary communalism is not even close.


The Penny Press Tips Its Cap To:Mike Bloomberg for recognizing reality and dropping out of the Democrat race for the Presidential nomination, taking his half a billion dollar loss like a man. As for his threat to us his money to go after President Trump—he should remember from his own situation, money does not buy elections.

Country superstar Garth Brooks who will play the first non-football event in Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on August 22. For music, the place will seat more than 65,000 and it is only fit-ting that the man who has friends in low places should be the first person to fill it up. It’s a long way from Tulsa City Limits.

The Penny Press Sends A Bronx Cheer And A Bouquet of Weeds To:

Those folks who are rushing to price gouge citizens of the United States in the face of the Corona Virus. First of all, we lost almost three times the number of people in a Tennessee tornado than we have to the virus and panic is not some-thing that we do easily in this country. Second, most of the supplies which have been selling are things like face masks which doctors do NOT recommend. www.pennypressnv.com

Tips Of Our Capand

Bronx Cheers

RON KNECHT

Commentary: Ron Knecht

I had intended to write about many of the Democrats who think so much of themselves that they wish us to vote them into office so they can run our lives.

Until I saw last Sunday’s 60 Minutes story on retired Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher.

There, on the network which was once the employer of Edward R. Murrow, was a correspondent interviewing a special operations warfighter who had four combat deployments to the Middle East and telling him that what he did “violated the laws of war”.

The laws of war? Seriously?

This from the network on which Edward R. Murrow used to begin his World War Two radio broadcasts “This is London”?

The laws of war?

War is about killing people and breaking things. And anybody who actually believes that killing people and breaking things can and should be regulated is trying to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.

If there was ever a reason to re-elect Donald Trump, it is his intervention in the case of Gallagher, who was charged with murder for allegedly killing an ISIS fighter. He was acquitted of the murder charge but convicted of taking a trophy photo with the dead ISIS scumbag. He was acquitted after a fellow SEAL admitted on the stand that it was he, not Gallagher who actually killed the creep.

Then, the Navy decided to demote Gallagher and take away his SEAL Trident pin.

Trump said a loud NO to both actions and got rid of the Navy Secretary who tried to wire around him.

The investigation by NCIS was quite similar to the way the FBI under James Comey and Andrew McCabe went after the President.

And, just like the FBI, in this case the NCIS is not the one seen on CBS in three different, largely promotional TV shows.

I would hazard a guess that had Trump been our Commander in Chief during Viet Nam, we would either have gotten out or fought the war to actually win. And, either would have been a better choice than the course we pursued. When political leaders tell us that war is complicated, what that really means is they don’t have balls and brains to win, but are perfectly willing to send our young men and women into harm’s way so they can lose.

Sometime between Korea and Viet Nam, wars became police actions. You don’t win police actions but over 50,000 young Americans gave their lives in Viet Nam to prove we could lose with what they called honor.

Yet we train our troops to kill people and break things, send them out in harm’s way and when they actually DO kill people and break things the get charged with violating the “laws of war”.

You know, aggravated killing people and breaking things.

We used to be in the Middle East to protect our supply of energy. There used to be almost no oil field in the world where there also were not engineers wearing class rings from the University of Oklahoma, the University of Tulsa or the University of Texas.

Today, largely because of this President, we are energy independent. Those class rings are here, in the United States.

Our mission in the Middle East is, today, mostly a police action.

Our President wants out.

What he did in Gallagher’s case should tell the Generals and the Admirals that he has the best interests of the troops at heart and not the deep state types who made us lose every “war” we’ve fought since Korea..

If only he were the Commander in Chief during Viet Nam.

FRED WEINBERG


OPINIONFrom The Publisher...

If Only President Trump Were President During Viet Nam


The Fed v. Covid-19Editor’s Note: This was written on March 2.

At the same time the first death (now 6) in the U.S. from the Coronavirus, President Trump was providing plenty of happy talk about his early response to the virus, the strength of American consumers, and an impending stock market bounce from last week’s market mudslide.

Indeed, the DJIA rallied nearly 1,300 points today (March 2nd). Meanwhile, Danielle DiMartino Booth of Quill Intelligence tweeted this morning,

Dr. Fauci: Coronavirus now at ‘outbreak’ and ‘likely pandemic proportions’ Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading expert on coronavirus, says the disease is now at “outbreak,” and even “likely pandemic proportions.

Lacy Hunt, chief economist at Hoisington Investment Management Co., is not as sanguine about consumer health as the president, telling Ms. DiMartino Booth on Real Vision that the U.S. consumer is not so robust.

