The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1333807
The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, Januar y 27, 2021 B-5 OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg Race for the Cure By Star Parker Points to Ponder By Rev. Ford Bond Freedom of speech slipping away As the new Biden-Harris adminis- tration assumes power, the most ba- sic American freedom of speech and expression is under unprecedented threat. For the first time ever, I am con- cerned about my freedom to do my work, to run a policy institute ad- dressing issues of culture, race and poverty from a conservative perspec- tive. Technology — the internet — which was largely nonexistent just 25 years ago, now plays a huge role in our lives as a tool of communication. In a survey just published by the Pew Research Center, 86 percent say they "often" or "sometimes" get their news from a digital device — smartphone, tablet or computer. This compared with 68 percent who say they "often" or "sometimes" get their news from television, 50 percent who get it from radio and 32 percent who get it from print publications. According to Statista.com, the United States has 223 million Face- book users, almost the size of the en- tire U.S. population over age 18. Per Pew, 22 percent of U.S. adults use Twitter. These developments have put enormous power at the disposal of technology firms over what we see and read. Power alone doesn't worry me. Ex- clusive power, power to control, does. The decision by Twitter to kick the president of the United States off of Twitter, disconnecting him from the 89 million who follow him, is mind-boggling. President Trump has noted, with total legitimacy, that he turned to so- cial media as his platform of prefer- ence to communicate with the coun- try because of widespread bias in the mainstream media. What gives the technology com- panies so much discretion over com- munication, the oxygen of our free country? This comes from a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that was passed to set the ground rules for the powerful new technol- ogies that were emerging. Technol- ogy companies are protected from liability for the content they carry: The liability exists with whomever provided that content. But they were also given discretion over what they choose to carry. The discretion part comes from logic that the operators of these plat- forms should be able to refuse tru- ly inflammatory, dangerous content. But what about content that is nor- mally protected by the First Amend- ment? Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, ap- pointed himself judge and jury, de- ciding that President Trump incited the assault on the Capitol building and banning the president from Twit- ter for life. We know that President Trump's own words were that the demonstra- tion on Capitol Hill should be "peace- ful." The point is, if Donald Trump broke the law, this should be deter- mined through legal channels, not by the subjective decision of a business- person with a net worth of some $12 billion accrued because of American freedom. I produce a weekly television talk show, "CURE America with Star Parker." The show was booted off Vimeo because the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center identifies one of our Christian advertisers as a hate group and one pastor said that ho- mosexuality is a sin. Now quoting the Bible, express- ing views of a believing Christian, is out of bounds — banned from the na- tion's major media platforms? We must recognize that our na- tion's most precious commodity, our freedom to speak, to act and to assemble, is seriously being threat- ened. Because those controlling these technology companies dispropor- tionately have political sympathies to the left, it is the freedom of con- servatives that is most seriously un- der siege. Fortunately, many are now con- cerned. The argument is made that First Amendment speech protections on- Continued on page 6 Continued on page 6 I have your attention. No, it's not about me at all. No sir, not at all. I noticed over the news media that the lottery prize had grown to over a billion dollars. I am flabbergasted how these various lotto games have become so humongous . I began to get curious as to what this is all about. So curious me, I be- gan to research from various sourc- es how the state government lot- tery offices create the system, pro- vide rules, how the money is given, and what happens to the profits from these games. Or, rather, these gambling pro- grams. Let's not sugar coat these activities. They are a form of gam- bling. They can change lives, good for a few, but for many, it can destroy as well. Let's begin with statistics. I know the odds for winning big jackpots is as good as being hit by lightning. You often hear that, and you need to pay attention to the published sta- tistics at the back of the tickets you purchase, or the scientific studies made by experts in the field of lottery. I'm not here to dissuade you from pursuing your once- in-a-lifetime dream of possibly winning the megabucks. I'm here to entertain and share whatever information I came across. It's always good to be well informed. One disturbing study by statisti- cians is that the sales of lottery tick- ets tend to be higher or highest in poorer areas, likely because the population in those neighborhoods always dreams of hitting it big and hopefully getting out of the misery. Unfortunately, it seems many, so many, instead become victims of bro- ken dreams and the cycle of poverty perpetuates. Another thing I found out is that the lottery officials claim they help fund educational programs through their profits, but ap- parently not all the money is spent wisely for that claim. It is a complicated issue and I'll have to spend a lit- tle more time learning about this. Another thing–bear in mind if you ever win super big bucks, a huge chunk of the winnings will be taxed. For instance, if you win a mil- lion bucks, 1/3 of the price will be headed to the IRS. And the list goes on and on. ••• So just in case you hit it big, here's some wise advice shared by the au- thors of lottery science. 1. Shut up and keep your lips sealed when you win. There are states that by law allow you to remain anonymous. Some states however re- My Point of View By H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. Hit the jackpot Continued on page 6 Continued on page 6 Continued on page 6 Give Me a Break By John Stossel Standing up to the mob Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Get ready for more Obama-era energy scams Victory ahead We have a new Presidential admin- istration and along with it, his party controls the levers of power. Whatev- er happens historically will have oc- curred on his watch. Former President Trump will con- tinue to be beaten upon by both par- ties, not to extract pain, but to tele- gram his followers and any potential populist what will happen to them. The message: "You have to be on the Red or Blue Team." I see dark days ahead for America and Christians. Did you known that since Inaugu- ration Day Antifa has redirected its website [Antifa.com] to Whitehouse. gov? What does it mean? It means something and all Americans should be concerned. In addition, what also should con- cern all Americans regardless of re- ligion or political party is the insidi- ousness of cancel culture in the after- math of the presidential election and the January 6 incident at the Capital. Cancel culture is more than sti- fling dissent and opinions not held by the progressives. Progressives are aligned with Liberals, Antifa and other groups that are using the tac- tics of the Bolsheviks; their goal is to use the apparatus of government and the media to enforce their agen- da. The German philosopher Fried- rich Nietzsche summarized this tac- tic well when he wrote, a "Liberal in- stitution straightway ceases being liberal the moment it is soundly es- tablished: Once this is attained, no more grievous and more thorough enemies of freedom exist than liber- al institution." This is where we are heading. I would love to write Christian fluff pieces telling you that "You are em- powered by the Spirit to be what God made you to be." This may be true [there are some theological issues with this statement], but how will that help you understand what you are facing as an American and more importantly a Christian? You can feel good about yourself in God while the progressives stick a rag down your throat and threaten you with "reed- ucation" if you question their authen- ticity. What is the threat? There a many a few will suffice. The COVID handlers are constant- ly "moving the goalpost." Now we are threatened with the revenge of COVID-3, which may have resis- tance to the vaccine. COVID is a threat to freedom of movement and independent thought. A pantheon of doctors and virologists have been challenging the COVID narrative since March 2020 ; have you heard about their research? Mainstream media, social media and govern- ments around the world have stifled or outright banned this information. COVID is real; however, the surviv- al rate is above 99 percent for healthy people with no co-morbidity issues. It gets more serious; the election ripped away any notion that people with opposing views can peacefully coexist. News outlets and political commentators on the Progressive "winning" side are urging the Biden Administration to declare "war" on domestic "terrorism," as they de- fine it. Progressives are publicly urging the new administration to use the in- telligence community to uncover as much as they can about those who voted against Biden. These people have already been identified as in- surgents, religious extremists, fas- cists, bigots, Nazis, racists, nativists, and libertarians—these people are a threat to America and the Progres- sive way of life. What is on the horizon is the de- mand to criminalize offensive and subversive speech under the guise of domestic terrorism. Who gets to define what is "subversive" and "do- mestic terrorism? " This is trouble- some because the First Amendment forbids government to stifle/restrict speech, yet many among the politi- cal class are calling for restrictions and laws. Laws always expand the pow- ers of the government and in turn the police at the expense of liberty and freedom. Consider the COVID mask mandate. There are countries around the world where you can be arrested, detained and fined for not wearing a mask, or operating a busi- ness "outside" of the regulations. All in the name of public safety-over a SARs virus. Joe Biden says he'll "advance ra- cial equity" by making "bold invest- ments" in "A ffordable Housing," aid- ing "businesses owned by black