[The] Consumer is not strong and we saw massive confirmation of that in the employment statistics. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has just told us that they found that the job count last year was 500,000 less than originally reported. At its peak in 2015, employment growth was 2.3%. It is now down to 1.3%. It’s slowing very rapidly. It’s not recessionary but there’s clearly a loss of momentum.

He goes on to say the work week has been reduced, equating to a loss of 600,000 to 700,000 jobs. Plus, wage increases are decreasing.

Hunt says, contrary to common wisdom, that the banks are not in a good place. The amount of C & I loans are contracting. He continued,

The yield curve is too flat. It’s too close to the zero bound and profitability through normal banking channels is not an option in the current environment. It’s not an option in Europe. It’s not an option in Japan. It’s not an option in China. It’s certainly not an option in the United States. The fact of the matter is, the banks fundamentally know this.

All this weakness has something to do with coronavirus, in the eyes of socionomists. In the March issue of The Socionomist, with the cover devoted to the virus, Matt Lambert and Mark Galasiewski quote Robert Prechter, “disease sometimes plays a prominent role in major corrective periods.”

Lambert and Galasiewski write, “A depressed and fearful society is more susceptible to epidemics.” Lambert reminded readers,

In China, the Shanghai Composite Index remains 40% below its 2015 high and 49% below its 2007 all-time high. China, therefore, is likely experiencing a period of elevated vulnerability to epidemics. Markets in the U.S., on the other hand, are near all-time highs, indicating a depressed probability for an epidemic to erupt stateside. A sustained fall in U.S. equities would signal the odds shifting toward greater epidemic susceptibility.

The map reflects a depressed China as being the Coronavirus epicenter. The DJIA dropped 4,000+ points last week and while market blood-

letting has stopped for the moment, it may not be over. As for China, economist Hunt says the country’s economic numbers are wildly inflated.

economic growth in China in 2019 was at a 29 year-low and the only reason it’s not worse than that is they only have 29 years of data. The Chinese economy was not going to recover this year, even before the virus. The fundamentals were not there, and redoing over and over again the same packages that they tried are not the answer. People may think that, but that’s not how it’s working.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S. of A, Google canceled a major meeting Las Vegas, schools in the Seattle area are being closed, and at least one large law firm has stopped overseas travel and will wait a month to determine if it will hold its 2020 partner retreat.

Libertarian polymath Vijay Boyapti, tweeted over the weekend that Covid-19 is “our Spanish Flu.” He reminds us,

A century ago the Spanish Flu infected 500 million people and killed approximately 20-30 million people - a mortality rate of about 4-6%. COVID-19 currently appears to have a mortality of about 2% but should be considered just as deadly…

His advice is “On a personal level the best strategy is to prepare yourself so that self-quarantine for several months is possible.”

President Trump is looking for Fed Chair Powell to fix the market and all that ails us, tweeting,

As usual, Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve are slow to act. Germany and others are pumping money into their economies. Other Central Banks are much more aggressive. The U.S. should have, for all of the right reasons, the lowest Rate. We don’t, putting us at a.........competitive disadvantage. We should be leading, not following!

In contrast, clear-eyed bank analyst, Chris Whalen, told CNBC, “The market’s like a 2-month-old child. Every time it cries, it wants to be picked up. Sometimes you’ve got to leave the baby in the crib.”

But, Powell may be listening to the President’s and the market’s wails. CNBC reports, “The market’s expectation now is for either 50 or 75 basis points to be sliced off short-term borrowing rates by April.”

Half or three-quarters of a point will not create a Covid-19 cure, but may quiet the 2-month-old, whomever or whatever that may be. DOUG FRENCH

Commentary: Doug French

Mass Home SchoolingAs fears of coronavirus mount around the globe, cities and countries

are taking action to prevent the new respiratory virus strain from spreading. While the virus has not yet hit hard in the United States, government officials and health agencies have enacted response plans, corporations are halting travel abroad, and education leaders are grappling with what a widespread domestic outbreak of the virus could mean for schoolchildren.

In countries where the virus is active, schools have been shut down and children are at home, learning alongside their parents or through online education portals. The New York Times reports that US schools have been prompted this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prepare for a coronavirus epidemic that could shutter schools and require alternate forms of teaching and learning outside the conventional classroom. According to Kevin Carey of the New America think tank, who spoke to the Times, coronavirus in the US could lead to “a vast unplanned experiment in mass home-schooling.”

Indeed, in Hong Kong this is already occurring. The coronavirus outbreak led to orders for schools to be shut down in the city for two months, affecting 800,000 students. An article this week in The Wall Street Journal declares that “coronavirus prompts a whole city to try home schooling,” noting that in Hong Kong many children are completing lessons virtually through online learning platforms or receiving live instruction from teachers through Google Hangouts or similar digital tools.

It’s unfortunate that it takes a viral epidemic to spotlight the many alternatives to conventional K-12 schooling. Not only is homeschooling widely popular in the US, educating approximately two million children nationwide, but other schooling alternatives, such as virtual learning, microschooling, and hybrid homeschooling continue to sprout.

Virtual learning programs such as the Florida Virtual School, founded in 1997 as the nation’s first fully online public high school, and K12, Inc., one of the largest providers of virtual schooling, enable young people to

take a complete course load and earn a high school diploma without sitting in a traditional classroom environment. Supplementary online programs, such as Khan Academy and Outschool, expand learning options and allow young people to dig deeper into topics that interest them or those in which they may need some additional help.

Interest in online learning options is sure to increase as the coronavirus spreads, but other in-person schooling alternatives are also likely to gain notoriety. Microschools, for example, are small, home-based, multi-age learning environments that act like a one-room schoolhouse, typically with no more than 8 to 12 students at a time. Prenda is a fast-growing network of these branded, in-home microschools, with more than 80 schools in Arizona alone serving some 550 students, and plans to expand out-of-state.

Like microschools, hybrid homeschooling programs and small, community-based classes for homeschoolers are also gaining popularity and may be swept into the limelight if conventional schools are forced to temporarily close. Operating with small, age-mixed groups of children, these hybrid models and classes offer an alternative to institutional schooling, avoiding large classrooms and crowded buildings. I have recently launched a marketplace platform, Unschool.school, that connects educators, parents, and learners to these homeschooling models and out-of-school learning experiences, fostering small group, in-person interactions in local community spaces, such as art studios, makerspaces, and spare dining rooms.

These emerging learning options outside of traditional schooling show not only that “mass homeschooling” is possible but also that it may be highly desirable. Personalized learning, small group interactions that build community and connection, and education without the coercion inherent in standard schooling are beneficial whether or not a pending epidemic is what exposes families to these education possibilities. Mass homeschooling may be just the cure we need. KERRY McDONALDKerry McDonald is a Senior Education Fellow at FEE. This originally appeared on fee.org.


Commentary: Kerry McDonald

Young Americans Shouldn’t Count on Social Security

Ponzi and pyramid schemes are defined as fraudulent investing scams that promise high returns with little risk to investors. In order for these types of schemes to work, an influx of new investors is needed for the funds to be available to pay the old investors.

America’s Social Security program displays the same characteristics as these schemes because Social Security recipients are not paid with the money that the government deducted directly from them and their past employers. Instead that money was used to pay the benefits for past retirees, while current retired recipients are getting their money through Americans who are currently working and contributing to the system.

In other words, when someone claims that their social security benefits are their money that they put in, they are technically wrong because their money was used to pay someone else.

A Brief HistorySocial Security first began as a dream proposed by President Franklin

Roosevelt in 1934 that was inspired by the Social Insurance programs of Europe. The idea was simple—everyone chips in so that the widowed, disabled, and elderly can have a monthly stipend to provide them with some economic security when their ability to work and earn is limited. The Social Security Act was passed by Congress in 1935. Deductions started to be taken out of wages in 1937 to build up the fund’s reserves. And in 1940 the first beneficiaries began to collect their monthly checks.

The Social Security Administration proudly boasts that Ida May Fuller was the first American to receive benefits from this program. Born in 1874 and retired in 1939, Ms. Fuller was vaguely aware that for the past couple of years she was having money deducted from her check for Social Security.

So she visited an office to see what it was about and filed for benefits. In January 1940 check number 00-000-001 was issued to Ms. Fuller for the amount of $22.54, which is equal to more than $400 in 2020 when adjusted for inflation.

During Ms. Fuller’s working lifetime, she contributed a total of $24.75 into the program. She would go on to live another 35 years and collected $22,888.92. That’s a return of more than 924 times. The overwhelming majority of Ms. Fuller’s social security benefits were not paid by her but instead came from the workers in the American workforce between 1940 and 1975.

Design FlawsAs the documentation and data show, the first recipients of the Social

Security program took out far more than they put in with the difference being made up by the fact that active workers then greatly outnumbered beneficiaries. In 1940 this was not an issue as there were 159 workers supporting one beneficiary. As the population grew, so did the number of retired people utilizing this program. By 1960, 15 years after President Roosevelt’s death, that ratio was reduced to 5 workers for every beneficiary. In 1980, the ratio dropped to just above three and in 2010 it

dropped below that. As of 2013, every social security beneficiary is being supported by 2.8 workers.