and brown people," establishing an "eq- uity commission," etc. Gosh, that'll do it. Others demand reparations for slavery, more social programs and defunding the police. Yet, economist Thomas Sowell says, "I haven't been able to find a single country in the world where policies advocated for blacks in the United States lifted any people out of poverty." Sowell's a black man who grew up in poverty. His father died before he was born, and his mother died soon after. "We were much poorer than the people in Harlem and most any- where else today," he reflects. "But in the sense of things you need to get ahead, I was enormously more for- tunate than most black kids today." That's because he discovered the public library. "When you start get- ting in the habit of reading when you're 8 years old, it's a different ballgame! " Exploring Manhattan, he saw dis- parities in wealth. "Nothing in the schools or most of the books seemed to deal with that. Marx dealt with that," says Sowell. He then became a Marxist. What began to change his beliefs was his first job at the U.S. Depart- ment of Labor. He was told to focus on the minimum wage. At first, he thought the min- imum wage was good: "All these people are poor, and they'll get a lit- tle higher income. That'll be help- ful," he reasoned. But then he realized: "There's a downside. They may lose their jobs." His colleagues at the Labor De- partment didn't want to think about that. "I came up with how we might test this. I was waiting to hear 'con- gratulations! ' (but) I could see these people were stunned. They'd say, 'oh, this idiot has stumbled on something that would ruin us all.'" Once he saw how government workers often cared more about pre- serving their turf than actually solv- ing problems, Sowell rethought his assumptions. He turned away from Marxism and became a free market econo- mist, writing great books like "Basic Economics," "Race and Culture" and my favorite title, "The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Con- gratulation as a Basis for So- cial Policy." Today's self-anointed lead- ers talk constantly about how America's "systemic racism" holds black people back. "Propaganda," Sowell calls it. "If you go back into the '20s, you find that mar- ried-couple families were much more prevalent among blacks. As late as 1930, blacks have lower un- employment rates than whites." But if systemic racism was the cause of inequality, he says, "All these things that we complain about, and attribute to the era of slavery, should've been worse in the past than in the present! " Sowell says the bigger cause of Black Americans' problems today is government welfare initiated in the 1960s. The programs encour- aged people to become dependent on handouts. "You began to have the mindset that goes with the welfare state," Sowell says. "No stigma any longer attached to being on relief." With Democrats about to con- trol all the levers of power in Wash- ington, the biggest winners might be the wind and solar companies. These firms' stocks continue to surge mostly because President Joe Biden has pledged to invest sever- al hundred billion dollars in green energy through a pipeline of taxpay- er-funded grants, loans, tax credits and loan guarantees. This game plan looks suspicious- ly like a replay of the litany of green "stimulus" fiascoes that Biden pilot- ed as vice president back in 2009 with the $ 800 billion Obama stim- ulus plan. The experiment in the government as an investment bank- er belly-flopped with embarrassing failures from Solyndra, Fisker Auto- motive and Abound Solar. Taxpay- ers lost billions of dollars on these lemons. One of these disasters, the Cres- cent Dunes thermal solar power plant, located in the Nevada des- ert, is still embroiled in court bat- tles to sort out who pays for all the losses. The Obama administration first started shower- ing this project with money beginning in 2011, with a $700 million federal loan. The Department of Energy boasted that the facility was supposed to provide half a million mega- watt-hours of elec- tric power every year. Not quite. Thanks to construc- tion design flaws, faulty equipment and hapless management, Crescent Dunes has never come close to its production target. Then, in 2017, Crescent Dunes came knocking on the Treasury's door again, this time receiving $275 million in cash grants instead of tax credits on top of $250 million in private capital. Even with this second round of life support, the plant had to shut down. Last month, the bankruptcy court approved the entire operation's Chapter 11 reor- ganization plan. But the story doesn't end there. Under the settlement terms, taxpayers will only see $200 million recouped of the remaining $425 million still unpaid from the Department of Energy's loan. The rest will be forgiven. Some of the loan losses could be recouped if the plant hits profitability. Expert testimony in the court proceedings concluded this outcome is unlikely given its track record so far. The bottom line: Ex- pect taxpayers to swallow hundreds of millions of dollars of losses here. What is especially galling about this whole misadventure is the Spanish firm Grupo Cobra, which botched the construction, received full payment to build the facility. The Department of Energy has reached a deal with Grupo Cobra that for- gives the $225 million of outstand-