Social Security should be viewed as a mandatory insurance policy instead of a government guaranteed benefit. Private insurance funds need to collect more in premiums than they payout in claims in order to remain solvent. This is why insurance plans have caps and limits on what they will pay out. Social Security’s benefits don’t follow that model. They will adjust the amount of the monthly benefit relative to what the beneficiary put in, meaning a low-income wage earner will receive less per month than a high-income wage earner, but these benefits are paid out over a lifetime.

Ms. Fuller collected 924 times more than she put in, in part because she lived to be 100 years old.

By our government’s own estimates, the reserves in the Social Security Fund will be depleted by 2034 as more Americans draw benefits. In order to maintain solvency, there are only three options: cut benefits, increase the amount workers and employers are required to put in, or a combination of these choices.

Cutting the benefits will be political suicide for any politician or party that proposes it. Many baby boomers have retired or will retire over the next decade. They have paid into the system for their entire working careers and have factored Social Security benefits into their retirement plans. Likewise, because they have paid into the program their entire lives, many also believe the fallacy that their benefits come directly from the money deducted from their salaries over the decades, which as we know from Ida May Fuller’s story, is not true.

Don’t Count on It for RetirementWhile cutting benefits now for current recipients might not be

politically likely, Americans and especially those under 40 need to recognize that Social Security is a severely flawed system. Like most welfare, it can only operate when the people contributing into the system outweighs those who are taking out of it. If the opposite becomes true, then the system will collapse.

Raising the amount every worker contributes is not a good solution either because it leaves the flaws of the system intact while kicking its consequences down the road for a future generation. America needs to focus on gradually winding down Social Security with the idea to eliminate it in the not too distant future.

While it might take years or decades or even generations for politicians to seriously tackle the problems with this program, there is one thing that Millennials and Generation Z can do to prepare themselves for that day. Start saving and planning for retirement now and make a plan that does not count on a government-issued Social Security check.

In the worse-case scenario that the program goes bust and disappears, you’ll be prepared to live well. And even in the unlikely best-case scenario where the program somehow survives, you’ll have unexpected extra income. DANIEL KOWALSKIDaniel Kowalski is an American businessman with interests in the USA and developing markets of Africa. This originally appeared on fee.org.


Commentary: Daniel Kowalski

Trump Travel Restrictions on China Slow Down Coronavirus

“[I]f others aren’t taking care or we think they’re doing it incorrectly… At a right time, we may do that.”

That was President Donald Trump, responding to a question on Feb. 26 at the White House from a reporter asking if the U.S. would institute additional screening and travel restrictions on South Korea and northern Italy, which have been hit with the Chinese coronavirus.

On Jan. 31, after the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency from the coronavirus, President Trump instituted screening and travel restrictions from China to slow the spread of the virus.

The Wuhan coronavirus may have a higher than 2 percent mortality rate, although the World Health Organization has a 1.5 percent mortality rate outside of China and a 3.4 percent rate inside of China.

With such a high mortality rate, containment is critical. Not to be alarmist, but if the entire world’s population of 7.7 billion got sick, more than 150 million could die globally. That’s more than 3 million dead here. It’s deadly serious, and not political.

So far, more than 2,700 have died in China with more than 78,000 cases. South Korea has more than 1,700 cases with 13 deaths, and Italy has more than 600 cases with 17 dead.

In the U.S., so far there have been 60 cases with thankfully no deaths. And to keep it that way, the President may be considering expanding the travel restrictions to other countries with outbreaks like South Korea and Italy — the only comprehensive measure he can take in his powers to prevent the virus from traveling across the border.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar credited the travel restrictions at his press conference for slowing the virus into the U.S.: “The President’s early and decisive actions, including travel restrictions, have succeeded in buying us incredibly valuable time. This has helped us contain the spread of the virus, handle the cases that we have, and prepare for the possibility that we will need to mitigate broader spread of infections within the United States. The President’s actions taken with the strong support of his scientific advisors have proven to be appropriate, wise, and well-calibrated to the situation.”

That is because, like sheltering in one’s home when you get sick, limiting human-to-human contact via international travel will limit transmission and prevent the virus from spreading further.

Deputy Director of Centers for Disease Control Dr. Anne Schuchat warned to avoid persons who are coughing and sneezing: “The coronavirus that we’re talking about is a respiratory virus. It’s spread in a similar way to the common cold or to influenza. It’s spread through coughs and sneezes.”

South Korea may merit additional consideration for travel restrictions, with the Shincheonji cult that “teaches illness is a sin, encouraging its followers to suffer through diseases to attend services in which they sit closely together, breathing in spittle as they repeatedly amen in unison,” according to Foreign Policy’s S. Nathan Park on Feb. 27.

Park added, “Shincheonji convinces its members to cover their

tracks, providing a prearranged set of answers to give when anyone asks if they belong to the cult. Often, even family members are in the dark about whether someone is a Shincheonji follower. The net effect is that Shincheonji followers infect each other easily, then go onto infect the community at large.”

Which is already happening. Per Park, “Although Patient No. 31 ran a high fever, she attended two Shincheonji services which held more than a thousand worshippers each, in addition to attending a wedding and a conference for a pyramid scheme. She visited a clinic after being involved in a minor traffic accident, but ignored the repeated recommendations by the doctors to receive testing for COVID-19. In other cases, a self-identified Shincheonji follower who came to a hospital complaining of high fever ran off during examination when the doctors informed her she may be quarantined.”

That doesn’t sound like South Korea fully has the situation under control, Park notes: “Since the discovery of Patient No. 31, the number of COVID-19 cases in South Korea jumped from 30 to 977 in eight days. Nearly all of the new cases are Shincheonji followers, or traceable to them.”

The thing to watch in the coming days and weeks of course will be how many new confirmed cases there are in the afflicted countries. That will tell the tale if the virus is being contained, or if it’s still spreading and getting worse. Fortunately, President Trump doesn’t sound like he wants to take any chances, meaning if the virus keeps spreading in South Korea, Italy and elsewhere, watch for more travel restrictions until the outbreak is fully under control. ROBERT ROMANORobert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.


Commentary: Robert Romano

How to Make Jon Ralston’s Head Explode (It’s Not All that Hard)

Poor Jon Ralston, the little liberal Nevada blogger who couldn’t. Here’s one of his tweets from Saturday night…

“The story right below the Sanders wins story on Adelson’s site: ‘Nevada Republican activist says he caucused for Sanders.’ The ‘reporter’ talked to ONE guy, a con artist who always seeks attention, and built the second lead story on the site around it. Will not link. #journalism”

OK, let’s translate a little: “Adelson’s site” is the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the state’s largest newspaper and one of the MANY media outlets Jon no longer works for – which he’s been butt-hurt about ever since.

“Adelson” is Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Las Vegas Sands, an avid Trump supporter and an extremely generous GOP donor. So naturally, Ralston hates him.

The “reporter” is Debra Saunders. Saunders is a White House correspondent, an award-winning journalist, an author and nationally-syndicated columnist. Which Jon is deeply jealous of – especially the part about Debra working in DC, where Jon has never been good enough to play.

The “ONE guy,” of course, is yours truly. Similarly, Jon has always been jealous that I’m an actual player in the

political arena while he sits up in the peanut gallery heckling from the cheap seats.

He’s also extremely thin-skinned, a bully and doesn’t take criticism very well. So he loathes me for (a) daring to stand up to him and (b) exposing and embarrassing him so often and so well.

Now, as to the story he refused to link to because his tender widdle ego is so fragile, here ‘tis, complete with the “Most-seen video” that made Jon’s head explode in another or his patented Twitter-rants: https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/nevada-republican-activist-says-he-caucused-for-sanders-1963718/

The story was about my switching parties for the Democrat caucus so I could vote for Bernie for two reasons:

(1) To demonstrate the absurdity of same-day registration & early voting for a caucus, and…

(2) Hoping for a nationwide civics lesson in the fall clearly teaching Americans the virtues of free-market capitalism vs. the evils of socialism.

I later added a third reason: So I could legitimately be a “Democrat for Trump!”

And while Ralston ignored those points - not that he would understand them anyway - they were covered by, you know, real reporters in real media…

• Las Vegas Review-Journal• Las Vegas SUN• Newsweek(And, psst, South Carolina Republicans did the same thing I did in their

state’s Democrat primary.)Look, I never expected “Operation Caucus Chaos” to be a deciding

factor in the race. The Bernie Bro’s certainly didn’t need us. Bernie crushed the Democrat Party establishment all on his own; thoroughly embarrassing the likes of Dina Titus, Steven Horsford and Yvanna Cancella (Biden Gals) in the process.

The point was to make a statement and irritate liberals. Mission accomplished.

And as a side benefit, I got under Ralston’s prickly skin. Again. Sweet. CHUCK MUTH


Commentary: CHUCK MUTH Every week in Nevada, someone is trying to screw us.

Most of the time, we elected that someone.

That's why we conserva-tives NEED a WEEKLY voice.

That's why the Penny Press has made sticking up for us little guys a whole new Nevada tradition.

Penny Press775-461-1515

[email protected]


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